“But instead, you got Gervais.” She knew already that would have been disastrous.
“Yep. We got Gervais all right, and the bastard wasted no time turning a profitable business into one so deep in debt the bailiffs came knocking.”
“He lost it.”
Galahad nodded. “He mortgaged it up to the hilt behind our backs to release all the capital.”
“He could do that?”
“He was still legally married to my mother, so the law was on his side. So in true Gervais Sinclair fashion, once he’d gotten what he came for, he hightailed it out of town and left us to deal with his mess.” He flipped a ten and then another, abruptly ending the sorry tale, but she had an inkling it was barely the start.
Rather than take off her second stocking, she lifted her skirt and proffered her leg so he could do the honors. She purposefully missed finding the next pair to give him some time to regroup and find his sinful smile again. Which he did quickly with a pair of aces.
“Bravo, Galahad. Well played.” Exactly as she had during their last, fateful card game, Vee ran her fingers along the edge of her bodice as if she was about to undo it to draw his eyes to her breasts, then withdrew them to take off her spectacles instead.
The second they hit the mattress he picked them up, scowling. “If I could make two points of order, Miss I’m-a-Stickler-for-the-Rules. First, these are eyeglasses and not clothing. A necessary medical device like Dalton’s false leg. Second, if you’re not wearing them, you can’t see anything close up…” His gaze positively smoldered as he replaced them on her nose. “And I want you to witness absolutely everything I intend to doto you until you are so blinded by pleasure, nothing, not even these prim and seductive corrective lenses, will help you see straight.”
“Fair enough…” Good gracious, that excited her. So much that her fingers immediately went to the laces of her gown so that he could get cracking on that threat sooner rather than later. Nervous anticipation made her fumble, so he twisted her so her back faced him, and set about removing every pin in her hair first. Once that was unbound, he ran his fingers through it, sighing at the texture before he brushed it to lie over one shoulder.
He kissed her neck as he undid her gown and eased it from her shoulders as if he were unwrapping the most precious gift that he had ever received. Vee was so lost in the moment and the sublime sensations just the gentle press of his lips could elicit, she did not notice that his nimble fingers had also made short work of her stays until they, too, were gone.
“That’s cheating.”
“Maybe—but I’m oddly at peace with it.”
As his lips continued their thorough exploration of her nape, the hands that rested gently on her hips snaked around her middle and slid upward to cup her breasts. She arched against them, her body desperate for his. So ready for his that it hurt. “You are deliberately trying to distract me.”
“Again…” He punctuated his answer by nuzzling her ear. “… guilty as charged.”
She shuffled away to prolong the sweet torture, and as he tried to follow her, she held up her finger. “Not until you’ve paid your penance and given me a secret in return. You did say you wanted none between us…”
“Hoisted by my own damn petard.” He groaned, rolling his eyes to cover how uncomfortable that prospect made him. “Ask your damn question, woman.”
“What happened in between Gervais leaving for a second time and you sleeping rough on the streets?”
“I think that’s technically more than one question. In fact, I’d say that’s actually several questions all rolled into one, so now who’s the cheat?”
“Perhaps—but you can either answer it all in one go, or I shall use my big ol’ brain to ensure that you do not win a single pair to remove this last vestige of my clothing…” She ran her hands over her flimsy chemise to draw his eyes to her body. “Instead, I shall ask question after question until I know everything your soulmate should.”
He stared at the heavens. “Why did I have to fall for the cleverest woman in the world?”
“The longer you deflect, the longer I will make you wait.” Vee settled back on her heels. “Which would be a shame when we’ve got all night…”
He grabbed a couple of pillows and punched them into a suitable shape before he settled back against the headboard. “It turned out that Gervais hadn’t only mortgaged the business, he’d mortgaged the house, too. With him and all of the capital gone, the banks wanted their money back in a hurry. We got no stay of execution and less than a week after he disappeared, they evicted us. Both the house and the tavern were sold out from under us, and we didn’t receive a single cent from the sale.”
Vee wrapped her hand around his, wishing she was surprised that Gervais would do such a dreadful thing to his wife and child.
“I knew I’d been left something in Grandpa’s will, and I knew that included some cash, but the lawyer refused to release it to either of us as the will stipulated I had to be of age. In desperation, my ma sold all the jewelry Gervais hadn’t taken with him, and we used that to rent some cheap rooms on Magazine Street. I got a job in the brewery hauling grain, and for a while we managed to make ends meet.”
“I sense abut.”
“Butit didn’t take long for the damp and cold to affect her health. By the winter of 1818 she wasn’t well at all. She had this persistent cough.” Unconsciously, he moved his fingers to his collarbone. “Nomedicine would shift it. By Christmas, it had developed into pneumonia and… that was that.”
“She died at Christmas?” That explained why he wasn’t keen to celebrate it. Why he avoided it like the plague.
“She managed to hang on for most of Christmas Day but…” His expression was bleak as he shrugged, the pain swirling in his irises so intense it broke Vee’s heart. “I’d spent all the rent money on medicines, and the brewery had fired me for taking so much time off to look after her, so I ended up getting evicted again. Only this time, I had nothing but the clothes on my back and nobody left, so that’s how I ended up sleeping beneath the stars alone. Like Billy, I got found quickly by some bad people and learned how to pick pockets, and I did that for two years until I almost got myself killed for picking the wrong one. That’s when I realized something had to change or that would be the sum total of my life. Short, pointless, and always at the mercy of someone else.”
He fiddled with her fingers. “As I was sixteen on the outside, but nearer sixty on the inside, I blagged my way into another job behind the bar in a tavern in the Bowery. That’s pretty much where I stayed, biding my time and saving until I hit twenty-one and could finally claim the bequest from Grandpa’s will. Because Gervais knew about it, too, he was there waiting for me. All contrite and convincingly sorry for everything that happened.”
