“You cheated,” she whispered.
“Nay, Ilost.”
“Exactly.”
The world swam before her eyes as she watched him slowly thumb from his ear the beautiful earring. The thing that could restore choices to her. A real ruby and gold worth hundreds of pounds.
“Take it, Daphne.” His whisper was intense. Willing her to obey him.
He held the earring out to her.
For a moment the only sound was their harsh breathing.
“I cannot let you do it like this, Lorcan.” Her voice was thick.
Tears welled in her eyes. She brushed them violently away with the back of her hand.
His eyes flared. His features went tight with a surge of emotion, swiftly tamped.
And for long moments, they merely stared at each other.
When he finally put it back in his ear.
She saw that his fingers were trembling.
She stared.
And a nearly unendurable, breath-stopping elation slowly flooded her.
It was escorted by a near killing fury and despair.
She wanted to howl from it.
It robbed her breath.
The vicious, cruel, mockinginjusticeof it. The injustice that this miraculous thing that had sprung between them was so spike-edged that even looking at it closely was to court terrible pain.Why?Why this? Why now?
Abruptly, almost angrily, silently, she gathered the Spillikin sticks in her fist.
She looked down at them blindly.
He said not a word.
Then she carefully, neatly laid the sticks down.
She stared down at them.
Her vision was hazed. She could hear her own breath sawing in an uneven rhythm, somewhere between grief and anger.
She reached behind her and with fumbling fingers, tugged loose the laces on her dress.
She looked up at him.
His face was unreadable. He was holding himself rigidly still.
And then leaned slowly forward and gently took his face between her hands. And just for a moment she held it and stared, marveling at its rough beauty.
Then tenderly, slowly, she drew her thumbs along the hard corners of his jaw, savoring the scrape of his whiskers. She delicately traced with her fingertip the shining raised road of his scar. The curve of his lower lip.