Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover (The Rules of Scoundrels 4)

“Besides a massive dowry?”

“Besides that.” He stepped closer. “More than that.”

“I don’t have much else.” Not anything she could admit to, at least.

He lifted one hand, and her breath caught. He was going to touch her. He was going to touch her, and she was going to like it.

Except he didn’t. Instead, she felt a little tug at her coif, and his hand came away, a snowy white egret feather in his grasp. He ran it between his fingers. “I think you have more than you can imagine.”

Somehow, the cold March night became hot as the sun. “It sounds as though you are offering me an alliance.”

“Perhaps I am,” he said.

She narrowed her gaze. “Why?”

“Guilt, probably.”

She laughed. “I cannot imagine that is it.”

“Perhaps not.” He reached for her hand and she stretched her arm out to him as though she were a puppet on strings. As though she did not have control over herself. “Why worry about the reason?”

The feather painted its way over the soft skin above her glove and below her sleeve, at the inside her elbow. She caught her breath at the delicate, wonderful touch. Duncan West was a dangerous man.

She snatched her hand back. “Why trust you when you’ve just admitted you’re in this to sell newspapers?”

That handsome mouth curved in wicked temptation. “Wouldn’t you rather know precisely with whom you are dealing?”

She smiled at that. “Surely this is the best fortune a girl on a dark balcony has ever had.”

“Fortune has nothing to do with it.” He paused, then added, “There’s little love lost between me and Society.”

“They adore you,” she said.

“They adore the way I keep them entertained.”

There was a long moment as Georgiana considered his offer. “And me?”

That smile flashed again, sending a thread of excitement pooling in her stomach. “The entertainment in question.”

“And how do I benefit?”

“The husband you wish. The father you desire for your daughter.”

“You will tell them I am reformed.”

“I’ve seen no evidence that you are not.”

“You saw me goad a girl into insulting me. You saw me threaten her family. Force her friends to desert her.” She looked into the darkness. “I am not certain what I have is desirable.”

His lips curved in a knowing smile. “I saw you protect yourself. Your child. I saw a lioness.”

She did not miss the fact that he’d been a lion mere minutes earlier. “Every tale has two tellers.”

He opened his coat and inserted the feather in the inside pocket, before buttoning the coat once more. She could no longer see the plume, but she felt it there nonetheless, trapped against his warmth, against the place where his heart beat in strong, sure rhythm. Trapped against him.

He was a very dangerous man.

He grinned, all wolf, this powerful man who owned London’s most-read papers. The man who could raise or ruin with the ink of his printing press. The man she needed to believe her lies. To perpetuate them.

“There you are wrong,” he said, the words threading through her like sin. “Every tale worth telling has only one teller.”

“And who is that?”

“Me.”

Chapter 3

He should not have flirted with the girl.

West stood on the edge of the Worthington ballroom, watching Lady Georgiana dance across the room on the arm of the Marquess of Ralston. The man was rarely seen in the company of any but his wife, but there was no doubt that the Duke of Leighton had called in all of his chips – including his brother-in-law – that evening, in the hopes that the combined wealth and power of the Ralston and Leighton clans would blind Society into forgetting the lady’s past.

It wasn’t working.

She was all anyone in the room talked about, and it was neither her powerful champions nor her beauty that fueled the whispers.

And she was beautiful, all length and grace, smooth skin and silken hair, and a mouth – Christ. She had a mouth made for sin. It was no wonder she’d been ruined at such a young age. He imagined she’d had every boy for twenty miles salivating over her.

Idly, he wondered if she’d cared for the man who had taken advantage of her, and found he did not like the idea that she had. He had little patience for boys who could not keep their hands to themselves, and the idea of Lady Georgiana on the receiving end of those hands grated more than usual. Perhaps it was the child. No child deserved to be born into scandal.

He knew that better than most.

Or perhaps it was Georgiana, who looked every inch the perfect, pristine aristocrat, born and bred into this world that should be at her feet, and instead waited to eat her alive.

The orchestra stopped, and Georgiana had only a few brief seconds before she was in the arms of Viscount Langley – an excellent choice for husband.

West watched them with the eye of a newspaperman, considering their match from all angles. Langley was a big fish, no doubt – he’d recently assumed a venerable title that came complete with several massive estates, but he suffered from the great bane of the aristocratic existence – inheritances could be prohibitively expensive. Each of his properties had fallen into disrepair, and it was his responsibility to restore them.

A dowry the size of the one attached to Lady Georgiana would restore the earldom to its former glory, and leave him with enough money to double its size.

West did not know why the idea was so unsettling and unpleasant for him. She was neither the first nor would she be the last to buy a husband.

Nor to be sold to one.

For the price of a long-standing, irrelevant title. One valued only for its place in the hierarchy. Yes, it might buy her daughter silent judgment instead of vocal insult. And yes, it might buy that same young woman marriage to a respectable gentleman. Not titled, but respectable. Possibly landed.

But it would buy her mother nothing but snide barbs and hushed whispers. No additional respect, no additional care. Few of the aristocracy into which she was born would ever consider her worthy of their civility, let alone their forgiveness.

Hypocrisy was the bedrock of the peerage.

Georgiana knew it – he’d seen it in her gaze and heard it in her voice as she’d talked to him, far more fascinating than he would have ever imagined. She was willing to wager everything for her daughter, and there was tremendous nobility in that.

She was like no woman he’d ever known.

He wondered, vaguely, what it might be like to grow with the love of a parent willing to sacrifice all happiness for one’s sake. He’d had the love, but it had been fleeting.

And then he’d become the caretaker.

He resisted the memory and returned his attention to the dance.

Langley was a good choice. Handsome and intelligent and charming, and a skilled dancer, gliding the lady across the ballroom floor, underscoring her grace with his own. West watched her ivory skirts caress the viscount’s trouser leg as he turned her. Something about the way silk clung to wool briefly before giving in to gravity’s pull irritated him. Something about the way they moved, all grace and skill, grated.

He shouldn’t care. He was here for something else entirely.

So what had he been doing on a balcony making silly promises of social redemption to a girl he didn’t know?

Guilt was a powerful motivator.

The damn cartoon. He’d dragged her through the muck, as surely as her peers had done so a decade earlier. He’d been irate when it had run – hated the way it teased and mocked an unwed mother, a child who’d had no choice in the matter. He didn’t read The Scandal Sheet the way he read the rest of his papers, as he had little taste for gossip. He’d missed the cartoon, inserted at the last minute, before the pages went to print.

He’d sacked the editor in charge the moment he’d seen it. But it ha

d been too late.

And he’d helped to further scandalize the girl.

She smiled up at Langley, and something tugged at West’s memory. He did not remember meeting the lady before, but he could not shake the idea that he had at some point. That they’d spoken. That she’d smiled at him in just the same way.

Lady Disrepute, they called her, in no small part because of him. It did not matter that she was everything they adored – young, aristocratic, and more beautiful than one woman should be.

Perhaps her beauty mattered most of all. Society hated the most beautiful among it nearly as much as it hated the least. It was beauty that made scandal so compelling – after all, if only Eve had not been so beautiful, perhaps the serpent would have left her alone.

But it was Eve who was vilified, never the serpent. Just as it was the lady who was ruined, never the man.

He wondered about the man in her case, again. Had she loved him?

The thought left a foul taste.

Yes, he would redeem the girl. He would make her the star of the season. It would be easy enough – Society adored its gossip pages, and easily believed the things it read in them. A few well-placed columns, and Lady Georgiana would marry her viscount and leave West’s conscience appeased and his focus on other, more important matters.

Matters that would ensure his freedom.

“You are not dancing.”

He’d expected the meeting – had attended the ball for it – but went cold at the words nevertheless, spoken with false cordiality at his elbow. “I do not dance.”

The Earl of Tremley chuckled. “Of course you don’t.”

West was mere days older than Tremley; he’d known the earl for his entire life, and hated him for nearly that long. But now Tremley was one of King William’s most trusted advisors, with tens of thousands of acres of the lushest land in Suffolk that earned him close to fifty thousand pounds a year. He was rich as a fictional king and had the ear of a real one.

West deliberately kept his focus on Georgiana, something about her helping to keep him calm. “What do you want?”

Tremley feigned shock. “So cold. You should show more respect to your betters.”

“You should be grateful that I resist pummeling you in public,” West said, taking his gaze from Georgiana, not liking the idea that his unwelcome companion might discover his interest.

“Big words. As though you would take such a risk.”

West grew more irritated, loathing the fear that whispered through him at Tremley’s words. Hating it. “I’ll ask again. Why are you here?”

“I noticed your column last week.”

He stilled. “I write a great deal of columns.”

“This one was in favor of abolition of the death penalty for theft. A brazen choice, for someone so… close to the situation.”

West did not reply. There was nothing to say here, in this room filled with people who did not worry about their futures. Who were not terrified of their pasts.

Who did not wait, every day, to be discovered. Punished.

Hanged.

Lady Georgiana spun away on the arm of her future husband, lost in the crowd as Tremley sighed. “It is so tiresome, having to threaten you. If only you would accept that this is our arrangement – I command, you act – it would make our conversations much more palatable.”

West looked to his enemy. “I own five of the most successful newspapers on the globe. You grow ever closer to destruction at the stroke of my pen.”

Tremley’s tone went cold and direct. “You own them thanks to my benevolence. That pen stroke would be your last, and you know it. Even if you got your law passed.”

As though he would ever forget that Tremley held such power.

As though he would forget that the earl was the only person in the world who knew his secrets, and could punish him for them.

Tremley had secrets of his own, however – dark secrets that would see him dancing on the end of a rope if West was correct. But until he had proof… he had no weapon against this man who held his life in his hands.

“I’ll ask again,” he said, finally. “What do you want?”

“There is a war on in Greece.”

“This is the modern world. There’s always a war on somewhere,” West said.

“This one is nearly over. I want the News of London to come out against the peace.”

A vision flashed, Tremley’s file in his office, filled with nervous speculation from men who were terrified of their names being published. Speculation about this war. About others. “You want me to oppose Greek independence.” When Tremley did not reply, he added, “We had soldiers on the ground there. They fought and died for this democracy.”

“And here you are,” Tremley said, the words snide and unpleasant, “alive and well. And free.”

West did not miss the earl’s point. At any moment, with a word from this man, West could be destroyed. Sent to prison for a lifetime.

Worse.

“I won’t write it,” West said.

“You don’t have a choice,” Tremley said. “You are my lapdog. And you had best remember it.”

The truth of the statement made it infinitely more infuriating.

But it would not be true for long, if he found what he was looking for.

West’s fist clenched at his side. He was desperate to use it, to pummel this man as hard as he’d wanted to when they were children, and he’d spent his days being taunted and teased. Hurt. Nearly killed.

He’d escaped, come to London, built a goddamn empire. And still, when with Tremley, he was the boy he’d once been.

A memory flashed, tearing through the darkness on a horse worth triple his life. Five times it. His sister bundled in his lap. The promise of the future. The promise of safety. Of a life worth living for both of them.

He was tired of living in fear of that memory.

He turned away from the conversation, feeling trapped, as he always did. Owned. Desperate for something that would destroy this man now, before he was forced to do his bidding another time.

“Why?” he asked, “Why sway public opinion away from peace?”

“That’s not your concern.”

West was willing to wager that Tremley was breaking any number of laws of king and country, and that was his concern. And the concern of his readers. And the concern of his king.

But most importantly, proof of it was enough to keep his secrets safe. Forever.

Alas, proof was not easily come by in this world of gossip and lies.

It had to be found. Bought, if possible.

Bargained, if necessary.

And there was only one man who had enough power to get what West himself had not been able to find.

“You shall do it,” the earl insisted.

He did not speak, refusing to voice his agreement to whatever it was Tremley asked. He had done the earl’s bidding before, but never anything that would so clearly derail the crown. Never anything that would so clearly risk English lives.

“You shall do it.” Tremley repeated, firmer this time. Angrier.

As the words were not a question, it was easy for West not to answer. Instead, he exited the ballroom, hesitating at its edge as the orchestra finished its set, looking back over the crowd, watching the throngs of aristocrats revel in their money and power and idyll.

They did not understand what fortune smiled upon them.

He collected his coat and hat and headed for the exit, already at his club in his mind, calling for Chase’s messenger, calling in – for the first time – a favor.

If anyone could access Tremley’ secrets, it was Chase, but the owner of The Fallen Angel would want payment, and West would have to offer something massive for what he desired.

He waited on the steps of Worthington House for his carriage to emerge from the crush of conveyances waiting to be summoned by their masters and mistresses, eager to get to his club and begin negotiations with its owner.

“A

nd here we are again.”

He recognized her voice immediately, as though he’d known it his whole life. Lady Georgiana stood behind him, with her clear eyes and her voice that somehow brought light with it – as though years away from this world, this place, had made her more than she could have ever been had she stayed.

He met her gaze, inclined his head. “My lady,” he let the words fall between them, enjoying the honorific, one he had never considered so possessive before now. Enjoying, too, the way her eyes widened at it. He repeated her words. “And here we are again.”

She smiled, soft and secret, and the expression sent a thread of pleasure through him. He stopped it before he could enjoy it. She was not for pleasure.

She came to stand next to him at the top of the Worthington House steps, looking down over the carriages assembled below.

It was early enough in the evening that they were alone, accompanied only by her maid and a collection of liveried footmen, all of whom were paid handsomely to disappear into the background.

“I realized after we parted that I should not have spoken to you,” she said, her gaze not wavering from where a footman scurried into the neighboring mews to locate her conveyance. She elaborated. “We have not been introduced.”

He looked to the crush of black vehicles. “You are correct.”

“And you are an unmarried, untitled man.”

He smiled. “Untitled?”

She matched the smile. “If you were titled, I would worry less.”

“You think the title would make you safe?”

“No,” she said, serious. “But as we established, a title would make you an excellent husband.”

He laughed at her boldness. “I would make a terrible husband, my lady. That, I can assure you.”

Her gaze turned curious. “Why?”

“Because I have worse traits than being unmarried and untitled.” That much was true.

“Ah. You mean because you have a trade.”

No, because I haven’t a future.

He let his silence be his reply.

“Well, it’s silly that we are taught to look down our noses at hard work.”

“Silly, but true.”