He'd been fourteen when he'd begun to notice women watching him, and he'd relished the attention. But now, a dozen years later, there'd been too many women, and he'd grown jaded. "Of course I heard you. You were giving me all the reasons I should go to work for your father."

"He's very influential."

"I already have a job."

"Really, Baron, that's hardly a job. It's a social activity."

He regarded her levelly. "There's nothing social about it. Gambling is the way I earn my living."

"But-"

"Would you like to go upstairs, or would you rather I took you home now? I don't want to keep you out too late."

She was on her feet in an instant and, minutes later, in his bed. Her breasts were full and ripe, and he couldn't understand why they didn't feel better in his hands.

"Hurt me," she whispered. "Just a little."

He was tired of hurting, tired of the pain he couldn't seem to escape even though the war was over. His mouth twisted cynically. "Whatever the lady wants."

Later, when he was alone again and dressed for the night, he found himself wandering through the rooms of the house he'd won with a pair of kings. Something about it reminded him of the house where he'd grown up.

He'd been ten when his mother had run off, leaving him with his debt-ridden father in a bleak Philadelphia mansion that was falling into disrepair. Three years later his father had died, and a committee of women came to take him to an orphan asylum. He ran away that night. He had no destination in mind, only a direction. West.

He spent the next ten years drifting from one town to another, herding cattle, laying railroad track, and panning for gold until he discovered he could find more of it over a card table than in the creeks. The West was a new land that needed educated men, but he wouldn't even admit that he knew how to read.