Never Judge a Lady By Her Cover: Number 4 in series (The Rules of Scoundrels series) (45 page)

“At first, it was for revenge. I wanted to punish anyone who crossed me. Who dared insult Caroline. I wanted to murder gossip and kill
ton
. A casino was the ideal place for all of that. Decadence, sin, vice – they make for excellent partners in vengeance.”

He smiled. “And then you realized you weren’t God.”

She raised her brows. “No, then I realized I did not wish to be God. I wished to be something very different. I wished to reign over them. I wished them to be in debt to me, with secrets and money and whatever else they wanted to put on the table.”

“And Chase was born.”

“My brother put up the money for the club, helped me choose my partners.” She smiled. “Bourne and Temple came first, and I’ll never forget the look in their eyes when my security guards tossed them into my carriage, and I introduced myself.” She paused. “Bourne called me any number of names before he settled down and realized that what I offered was really quite magnificent.”

“Ownership in a men’s club.”

She shook her head. “Resurrection from the gutter. He’d lost everything. Temple, too. I could give them a chance to rebuild. I did not need the money… I needed the titles. The faces. The skills they brought to the table.”

He nodded. “Where did the name Chase come from?”

She grinned. “Bourne gave it to me. I was leading London on a merry chase, he used to say. It stuck.

“We opened the casino with my brother’s help and his connections. Within months, people were clamoring for memberships. And for the first few years, I did not care what they thought of Georgiana.
I
barely even thought of Georgiana. I was Chase, and I was Anna, and I was free… and it was glorious.” She looked away. “Until it wasn’t.”

“Until Caroline was old enough to notice their censure.”

“Until Caroline was old enough to become the object of it.”

“And then it became about her.”

She met his gaze, saw the understanding in it. He had faced a similar battle, knowing that he must protect his sister from the world. “I didn’t steal a horse, Duncan. I stole a world.”

“And we believed you,” he said.

“It wasn’t as difficult as it would seem,” she said. “People believe what they are told, mostly. Once we decided that Chase would never be seen, it was easy to convince the world that he was more powerful than any of them. His mystery became his power. My power.”

“You’re wrong.” He was close to her, close enough to touch, but she resisted the urge as he continued, “I have known you as Georgiana and as Anna. And I have felt the full heat of your power. I have railed at it and basked in its glow. And there is nothing about that power that is Chase.” His hand came up, cupped the nape of her neck, and she caught her breath at the touch. “It is all yours.” She looked up at him as he added, “And she will know it.”

Tears came at the words, unbidden and unwelcome. How did he know that was her worry? In the dark of night? How did he know that she was terrified that Caroline would one day look at her and hate her for the choices she’d made?

She looked away, trying to hide from him.

“Don’t,” he said, forcing her to return her gaze to his. “Don’t hide from me. You pushed me away at every turn. You used Chase as a shield.”

“No —” she began, but he cut her off, anger and sorrow in his eyes.

“Yes. You were afraid of me. But why? Were you afraid of what I might do? Of what I might tell the world? Did you actually think I might betray you?”

Her brow furrowed. “I did not know… the only other man I had ever given myself to…”

He went on. “You weren’t afraid of me. And you weren’t afraid of repercussions from Chase… we know that now,” he offered the words, with dry humor. “You were afraid of what I make you feel.”

Truth.
 

She met his gaze. “Of course I was.” Her honesty took them both by surprise, but it was time to be honest, was it not? “I was on my own. I had to fight for myself. For Caroline.” She paused. “
Am
on my own.
Must
fight for her. I must use every weapon in my arsenal to secure her future. That meant Chase… which was easy. And you…” She hesitated. “But that is the bit that became more difficult.”

“You disinvited me to the club,” he said.

“I apologize. You are welcome to be a member again.”
For as long as the club exists.

“I don’t care about the damn club. I care about you sending me away.”

“I couldn’t have you close,” she said, setting the truth free. “I couldn’t have you near without wishing you near forever.”

That word again, insidious and tempting.

He swore, and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her like steel, making her wish that this was all there was. That there was no Chase, no Anna, no Tremley beating down the door with his deadlines and his secrets. No Fallen Angel.

Because she did not wish to use him. Not anymore. She did not wish for him to be anywhere near the falseness that was her future. Did not wish for him to have any more reasons to think ill of her.

He misunderstood. “Christ… Georgiana,” he spoke to the top of her head, his arms around her like steel, strong and welcome. “The paper. The reward.”

She turned her face into his chest, reveling in the scent of him. “Chase is done for.”

He had been since the moment Tremley had made his offer – her secrets for Duncan’s. It was an offer she would never refuse. A trade she would gladly make. Chase and Anna would disappear from the world, and they would be replaced by Duncan’s safety.

If only it would be enough.
 

He swore softly. “I did it. I ruined him.” He paused. “You. I ruined all you worked for.”

She would have ruined it herself – still planned to – but that was the final secret she could not reveal to him. Instead, she smiled. “He had to be done, eventually. I could not continue here and preach propriety for Caroline. I thought I could… but now, I see the ridiculousness in that plan.”

“I will find a way to keep you safe. To keep Chase safe. I’ll rescind the reward.”

She put her hands to his lips, silencing him, running her fingers over his cheekbones, down the long line of his jaw. “All this time… from the beginning, you have told me to trust you.”

“I have,” he said. “And now, you must believe that I will find a way —”

She stopped him. “It’s your turn, Duncan. It’s time for you to trust me.”

His gaze narrowed. “What does that mean?”

She leaned up to kiss him. “Exactly what I say.”

“I do trust you.” He took the kiss, returned it. “What are you planning?”

“That’s not trusting me.”

He started to reply. Stopped. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to talk.” He lifted her in his arms, her legs wrapping about his waist. “I just want to love you. All of you. Once, before it’s over.”

Before it’s over.
 

The words crashed around her as she took his face in her hands, and returned the kiss he settled on her lips, deep and longing. She didn’t like the finality in them. The sense that everything important was ending tonight.

Not sense. Truth.

Tonight would end the myth of Chase. It would end the fabrication of Anna.

And it would leave Georgiana alone once more, to face Society and its wolves.

To create a new future.

But she did not want the future. She wanted the present. This moment.

This man.

“I wish…” his words were low and dark in her ear, and she met his gaze.

“What?” She moved against him, rocked into him sending pleasure through her and, she hoped, through him.

It worked. He smiled, his eyes closing. “It sounds mad, but I wish we’d done this in a bed. Like ordinary people.”

“There is a bed.”

He tilted his head, looking pleased as punch. “There is?”

She nodded. “There is.”

He set her on her feet and she guided him into her apartments through several doors and into the room where she slept most evenings. He paused in the doorway, looking at the bed, upholstered and curtained in white. He shook his head. “All this time, London has wagered and sinned and bathed themselves in vice… and you have reigned from this white bed – fit for a pristine princess.”

She smiled. “Pristine no more.”

He turned his hot gaze on her. “No more.”

And then she was in his arms, and he was lifting her, carrying her, setting loose an ache deep in her. She – who’d spent the last six years giving the men and women of London everything they desired, who considered herself an expert in want – she’d never wanted anything more than this man.

Than this moment.

He stood her next to the bed and slowly undressed them both, boots and breeches and shirts, shucking his own and then hers, kissing the bare skin he revealed in long, lingering licks until she thought she might die from the pleasure of him.

Until she thought she might from her desire for him.

He laid her down, naked, back against the cool sheets, and climbed over her, pressing his face to the soft skin of her belly, breathing deep, pressing his open mouth to the swell there, to the faded marks that told the tale that he alone knew.

“I love you,” he whispered, soft and privately, to the skin there, so easy that she thought perhaps he hadn’t said the words at all.

She gasped as his mouth moved, finding the tip of one breast, and then the other, his hands cupping her, lifting, caressing, ensuring that she would never forget this moment, the way he touched her. The way he loved her. She held him, fingers in his soft golden hair as he whispered to the skin between her breasts, “I love you.”

He repeated the words like a benediction as he licked and sucked and worshipped until her breath was coming in short, nearly unbearable pants, and he lifted himself over her, covering her with his body, hard and warm and perfect in every way.

He looked into her eyes. Spoke. “I love you.”

And she loved him back, desperately, reaching up, pulling him down for another kiss, into which she poured everything she had ever felt for this brilliant, magnificent man.

He slid into her slow and true, as though they had done this a thousand times, as though they belonged to each other, as though he owned her and she owned him. And he did own her, she realized. He always would.

His movements were deep and thorough, long, lush strokes that had her craning for him. For more of his touch. For more of his love. He seemed to know it, leaning down, repeating his vow again and again at her ear. She did not know if it was the words or the movement, but soon she was begging for release that only he could provide. He stilled, rising up over her, eyes closed in pleasure and pain and she knew he steeled himself to leave her, refusing to release inside her. Refusing to risk her.

“Duncan.” He opened his eyes, stealing her breath with the emotion in them. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered. “Not this time.”

He watched her for a long moment, as if searching for the truth in her words. She shook her head. “Not this time,” she said, tears welling as she was struck by the keen knowledge that this was the last time they would ever do this.

He took her mouth in a scorching kiss, deeper and more passionate than anything they had shared before, and he reached between them, setting his thumb to her, stroking over and over until she was crying out her release. Only then did he move, thrusting deep, spilling inside her, and she was lost to herself, to the world.

He came down over her and she wrapped herself around him, cradling him as the tears spilled over, and she wept. She wept for the beauty of this moment, the two of them against the world, she wept for herself, for the sacrifice that had set her on this path… the one she had vowed to make, somehow infinitely more devastating now that she understood what it was she gave up.

Love.
 

When he woke, she was gone.

He should have expected it, but it still rankled, the fact that she had left him here, in the heart of her casino, as she went to fight God knew what battle on her own.

I was on my own. I had to fight for myself. For Caroline.
 

No longer.

Did she not understand that he was her champion? That he would fight her battles? That he would do anything he could to save her and this place she loved?

He might not be able to have her forever, but he could give her this.

And it would be enough.

Christ. He had to rescind the reward. The Pandora’s box he had opened would ruin her and the club if he did not close it. He stood, pulling on his clothes quickly, wasting no time in returning to the main room of the offices.

It was empty now, and he approached the desk in awe and admiration. He thought of the first time she stood in this room, a girl of, what, twenty? Taken down by Society for a moment of risk. For a single mistake.

And she’d built an empire from here. From behind this desk.

And he’d thought he was the hardest-working man in London.

His fingers grazed the blotter, the silver pen that lay there, haphazardly, as though she’d dropped it in a rush to finish some other work. He smiled at the idea – his industrious love.

They made a perfect match.

He ignored the thread of sadness that coursed through him at the thought. At the way he ached for it to be true. For it to be their future. But his secrets were legion, and he would never saddle her with them. With the threat of his discovery. Of his punishment.

Of scandal, once more.

He looked away, his gaze falling to a small stack of letters on the edge of the desk – there were maybe ten there, a final, forgotten stack of what had been dozens of identical squares covering the surface of the desk when he’d entered the room.

He lifted the messages, knowing he shouldn’t. Knowing it was not his business, but somehow unable to stop himself. Each one was addressed in the strong, black hand that he had come to know as Chase’s.

Not Chase’s. Georgiana’s.

The letters were made out to members of the club – men he’d seen on the floor dozens of times. There was nothing about the names that linked them – some old, some young, some wealthy, some less so, a duke, two barons, three men in trade.