Too Wicked to Marry (25 page)

"Raise," Martin immediately answered, and threw in all his chips.

"Calling me?" Fox asked. "So soon?"

"Call or fold is, I believe, the point we are at in the proceedings, Mr. Fox."

"I'll see you, then," Fox said, and pushed his remaining chips to the center of the table for form's sake.

Martin laid his spread of five cards face up on the table. His smile was quite broad now.

Harriet gasped, and said, "Royal flush? You lucky knave."

Martin tilted his head back and asked, "You play the game, my dear?"

"I don't play any games with you," she spat back.

"Wrong," he answered, rising to his feet. He hauled her over his shoulder before she had time to argue and kept a firm grip though she pummeled and kicked, as the crowd parted and he carried his prize off to their room.

"Put down!"

This time he did.

"
Ump! Ow
!" He'd expected her to slap his face; the fisted blow to his solar plexus came as a surprise. It took an effort to swiftly put himself between her and the door. For precaution's sake he turned the key in the lock, then pocketed it. "You are not leaving this room," Martin told her.

"I am certainly not staying."

"Don't tell me you want to run to Mr. Fox."

"Don't be ridiculous."

He smiled dangerously. "Then why would you want to leave me?"

"Of all the stupid questions! How could you do that to me?" she demanded. "How
dare
you do that to me?" Tears shone in her eyes as she glared at him, and bright spots of color stained her cheeks. "I have never been so humiliated. I can still hear them laughing and clapping as you carried me away like some barbarian's war prize. You showed me as nothing more to you than sellable property."

"I never intended—"

"You made a fool of me. You treated me like an object."

"Not you," he said, hoping it would help. "Cora Bell. It wasn't
you
they saw carried away."

A tear spilled down her cheek. "Then why do
I
want to die?" She shook her head vehemently as he put a hand out to her. "Don't you dare touch me. Don't even try. I did not deserve that, Martin. No matter how badly you think I treated you, I did not deserve that. You would not have treated Sabine so, and she betrayed you with another man."

Her words cut deeply into his conscience. "Harriet—"

She turned her back on him. Her spine was stiff with angry pride, but he saw the telltale trembling. "You would have given me away just like that." She snapped her fingers.

How could he explain what he'd done, when he wasn't sure how or why he'd behaved so despicably? "I saw you giving your affection to another man and—perhaps it is the atmosphere of this place that lends itself to license and—"

"Oh, no." She had been nearly shouting, with an edge of hysteria in her voice. She paused now and took a few deep breaths. When she continued she was still furious, but a cold calm had entered her voice. "You can't excuse your behavior so easily. I won't believe a day and a half in this hell corrupted your sense of right and wrong."

"It seemed the sort of thing a man jealous of his mistress would do," he flailed around for an excuse. "Perhaps I took the acting too far. I'm not used to playing roles."

"The devil you're not, my lord ambassador. You playact every time you sit down to negotiate. I saw the way you played poker; you were simply being yourself."

"At least you know who I am," he shot back. "You have me at a disadvantage."

"You know me well enough to hurt me, Martin. I hurt your pride, so you found a way to hurt mine. Congratulations, you succeeded admirably."

She was right, to his shame—but only partially. "There's something about seeing you with Fox that infuriated me."
Threatened me
, he admitted to himself. "Seeing you lavish affection on such a scoundrel set my teeth on edge."

"Lavish?" She gave a curt laugh. "How was I lavishing anything on him?"

"Talking to him. Touching him. Laughing with him. You know what he is—"

Another mirthless laugh cut him off. "I do indeed. I know the scamp very well."

Her words reminded Martin of the reason Harriet was at Strake House. He leaned back against the door, and banged his head against it once in frustration. "Please tell me Fox is not the man you came here to meet."

"He's not."

"But you say you know him." She turned to face him as he went on. Her arms were crossed tensely over her waist, yet a slight smile lifted her lips. As usual these days, she completely confused him. "I can't believe you've encountered this American gambler during your spying activities."

"He's not a gambler," she said. "At least not professionally. He's a cat burglar, and—"

"We've known each other practically all our lives," Kit Fox interrupted Harriet's answer.

"My brother," she finished before she whirled to face the man casually leaning in the dressing room doorway, arms crossed and well aware of his insouciant appearance. "Christopher Fox MacLeod, what the devil are you doing here?"

"There's a window in the dressing room," he replied. "You should applaud my ability to climb in without being seen in broad daylight."

"I should box your ears," she answered.

The man who was suddenly no longer Kit Fox—and Martin was getting damned tired of all this cloak-and-dagger business—straightened from his languid pose and strode into the room. Christopher MacLeod did not bother looking at Martin, but Martin was well aware of the man's hostility. "You've been crying," he said, wiping a thumb across Harriet's cheek. "That's something else he has to pay for."

Martin noticed that the man's American accent had disappeared.

"What are you doing here?" she repeated. "Not how, why?"

"I got home after you left. Papa sent me to find Michael."

"Who is Michael?" Martin asked.

"Our brother," Harriet and this other brother said together.

"What are you doing here?" this brother asked Harriet. He jerked a thumb at Martin. "Does Papa know about him?" He glanced at the bed. "And what you've been doing?"

"Mum sent me. She disagreed with Papa about waiting for you. You'd telegraphed you'd be delayed, and we didn't know for how long."

"I see." He flicked a quick look at Martin. "Mum always has been the more ruthless one of that pair."

"You'd be ruthless, too, if you were worried about your child."

"I wouldn't send my daughter off with the likes of him."

"You don't know about the likes of him," Harriet flared.

"He's a cad and ought to be shot."

"How dare you," Martin spoke up for himself, seething with growing annoyance. If the man felt like challenging him this time, Martin wouldn't turn him down. "How dare you break in here and bully Harriet?"

Harriet's brother paid him no mind. "Only question is, do I do it myself or wait for Papa to have a go?"

"Stick to business," Harriet responded. "My personal life is my own."

"Is it rea—"

"I mean it, Christopher."

Martin would have hesitated to argue with that tone. Her brother decided to take the better part of valor himself. He drew his sister into a fierce hug and said, "Lord, it's good to see you again, chit. We've both stayed away from home for too long."

Harriet just as fiercely hugged him back, and in the middle of the embrace she began to sob. Martin took a step forward but stopped at a warning look from her brother. Martin told himself he was not the cause of her distress; she was reacting to seeing a long-lost brother, or perhaps with relief that she could turn her assignment over to more capable, masculine hands.

He did not believe either explanation for a moment.

Two things were becoming clear as Martin tried to apply some balm to his conscience. One was that the situation involving the courier was more complicated and dangerous than he'd been led to believe. The second was…

"The card game was a sham, wasn't it?" he demanded, his indignation growing by the moment. "Harriet, you knew all along that you were in no danger of being ravished by this rogue if I lost to him."

Harriet whirled from Christopher's embrace. "
You
didn't know!" she accused. Her contempt scalded Martin to the bone. "You didn't care!"

"Didn't care? Of course I—"

"You made the challenge. You put her up on the auction block," the other man pointed out disdainfully. His look promised Martin that he would pay for it. "You offered your woman to a stranger. The sin's yours, so don't try to get out of it with the excuse that it wasn't real."

Harriet's words had already killed his anger, but he wasn't going to apologize in front of her arrogant sibling. Before he could say something comforting, a hard pounding started on the door at his back.

"Go away!" Martin shouted through the door.

"I don't take my orders from you," an equally angry voice shouted back.

Oh, God, it was Mrs. Swift.

"It's the Legacy!" Christopher slipped past before Martin could block him, and somehow had the locked door opened within several seconds. "Nanny!" he cried, drawing the skinny woman into the room and throwing his arms around her.

For a moment Martin thought Mrs. Swift was actually going to smile, but the moment passed. She pushed away from Christopher and announced, "You smell foreign."

Good
, Martin thought.
Someone else for her to complain about
. He smiled at this unkind thought.

Harriet looked his way, and from the faint hint of amusement that lit and died in her eyes, he was sure she knew what he was thinking. He also knew that she wished she didn't share this or any other thought with him. It hurt that he had forfeited her sympathy, though he tried not to let it. The woman had kept him in a state of utter confusion since the day he asked her to marry him, and the machinations and emotions only grew more tangled all the time.

He turned to Mrs. Swift and demanded, "What the devil do you want?"

Mrs. Swift ignored him and approached Harriet instead. "Time to get you changed for dinner."

"We will take dinner in our room," Martin answered instantly.

"No, you won't. There's people you've yet to meet," Mrs. Swift continued to Harriet. "Now that there's two of you, the work'll go faster. Sooner it's done, the sooner we can leave this den of iniquity."

"Are you up to it, Harry?" MacLeod asked his sister. He brushed the hair off her tearstained cheeks. "You game to play Cora Bell one more time?"

Martin couldn't help but feel reluctant pride as he watched her draw her dignity around her and call on some reserve of strength, pride, and sense of duty. She changed before his eyes, and only as she pulled herself together did he truly realize how deeply he'd hurt her this time. Had they been alone, he would have gone to his knee and apologized. One needed privacy for the most delicate of negotiations.

"Mrs. Swift's right," Harriet acknowledged. "We haven't much time. The more of us looking for the courier, the better." She tilted her head sideways and asked hopefully, "I don't suppose Michael's checked in with Aunt Phoebe?"

"Not a word as of yesterday. We have to assume he's been captured and they've learned enough from him to send an agent here on the same business as we're on."