Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover (The Rules of Scoundrels 4)
The gossip pages of The Weekly Britannia, April 22, 1833
She hated the relief that came with the words, with the certainty in them.
Her gaze flew over her captor’s shoulder to meet Duncan West’s furious brown gaze, and the relief diminished. Was he the only man in creation?
On the heels of that thought came another. He could see her ankles. So could the rest of Christendom, honestly, but it seemed only to matter that he could.
Who in hell cared?
Or, rather, why did she care?
He interrupted her thoughts. “Do not make me repeat myself, Pottle. Release the lady.”
The drunken baron sighed. “You are no fun, West,” he slurred. “And besides, Anna’s not a lady, is she? So what’s the harm?”
West looked away for a moment. “Remarkably, I was prepared to let you go.” He turned back, eyes flashing furious and focused.
Georgiana was smart enough to get out of the way before the punch landed with a wicked crunch, hard and fast and more powerful than she’d expected. Pottle dropped to the ground with a howl, hands flying to his nose. “Christ, West! What in hell is wrong with you?”
West leaned over his opponent and took hold of his cravat, lifting Pottle’s head to meet his gaze. “Did the lady” – he paused for emphasis on the word – “ask to be touched?”
“Look at the way she dresses!” Pottle fairly shrieked, blood escaping from his nose. “If that’s not a request for touching, what is?”
“Wrong answer.” The next punch was as fierce as the first, snapping Pottle’s head back on his neck. “Try again.”
“West.” One of Pottle’s cronies spoke from the sidelines, apologetic. “He’s soused. He’d never have done it if not for the drink.”
An age-old excuse. Georgiana resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
West had no interest in eye rolling. He lifted the man from the ground and replied, “Then he should drink less. Try again.” The demand was cold and unsettling, even to her.
Pottle winced. “She did not ask.”
“And so?”
“And so what?” Pottle replied, confused.
West lifted his fist again.
“No!” Pottle cried, lifting his hands to block his face. “Stop!”
“And so?” West prompted. His voice was low and dark and menacing, the opposite of his usual calm.
“And so I should not have touched her.”
“Or kissed her,” West added, his gaze moving to her.
There was something there, alongside the anger, gone before she could place it. West had seen Pottle kiss her. Georgiana’s cheeks began to burn, and she was grateful for the pale face powder that covered the wash of heat.
“Or kissed her.”
“He’s repeating whatever you say at this point,” she said, trying for more boldness than she felt. “Ask him to speak a child’s nursery rhyme.”
West ignored her and the laughter she elicited from the circle of men around them. He spoke to his foe. “Are you sobering?”
Pottle pressed fingertips to his temple, as though he could not remember where he was, and swore roundly. “I am.”
“Apologize to the lady.”
“I am sorry,” the baron grumbled.
“Look at her.” West’s words rolled like approaching thunder, threatening and unavoidable. “And mean it.”
Pottle looked at her, gaze pleading. “Anna, I am sorry. I did not mean to offend.”
It was her turn to speak, and for a moment she forgot her role, too enthralled by the act playing out in front of her. Finally, she offered the baron her savviest smile. “Less whiskey next time, Oliver,” she said, deliberately using the baron’s given name, “and you might have had a chance.” She looked to West, taking in his irate gaze. “With both Mr. West and me.”
West released Pottle, letting him collapse in a heap to the casino floor. “Get out. Don’t come back until your faculties have been restored.”
Pottle scurried backward like a crab escaping a wave, finally turning to his hands and knees and pushing himself up and away from the scene he had caused.
West turned his attention to her. She was used to men’s eyes upon her. Had experienced it hundreds of times. Thousands. Capitalized on it. And still, this man – his quiet assessment – unsettled her. She resisted the urge to fidget, instead placing her hands on her hips to still their slight tremor and speaking, the honest words injected with false sarcasm. “My hero.”
One blond brow rose. “Anna.”
And there, in the simple name, the diminutive she had selected for this small, secret, false piece of herself, she heard something she’d never heard from him before.
Desire.
She went cold. Then blazing hot.
He knew.
He had to. They’d spoken a hundred times. A thousand. She’d been Chase’s emissary, ferrying messages back and forth between West and the fabricated owner of The Fallen Angel for years. And he’d never once looked at her with anything more than vague interest.
Certainly never desire.
He knew.
The cool assessment had returned to his eyes, and she suddenly wondered if she was going mad. Perhaps he didn’t know.
Perhaps she only wished he did.
Nonsense.
She was misreading the situation. He’d done battle for her. And men who defended ladies’ honor were often left in dire need of attention. It was as simple as that, she told herself. Violence and sex were two sides of the same coin, were they not?
“I suppose you require some token of my thanks.”
His gaze narrowed. “Stop.”
The word threaded through her, making her more nervous than she had been when caught up in the Baron Pottle’s arms. She did not know what to say. How to respond.
Reaching for her hand, he took control of the moment. As he had since he’d appeared only minutes earlier. She looked at the extended arm for a long moment, deliberately canting one hip and biting a red lip for their audience.
But Duncan West cared not a bit about their audience. He grasped her hand and pulled her away, into a curtained-off alcove, made for darkness and promise. Inside, he turned her to face into the light of the single candle mounted on the wall and then released her. The candles were designed to keep the space dim and seductive. To force any couple who found themselves inside to approach each other and have a closer look.
Right now, Georgiana hated that candle. It felt bright as the sun with its threat of revelation.
What if he saw the truth?
She resisted the thought. She’d lived as Georgiana, sister of a duke, daughter to one, exiled but periodically in town for years, shopping on Bond Street, walking in Hyde Park, visiting the London Museum. No one had ever noticed that she was the same woman who reigned over The Fallen Angel.
The aristocracy saw what they wished to see.
Everyone saw what he wished to see.
And cleverest newspaperman in Britain or no, Duncan West was no different.
She gave him her most wicked smile. “Now you have me here. What will you do with me?”
He shook his head, refusing the game. “You should not have been alone on the floor.”
Her brow furrowed. “I am alone on the floor every night.”
“You should not be,” he repeated. “And that Chase allows it does not speak well of him.”
She did not care for the anger in the tone. The censure. The emotion. Something had changed, and she could not divine precisely what. She met his gaze. “Had I not been summoned, sir, I would have had no reason to be accosted on the casino floor.”
Now the anger in his words was in his eyes. “It is my fault?”
She did not answer, instead saying, “Why call for me?”
He paused, and for a long moment, she thought he might not reply. Finally, he said, “I’ve a request for Chase.”
She hated the disappointment that flooded through her at the words. It wasn’t as thoug
h she should have expected him to ask for Anna for any other reason – but after their interaction the day before, she rather wished he had.
She wished he’d come with a request for her.
Which was ridiculous… in large part, because she was Chase, and therefore he had, technically, come with a request for her. But in slightly smaller part, because she had no skill whatsoever in answering men’s requests.
Unfortunately.
She did not like Chase’s name on his lips. He was a man who saw too much already. “Of course,” she said, feigning affability. “What would you like?”
“Tremley,” he said.
“What about him?”
“I want his secrets.”
Georgiana’s brow furrowed at the strange request. “Tremley is not a member. You know that.”
The Earl of Tremley was not a fool. He would never get into bed with The Fallen Angel – no matter how tempting the tables might be. He knew the price was too high.
The founders of the Angel had worked for years to establish the invitation to join the club as the most coveted offer in Britain – perhaps in Europe. Unlike other men’s clubs, there were no membership dues, and there was no allowance for vouching for friends or cohorts – members rarely knew why they were invited to the club, and they were encouraged not to discuss their membership. Few did, in part because of the high price of entry to the casino floor.
They were not willing to risk their secrets becoming public.
For years, Bourne, Cross, Temple, and Georgiana – masked as Anna and Chase – had been amassing secrets on London’s most powerful men and women, each piece of privileged, clandestine information given freely in exchange for membership in London’s darkest, most promising, most sinful gaming hell. There was nothing that the Angel could not give her members, and few requests that the owners of the casino would not accommodate.
That kind of luxury was worth unfathomable information, and information was the currency of power.
But the Earl of Tremley was too well connected to the crown to risk a connection to The Fallen Angel. “Try the clubs across the street,” she said, injecting her words with teasing. “White’s is more to the earl’s liking.”
He inclined his head. “That may be true, but I need Chase for what I’m asking.”
She was immediately intrigued. “What do you have on him?”
He raised a brow. “Does Chase have anything?”
The Angel had tried to hook the earl any number of times since King William ascended to the throne with Tremley at his right hand, but few were willing to talk about a man with so much political power. Was there something they’d missed?
If West was asking, there was. Without doubt. “There is no file on Tremley,” she said. It was the truth.
He did not believe her. She could see it in his eyes even here, in the dim light. “There will be when Chase invites the earl’s wife to the ladies’ side.”
She stilled at the words. “I don’t know what you are referring to.”
For as many years as there had been a Fallen Angel, the coveted public men’s club and casino run by four fallen aristocrats, each richer than the next, there had been a secret, unspoken second club that operated beneath the gentlemen’s noses and utterly beyond their notice. A ladies’ club, with no name and no public face.
It was never discussed.
And she wasn’t about to acknowledge its existence.
West did not seem to care; he took a step closer and the small, dark space became smaller. Darker. More dangerous. “Chase is not the only one who knows things, love.”
The words were low and graveled, and she hesitated, the pleasure of their sound unfamiliar and unsettling. Finally, she remembered herself. “We do not take ladies.”
His lips curved and she was reminded of the lion they’d discussed the previous evening. “Come now, you can lie to the rest of London, but don’t think to lie to me. You will offer the lady membership. She will trade proof of her husband’s deeds for it. And you’ll get me my information.”
She collected herself. “Chase will not be happy.”
He leaned in, whispered low at her ear, sending a thrill through her. “Tell Chase I do not care where his women play.” He pulled back, meeting her eyes. “I want the information the lady provides.”
She resisted him, curious. Why the earl? Why now? “What do you know?”
He leaned in. “I know he steals from the exchequer.”
She met his gaze. “He, and every councilor to every monarch since William the Conqueror.”
“Not to aid the Ottoman Empire in their war.”
Her gaze went wide. She lowered her voice. “Treason?”
“We’ll see.”
“Why do I think you already do see?”
His gaze snapped to hers. “Because I see a great deal.”
And suddenly, it seemed that they were having a different conversation altogether. “Who is to say the lady will offer the proof?”
“She’ll offer,” he said. “He’s a beast of a husband. She’ll want to share what she knows.”
“And you do nothing to help her?”
“This will help her,” he said.
“What makes you think she knows anything?”
He inclined his head. “Therein lies the wager I make.”
“You think luck is on your side?”
He smiled, all wolf. “Luck has been on my side for eleven years; I have no reason to believe it has changed.”
“That is a very specific number.”
A shadow crossed his face, there, then gone. “I shall pay handsomely for his information.”
He, too, had secrets. The thought comforted her. She resisted the urge to ask about them, instead forcing a smile. “How handsomely?” She brazened on. “Tit for tat, Mr. West.”
He watched her for a moment, and the air in the little space seemed to shift. “What would you like, Anna?”
Had she imagined the strange emphasis on the false name?
She ignored it. “It is not me you must pay,” she said, putting on her best flirt, leaning back against the wall of the alcove, pressing her breasts up and looking up at him through her darkened lashes. “You’ve already given me so much. Saving me from Pottle.” She offered her best moue. “What a lucky girl am I.”
His gaze moved to her lips, as expected, and then dropped several inches to the line of her dress. “What is on the chain?”
She did not reach for the silver pendant that lay beneath the edge of the dress, heavy between her breasts, hiding the key that opened the doors to Chase’s rooms and the passage to the upper floors of the club, where Caroline slept. Instead, she smiled. “My secrets.”
One side of his mouth lifted at the words. “Legion, no doubt.”
She reached for him then, letting her fingers trail along his coat sleeve. “How can I thank you, Mr. West? For being such a tremendous champion?”
He leaned in, and she thought of that feather, the one he’d stolen from her hair. She wondered if it was there, in that interior pocket. Wondered what he would do if she reached into his jacket and slid her hand along his warm chest, searching for it.
He interrupted her thoughts. “I met a woman last night.”
Her breath caught, and she sent up a little prayer hoping that he had not noticed. “Should I be jealous?” she teased.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Georgiana Pearson seems quite the innocent. All white silk and fear.”
“Georgiana Pearson?” She feigned surprise at the name, straightening off the wall as he nodded. “I assure you, the girl is not afraid.”
He stepped toward her, pushing her back. Closing her in. “You’re wrong. She’s terrified.”
She forced a laugh. “The girl is sister to a duke with a dowry large enough to purchase a small country. Of what is she afraid?”
“Of everything,” he said, all casualness. “Of Society. Of its judgment. Of her future.”
“She may not care for
those things, but she is certainly not afraid of them. You’ve misjudged her.”
“And how do you know anything about her?”
She was caught. He was too nimble with words, with questions. And too distracting with his long, lean form and his beautiful broad shoulders that blocked out the light, making her nervous and eager all at once. “I don’t. Only what I read in the papers.” She paused. “There was a telling cartoon a month or so back.”
The barb hit true. She heard it in the way his breath caught. Felt it in the way he stiffened, nearly imperceptibly, before he lifted a hand, set it to the wall beside her head. Leaned in. “I did misjudge her. There’s no doubt of that,” he said. “She is not the simpering girl I expected her to be.”
He leaned closer, his lips by her ear, the nearness of him setting her off balance. Making her want to push him away and grab hold of him all at once. “I offered the girl my help.”
Relief flooded through her. “I don’t know why you think I’m interested in what you do with the girl.”
The moment the words were out, she cursed herself, images of precisely what he might do with her flooding her thoughts.
He laughed, low and dark. “I assure you, what I do with the girl will be well worth watching.” He met her gaze, and she resisted the urge to back away. Anna did not back away from men, even when she wished to. But for some reason, few men made her as uncomfortable as this one, with his beautiful, knowing gaze that seemed to see right into her.
She was taller than most women, and wearing heeled slippers that added several inches to her height, but still she was forced to look up at him, to take in his strong, square jaw, his equine nose, the fall of blond locks across his brow.
He had to be the handsomest man in Britain. And the cleverest.
Which made him incredibly dangerous.
He shifted, and she wondered if he was as uncomfortable as she was.
“You should not be alone with me.”
“It is not the first time we have been alone.” They’d been alone the night before. On that balcony. When he’d tempted her just the same.
One of his brows rose. “Yes, it is.”
Damn. She’d been Georgiana on the balcony. Another woman. Another time. She quickly recovered from the mistake, pouting and pretending to think. She let her lips curve seductively. “Perhaps I am merely dreaming it.”