“I doubt it.” Good God, how long did it take to ready a damned carriage? “It’s nothing you need concern yourself with, Mouse. Just an unruly patron.” One he’d specifically instructed the staff to send word of.
But something in his voice must have rung false, for she snatched the letter from his hand and danced out of reach, and he could only pinch the bridge of his nose and hold back a sigh as she read it herself.
“My brother?” she whispered at last. “Hugh is causing a disturbance? You would have kept that from me?”
“Mouse, it’s none of your concern.” He held his hand out for the note, but she would not surrender it.
“He’s my brother!” she snapped. “Of course it is my concern!” She paced the foyer in a surfeit of exasperation, her skirts swishing about her ankles, and her hand clenched the note in her fist. “I am going with you,” she declared.
“No, you are not,” he shot back, raking furrows through his hair with one hand. “Not to this club, Mouse, and not tonight.”
“I know how to handle him,” she said. “For God’s sake, Grey, he’s just a boy—”
“He’s four years your elder!”
“I know him, and you do not.” She whirled, jabbing her index finger into his chest. “I am going if I have to take a hack on my own.”
He thrust her finger away, glowering down at her. “I’ll lock you in your damned room if I must.”
“Ha! Since you banished me from the laundry room, I’ve become quite proficient at picking locks,” she jeered, rising onto her toes to speak her threats right into his face. “If you will not take me, I promise you I will find my way there myself, and I will cause a disturbance of my own.”
“You’re not going,” he said, meeting her challenge with his own. “And that is final.”
∞∞∞
The carriage rattled along the cobblestones, and Grey clenched his hands on his thighs to resist the impulse to reach across the empty space between the seats and throttle Mouse to within an inch of her life.
“I suppose I ought to thank you for not tossing me out of the carriage,” she said mildly, peering out the window into the dark night, watching lamps go by on the otherwise empty streets.
“Believe me,” he said through gritted teeth, “I had considered it.”
It had been an ingenious coup on her part. While he had been in the process of retrieving his coat and tying on a fresh cravat, he’d heard a door slam across the hall—hers, he’d assumed, in capitulation to his order.
It hadn’t been until the carriage had gotten nearly to St. Giles that the coachman had taken a corner a bit too quickly, and he’d heard a muffled “oof” from within the storage box beneath the seat opposite him. When he’d lifted the seat, there she had been, curled up with her knees drawn to her chest, nearly suffocating in the flounces of her skirt, and peering up at him with something like triumph shining in her eyes.
And now she sat across from him, the skirt of her gown wrinkled beyond salvation, neatly-pinned hair the worse for her little adventure.
“You’re staying in the damned carriage,” he barked.
In the lamplight that slanted through the windows, he saw her give a coy flutter of her lashes, a look that he took to mean something like I think we both know that will not happen. Despite his annoyance, despite the fact that she had thwarted his wishes and inserted herself into a situation in which she did not belong, still there was the oddest temptation to laugh. Precisely because she had thwarted him—she had outsmarted him, and he couldn’t recall the last time anyone had managed that. Unpredictable Mouse, sneaky and calculating, who had gotten exactly what she had wanted—a woman after his own heart.
“I know how to handle my brother,” she said. “Honestly, Grey, I cannot imagine anyone less suited to quelling a disturbance than you, particularly one involving Hugh. Now, causing one….”
Grey choked on a laugh. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?”
“He’s my brother!” Her hands did a bizarre flutter of agitation, as if she, too, were tempted to strangle him. Not that she could have managed it, even did she attempt it.
“Your brother,” he said caustically, “who hasn’t so much as attempted to see you in weeks. Not a visit, not a note—not a single goddamned word, Mouse.”
Silence pervaded the carriage. In the darkness, he thought he heard an agonized, indrawn breath, as if he’d struck a deep blow with only a few well-chosen words. Poorly chosen words, which he wished suddenly that he could retract, because it had not been his intention to hurt her.
“He’s still my brother,” she said finally, her voice breaking on the words.
Grey bit off a curse, remorse seething in his veins. “Mouse, I—” But the carriage was slowing, and a quick glance out into the street told him they were approaching the club. “Damn.” Defeat was not a condition with which he was familiar, but the mad desire to make amends demanded satisfaction. He clenched his hands into fists, hardly able to believe that he was about to offer her such a concession. “You will go where I tell you,” he growled. “And stay where I put you. Otherwise, you are not to leave my side. Not for a single bloody instant—is that clear?”
“Really?” The raw relief in her voice soothed the worst of his guilt. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, of course.”
Too late to take the offer back now. The carriage drew to a halt before the club, and Grey swore beneath his breath as he shoved open the door of the carriage and climbed out, offering his hand to Mouse.
In the lamplight she looked a fright, her hair and dress as mussed as if she’d come out the loser in a tavern brawl. But she gazed at the doors of the club in wonder, as if a whole world of delights waited within. Brave Mouse, once more treading into the unknown, and looking forward to the journey.
The moment the doors opened, a violent wave of sound crashed out into the night, and Mouse drew back a step in surprise. No civilized gentlemen’s club, this—this was the sort of gaming hell that catered to the lower rungs of society. Men who had been ejected from the more sophisticated establishments, men who had run afoul of lenders in more genteel parts of town, men whose reputations would have had them denied admittance elsewhere.
Men whom Grey would never have chosen to subject Mouse to the presence of.
True to her word, she stuck to his side like she’d been sewn there as they walked through the doors. The office—the only safe place to leave her—was at the rear of the gaming floor, which would necessitate winding their way through the club.
“Grey,” Mouse murmured. “There are ladies here. I thought you had said they weren’t admitted?” Her eyes followed a red-haired woman in a low-cut gown who sauntered across the gaming floor.
Grey gritted his teeth. “They’re not ladies, Mouse.”
“Of course they are,” she said, confusion saturating her voice. But she jerked in shock as the red-haired woman plopped herself into the lap of a gentleman at a faro table and kissed his throat. “Oh,” she said, weakly.
The gentleman in question fished in his pocket, tucked a couple of coins between the woman’s bountiful breasts, and let her lead him away from the table.
“Oh,” said Mouse again, and this time there was a wealth of understanding in her voice. “Then, they’re—they’re—”
“Prostitutes.” Grey placed his palm at the small of her back, guiding her around a roulette table, past a cluster of chairs. “They provide a service to the patrons, and they’re well-compensated for their efforts. It’s a profession, Mouse, the same as any other.”
Her brows drew together, as if she had detected the light censure in his tone. “Well, really,” she said. “I’m in no position to judge. Being a mistress—it’s very nearly the same thing, isn’t it? Only I have provided no such service.”
Yet. Grey ground his teeth together, because the offer of a well-appointed room upstairs should she desire to remedy that situation lay tucked between them, straining to escape.
Rescue came in the form of the club’s manager, Mr. Spaulding, who was wending his way toward them. Grey drew Mouse toward the side of the room, toward a velvet curtain at the side of the room, which concealed a door behind it. “Stay here,” he said, tucking her into the hallway beyond the door. “You may watch from the door if you please, but you will stay out of sight while I speak to the manager. Do not move from this spot. I’ll only be a moment.”
Mouse glanced out over the gaming floor, full of inebriated patrons, raucous shouts, and general depravity. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think that would be for the best.”
Chapter Sixteen
Serena peeked through the door, surveying the gaming floor. To her relief, she recognized no one—which meant that it was unlikely that anyone had recognized her in turn. Not that it mattered overmuch, but could not say she would have liked very much to witness any gentleman of her acquaintance dandling a woman on his knee.
Still, she was interested in the club. It was a side of life she was willing to bet very few ladies had actually ever seen. An interesting study in what it was that men did when they were left to their own devices, when the eyes of polite society were not upon them. That Hugh had found his way here was not particularly surprising, but she did wonder what had led to his selection of this particular club, given that she knew he held—or had held—a membership elsewhere.
It had seemed unlikely that, given their dire financial straits, he would be able to afford to continue his gaming. It was an expensive habit in the best of times, but with the family fortune being no longer quite so flush as once it had been, it was the height of irresponsibility for him to further squander it.
“What’re ye doin’ back here, lovey?”
Serena jerked at the sound of the voice behind her, turning to see a rough-looking man, dressed in the uniform of the staff, standing behind her. “I—well, I—”
He charged ahead, talking right over her floundering speech. “Ye’ll not earn your wages hidin’ behind the curtain,” he said, clapping one beefy palm over her shoulder. “Out you go.” And with one well-placed shove, he sent her careening through the door onto the gaming floor.
“Wait!” she cried, cringing back toward the curtain. “I’m not—” But the door snapped shut, and the velvet curtain swished back into place, and when she fumbled behind it to grasp the handle, it would not turn.
Locked.
She’d been locked out onto the gaming floor! Grey was going to be furious.
Her pulse hammered in her throat, and she took a deep breath and collected herself. True, she had never found herself in so unfamiliar a situation. She could navigate a ballroom with ease, but the floor of a gaming hell presented a challenge for which she felt unprepared. But so long as she could find an employee to return her to the safety of the hallway she had been so unceremoniously ejected from, there was no need for anything so unseemly as panic.
There—across the room a gentleman waited by a wall, dressed in the distinctive uniform of the staff. She had only to make it to him, and this unfortunate incident would be behind her with Grey none the wiser for her little misadventure. It was simply a matter of placing one foot before the other, acting as if she belonged, and reaching him.
To her relief, the patrons largely ignored her. The red-headed woman had, after all, plunked herself straight into a gentleman’s lap to attract his notice. So long as she didn’t solicit attention, she ought not receive it.
Her luck held out for perhaps fifty feet. She’d nearly made the corner when a gentleman rocked back in his chair, his hand reaching out to snag her wrist.
“Well, well,” he said. “I see the goods are improving.”
Serena tugged at her wrist ineffectually. “Sir, there has been a mistake. I must ask you to release me.”
His brows shot up. “Does that genteel accent command higher wages?” His voice was slightly slurred, attesting to his inebriation. With his free hand he rifled through his pockets. “How much?”
“Sir, please,” she said, pitching her voice low to avoid drawing further attention. “You are mistaken.”
“I’m a bloody duke, pet, I’m certain I can afford you.” He came up with a fistful of coins, which he offered to her with a silly grin. “Take the lot,” he said. His gaze raked her over, turning a shade disapproving. “And a piece of advice: yellow is not your color.”
“I am aware.” Serena ground her teeth together, then took a deep breath and tried again to dissuade him. “Sir, I am not a prostitute.”
“Your Grace, darling. It’s Your Grace,” he said, chucking her beneath the chin with the hand that yet held a small fortune in coin. “And of course you are. Why else would you be here?” He rose from his chair, swaying a little as he gained his feet. “I assume there’s rooms upstairs?”
Serena gave one last futile tug at her wrist. Though the man was merely annoying—too drunk to be threatening, too cheerful to truly have ill intent—she still had no intention of going anywhere with him, for all that he had her wrist manacled in his hand. So she did the only thing she could think to do, though it would doubtless cause more problems for her in the end.
She tipped her head back and screamed for Grey.
∞∞∞
Grey stared down at the string of pearls that Spaulding had laid in his hands once he’d retrieved them from the safe behind the counter in the heavily-guarded counting room. They had been Hugh Tyndall’s collateral—without the cash on hand he’d need to gamble, he’d brought the pearls instead, to wager the value of them.
Mouse’s mother’s pearls. Grey recognized the ropes of them as a set the late countess had worn on occasion—an heirloom piece that should have gone to her daughter. Instead, Mouse’s feckless brother had offered them up to feed his gaming habit.
“Mr. Tyndall is in the office,” Spaulding offered. “He became belligerent when we would not extend further credit to him.”
Grey tucked the pearls into his pocket with a sigh. “I’ll handle him,” he said. “Take the value of the pearls from my share of this week’s profits.”
A woman’s scream cut over the din of the club, sharp and shrill, and Grey felt his heart leap in his chest. Mouse. The terror that seized him was quite unlike anything he had experienced before, alarming in its intensity. He vaulted across the room, into the hallway, and was waylaid only a moment by the locked door before he burst onto the gaming floor, scanning the milling crowd for a slice of garish yellow, which he spotted at the other side of the room, slightly obscured behind a potted fern.
He paused only to snap “With me,” to the men who lingered in the hallway behind him guarding the counting room, and they fell into step behind him as he elbowed his way across the floor, shoving patrons aside in his haste to reach Mouse. A sliver of relief edged through his alarm when he cleared the path enough to see that the expression on her face was not fear but exasperation—and then it was swept aside by a hot tide of rage as he caught sight of the gentleman who’d wrapped his hand around her wrist.
Patrons skittered out of his way, giving him wide berth as he arrived at his destination.
Mouse heaved a sigh of relief, casting him a grateful glance. “Grey,” she sighed. “Thank God. Will you please tell this gentleman—”
“Duke,” the gentleman corrected blithely. “I am a duke, pet.” His cravat was askew, and his tawny hair was disheveled, but his clothes were fine and obviously well made. Grey didn’t recognize the man, but given the outrageous cost of such garments, he supposed there was every chance that the man was exactly who he’d claimed to be.
Which made not a single bit of difference and quashed not an ounce of Grey’s fury. “Get your bloody hands off of her,” he snarled.
“I beg your pardon,” the man sniffed, and he listed on his feet, suggesting a level of intoxication that precluded whatever good sense he might once have possessed. “We’re negotiating.”
“We most certainly are not!” Mouse shot back, stamping her foot. She pulle
d at her wrist, which the gentleman yet refused to release, and before Grey was conscious of even having made the decision to escalate the situation, his fist flew out and struck the man in the face.
Overbalanced, the man fell backward, crashing across a hazard table, sending dice and chips flying, and a chorus of shouts went up as patrons scrambled away from the table in their haste to escape flailing limbs. Mouse would have flown with the sprawled man, had Grey not caught her about the waist and yanked her back. The motion stripped the glove from her hand, but she appeared otherwise unharmed, if a bit startled.
“Are you well?” Grey asked her, ignoring the agonized groaning of the potential duke and the odd silence that had descended over the gaming floor in the wake of the furor he’d created. His hands coasted over her, searching for injuries his brain knew were not present—but his thundering heart felt compelled to check for, anyway.
“Yes,” she said absently, still stunned. “Yes, I think so.”
“Good. Good.” Satisfied at last that she was uninjured, he settled his hands upon her shoulders. “What the bloody hell were you thinking?” he roared. “I told you to stay where I put you!”
She blinked as if his fury had lashed her like a physical blow, then lifted her chin and glared. “I would have, had one of your staff not cast me out onto the floor and then locked the door against me! I was trying to find my way back when this—this ruffian accosted me!”
The ruffian in question groaned from where he was splayed over the table. “Duke,” he corrected, in a nasally whine, and then dropped his head back upon the table with a dull thud. “Good lord. I think my nose is broken.”
“You’ll be lucky if that’s all that is broken when I’m through with you,” Grey snarled. He jerked his head toward the uniformed staff hovering behind him. “Take him to the back,” he snapped at them. “And for God’s sake, someone clean up this mess.”
The Scandal of the Season Page 15