Page 39 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“Would it be so much of a sacrifice?” he asked. “I am offering you everything.”
Everything but love—and perhaps it was that understanding that made her eyes glitter alarmingly, made her press her lips together to still the quivering of them. Probably she hadn’t so many prospects buried out here in the countryside. But possibly she had still haddreams. And that was what he was asking her to sacrifice now. All of those futile hopes she might have nurtured deep in her heart.
A part of him he’d thought long dead ached at that. The death of a dream—he’d experienced more than a few of them. Butshewould have to make the choice to kill them herself.
Her lips parted; a word trembled there, unspoken.
It shouldn’t have mattered to him so muchwhichword, yes or no. It shouldn’t have—but on some level, some strange plane which he did not care to examine too closely, it did. Else he wouldn’t have baited her with a wager and placed the coin in her hand.
And before she could speak that word—whichever it happened to be—he squeezed her hand in his. “Let fortune decide, then,” he said.
She drew a short, sharp breath. And with a shaking hand, she flipped the coin into the air.
∞∞∞
The whole of her life, determined by something so simple as the toss of a coin. Lizzie watched it spiral through the air with a fatalistic curiosity, and as Luke stretched out his hand to catch it, her stomach clenched with the certainty of what she would see when he uncurled his fingers to reveal it to her.
“Do you know,” he said, in such a light, idle tone of voice, “there is a particular bad habit amongst inveterate gamblers?” He held his fist tightly closed, secured around the coin within. “People, you see, are not terribly good with statistics. They want to believe in the turn of luck, that the odds are in their favor because theymustcome up lucky sooner or later, mustn’t they? What are the odds, after all, that you’ll lose this coin flip, as well?”
Her mind whirled as she tried to calculate. It had to be quite small. Didn’t it?
“The grand mistake that gamblers make,” he continued, “is in thinking that it becomes more unlikely that they’ll lose the nexttoss. But the result of any given coin toss is alwaysa fifty percent chance. It’s entirely independent of any result that came before.”
Slowly his fingers uncurled, and the coin which lay flat in his palm was revealed at last.
Heads.
Lizzie’s breath seemed to stagnate in her lungs, and a peculiar lightheadedness assailed her.
“Don’t panic,” he said as he tucked the coin back within his pocket.
“I’m not panicked!” But the breathless denial had shivered along several octaves with the quaver of her voice, and the lie of it was obvious. What had she agreed to? She hadn’tmeantto do so; not really. “I can’t—I can’t—”
“Now, Lizzie.” Strong fingers grasped her own, and the warmth of them sizzled through her cold skin. “You must know that gaming debts are matters of honor. Youoweme a wife.”
A horrified laugh rolled up her throat and stuck there, a tiny bubble of subverted humor lodged like a lump. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t.”
A low chuckle slid across her nerves like a rasp. “Alas, action matters far more than intention.Youtossed the coin. You’ve made your bed—and now you must lie in it.” There was the burn of a hand at her waist, singeing her through the linen of her nightdress.
“Yourbed, you mean to say.” Her dry lips formed the words in a shred of a whisper.
“Oh, yes.” He eased closer, until she could feel the heat of his body, and the dark melody of his voice filled her ears. “It’s not such a bad place to be. Let me show you.”
Oh. This—thiswas the danger she had sensed lurking beneath the surface. The reason why women encased themselves in so many layers of clothing, and were not meant to be alone with men to whom they were not related. Because with the heat of his body searing her, she had quieted into some sort of hazy, dreamlike state, and he manipulated her as easily as he might have a ragdoll, drawing her hand up to drape it around his neck, where her nails scraped through the thick, soft hair at his nape of their own accord. His hand slid slowly from the small of her back to the curve of her bottom, and she should have pulled away.
Shewouldpull away. Any moment now.
Her lungs filled, collecting all the protests she ought to have made—and then her breath shuddered out on a strange, breathy sigh.
His lips teased the shell of her ear. “We’re engaged,” he reminded her, his voice muted to a soft hum, as if to speak any louder might shred the spell that had settled over her. “Who is going to know?”
Somehow she forced out, “Iwill.”
“I’d hope so,” he said. “If you did not, I’d be losing my touch.” There was the light, teasing brush of his lips near her temple, and it seemed that everything in her strained into that delicate caress. And then it was gone too soon, and the knowing laugh that curled around her suggested he knew precisely what he had done, how he had made some terrible aching part of her yearn.
The cool air that whisked in around her as he retreated sent chill bumps skittering up her arms. But he went only to the chair he had so recently vacated, and stretched himself out in it.
“Come to me,” he said, and patted his thigh.
