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

They stood for a long moment, each seeming to wish the other to speak first. “And yet it seems I need you.”

He cut her a look. He shouldn’t like those words. He shouldn’t want to be needed. Want to help her.

Shouldn’t find this woman so very compelling.

Shouldn’t need to remind himself that he did not think about her.

“It’s early,” he said, eager to change the subject. “And you are for home already?”

She wrapped her heavy silk cloak around her, blocking the chill from the night air. “Believe it or not,” she said dryly, “I have had something of a time tonight. I find myself quite exhausted.”

He smirked. “I noticed you found the energy to dance with Langley.”

She hesitated. “Would you believe he was forced into it?”

Not in the wide world. “I’m sure it was not a trial.”

“I am not so certain,” she said, her gaze clear and direct, “But he could do worse than my dowry.”

West hadn’t been thinking of her dowry. He’d been thinking of her – all long and lithe and lovely. He could have done without the ridiculous headpiece, but even with the feathers protruding from her coif, she was a beautiful woman.

Too beautiful.

He did not correct her misinterpretation of his words. “Much worse.”

For a long moment, there was silence but for the sound of approaching hoofbeats and carriage wheels. Her coach arrived, and she made to leave him. He didn’t want it. He thought of the feather from her hair, now in the pocket of his coat, and for a wild moment, he wondered what she would feel like there, against him. He resisted the thought. “No chaperone?”

She looked back to the little, unassuming maid standing several feet away. “I’m for home, sir. This conversation shall be the most scandalous thing I do all night.”

He could think of any number of scandalous things he might be willing to do with her, but blessedly, his curricle arrived and saved him from madness. She lifted a brow at him. “A curricle? At night?”

“I have to get through London streets quickly when there is news to be had,” he said as his groom leapt down from the conveyance. “A curricle works well.”

“And for escaping balls?”

He inclined his head. “And for that.”

“Perhaps I should acquire one.”

He smiled. “I’m not sure the ladies of Society would like it.”

She sighed. “I don’t suppose it’s proper for me to say, ‘Hang the ladies of Society.’”

She meant the words to amuse – spoke them with the perfect combination of ennui and wit to make a lesser man chuckle. A man who did not notice the underlying tone.

Sadness. Loss. Frustration.

“You don’t want it, do you?”

Her gaze turned surprised, but she did not pretend to misunderstand. He liked that about her. Her forthrightness. “This is my bed, Mr. West. In it, I shall lie.”

She did not want to return. She did not want this life. That much was clear. “Lady Georgiana,” he began, not entirely knowing what to say next.

“Good night, Mr. West.” She was already moving, trailed by an unassuming maid. Already down the steps headed for her carriage, which would take her away from this place, from this night.

From him.

She would regroup. Heal. And repeat the performance tomorrow.

And he would do his best to keep her safe from the horde.

He rarely took an interest in society, and even more rarely in its women, who were in large part more trouble than they were worth – all idle drama. But there was something in Lady Georgiana that seemed familiar, oddly. Something that echoed through him. Resignation, perhaps. Discontent. Desire – for what he did not know, but it was enough to intrigue him.

He watched her for a long moment, the way she moved, certain of her destination. Sure of herself. He found himself fascinated by the way her pale skirts seemed to chase after her, as though they might be left behind if they weren’t careful. The way one long arm reached out to keep her balanced as she lifted those skirts and entered her carriage.

He caught a glimpse of turned ankle in a gleaming silver slipper. For a moment, he was transfixed by that foot, slim and shadowed, until the door snapped closed and she was gone, her outrider – a massive man who had no doubt been hired by her wealthy brother to keep her safe – storing the stepping block away at the back of the carriage before climbing onto his perch and indicating to the driver that they should move on.

He imagined what he might write about her.

Lady G— is more than her reputation promises, more than scandal and past sins. She is something that we all wish we could have been – separate from our world. Somehow, ironically, despite her past, purer than all of us. Untouched by us. Which is perhaps her greatest value.

The words came easily. But then again, the truth always did write well.

Unfortunately, the truth did not sell papers.

He ascended the stairs to his curricle, pulling himself up into the seat and taking the reins, dismissing his groom for the night. He liked to drive himself; found solace in the rhythm of hoofbeats and the circling of wheels.

He followed behind the lady’s coach as it trundled at a snail’s pace, attempting to leave the Worthington property, and had no choice but to think of her, inside that carriage, with her thoughts. He imagined her staring out the window at the lanterns that hung on the carriages that remained along the street. Imagined her wondering how her carriage might have been with the others – might have been one of the last to leave that evening, after she had danced again and again and again, with a myriad of gentlemen until her feet were sore and her muscles straining from exhaustion. Imagined her thinking about the way she might have left the ball – not to escape Society, but as a queen of it.

If only she hadn’t been ruined.

He imagined her pretty eyes filled with regret, for all the things she might have been. All the things she might have done. All the life she might have led.

If things had been different.

He was so lost in thinking of the lady that he did not realize that she had missed her turn – the one to her brother’s home – and instead, she was headed through Mayfair, oddly, in his same direction.

He certainly wasn’t following her intentionally.

The carriage wheels clattered along the cobblestoned streets of Mayfair, turning down Bond – where the shops had closed for the evening – and then onto Piccadilly toward St. James.

It was then that he began to question where she was headed.

He allowed his curricle to fall back, for no reason at all, he told himself. He allowed a few carriages to come between them, barely able to make out the lanterns on her conveyance as it made the turn onto Duke Street, then cut into the labyrinth of streets and alleyways behind the men’s clubs of St. James. He sat up in his seat.

She was behind The Fallen Angel.

Duncan West was arguably the greatest newspaperman in London, but it did not take an investigative mind such as his own to recognize the truth.

Lady Georgiana Pearson, sister of the Duke of Leighton, with a dowry big enough to buy Buckingham Palace, and supposedly desperate for a restored reputation – one he had offered to secure for her – was headed straight for Britain’s most celebrated men’s club.

Which just so happened to be his club.

He stopped his curricle before making the final turn to the rear entrance of the club, leaping down and heading the rest of the way on foot, not wanting to draw attention to his presence. If she were seen here, her reputation would be destroyed forever. No man would have her, and her daughter would have no future.

It was a risk of outrageous proportions.

So what in hell was she doing?

West remained in the shadows, leaning against the alley wall, watching the great black carriage that had stopped, its occupant still inside. He realized that the carriage boasted no markings; there was nothing about it

that would draw attention. Nothing but the enormous outrider, who climbed down from his perch, moving to bang on the heavy steel door that marked the back entrance to the club. A small slot opened, then closed when the servant spoke. The door opened, revealing a great black chasm – the dark rear entry to the club.

Still the doors to the carriage remained firmly shut.

Good. Perhaps she was reconsidering whatever idiocy this was.

Perhaps she would not exit.

Except she would. No doubt, she had before. No doubt, that was why she had such easy access to this club, run by London’s darkest men, any one of whom could destroy her without hesitation.

He should stop her. He moved to, coming off the wall, ready to cross the wide mews, tear open the door to the carriage, and give her what for.

But the outrider was closer than he, opening the door and setting the step on the ground below.

West hesitated, waiting for her, for her white skirts, and that innocent silver slipper that had been his last, lingering glimpse of her.

Except the slipper that emerged was in no way innocent.

It was sinful.

High-heeled and dark – too dark to tell the color in the spare light from the carriage – showcasing a long, slender foot that arched with perfection. He came off the wall where he’d been leaning, gaze focused as the foot gave way to ankle and then a sea of silk the color of midnight, the mass of fabric ending at the point of a corseted bodice, threaded and tightened to showcase a glorious bosom designed to make a man salivate.

He swallowed.

And then she stepped into the light, painted lips, kohled eyes, and blond hair gleaming platinum.

Blond wig gleaming platinum.

Recognition flared, and he swore in the darkness.

Shock soon gave way to the acute pleasure that came with uncovering a remarkable story.

Lady Georgiana Pearson was no innocent. She was London’s finest whore.

And she was his answer.

Chapter 4

… Lady G— may not be thought much a lady, but she comported herself with grace and aplomb at the W— Ball, and attracted the attention of at least one duke and a half-dozen aristocratic gentlemen in search of wives…

… it seems that Lady M— and her compatriots are in rare form this Season, eager to dress down any who dare come near. Gentlemen of the ton should take care… the daughter of the Earl of H— appears to lack the grace of some of her lessers…

The Scandal Sheet, April 20, 1833

The following night, Georgiana entered her apartments high above the club, startling Asriel, one of the Angel’s security detail, who sat quietly, reading.

He came to his feet in a single, fluid motion, all six and a half feet of him, wide as a barn, with fists at the ready.

She waved him back. “’Tis only me.”

He narrowed his dark gaze on her. “What is it?”

She looked to the closed door he guarded. “She is well?”

“Hasn’t made a sound since she retired.”

Relief pressed the air from her lungs.

Christ.

Of course Caroline was well. She was guarded by half a dozen locked doors and as many men in the corridors beyond, and Asriel, who had been with Georgiana for longer than anyone else.

It did not matter. When Caroline was in London, she was at risk. Georgiana preferred the girl in Yorkshire, where she was safe from prying eyes and whispered gossip and hateful insults, where she could play in the sun like a normal child. And when she was in the city, Georgiana preferred the girl at her uncle’s home, far from the Angel.

Far from her mother’s sins. From her father’s.

The thought rankled. Fathers’ sins never seemed to stick. It was the mother who bore the heavy weight of ruin in these situations. The mother who passed it on to the child, as though there were not two involved in the act.

Of course, Georgiana had never spoken his name after he’d left.

She’d never wanted anyone to know the identity of the man who had played havoc with her future and ruined her name. Her brother had asked a thousand times. Had vowed to avenge her. To destroy the man who had left her with child and never looked back. But Georgiana had refused to name him.

He had not been the instrument of her ruin, after all. She’d lain in the hayloft with him under her own power, with her full faculties. It had not been Jonathan who had destroyed her.

It had been Society.

She had broken their rules, and they’d rejected her.

There had been no season, no chance to prove herself worthy. She’d never had hope of that proof – they had played judge and jury. Her scandal had been their entertainment and their cautionary tale.

All because she’d fallen victim to a different tale, pretty and fictional.

Love.

Society hadn’t cared about that bit. No one had – not her family, not her friends. She’d been exiled by all save her brother, the duke who married a scandal of his own and, in doing so, lost the respect of their mother. Of the ton.

And so she’d vowed to make Society beholden to her. She’d collected information on the most powerful among them and, if they owed money they could not pay, she rarely hesitated to use it to wreck them. This whole world – the club, the money, the power – it was all for one thing. To hold court over the world that had shunned her all those years ago. That had turned its back on her, and left her with nothing.

Not nothing.

Caroline.

Everything.

“I hate it when she is here,” she said, to herself more than to Asriel. He knew her well enough not to reply. And yet Georgiana could not help but bring Caroline to London every few months. She told herself that it was because she wanted her daughter to know her uncle. Her cousins. But it wasn’t true.

Georgiana brought Caroline here because she could not bear the emptiness she felt when the girl was far. Because she was never in her life so satisfied as when she placed her hand on her sleeping daughter’s back and felt the rise and fall of her breath, filled with dreams and promise.

Filled with everything Georgiana did not have, and everything that she had promised to give her child.

No dreams of a marriage of convenience turning into a love match?

The words from the prior evening came quick and unwanted, as though Duncan West were with her again, tall and handsome, blond hair falling over his brow begging to be brushed back, to be touched. The man was handsome to a dangerous degree, in large part because he was so intelligent – his mind understanding more than was said, his eyes seeing more than was revealed. And his voice, the darkness of it, the way it traced the peaks and valleys of language, the way it cradled her name, the way it whispered the honorific she so rarely used.

The way it made her want to listen to him for hours.

She resisted the thought. She did not have time to listen to Duncan West. He’d made a generous offer of help, which was all she needed. Nothing else.

She wanted nothing else.

Liar.

The word whispered through her. She ignored it. Returned her attention to her daughter. To the promise she’d made to give her a life. A future.

It had been ten years since Caroline was conceived and Georgiana had run from the world for which she had been bred. Ten years since that world had damned them both. And in the years since, Georgiana had built this empire on Society’s greatest truth – that none of its members was far from ruin. That none of those sneering, insulting, horrible people would survive if their secrets were revealed.

She had partnered with three fallen aristocrats, each stronger and more intelligent than the rest of Society, each ruined without question. Each desperate to hide from the ton even as he ruled it.

And together, they did rule it. Bourne, Cross, Temple, and Chase held London’s most powerful men and women in their thrall. Discovered their darkest truths. Their deepest secrets. But it was Chase alone who reigned, in part because it

was Georgiana alone who would never fully be able to return to Society.

Every mistake, every scandal, every humiliation faced by the men of the aristocracy could be wiped away. Titles bought respectability, even for those who had fallen from grace.

Had she not proven it?

She’d chosen her partners for the mistakes they’d made when they were young and stupid. Bourne had lost his entire fortune, Cross had chosen a life of gaming and whoring over a life of responsibility, Temple had landed himself in bed with his father’s fiancée. Not one of them had deserved the punishment Society had meted out.

And each of them had been restored to his place, richer, stronger, more powerful.

In love.

She resisted the thought.

Love had been secondary. Her partners had been restored to their places because Georgiana gave them the avenue for their restoration. She was lucky enough to have – despite her failings – a brother who was willing to do anything she asked. Secure any invitation. Provide any cover. He owed her.

With her scandal, she’d given him the freedom to marry the woman of his choosing, and he’d given her something much much more valuable… a future.

She might never again be accepted by Society, but now she held the power to destroy it.

For years, she’d planned and plotted her revenge – the moment she showed them all the truth – that they were nothing without her – the ruined girl they’d thrown away.

Except, she couldn’t.

As much as she loathed it, she needed them.

Not just them.

She needed him.

West’s handsome face flashed again – all easy power and lazy smiles. The man was far too arrogant for his own good. And that arrogance tempted more than it should.

But he was everything she did not desire. Everything she did not require. He was untitled, not even a gentleman – come from nowhere, accepted in polite company because of his sickening wealth more than anything else. For God’s sake, the man had a career. It was a miracle he was allowed this side of Regent Street.

She required his assistance for one thing and one thing only.