Never Judge a Lady By Her Cover: Number 4 in series (The Rules of Scoundrels series) (33 page)

Bourne leaned over the sleeping child. “He does, indeed. Poor thing.”

Mara laughed. “I shall tell him you said it.”

He smiled. “I shall tell him first.” He looked to Georgiana, his smile fading. “But first, I’ve something to tell you.” He moved to sit in one of the large chairs, pulling Penelope down to his lap, placing a large hand over the place where his second child grew. “West went to Tremley today.”

She did not hide her surprise. “Why?”

Bourne shook his head. “It is unclear. But it was early, and he was not entirely welcome.” He paused. “And then he was somewhat irritated that we were following him.”

Her eyes widened. “You were seen?”

“It was Mayfair at nine o’clock in the morning. It’s not easy to hide.”

She sighed. “What happened?”

“He hit Bruno.” Bourne shrugged. “Bruno hit back, if that’s any consolation.”

It wasn’t.

“But the point is, there’s something there. He didn’t just want Tremley for the papers. He wanted him for more. And you should also know that he is furious with us.”

“With who?”

“With the Angel. And I think you’re the one to talk him down, so —”

A sharp knock sounded, interrupting the words, heralding one of the handful of people who knew that the owners’ suite existed. Pippa moved to the door, cracked it. Turned back. “I believe my line is,
Something wicked this way comes
.”

She opened the door wide to reveal Duncan West.

What in hell was he doing here?

Bourne was out of his chair instantly, setting Penelope on her feet as Georgiana headed for West, who was stepping over the threshold and into the room, his gaze taking in everything from the stained glass behind her to her aristocratic companions, finally settling on her. She saw irritation in his eyes when he looked at her, as though he had not been expecting her.

As though he had been expecting another.

But behind the irritation, somewhere in the depths of his beautiful brown eyes, she saw something else. Something akin to thrill. She knew it, because she felt it, too. Felt it, and feared it.

She stopped short. “Who let you in?”

He met her gaze, spoke. “I am a member of the club.”

“Members are not allowed in this room,” she said. “Members are not even allowed on this floor.”

“Perhaps you ought to tell that to Bourne.”

“I was going to say,” Bourne said from the doorway, ignoring the look she sent in his direction, “that you should know I invited him up.”

Anger flared, hot and unwelcome. She turned on her partner. “You had no right.”

Bourne raised a supercilious brow. “I am an owner, too, am I not?”

Her gaze narrowed. “You violate our rules.”

“Don’t you mean
Chase’s
rules?” Bourne said, and Georgiana wanted to slap his face for the sarcasm in the words. “I wouldn’t worry. Chase seemed to forget those rules in certain cases.”

She did not misunderstand. At one point or another all three of the women in the room had been invited to The Fallen Angel by Chase, without the permission of their husbands. She didn’t care that Bourne was somehow viewing West’s invitation as retribution, she was too busy being furious at him for ignoring the rules. For smugly disregarding their partnership.

For the way he seamlessly stripped her of power here – the only place where she had any power to begin with.

Before she could argue with him, West spoke. “Where is he?” West’s words were clear and firm in the dimly lit room, as though he fully expected to be heard and responded to despite the fact that he did not belong here.

Despite the fact that she did not want him here.

“Where is who?” she replied.

“Chase.”

He had not come to see her.
Of course, she should have known it. She should not be surprised. But she was, nonetheless; after all, they had spent much of the prior evening together, and… shouldn’t he wish to see her? Or was that mad?

Should she not wish him to wish to see her?

The thought ran through her head and disgusted her with its stupid, simpering simperingness. And then she was disgusted with the fact that she could not think of a better word than simperingness.

She did not wish him to want her. Everything was easier without that.

But there was something about the way he looked – thoroughly serious and thoroughly dismissive, as though she were nothing but a door-man to the room he wished to enter – that made her hate the fact that he was not here to see her.

Except, of course, he was.

He just didn’t know it.

“He is not here.” A lie, and somehow not one at all.

He took a step toward her. “I’m sick and tired of you protecting him. It’s time he face me. Where is your master?”

The angry question hung in the air, seeming to reverberate off the stained glass. Georgiana opened her mouth to brazen it through when the Duchess of Lamont interjected, “Well. I think it’s time for Stephen and me to find Temple.”

The words unlocked the rest of the room. “Yes. We must be home as well,” Penelope said as Mara pushed the pram to the door, more quickly than any young mother had in history, Georgiana imagined.

“We must?” Bourne asked, looking as though he weren’t at all interested in leaving the drama unfolding before them.

“Yes,” Penelope said firmly. “We
must.
We have things. To do.”

Bourne smirked. “What kinds of things?”

His marchioness narrowed her gaze. “All kinds of things.”

The smirk became a wicked smile. “May I choose the things that are done first?”

Penelope pointed to the door. “Out.”

Bourne heeded her instructions, leaving Pippa only. The Countess Harlow had never been very good at perceiving social cues, so Georgiana hoped she might stay and protect her from this man, his questions, her answers, and her silly feelings about the whole thing.

Hope was a fleeting, horrible thing.

After a beat, Pippa seemed to realize she’d been left. “Oh,” she said. “Yes. I should… go… as well. I have… well…” She pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “I have a child. Also… Cross.” She nodded once and left the room.

West watched her go, his gaze lingering on the door for a long moment before he turned to Georgiana. “And then there were two.”

Her stomach flipped at the words. “So it would seem.”

He did not release her gaze, and she marveled at the way he seemed to see and ask and somehow
know
everything with a simple look. And then he said her name, soft and tempting in this room she loved so well. “Georgiana.” He paused, and she wanted to go to him. Wanted to curl into him and tell him everything, because if she did not know better – she would think the word was spoken in understanding.

But she did know better. And if she did not understand, it was impossible that he did.

He asked the only question she could not answer. “Where is he?”

She was wearing trousers.

It was the first and only thought he had when he’d entered the room – his gaze flying past Countess Harlow, to the woman who had consumed his thoughts for what seemed like forever. She stood against the far wall of the room against an enormous stained glass mosaic, one he knew well. One he had seen a thousand times from its opposite side.

He’d always assumed there was a room here, on the far side of Lucifer’s fall, but he’d never imagined this was how he would find it, with the beautiful Georgiana framed by the dark angel beyond. Wearing trousers.

It was the most sinful, spectacular thing he’d ever seen, and when she’d come toward him, an avenging queen, insisting that he was trespassing, he’d wanted to catch her in his arms, carry her to that glorious window, press her back against it, and show her all the ways he would like to trespass.

But then the frustration had taken over. She’d been protecting this place in spite of the fact that it was overrun with the wives of The Fallen Angel’s owners and in spite of the fact that the Marquess of Bourne had paid him escort.

Which made him realize she wasn’t protecting the place.

She was protecting the man, just as she had the night before.

He doesn’t own me.
 

He heard her words again. The lie in them.

Because it was clear Chase owned her, just as he owned every bit of this club and all the men and women who frequented it. There was no freedom at The Fallen Angel. Everything – everyone – belonged to Chase.

And even now, as they stood alone in this dark room, with none but Lucifer to hear them – Georgiana protected the man who had ruined her life. Who continued to do so. And he was through with it. He wanted her out from under him. He wanted her far from this place and its sin and vice and history of taking lives for sport.

He wanted her safe, for God’s sake. Her and Caroline.

He’d get her married. But not because Chase had asked.

Because she deserved a chance at happiness – she, more than anyone he’d ever known.

He only wished he could be the one to give it to her. But he couldn’t, his secrets too legion, too dangerous. And so he would secure it for her in another way. He would face Chase. Free her, first. Protect himself, second.

Because somehow, in this strange play, she had become the most important.

His question hung between them. “Where is he?” And he willed her to tell him. To open the door and point in the direction of this mysterious man. To free herself along with the information.

She did not.

“He is not here,” she said.

He bit back his disappointment. “Bourne told me I would find him here.”

“Bourne does not know everything. I am the only one here.”

“And so I find you, once again, protecting he who does not need it.”

“He does —” she started, and he found he could not hear it any longer.

“Stop.”

She did, blessedly.

He came toward her, closing the distance more quickly than he would have liked – the speed betraying the emotions he had promised himself he would no longer reveal to her. Not after last night. Not after she’d so thoroughly rejected him.

Not that he could have given her what she deserved.
 

He met her eyes, willing to give anything to see the truth in them. “Stop,” he repeated, and this time, he was not certain if he meant the words for himself or for her. “Stop defending him. Stop lying for him. Christ, Georgiana, what does he have on you? What is this power he holds over you?”

She shook her head. “It’s not like that.”

“It is, though. You think I have lived an entire life and not learned to identify a woman in a man’s thrall?” He hated the words as they came – the truths they betrayed in him. He lifted his hands, cupped her face in them, adoring the way her skin felt at his fingers, soft and terribly tempting. “Tell me. Is he the one? Did he ruin you all those years ago? Did he offer you pretty promises that you could not refuse and that he did not keep?”

Her brow furrowed. “What?”

“Is he Caroline’s father?”

The furrow cleared and her eyes went wide. “Is Chase Caroline’s father?”

“Say it,” he said. “Tell me the truth, and I will take pleasure in destroying him. In avenging both your names.”

She smiled, small and surprised. “You would do that?”

Of course he would. He would do anything for this woman, so perfect, so unmatched. How did she not see that? “With unbridled pleasure.”

The smile grew sad. “He is not Caroline’s father.”

There was truth in the words, and he hated that. Hated that there was not another reason to loathe this man who dominated her as surely as he breathed. “Then why?”

She lifted one shoulder. Let it drop. “We are two halves of a coin.”

The words were so simple, so honest, that they tore him asunder.
Two halves of a coin
. For a moment, he considered the implications of the words. The meaning of them. He wondered what it would be like to be so needed by her, so cared for by her, that he was the other half of her coin.

He pushed the thought from his head, liking it far too much.

He released her, moving back far enough to be out of her reach. He did not think he could bear her touch at this point.

“I am here to speak to him,” he said. “It has been six years, and I’ve never asked to meet him. It is time.”

She hesitated, and it seemed to him that she hovered on some kind of precipice in the moment – as though whatever decision she made would change her world. And perhaps it would.

If Chase gave him what he wanted, it would.

Chase’s identity for her freedom. For his own.
 

“Why?” she asked. “Why now?” He did not reply, and she pressed him again. “Six years and you’ve never cared to meet him. And now…”

She trailed off, and he filled the silence. “Things have changed.”

Now his life was on the line. His life, and Cynthia’s secrets.

But those reasons paled in comparison to the one that loomed so powerfully here and now. Chase was the key to Georgiana’s freedom. And he found he would do anything for that.

“Take me to him,” he said, and the words sounded more plea than demand.

When she nodded and headed for the door, he thought for a moment that she would toss him out. But then she opened it and stepped into the hallway beyond, turning back, silhouetted by the dim corridor, her face awash in color from the stained glass. “Come,” she whispered.

He followed, realizing that he would follow her anywhere.

She led him through a maze of corridors, curving and turning in ways that made him feel as though they had doubled back more than once, finally reaching a massive painting, a dark oil featuring a man stripped of his clothes and belongings, lying dead at the feet of two glorious women as his killer crept from the frame. He looked to Georgiana.

“Charming,” he said, referencing the gruesome, stunning piece.

She offered a small smile. “Themis and Nemesis.”

“Justice and Vengeance.”

“Two halves of a coin.”

The words were an echo from moments earlier, her description of her relationship with Chase, and they stung. He looked carefully at the divine figures in the painting, one holding a candle, presumably to light the way to justice, the other holding a sword to exact vengeance on the thief. “Which are you?”