Never Gamble Your Heart (The Secret Society of Governess Spies #2)

Chapter 25

F rankie’s lips were soft and giving underneath his own. She looped her arms around his neck, pulled herself even closer, and eagerly returned his kiss. Jasper’s blood was still pounding from the altercation with the man lying on the floor. When he’d spotted Frankie leaving with Farthins he’d had a sick feeling in his gut, but it had been several minutes before he’d been able to extricate himself from the throng of people that kept introducing themselves and demanding his time. By the time he’d reached the corridor they were gone, but he’d known that with the impending storm it was unlikely they’d gone outside. His next bet had been the library, and he’d been right.

When Jasper had opened the door and spotted Frankie pinned against the bookshelf with blood on her dress and fear in her eyes, he’d lost his composure. It had been a long time since Jasper had felt the kind of roaring rage that had made him the man London feared, but when he’d thought Farthins had hurt Frankie, the call to violence had been overwhelming.

He didn’t examine his reaction too closely beyond the fact that Frankie was under his protection, and Jasper protected what was his at all costs. He’d always been territorial, but what wharf urchin wasn’t?

As he kissed her, he pushed aside the fear that had sliced him deeper than the rage, telling himself it was only that he didn’t care to see a woman hurt. It had nothing to do with how, in that moment when he’d seen Frankie in a situation he was meant to protect her from, he’d felt powerless. Jasper controlled everything having to do with his club, from approving the menus to recording each shilling, and he ruled his private life in a similar manner. He’d spent most of his youth a slave to chaos, having to accept his powerlessness so often that there was no room left for pride. When he’d made a success of Rockford’s, he’d finally had the means and the authority he’d always craved. Then Cecelia and Frankie had entered his life. They were variables he could not control, and the fear that he could not protect them from every harm out there had his chest tightening even as he moved his lips hungrily over Frankie’s.

In response to his urgency, Frankie parted her mouth and initiated stroking his tongue with hers, laying Jasper flat with the sweet openness of the gesture. She was not an experienced kisser, and yet she was so honest and generous with her affection that Jasper could not imagine being satisfied by any other type of kiss again.

He slid his hands down her back and cupped her bottom through her skirts, lifting her up and rocking her over the hardness beneath his trousers. Frankie made a little noise in response, and when he pulled his mouth away, he found her eyes glassy with pleasure. Jasper’s blood was so hot he wouldn’t have been surprised to find they’d fogged the library windows. He kissed her jaw, flicking her skin with his tongue and tasting her sweet floral scent before dragging his lips to her ear. He gently bit her lobe and breathed her name into her ear. She moaned . Her reactions to him were so raw and genuine that it awed him. Frankie Turner had none of the world-weariness of the widows he usually took up with, nor was she a cunning fraud like many of the debutants. She was something else entirely. She seemed naive in ways, and yet in other ways she was shockingly practical. He liked that she was abstract and absent and messy, just as much as he liked how clever and humorous and sweet she was.

Jasper dropped his head to her throat and tasted her pulse, even as a voice in the back of his head warned him that he was going too far. The sitting room was packed with social elites, and if someone were to walk into the library at that moment, Frankie’s reputation would be destroyed.

And still his fingers traveled across her gown to brush over her breast, while his other hand continued to palm her bottom. Frankie pushed at his shoulder and looked down at his long fingers molding the shape of her. “What are you doing?”

“Touching you. Do you wish me to stop?” He wanted her to say yes for her own sake, while the devil inside of him silently begged her to say no. If she asked him in that moment to hand over his entire fortune in exchange for feeling her bare skin against his, he would be a very poor—but satisfied—man.

“I think I should like to feel it without the gown in the way.”

Jasper’s pulse redoubled and his mouth went dry. Before he could oblige, a particularly loud clap of thunder made a woman scream from deeper within the house. Frankie blinked, as if only then remembering where they were. She flushed and slipped out of his grasp. He let her, his sense of decency warring with his need to see her eyes haze over with desire and know that he was responsible for it.

Irritated with himself and his utter lack of self-control, Jasper scrubbed his hand over his face and took several deep breaths. “You need to return to the sitting room. Your absence will be noticed.”

“As will yours.” She looked down at her blood-spattered gown. “I cannot go back like this.”

“You will have to ask a servant to fetch the lady of the house and explain to her that you had a nosebleed. Mayhap she can lend you a shawl, and it will excuse your absence.”

She nodded and pointed her chin to Farthins. “Is he dead?”

“No. He should be rousing at any moment. I would appreciate it if you were gone before he does.”

“What will you do?”

“I shall send him along his way.” She didn’t need to know that he planned to leave Farthins with a threat that would make the man wake in a cold sweat for the next month.

She lifted her eyes to his face, the blue depths no less shocking because of the thick glass of her spectacles. “Thank you.”

Jasper fought the impulse to touch her again. “For knocking out Farthins, or for kissing you?” he asked in a teasing tone.

But instead of smiling, her gaze grew thoughtful. “You must stop smoldering at me from across the room, Jasper. We cannot allow anyone to believe you have designs on me. I have to remain unattached for our ruse to work.”

“Smoldering at you?”

She nodded and gave him a wide-eyed, unblinking stare while she cocked her head at an awkward angle.

“What are you doing?”

“Smoldering.”

“That’s a lovely smolder.” He cupped her elbow and steered her toward the door. “I will do my best to stop ‘smoldering.’ Be careful when you return, and stay close to Madam Margaret. I have heard a few grumbles about you being ‘another one of those horridly progressive women.’”

Frankie halted at the doorway, excitement lighting her face. “Who said that?”

“No one who attends my club.” He trailed his fingertips from her elbow to her wrist and grasped her lightly. “No more going off alone. The next time it might be a setup from the Dowry Thieves, and I do not want to see you betrothed to another man.”

“You mean a dastardly, scheming man?”

“That, too.”

He did not want her engaged to any man, although surely that did not mean he wanted to marry her. Yes, he thought Frankie would make an interesting companion, and he was absolutely desperate for a deeper taste of her, but neither of those things meant he loved her or that she belonged to him. He’d proposed a marriage of convenience, he’d lost the gamble, and he was fine with that. His distaste arose solely from the idea of her being married to a man who wished to flatten all of the quirks that made her unique. Frankie was one of the most special people he’d ever met. She deserved to marry someone who could see that. And when she found that person, he would be in full support of the marriage.

Relaxing, now that that he knew his resistance to her marrying wasn’t due to jealousy, but rather that he simply wanted the best for her, he added, “I would not wish for anyone to dim your sparkle.”

“My sparkle?”

Jasper released her wrist and nudged her into the corridor. Lowering his voice so that she could barely hear him over the pounding rain he said, “You count cards, you are disarmingly candid, and you broke a man’s nose with your forehead. You sparkle, Frankie Turner, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to stop wanting to pull you close each time you are near and kiss you senseless.”

The corners of Frankie’s lips lifted. “You… like that I am different?”

Jasper sighed. “Apparently.”

Frankie’s tentative smile blossomed into a real one, revealing even white teeth and two little dimples in her right cheek. It was a stunning smile, the kind that felt like sunshine when one was the recipient, and a pit appeared in Jasper’s stomach. He was on guard around debutants, widows, and other women who might angle for more affection than he was willing to grant, but with Frankie he had let his shield drop. He’d underestimated her effect on him, and she’d slowly begun to work her way beneath his defenses.

The most irritating part was that she wasn’t even trying.

“However,” he added gently, “you are right. I must stop smoldering at you, and what we just did cannot happen again. I do not consort with unmarried women. Unless you plan on forfeiting your win and marrying me, it would be best if we kept our distance.”

“I cannot marry you!” Frankie exclaimed. “I must remain unwed for our ruse to work. Besides, you would never let me into your gaming hell, and if I were your wife I would have to insist because I would dearly love to play a few games.”

“I could not allow you to play at Rockford’s. You would clean me out.”

“Do you mean take all of your money? Gambling must be so thrilling.” Another peal of thunder reverberated through the house, and Farthins groaned on the floor. “Thank you for the brilliant insight.”

Jasper needed to hurry and escort Farthins from the property, but his curiosity got the better of him. “What do you mean?”

“Do you remember my dream that I mentioned in your study? Someday, when I have saved enough money, I am going to start a mathematics journal. I have so much to contribute to the discipline and yet I am ostracized simply because I am a woman. Everyone will be able to submit to my journal, no matter their gender, race, religion, or financial status. I have thought that I would need to save my wages for a considerable amount of time, but you have inadvertently given me financial advice I would be a fool not to consider.”

“What financial adv—Frankie, you cannot mean to gamble for the money!”

She looked up at him with earnest, blue eyes. “Whyever not? You did.” Before he could answer she hurried down the tiled corridor in search of a servant.

Damned if he didn’t admire her goal of starting her own journal. As a man who’d clawed his way out of poverty with nothing in his fists but a dream and grit, he had a soft spot for people determined to break the mold. That being said, Frankie had no idea how dangerous gambling could be, especially if one were caught counting cards.

His governess—no, his beneficiary —grew more perplexing and infuriating by the day.

Farthins groaned again, and Jasper’s face hardened before he turned around. Time to take out the rubbish.