Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover (The Rules of Scoundrels 4)
Bourne grinned, all wolf. “Nor should she regret it. I ensure my lady is quite happy with her match.”
She groaned. “Please. Say no more.”
“Here is something,” Cross interjected, and Georgiana was grateful for the impending change of topic.
There were a dozen things he could have said. A hundred. The four present ran a casino. They traded in secrets of the richest and most powerful people in Britain. The building they were in boasted a remarkable collection of art. Cross’s wife cultivated beautiful roses. And yet, he did not speak of any of those things. Instead, he said, “West is not a bad choice.”
She turned surprised eyes on him. “Not a bad choice for what?”
“Not what,” he corrected. “Whom. For you.”
She wished there was a window somewhere nearby. Something through which she could leap. She wondered if she could ignore the statement. She looked to Bourne and Temple, hoping they might find the statement as preposterous as she did.
They didn’t.
“You know, he’s not wrong,” Bourne said.
Temple spread his massive legs wide. “There’s no one else who matches her in power.”
“Except us,” Bourne said.
“Well, of course,” Temple said. “But we’re spoken for.”
“He hasn’t a title,” she said.
Temple’s brows rose. “That’s the only reason you don’t consider him a reasonable choice?”
Dammit. That’s not what she’d meant at all. “No,” she said. “But it would help if the rest of you remembered that I’m in need of a title. And I’ve selected it. Langley will not meddle in my affairs.”
Cross laughed. “You sound like a villain in a romantic novel.”
She rather felt like one with the direction in which this conversation was moving.
As though she had not spoken, Bourne added, “West is talented, rich and Penelope seems to think he’s handsome. Not that I have any idea why.” He grumbled the last.
“Pippa feels the same way,” Cross said. “She says it is an empirical fact. Thought I myself have never trusted grown men with hair that color.”
“You realize you haven’t a leg to stand on when it comes to hair color,” Temple said.
Cross ran a self-conscious hand through his ginger locks. “Irrelevant. It’s not me Chase thinks is handsome.”
“I am sitting right here, you know,” she said.
They did not seem to care.
“He’s a brilliant businessman and rich as a king,” Bourne added. “And if I were a betting man, I’d lay money on him eventually holding a seat in the House of Commons.”
“You are not a betting man, though,” Georgiana pointed out. As though it would stop him.
“He doesn’t have to be. I’ll put money on it,” Cross said, “I’ll happily mark it in the book.”
The betting book. The Fallen Angel’s betting book was legendary – an enormous leather-bound volume which held the catalogue of all wagers made on the main floor of the club. Members could record any wager – no matter how trivial – in the book, and the Angel bore witness, taking a percentage of the bets to make certain the parties were held to whatever bizarre stakes were established.
“You don’t wager in the book,” Georgiana said.
He met her gaze. “I shall make an exception.”
“For West running for Minister of Parliament?” Temple asked.
“I don’t care about that at all,” Cross said, throwing a card down. “I’ve one hundred pounds that says that West is the man who breaks Chase of her curse.”
She narrowed her gaze on the ginger-haired genius, recognizing the words. She’d made the same wager an age ago. She’d won.
“You shan’t have my luck,” she said.
He smirked. “Care to wager on it?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I shall happily take your money.”
“Mistake,” Bourne said. “He’s clearly after you. It’s a good bet.”
“Well, he’s after Anna, at least,” Temple corrected.
“It’s only a matter of time before he puts two and two together and discovers that Anna is Georgiana. Especially now that he’s…” Bourne waved a hand in her direction. “Sampled the wares, so to speak.”
She’d had enough. “First of all, there was no sampling of anything. It was a kiss. And second of all, he already knows that Anna and Georgiana are one and the same.”
The other three went silent.
She added, “Well. Miracle of miracles, I’ve rendered the three of you silent. The rest of London would be shocked beyond reason to discover that the owners of The Fallen Angel were nothing more than chattering magpies.”
“He knows?” Cross was the first to talk.
“He does,” she said.
“Christ,” Bourne said. “How?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does if others know, too.”
“No one else knows,” she said. “No one else has looked too long at Anna’s face. They’re too interested in her other assets.”
“But West has looked at her face. And Georgiana’s. And realized the truth.” This, from Temple.
“Yes.” The word made her feel guilty. As though she could have changed the situation. And perhaps she could have.
“You should never have brought him into this,” Bourne said. “He’s too quick. Of course he discovered you are both women. He was bound to. He likely knew the moment he agreed to help you land Langley.”
She did not reply.
“But he doesn’t know about Chase?” Cross asked.
She stood from the table, moving to the stained glass window that covered a full wall of the room, massive and menacing, depicting the fall of Lucifer. Hundreds of pieces of colored glass meticulously assembled to reveal the enormous angel – four times the size of the average man – as he tumbled from Heaven. From the casino floor, far below, it appeared that he was cast from light into darkness, from perfection into sin.
Destroyed and, in destruction, renewed. A king in his own right, with power unrivaled by all but one. Georgiana sighed, suddenly keenly aware of how powerless second-most-powerful could be.
“No,” she said. “And he won’t know who Chase is.”
That, she could promise.
“Even if he did,” Temple said. “He’s to be trusted.”
Georgiana had spent years working with the worst of humanity – learning them, judging them. She knew good men and bad. A day ago, she would have said that Temple was right. That West was to be trusted.
But that was before he’d kissed her.
Before she’d been drawn to him as she’d been drawn to another, long ago. One whom she’d trusted with her heart. With her hope. With her future.
One who had betrayed her without hesitation, and taken everything she’d given, ensuring that she would never be able to give it to another.
Ensuring that she would never want to.
Now, she did not trust her instincts around West. Which meant she had to rely on a different set of skills. “How do we know that?” she asked Temple, setting her cards on the table, no longer interested in the game. “That he is to be trusted?”
Temple shrugged one massive shoulder. “We’ve trusted him for years. He’s never betrayed us. You’re paying him handsomely with Tremley’s file… there’s no reason to believe that he’ll do anything but help. As always.”
“Unless he discovers Chase,” Cross said. “Now that she’s under his skin, he’ll be livid if he feels he’s been duped.”
Bourne nodded. “There’s no ‘feels’ about it. He has been duped.”
“I don’t owe him anything,” she said. The three men cut her identical looks. “What is it?”
“He knows you’re not simply Anna,” Cross said.
“And he’s not able to keep his hands off you,” Temple said. “If he finds that you’re also Chase…”
She did not like the words, or the implication that West was
more connected to her life than she imagined. Nor did she like the way that implication made her feel – as though she couldn’t quite take a deep breath. She’d felt this way before, and she did not fancy feeling it again.
She channeled Chase, remembering the shadow that had crossed his face as he’d discussed the Earl of Tremley. Eleven years. Remembering the threat he’d voiced – the hint that if she did not provide him with information on Tremley, he would release her secrets. He was a smart man – one who knew what he wanted. “What do we know about him?”
Bourne’s brows rose. “West?”
She nodded. “What’s in his file?”
“Nothing,” Cross said absently, collecting the cards and shuffling once more. “There’s a sister.” Cynthia West. A pretty girl, welcome in Society despite her lack of breeding. West’s money had purchased her support. “Unmarried.”
Georgiana nodded, knowing better than anyone what was inside the slim file in her safe. “And nothing else.”
“Nothing at all?”
She’d looked a few times in the early years, but she’d stopped as West had become ally in her battle with Society. “Not much,” Bourne replied. “His initial funding came from an anonymous donor for the gossip rag, which came to pay for the other papers. I’ve looked for evidence of the donor for years, but no one seems to know anything about it, except that there was a fair amount of money involved.”
“Nonsense,” Cross said. “There’s always a trail when it comes to money.”
“Not this money,” Bourne replied.
“Family money?”
“He’s not landed. There appears to be no one but the sister,” she said.
“So, he had a mysterious benefactor,” Temple said. “So did we at the beginning.” The Duke of Leighton had bankrolled his sister’s whim, with the understanding that no one ever know his identity – a condition to which Georgiana had been only too happy to agree.
She met the Duke of Lamont’s black gaze. “You’re saying he’s a man with no secrets.”
“I’m saying that he’s a man with no interesting secrets.”
She shook her head. “Everyone has an interesting secret. West is man enough to have more than one. So tell me, why don’t we know them?”
Temple’s gaze narrowed on her. “You can’t mean to search for them.”
She did not like the condemnation in his tone. “You’ve never stopped me before. When we founded this casino, it was with the understanding that you were in charge of the ring, Bourne the tables, Cross the books. And I was in charge of the information we needed to ensure that the venture succeeded.”
Cross spoke up. “If you do this, you play with fire. He has a great deal of power.”
“As do I.”
“But his power grows as Chase’s is diminished. Your secrets will destroy you.”
“West won’t discover the truth.”
Cross did not look so certain. “They always learn the truth.”
“Who?”
He did not answer the question, which suited her fine, as she did not like the hint of what he might have said. “Do not tempt the lion, Anna. Not this one. Not one who is so much a friend.”
She thought of the kiss earlier in the evening. There was nothing about it that was friendly. Indeed, it had pleasured and tempted and teased and devastated, but it had not been friendly. It had done nothing but make her want him, and she knew that wanting a man was not the same as trusting him. She’d learned that the last time she’d been kissed. The first time she’d been kissed.
She needed protection from him.
Not him. The thought whispered through her.
Perhaps it was right. Perhaps she did not need protection from him. Perhaps she needed protection from herself. From how he made her feel.
But either way, one thing was certain.
“Friend or foe, he knows my secrets.” She looked to her partners. “I need to know his.”
She was saved from having to face their questions by a knock at the door. Cross called for the newcomer to enter – only a handful of people knew the owners’ suite existed, each person trusted without question.
Justin Day, the casino’s pit boss, entered, finding her instantly, and crossing the room to her.
“Is it done?” she asked.
The majordomo nodded once. “Burlington, Montlake, and Russell, each happy to end their suit.”
Bourne turned curious. “Suit of whom?”
Temple replied, “Aren’t they all after the Earl of Holborn’s girl?”
Four heads turned in the duke’s direction. Georgiana voiced their collective disdain. “Your newfound interest in Society is terribly unsettling.”
Temple shrugged one enormous shoulder. “They are after her, though, aren’t they?”
Not since Lady Mary Ashehollow called Caroline a whore, they weren’t.
She did not reply, and neither did Justin. “There is more,” he said.
She turned to a nearby clock, noted the time, and knew without asking what news he brought. “Lady Tremley.”
Justin nodded. “At the ladies’ entrance.”
Bourne’s brows rose. “How did you know that?”
“What is she doing here?” Cross asked.
“She was invited,” she said, drawing a dark look from her partners.
“We did not discuss inviting her,” Temple said.
No, they hadn’t. She had sent the invitation within the hour of West’s leaving, several days earlier.
She did not tell them the whole truth, afraid that they might reject West’s request. Afraid they would not realize how much she needed West. The fear made her angry. She did not like feeling out of control. “I made a decision for all of us.”
“She’s dangerous. Tremley is dangerous,” Bourne warned. “If she offers his information – if he finds out —”
“I am not a child,” she reminded him. “I can connect the spots. What of the lady?”
Justin said, “Bruno says she’s a black eye.”
“Ah. Vengeance, thy name is woman.”
“If her husband is such a coward that he must resort to beating his wife, I’ll personally help her exact it,” Bourne said.
Justin replied. “She asks for Chase.”
“She shall have Anna instead.” She turned and smoothed her skirts.
Bourne met her gaze. “Be careful. I don’t like you dressed like a whore when none of us are there to protect you.”
“This isn’t a dark alley in the East End.”
“Chase,” he said, using the name he’d given her a half decade earlier, reminding them all of their history. “This is much more dangerous.”
She smiled, warm with the knowledge that they worried about her, this motley band of rogues she’d amassed. “Yes, but it is danger of my own design. I’m native to it.”
Bourne looked to the stained glass, his gaze lingering on Lucifer’s wings, useless as he fell. “It does not mean that there won’t come a day when it will swallow you up.”
“Possibly,” she allowed. “But it won’t be today.” She followed his gaze to the window, where the beautiful blond angel tumbled into Hell. “Today, I reign.”
In minutes, she was belowstairs, at the ladies’ entrance to the club, where Bruno, one of the Angel’s main security detail, stood watch in the dim light. Next to him was Lady Tremley, a beautiful woman in her twenties who sported one of the worst shiners Georgiana had ever seen, despite the Angel being known for its nightly bare-knuckle fights.
With a nod to Bruno, she opened the door to a small antechamber off the dark entryway. “My lady,” she said quietly, startling the other woman. “Will you join me?”
Lady Tremley looked skeptical, but followed Georgiana into the room, taking in the sitting room, appointed as though it were prepared for ladies of the ton to take their afternoon tea instead of gambling and gossiping and playing at life as their husbands did.
Georgiana indicated a settee, upholstered in blue velv
et. “Please.”
The lady sat. “I asked to see Mr. Chase.”
And Chase she saw.
Georgiana sat across from Lady Tremley. “Chase is indisposed, my lady. He sends his regards, and hopes you will consider speaking to me instead.”
The marchioness took in the low neckline of Georgiana’s dress, the height of her pale blond wig, the dark kohl around her eyes, and saw what everyone saw when they looked at her. A skilled prostitute. “I don’t think —”
A rap came on the door, and Georgiana opened it to receive a package from Bruno, who was long-skilled in the art of knowing what the founders of The Fallen Angel required without being asked. Closing the door, she approached the lady, extending the linen parcel, filled with ice. “For the eye.”
The marchioness took it. “Thank you.”
“We know about bruises here.” Georgiana sat. “All sorts.”
They remained unspeaking as Lady Tremley held the compress over her eye. Georgiana had had this precise meeting too many times to count, and she recognized the lady. A woman eager for something more than that which life had offered her. Eager for something that would entertain and enrich and engage. Something that would change her in some small, private way, allowing her to suffer through her long days of propriety. And if the black eye were to be considered, something that would see her through long days of marriage, as well.
The key was to let the lady speak first. Always.
After long minutes, Lady Tremley lowered the ice and unlocked herself. “Thank you.”
Georgiana nodded. “Of course.”
“I am sorry.”
It always began this way. With apology. As though the lady had some hand in the cards she had been dealt. As though she weren’t simply made female and, therefore, less than.
“There is no need to be.” It was the truth.
“Surely you have something else…” The lady trailed off.
Georgiana waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing of import.”
Lady Tremley nodded once, looking down to confess to her skirts, “I judged you harshly when you appeared.”
Georgiana laughed. “You think you are the first?” She leaned back in her chair. “I am Anna.”