If it was happening already, this far north, what would it be like the closer they got to London? How could he protect her from that?

“Well?” Quinton took a seat at a gambling table and motioned toward the last empty chair. “Will you not join us?”

Anthony paused. God knew he needed a win. Quinton’s pockets weren’t too light, and if Anthony managed to sweep the table… He shook his head. His dwindling purse was upstairs in Charlotte’s valise. He wouldn’t wake her. She needed to rest.

And Anthony needed to not lose what little they still had.

“What?” Quinton gasped, clutching his chest melodramatically. “Anthony Fairfax not wager? There can be only one reason. Sit, man. If you’re at Point Non Plus, I’ll give you ten quid to get you started.” He turned to the other gentlemen. “Mind your purses. Fairfax can turn ten quid into two hundred faster than you can blink.”

Anthony hesitated. The empty chair beckoned him. Quinton was right. With a few quid—even with a mere sovereign—Anthony had been known to turn a table to his advantage with devastating ease.

He’d also been known to lose the whole lot on the turn of a card.

He stared at the inviting stacks of ivory betting fish next to each fat purse. At the seductive fan of cards just waiting for him to pick them up and turn the table into a battleground. The pull was overwhelming.

His gaze darted about the room. He couldn’t sit down. Not even for a moment. One peek at those cards, the mere scent of a winning streak, and he’d wager every penny in his possession, right down to his stockings. He couldn’t dare. Risking his own future was one thing. He would not risk Charlotte’s.

He bowed. “I’ve a beautiful creature waiting for me, I’m afraid. Some other time, perhaps.”

His fingers were shaking at the thought of walking away. At the urge to pick up the cards, the suspense at what their faces might show. At the delirious uncertainty of each new hand, and the accompanying rush of excitement thudding through his veins.

But gambling money he couldn’t afford to lose was something a useless wastrel did—which was something he was no longer willing to be.

Charlotte, he reminded himself. He had to be a better man for Charlotte.

“Why, I cannot trust my eyes,” Quinton exclaimed with an expression of honest shock. “If I try to tell anyone back home that this gentleman turned down a game of cards, they’ll laugh me right out of the club.”

Frankly, Anthony couldn’t believe it either.

Before his itchy gambling fingers could change his mind, he bid the company farewell and strode out of the common area and back up to their chamber.

When he opened the door, Charlotte was out of bed and standing before the vanity.

“Did you have supper?” she asked as she freshened her hair.

He shook his head. “I was waiting for you. Are you hungry?”

She set down her pins and turned to face him. “You look pale. Did something happen?”

He touched his face, surprised she had discerned his conflicted emotions. The spinning of one’s head must be more visible from the outside than he’d previously supposed. His addicted mind was still down at that gaming table.

“Something didn’t happen,” he admitted. His fingers still longed for a quick game. He took a deep breath. “I didn’t gamble.”

She tilted her head.

He tensed. She had every reason not to believe him. From the moment she’d laid eyes on him, he’d established himself as being fearless to wager. The first impression he’d given her was of winning everyone’s money within minutes of making her acquaintance—and losing it all the very next instant.

If Quinton couldn’t believe Anthony would turn down the chance to win a few purses… He could hardly expect Charlotte to have any greater faith in him.

She returned to pinning her golden locks. “Well, that’s good. One never knows if one will win or lose. You made the right choice.”

Anthony’s breath escaped his lungs in a whoosh. He straightened his shoulders. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath.

That was it? He stared at her as she finished dressing her hair. His mouth parted in shock. The first time he’d turned down a gaming table in fifteen years, the first time he realized he was strong enough to walk away, and when this fantastical event occurred…Charlotte simply believed him without question.

He strode across the room, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her as if he could drink in her words, drown in her faith, die in her arms. Perhaps he could. She was his talisman.

In her eyes, he was a different man. A better man. With her lips pressed against his, he could almost imagine it was true. He cherished this moment.

She would never understand how much her trust and acceptance affected him. How much he’d needed it. How much he needed her. To have her melt into his embrace. To make her proud. To hold her close.

He’d never been dependable enough before for anyone to have a reason to believe in him. Even if her faith in him was in part because she hadn’t known him long enough to understand the catastrophic depths of his unreliable nature, that innocence made him all the more determined never to fail her.

When she looked at him, she didn’t see the man he was, but rather the man he could be.

The man he would be from this day forward. For her.

Chapter 12

Charlotte rubbed her tired eyes and gazed across yet another breakfast room in yet another inn. Leeds. Now they were in Leeds.

Every day brought them inexorably closer to London. Closer to the past she was desperate to forget. Closer to Anthony spending the rest of his future in prison.

She would rather never return at all. She had no fond memories of England.

Beau Brummell had fled to France to escape his creditors. To Charlotte, life in France didn’t sound half bad. Anthony could avoid prison and she could avoid everyone who knew how little someone like her mattered. They could present themselves as a perfectly respectable country couple. With no particular pretensions to grandeur and nary a sordid scandal in their completely fictional past.

To her, it sounded like heaven. To Anthony, hell.

He had family in London. Friends all over England. People who cared about him, who respected him, who missed him. How lucky he was! If that were Charlotte’s life, she would never leave. So how could she expect Anthony to?

“Mrs. Fairfax?” came a breathless voice from the beside the breakfast table.

Charlotte glanced up and forced her weary face to smile at the elderly widow who’d spent the previous evening pouring her fears out to Charlotte over several cups of tea.

“How do you do this morning, Mrs. Rowden?” she asked. “Is something amiss?”

“Quite the opposite.” Mrs. Rowden clasped her hands together and beamed at Charlotte. “Thank you so much for allowing me to bend your ear last night. Your advice was right on the button. Before I retired for the night, I sent my son a letter informing him of my presence.”

This time, Charlotte’s smile was genuine. “I am so pleased to hear it. Uncertainty is one of the worst emotions to suffer through. You’ve taken action, and soon you’ll know. I do hope he accepts your apology.”

“As do I.” Mrs. Rowden wrung her hands. “Oh, how I’d love to meet my grandchildren. How big they must be by now!”

After Mrs. Rowden took her leave, Charlotte quit the breakfast room and returned to her bedchamber to pack the valises.

Anthony had been out somewhere since well before dawn, hoping to earn a few coins doing this or that. So far, he’d managed to earn more than enough to cover their travel expenses, but even with the contents of the purses they’d won in Scotland, their funds were meager compared to the size of his debt.

Yet he refused to give up.

It was incomprehensible. Noble. She hated that it was destined to fail.

He was capable of stealing her heart. She had to struggle to keep her shield intact so that she would not be destroyed if she lost him. He was the one person who unfailingly treated her as if she mattered. No matter how determinedly she reinforced her defenses, the walls crumbled a bit more every day. With him, happiness was no longer an illusion. He made her believe it was within her grasp…if only they could be assured of a future together.

She was just latching her trunk when a key turned in the door.

Anthony stepped into the room.

She grinned at him like a smitten halfwit. She couldn’t help herself.

His chestnut hair was damp with sweat. His fancy clothes, badly wrinkled. But the look of peace, of satisfaction, on his exhausted countenance as he handed her a trio of gold sovereigns made him as beautiful as an angel.

“How was it?” she asked.

“Wonderful,” he answered without hesitation.

Her lips twitched. Wonderful was his reply every time she inquired. After a lifetime of living inside the hopelessness of her own mind, Anthony’s boundless positivity was fast becoming one of her favorite traits.

Nothing bothered him for long. Not his creditors, not jarring hackney rides, not grass stains on expensive breeches. Not even the ignominy of having a whore’s illegitimate child for a wife.

When she was with him, sometimes she forgot her past altogether.

He dipped a handkerchief in the basin and blotted his forehead. “Do I have time to ring for a bath? What time did you reserve a hack?”

“I have already summoned a bath. The hackney will arrive within the hour.”

His grateful expression filled her with warmth.

A knock on the door indicated the innkeeper had noted Anthony’s return and had sent servants with a tub and steaming water. They set up the bath on the opposite side of a folding screen and assisted Anthony with a shave and the rest of his toilette.