The Gambler (41 page)

Charm felt the blood drain from her face. He'd lost... intentionally.

"Well..." Phelps's smile was sloppy. "I'd call this a fine evening. A fine evening indeed." He pulled the pile of chips toward him but stood before stowing them away. "Perhaps you'd be so kind as to see to my winnings, Captain. I have a lady to escort to her cabin."

He'd lost. Charm felt suddenly numb, as if every nerve had been severed, as if the sun had fled her universe, leaving her in darkness.

"Come along, my lovely." Phelps extended an elbow.

Like one in a trance, Charm took three steps forward to lift Raven's discarded cards. Two queens. She felt sick to her stomach but lost control of her expression for only a moment. Wordlessly, she replaced the cards, and then lifting her chin, turned to leave the room.

Phelps was beside her in a moment, taking her arm in his clammy fingers. She didn't resist, for there was no point. Raven hated her. Hated her so much, that he would give away thousands of dollars to avoid her presence for less time than it took him to consume a meal.

Her shoes rapped against the floor. She noticed their hollow sound, but failed to comprehend what Phelps said, despite his constant string of chatter.

"Shouldn't we go in before we're spotted?"

They were at her door, she noticed suddenly. "What?"

He leaned closer. "An evening of stimulating sport, topped off by the titillation of you." He chuckled and pressing nearer, kissed her neck.

"What are you doing?" Some of the numbness faded as she turned about to bump up against the door.

He grinned, or more correctly, he leered. "Just getting started, my lovely. Shall we go in?"

"No." Charm said the word blandly, though panic was beginning to rise. She knew the moment his anger was ignited. It showed in the narrowing of his eyes, the tightness of his smile.

"A little late to cry off now, madam, after all I've gone through to win this night for us."

"For us?" she breathed, still reeling, it seemed, in the turmoil of her own emotion.

He chuckled again and stepped closer. "It's not that I don't appreciate the chase, but the game is over. And I've won the prize. You can drop the act."

She lifted her chin slightly, trying to concentrate. "And what act would that be, Mr. Phelps?"

He let his head drop back slightly, as though he found her words very amusing, but in an instant, he held her right arm in a meaty fist. "That act, my little dove," he ground out, squeezing hard. "Acting like you don't want me, when I know damned well that you do."

"Let me go!" Full-blown panic came late but was blinding in its intensity. The knife was in her pocket, but she couldn't reach it.

"Let you go?" he asked, then laughed, reaching around her to push open the door. "After I'm through, my pretty little tease."

He pushed her forward. She fell against the bed, ready to scream, but suddenly she was jerked around and his mouth was on hers. He was pressing her back against the mattress as he knelt between her legs. Bile rose in her throat like a tide of loathing. She pushed against him with all her might. Despite the drink and her own terror, she was still strong. Phelps fell backward, momentarily thrown off balance and striking his head on the edge of a trunk.

He rose with a lurch. Drawing back his arm, he crashed his fist against the side of her head.

Charm whimpered in reeling shock, cowering away as he raised his hand again, but in that second the door crashed open. Phelps staggered about, staring at the man silhouetted against the vague light.

"Who's there?"

"Hit her again, Phelps, and I'll break your neck," said a gravelly voice. "Right here. Right now."

"Scott!" Phelps's tone held none of the even certainty of Raven's. "What the hell are you doing here? She don't want you!"

"Maybe not." Raven didn't move, nor did the steady tone of his voice change. "But I want her. So if you leave now, I'll..."—his head tilted slightly, showing a sudden glint of white teeth in his dark silhouette—"I'll only break your legs."

"Goddamn you cocky bastard!" roared Phelps. Bolstered by the intoxicants of liquor and victory, he rushed forward, head low and fists doubled.

Raven's knuckles caught him in a neat uppercut to his jaw, slamming the heavier man back into reverse. But he stumbled only a few steps before steadying his weight and leveling a glare at Raven's dark form.

"You're gonna regret that, boy," he growled, pulling a handgun from his pocket, but already Raven was driving himself forward.

The impact of his body knocked Phelps flat onto his back. The gun exploded nearly in Raven's ear, but rage possessed his senses. He slammed his fists into the other's belly again and again, oblivious to the empty clicking of Phelps' derringer.

"Hey!" someone shouted from behind. "Hey!"

"Joseph! Don't kill 'im!"

"Scott! Quit. Quit now or my boys will have to stop you."

Sanity washed back in cooler shades of temper. Raven rose slowly, barely feeling the deep stab of pain in his ribs as he pulled Phelps to his feet.

Four large toughs leveled guns at him, but Raven only lifted one bloody corner of his mouth. "Shoot me if you like, but he's going over the side."

"Shoot him! Shoot him!" croaked Phelps, still holding his useless gun and staggering in his opponent's grip. Raven merely turned, meeting each tense gaze in the light of the lanterns before stepping forward, dragging Phelps behind.

The rail wasn't far away. There was a gasp of terror and outrage from Phelps. "Shoot him!" he screamed again, but the last word was no more than a moan as he was yanked from the floor and heaved, like a sack of rotting potatoes, over the side. A shriek issued upward, followed by the sound of an overweight body meeting water.

Raven turned, not waiting to see if Phelps surfaced. He was surrounded now by onlookers. Clancy, Ralph, Fields, his four goons, and a bevy of bleary-eyed passengers in nightshirts who stared from him to Charm with loose jaws.

Absolute silence held the place.

"He was staring at my wife," Raven explained casually. As a unit, the men turned to gaze at Charm, and then, like so many leaves in the wind, they scurried into their prospective rooms.

"You came." Charm's words were barely audible, but Raven turned, sensing her presence more than hearing her voice.

Her face was pale and her dark hair tumbled about her shoulders like a tide of silken waves.

"I tried to let you go, Charm. To let you walk out of there with another man. But it seems I'm not as strong as I once thought. Still, I'll do my best."

"Raven," she breathed, and though it took every ounce of strength he had, he managed to turn and walk away.

"Raven, please," Charm called through the solid door that stood guard between them. He'd refused to talk to her on the previous night, and he refused again now. "Let me in."

"She's beggin' again," said Clancy from the far side of the door. "God, Joseph, I hate it when she begs. It sounds so damn pathetic."

"Go away, Charm," Raven said quietly.

"I need to talk to you, just for a little while."

"I'm sleeping."

She scowled then slammed her palm against the door. "At least you could have the decency to make your lies believable."

"It was the best I could come up with on short notice."

"Why won't you let me in?" she asked, feeling like a fool with her ear pressed to the portal.

"Because I'm weak."

She knew what he meant. Somehow she knew, and somehow it made her chest ache with hope and longing, but she pretended she didn't understand, perhaps just to hear his voice again. "You bested three out of four, Raven. I don't think that means you're weak."

There was a moment of silence, and then Clancy's quiet, chuckled rejoinder which she couldn't quite hear.

She remained as she was, listening, imagining how Raven would look. "Please let me in."

Still no response.

"Raven!" She kicked the door, losing her carefully contained patience and hurting her foot. "Clancy! Let me in."

"He's sleeping."

"Damn it, Clancy! He is not sleeping."

"Well, he says he is."

"Let me in, Clancy, or you'll regret it. And I mean it. I still owe you for hitting me, you know."

There was a moment of silence again, a prelude to Raven's rumbled question, which didn't quite meet her ears.

Clancy's response was quick as he tried to explain his reasons for striking her. "She was determined to come to you, Joseph. And you'd said not to let her. What else was I supposed to do?"

"You hit her?" Raven's voice was not so quiet now.

"I wouldn't call it 'hit' exactly. 'Tap' maybe. I tapped her. Real gentle like, and just on the jaw."

She could not quite make out Raven's growled response.

"You told me to keep her safe," Clancy objected quickly. "And I was scared she'd go attackin' one of Fields's hired bulls. Get herself really hurt."

Another rumble from Raven.

"Well, you wouldn't go sayin' she's just a girl if'n you saw Ralph's eye. Looks the color of rotten meat. And don't think I ain't seen yer chest. Now, don't go givin' me them looks. You didn't see her with them Injuns neither. Cougar Mouse they called her, and got the hell outta there. And me, I didn't see no reason to get myself killed so I just popped her on the jaw a little. Just a little—"

"Oh, for heaven's sakes!" stormed Charm, having heard enough. "Let me in!" she ordered, kicking the door again so that it reverberated under her assault.

"Shall I assume my door has done something to offend you, Mrs. Scott?"

"Captain." Charm turned to him in a fresh state of near panic. "Raven won't let me in."

"Then may I suggest that you go to bed? After all, you've been here since dawn. It must be quite fatiguing, battering innocent doors."

"I don't want to go to bed," she all but growled. "I want to talk to my husband."

Captain Fields shook his head. Taking her arm in a firm grasp, he turned her away from the abused portal. "It seems, to the dismay of this door and my entire crew of passengers, that your Mr. Scott has decided you need more time to learn your own mind."

"Well, he's wrong." She stopped, pulling Fields to a halt with her. "I know my mind. I know exactly what I want."

He watched her intently then nodded. "Good. That's fine." He urged her down the stairs toward her own cabin. "But he wants you to meet your aunt, realize what you've missed, claim your rightful inheritance... Need I go on?"

"If you want to be punched in the nose," Charm mumbled irritably, but her lips quivered when she said it and for a moment she feared she might cry.

"Charming. Tell me, was this Jude quite sober when he named you?"

"My mother named..." she began, then stopped. "Who cares who named me? I can be charming if I want to be, but there's no point now, because I'm not even allowed to see him." Her eyes had filled with tears, but she sniffed and held them back.

Captain Fields watched her, then shaking his head with a soft sigh, opened her cabin door to shove her gently inside. "Take heart, Mrs. Scott, for I fear no man could hold you at a distance for long. Now go to sleep."

"I don't..."—the door closed in her face—"sleep," she finished wearily.

Charm paced the room for about fifteen seconds before she came up with a plan. It wasn't a great plan, but it was sound, serviceable, and acceptably diabolical. In less than five minutes she'd found a roustabout, bribed him with two bits, and hidden around the corner to Raven's room, where she held her breath and waited.

The roustabout rapped perfunctorily on the portal she had kicked only minutes before. "Mr. Bodine, I was t'tell y' there'll be a poker game startin' in a couple a minutes. You's invited."

"Poker game?" Clancy's enthusiastic voice responded. "Who's playin' ?"

Charm held her breath. She'd neglected to go into much detail and hoped that for two bits, the roustabout could formulate a viable lie.

"Some of them rich gents from N'Orlens. You know, the ones that smoke them fat ceegars and mess ashes all over the
Belle
when they gets drunk."

Drunk, rich gamblers. There was nothing Clancy would like better. If only Raven didn't find the temptation too much to resist. She heard a murmuring from the room, and though she failed to make out the words, she knew the outcome in a few moments when Clancy opened the door to step into the hall. Slipping into his coat, he whistled a few tuneless bars and strode off in the opposite direction.

Charm glanced carefully about her, and then, quick and furtive as a cat, slunk into Raven's room. In a moment the door was closed behind her and they were face to face.

"Raven." His name slipped from her lips, and though she'd carefully planned what she'd say to him, the words were stuck now, jammed in her too tight throat.

He was beautiful, dark and alluring and whole. His brown eyes were warm and steady, his massive chest bare above the sheet as he reclined upon the corn husk mattress.

"I..." Her chest ached, and more than anything in the world she wanted to hold him. "I needed to see you."

"Charm... " he began, shaking his head, but she stopped him.

"Please don't send me away. Not right now. Not yet."

For just a moment she could have sworn she saw the light of hopeful passion in his eyes, but finally he shook his head.

"You don't understand, Charm."

"What?" She could hear the tension in her own voice, could feel it like a cold draught of air, freezing her hope, her chance at life. "You don't care for me?"

He said nothing.

"Don't you?"

The tension seemed tangible.

"You're an heiress to a great fortune, Charm. You're not going to want me tying you down. You'll be flooded with suitors and balls and—"

"Say you don't care for me at all then. Say it and I'll walk out of your life right now," she said, tears welling. "I'll go to my aunt, drown myself in suitors and champagne." She paused, holding her breath and failing to notice the tear that slipped over her lower lashes. "I will."

He looked pale suddenly, and against the bedsheet his hands formed into fists. "I don't care about you, Charm," he intoned into the silence.