“Dammit,” he muttered on seeing her. “My apologies for any offense I might have caused.”
He kept on down the hall, probably to his own bedroom, and the door closed.
She stood there forever, urging herself to slink away. The humiliating predicament was her own fault for listening when she shouldn’t have. Shouldn’t she ignore what had occurred?
Finally, she grabbed the bannister and pulled herself up the stairs, feeling as if she had ice in her veins. She went to the only open door and entered the sitting room of what had to be Caleb’s bedroom suite.
He was over by the hearth, picking up a decorative table that had been smashed in his altercation with his brother. He straightened and glanced over his shoulder. They stared for an eternity, then he forced a smile and said, “I was about to inquire if you were up yet. I was hoping we could have breakfast together.”
“I heard the two of you arguing,” was her reply.
He turned to face her. “We weren’t arguing. Blake was simply being his usual obnoxious self.”
“You wagered over me with Gregory?”
“No, don’t be silly. I never would have.”
He couldn’t hold her gaze, providing galling evidence that he was lying.
She stomped over, approaching until they were toe to toe. “Tell me you never gambled with him over me.”
He appeared flummoxed and frantic to devise a response that wouldn’t infuriate her. Ultimately, he claimed, “It only happened once.”
“Once!” she fumed.
“It was my last night at Grey’s Corner. He was very drunk, and he was being belligerent. I didn’t care to dicker with him when he was so intoxicated.”
“What were the terms?”
He fussed with the decorative table, his movements very deliberate. He was buying time, struggling to settle on a remark that would paint him in the best light, so the debacle would seem less horrid.
“Let it go, Caro,” he quietly said.
“I won’t. I can’t.” More vehemently, she demanded, “What were the terms?”
“There’s no point in hashing it out.”
“I suggest you inform me immediately or I shall walk down and accost your brother. I’ll nag at him until he spits it out. I’m certain he will. Shall I ask him?”
He sighed. “Gregory had lost everything he had, even the clothes on his back, but he wanted to keep playing.”
“And you being such an ethical fellow, you continued even though he was beggared.”
His rage flared. “I’ve told you this before: I am not Gregory Grey’s nanny. Nor am I his mother. I have no duty to control his behavior, so don’t try to make me feel guilty. You can’t.”
“Fine, you had no duty. What was the wager?”
She braced herself, as if for a hard blow, recognizing that he should never speak the terrible words she was insisting he impart.
“He had nothing left to bet,” he said, “so he bet you.”
“I have no idea what that means. You’re talking in riddles. I need you to be very, very clear, so let’s use plain English.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. “I won your virginity with a shuffle of the cards.”
She was so stunned she was amazed she didn’t faint. “You discussed my virginity with him? You gambled over it?”
“He gambled over it. I was protecting you from him. I was afraid—if I didn’t jump in—he’d hand you over to someone else.”
“You were doing me a. . . a. . . favor? Is that how you view it?”
“Yes, Caro, I was doing you a huge favor, so stop glowering at me as if I’m a monster. You don’t understand the world where I live. You don’t understand the kind of men who wallow in it with me.”
“Obviously not.”
“Men constantly raise the stakes when they’re desperate. They toss out their daughters, sisters, and wives with nary a ripple in their corrupt consciences. He was desperate, so he tossed out you.”
“I don’t believe this,” she mumbled, feeling sick at heart.
“I swear to you, if I hadn’t consented, he’d have rushed to London and thrown you into a pot with some fiend who was much more debauched than me. You wouldn’t have been notified, and one day—when you weren’t expecting it—you’d have been kidnapped off the lane and forced to supply what your cousin had offered.”
“I’d have been kidnapped and forced? The entire notion is despicable. Who would dabble in such filth?”
He shrugged, as if it was the most ordinary of circumstances. “It happens, and I tried my best to ensure it didn’t happen to you.”
“You made that bet with him, then you packed up the next morning and abandoned me there. Didn’t it occur to you that I might have liked to be apprised?”
“I couldn’t explain it. I realized how much it would hurt you, and if I remember correctly, I warned you to be careful.”
She studied him, as she assessed the various sentiments pummeling her. She was very angry with him, and she was right to be, wasn’t she? She was also offended and shocked. Those were appropriate reactions, weren’t they?
He was so calm, so nonchalant, they might have been conferring about the weather. She grasped that he carried on in a spot where rules and morals were different, but what type of rogue wagered over a woman’s virginity? What did it indicate about his genuine character?
Because they shared such a potent attraction, she’d convinced herself that she knew him better than she’d ever known anyone, but that wasn’t true. They were barely acquainted, and she possessed scant facts about his history, his ancestry, his upbringing.
Every aspect of their relationship was now called into question.
He’d told her he’d resigned from the navy due to his brother being swept up in mischief, and he’d protected Blake by taking the blame himself. What if he had actually committed the crimes? How was she to guess?
This was precisely why a girl’s parents picked her husband. They could evaluate a candidate in a cool, rational manner, without heated emotions being stirred into the mix.
He was glaring at her as if she was being a pest, as if she was
