you can put an empty background for the cells you dont want and collspan or rowspan to increase the size of the cells you want to use:
<style type="text/css">
*{
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px
}
body{
background-color: #000
}
table{
width: 300px;
height:100px;
border-spacing: 0px
}
td{
background-color: #ffa
}
.white{
background-color: #fff
}
</style>
<table>
<tr>
<td class="white"> </td>
<td class="white"> </td>
<td class="white"> </td>
<td rowspan="5">4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="white"> </td>
<td rowspan="4">2</td>
<td class="white"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan="3">1</td>
<td class="white"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="white"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
</tr>
</table>
<!--the empty lines represent the cells that were collapsed with the rowspan -->