Garrick tamped down the urge to snatch her pen from her fingers as she continued to make notations in her ledgers. “You will, at least, look at me whilst I am speaking to you, Miss Sutton.”
She had the temerity to chuckle. “You may be the heir to a duke, but you don’t own The Sinner’s Palace, sir. I’ll be doing as I please, and you can take yourself and your blustering elsewhere before I call on one of my brothers to drag your arse out of here.”
Arse.
His arse?
He had never heard a lady utter such vile language in his presence before.
“How dare you threaten me?” he asked, determined the chit should get no more than one hundred pounds from him now.
At last, she glanced up, a slow grin curving her lips. “It ain’t a threat, Lord Lordly.”
Anger, white and pure and unstable, shot through him. Garrick’s body was moving, propelled by a will of its own and the desire to accomplish the goal which had brought him here to this damnable impasse. He needed to persuade this creature that refusing to marry Aidan would benefit her far more than shackling herself to him for life ever could.
And yet, all the rational excuses and careful reasoning he had methodically planned en route to this temple of vice abandoned him as he stalked around the desk. If her shocked expression was any indication, he had taken Miss Sutton as much by surprise as himself. She hastened to stand, and that was when he made the unsettling discovery that the top of her head would fit neatly beneath his chin.
Not that he would ever have cause to place it there in such a tender embrace. Or an embrace at all. Amorous entanglements were of little interest to him. He had already chosen the woman he would wed, and he would not deign to sully her honor by cavorting in private with another. Many men did, and without compunction. Garrick had principles.
Those principles, however, were fast fading beneath the withering effect of the fury sparkling in Miss Sutton’s hazel eyes. Her scent wound around him again, those untidy tendrils of hair which had escaped her coiffure confounding yet tempting. He lost his capacity for speech, the thunderous effect that her nearness had upon him so disconcerting, he could scarcely think.
What had he meant to say?
What was it about this woman, whom he had every reason to dislike and distrust?
She observed him without a hint of the admiration and fear he found so familiar amongst his own set, chin at a defiant angle. “And how dare you come into my family’s gaming hell and accuse me of attempting to marry Aidan for his title or his fortune? I’ve enough coin of my own, and I certainly wouldn’t want a bleeding title.”
Something about her anger was rather glorious, and he could not discern precisely what. This was maddening. Vexing indeed.
He wanted to kiss her.
To press his lips to hers and test their softness, absorb their silken heat. There was something so lovely about kissing a woman—
“Well?” she asked, cutting through the silence and the absurdity of his thoughts both. “Have you nothing to say for yourself, my lord?”
He had to take his leave with as much haste as possible.
“Five hundred pounds,” he said, desperation surpassing pride and the need to punish her both.
If he lingered in Miss Penelope Sutton’s presence for much longer, he did not dare trust himself.
“If you think your money will excuse your appalling behavior, you are wrong.” Her tone was filled with righteous ice.
Her daring and refusal to accept defeat was a potent lure. That was all, he was sure. A female refusing to defer to his reputation and title was an intriguing novelty. She would not otherwise interest him.
Aside from her undeniable loveliness, this woman had nothing at all to recommend her. And he would soon be betrothed to Lady Hester. This miscreant thought she could marry his brother.
“It is your behavior which is appalling, madam,” he countered. “You cannot truly believe my brother will marry someone such as yourself.”
“Is there a problem?”
The deep male voice, laden with a hint of suppressed menace, gave Garrick a start. The source of it—a tall, dark-haired gentleman clad in black—pinned him with a glare. Presumably one of Miss Sutton’s siblings, then.
Garrick gave the man a terse nod. “No problem that cannot be solved. I am Lord Lindsey, brother to Lord Aidan Weir.”
“I’m Hart Sutton,” the interloper said coolly, yet offering him a bow, “brother to Pen here. We’ve ladies aplenty for your amusement, my lord. Pen doesn’t sing any longer.”
She sang? Why did the thought of her mellifluous voice raised in song unfurl a coil of heat deep within him?
“I have not come to hear her sing,” he countered, careful to keep his voice calm and measured. There was no telling what manner of mischief the brigand before him would start. He was mired deep within a den of East End rogues and thieves. The very last place he had ever wished to find himself.
Blast you, Aidan.
“Why have you come then, my lord?” Hart Sutton asked, cocking his head in a manner that resembled his sister’s commanding air. “If you are wanting a table, I would be more than pleased to see you settled.”
“I do not gamble.” He reserved that foolishness for his younger brother. “I have offered your sister five hundred pounds in exchange for her refusal to marry my brother. It is a handsome sum. I suggest you press her to consider my proposal, else I will have little recourse other than to make trouble for your establishment. I shall return in a day’s time for my answer.”
Garrick spied his chance for retreat.
He had already accomplished his main objective in providing Miss Penelope Sutton sufficient monetary reason to reconsider her greedy plans to ensnare his brother in matrimony. Lingering any longer would only prove as foolhardy as Aidan’s reckless actions, and he was the eldest brother. The wise brother. The honorable one with an unimpeachable reputation.
Or, at least, he had been.
“Five hundred pounds?” Sutton’s inky brows drew together in a perplexed frown. “Marriage? Pen, just what the devil is this bleeding fee, faw, fum?”
“An excellent question,” Garrick said. “Your sister would be pleased to enlighten you, I am sure. I, however, am appallingly late for an engagement and must take my leave. I bid you both good evening.”
Without bothering to glance in Miss Sutton’s direction, he moved around the desk and strode across the small office from whence he had come.
“You needn’t bother returning,” she called after him.
But Garrick ignored her words of warning.
He would be back, and she would accept the five hundred pounds, curse her. There was no other recourse.