Never Judge a Lady By Her Cover: Number 4 in series (The Rules of Scoundrels series) (46 page)

He lifted one addressed to Baron Pottle.

He slid a finger beneath the seal and opened the note – dread pooling deep within him – to reveal one line.

Tonight, the Angel falls.

Chapter 21

He’d never seen the floor of the Angel so full of people.

Of course, he’d never seen the floor of the Angel on a day such as this. All of London had turned up for what they were claiming would be the last night of The Fallen Angel. The rumors and gossip swirled as hundreds of members arrived, brandishing the same square note, penned in Georgiana’s hand.

“What does it mean?” a young man whispered to his cronies, collected around a faro table.

“I don’t know,” came the reply. “But what I do know is that a night like this at the Angel is better than twenty in ballrooms across Britain.”

That much was true. The room fairly teemed with members, a wide, rippling mass of black coats and deep voices, peppered with several dozen women wearing brightly colored silks – the ladies of The Fallen Angel had been allowed onto the floor tonight, masked and myriad.

What was she planning?
 

He’d been looking for Georgiana since he’d arrived, having lost her and all the owners of the casino earlier in the day. When he had left her rooms and headed to the floor of the hell, the place had been quiet – if one did not consider the banging on the doors, the shouting, and the near riot in the street.

He’d thought to destroy Chase and set Georgiana free.

And, instead, he’d destroyed all that she’d worked for.

“Good play with the reward, West.” A man Duncan did not recognize approached from a nearby table, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “It’s time we scare the bastard out of his hole – after all, he’s been fleecing us for years! I’m surprised they’re still letting you in!”

Another approached. “But you are willing to put five thousand quid on it? You’ll get hundreds of people tossing false names at you.”

He already had them – speculation had begun arriving at his offices, theories based on everyone from His Royal Highness to the son of a Temple Bar fishmonger. “I shall know the truth when I see it,” he said, disengaging from the conversation.

Of course, he had not known the truth when he’d seen it. In the hours since her revelation, he’d found a dozen ways he should have known that she was more than she seemed. That she was stronger, smarter, more powerful than the men who gamed at these tables each night.

But he had misjudged her, just as the rest of London had.

At the far end of the room, he saw Viscount Langley at a hazard table, throwing the dice with gusto. If the cheers that rose around him were to be believed, Langley was on a roll. He was moving before he had time to think better of it.

Making his way across the floor toward the viscount, Duncan thought back to that first night, on the balcony with Georgiana, when she’d named Langley her choice of suitor.

He remained a good choice.

Unmarked. Noble. He would care for her.

Or West would make certain he suffered abominably.

Langley tossed the dice. Won again. Frustration settled heavy in Duncan’s chest. Why did this man win, where Duncan would no doubt lose?

He watched the viscount for long minutes, until he lost, and the dice were relinquished to a croupier. Duncan resisted the pleasure that came at the groans. “Langley,” he said, and the viscount turned toward him, curiosity made even greater by the fact that they’d never spoken.

He pulled the viscount aside. “My lord, I am Duncan West.”

Langley nodded. “I recognize you. I confess, I am rather a supporter – you have won my vote for a number of bills that we’ll be looking at this season.”

Duncan was set back by the compliment. “Thank you.” He’d support the marriage, but did he have to like the man?

He took a breath, released it, and the viscount tilted his head, leaning in, “Sir, are you unwell?”

Yes.
 

He would be unwell forever once she became the Viscountess Langley, but he had promised her this moment. This win.

Tit for tat.
 

“You are courting Lady Georgiana,” he said.

Surprised, Langley looked away and then back, and West saw the guilt in his eyes. He did not like the pause – the meaning in it, as though Langley was not, in fact, courting Georgiana.

Except he did like it.

He liked it a great deal.
 

“Are you not?”

Langley hesitated. “Is this for publication? I have seen how keen your newspapers have been for Lady Georgiana’s return to Society.”

“It is not for publication, but I hope my newspapers have made a positive impression.”

The viscount smiled. “My mother is certainly invested in the lady.”

Success, he supposed.

“I imagine some would call my interactions with the lady courtship,” Langley replied, finally, and Duncan heard the edge of doubt in the words.

Duncan wanted to roar his disapproval. Did the man not see what he had been offered? “Are you mad? She is a tremendous catch. Beyond measure. Any man would be proud to call her his. She could have a king if she wished it.”

What had begun as surprise on Langley’s face was soon transformed into careful curiosity, making Duncan feel like a proper ass when he was finished.

The viscount did not hesitate in his reply, keen understanding in his tone. “It strikes me that it is not a king who wishes for her. Quite the opposite.”

Duncan’s gaze narrowed at the suggestion. At the truth in it. “You overstep yourself.”

“Likely, but I know what it is to want something you cannot have. I see now why you have taken such a keen interest in the lady.” Langley paused and said, “If I could trade my title for your freedom, I would.”

Duncan was suddenly deeply uncomfortable with the conversation. “That is where you are wrong. There is no freedom in being untitled. Indeed, if anything, there is less of it.”

The title brought security. Safety.

He, instead, lived in constant fear of discovery.

And that fear would ever shadow his future.

He met the viscount’s gaze. “You are her choice.”

Langley smiled. “If that is true – and I am not certain it is – I would be honored to have the lady to wife.”

“And you will care for her.”

One of the viscount’s brows rose. “If you do not, yes.”

The insolence from the titled pup made Duncan want to upend the hazard table from whence he’d come. He could not care for her. He would not saddle her with his life. With his secrets.

And she did not wish them.

What if we married?
 

For however long he lived, he would remember that question, spoken softly in his arms – the little possibility that came on a silly dream. When he breathed his last, in prison or at the end of a rope, that question would be his last thought.

It did not matter that she hadn’t meant it. Not the way he wished.

She wished the title. She wished safety and comfort and propriety for her daughter. And he knew better than any how important those were. How much she would give up for them.

And he would give them to her.

The viscount punctuated the thought. “You should be the one to care for her.”

“I will be,” he said. “This is how I will do it.”

Langley considered him for a long moment before nodding once. “Then if she will have me, I will have her.”

Duncan hated the way the words rioted through him, the visceral fury that came with them. The way he wanted to rail against God and the world that this was his fate – to love a woman he could not have.

But instead of that, he said, “If there is ever anything I can do for you, my lord, my papers are at your disposal.”

Langley rocked back on his heels. “I may come and see you sooner than you think.”

The viscount turned away, and Duncan was left alone at the edge of the casino floor, watching the crowds, waiting for her.

“I see your membership has been reinstated,” the Marquess of Bourne said at his elbow. “So you can see the fruits of your very idiotic labor?”

Duncan winced at the words, but did not resist them. He’d put a price on Chase’s head, and by extension, on this place and all her owners. Instead, he asked, “What is she planning?”

“All I know is that she’s about to make a damn mistake. But no one tells Chase how to live.”

“What mistake?” Duncan asked, not taking his gaze from the crowd. Desperate to find her. To stop her from doing whatever it was she was going to do. He’d made the mess of posting a reward for Chase’s identity – it should be he who cleared it up.

“She wouldn’t tell us anything else. Only that it was her decision to make – which is debatable at best – and some idiocy about us all having families now, and plenty of money, and the club having run its course.”

Dread pooled deep within. “She’s giving up the club?”

But why?
 

“In Chase’s fashion, she’s thought it all through,” Bourne said, exasperation in his tone, as though this were the whim of a silly girl and not the destruction of years of her work and dreams.

Duncan swore roundly.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

He couldn’t allow it. He could save her in another way. He searched for her again. “Where is she?”

“Knowing Chase, she’s going to make an entrance.” Bourne paused. “It goes without saying that if she is hurt in any way… if Caroline is marked in any way by this night…”

Duncan met the marquess’s eyes. “I would expect repercussions.”

“Repercussions,” Bourne scoffed. “We will disappear you, and you will never be found.”

“I assume you were sent with precisely that message?”

“That, and one other,” Bourne said. “You should not let her go.”

His went cold at the words, then hot. “I don’t follow.”

Bourne smirked, but did not take his gaze from the crowds. “You’re the smartest man I know, West. You follow perfectly well.”

You should not let her go
.

As if he had a choice.

The crowd grew more and more raucous – drink flowed freely throughout the casino, and every table on the floor was filled with gamers basking in the glow of chance. The place was alive with sound, the calls of the croupiers, the cheers of the audience at hazard, the groans of those at roulette. He imagined he could hear the rasp of the cards at
vingt-et-un
as they slid over the baize, each sound more lush and magnificent than it had ever been – because he now knew it was her doing… her creation.

“I will say this for her, though,” Bourne said, watching the floor, considering the sheer number of gamers before them. “If we close our doors for good tonight, it will be with a bigger take than we’ve ever had.”

“I have to stop her.”

Bourne raised a brow. “I confess, I had hoped you would consider doing so. I’ve a family to feed.”

The Marquess of Bourne had enough money and land to feed all the families in Britain, but Duncan had other things to do than joust with the man. “Where would she be?”

Bourne looked up, to the stained glass, where Lucifer tumbled to the casino floor. “If I had to guess…”

Duncan was on his way, pushing through the crowds, weaving between tables, headed for the heavily guarded door at the far end of the room. He was nearly there when he heard his name, behind him, in a voice that at The Fallen Angel was equally familiar and foreign.

After all, the Earl of Tremley was not a member.

Duncan said as much, and Tremley smiled, coming closer. “I was invited tonight. By your Anna. I was told she was pretty, but once one meets her – she is – glorious.”

The words sent fury through Duncan, who could not bear the thought of Georgiana and Tremley breathing the same air, let alone being in the same room. “What have you done?”

“Nothing that you didn’t do yourself,” Lord Tremley sneered. “Indeed, you painted with a rather broad brush – five thousand pounds for Chase’s identity? You think he will simply lay back and let the hordes come to find him? I got it done.”

He froze. “Got what done?”

“Your girl. We made a trade. It was really quite sweet.”

No.

Duncan knew what was to come before Tremley revealed it. “She did it for you, the poor creature. Thinking that if she revealed Chase’s secrets, she would save you.” He looked to West. “We both know that’s not true.”

She was doing it to save him.
 

She’d said as much, hadn’t she?

Tremley had given her a choice: her club or him.

I choose you.
 

She’d made the choice without hesitation.

It is time for you to trust me.
 

He could not let her ruin her life. Could not let her give up this world that she had worked so hard to build. Something danced at the edge of his thoughts – something that did not sit well. Her plan – if it was to be a public reveal – would not help Tremley. If the whole world had Chase’s identity, Tremley was still beholden to the Angel, which held his secrets.

But now, he knew how to make Georgiana dance.