. . . The Duchess of Somerset’s brother, bastard son of the Duke of Wilkinson and gaming-hell owner, Ryker Black, Viscount Chatham, will be in attendance.
Penelope tossed aside the scandal sheet. It landed atop her nightstand with a soft thump.
“No doubt Mother is hoping the ton will be too focused on the duchess’s bastard brother to bother with a Tidemore,” Poppy said, pushing herself up onto her elbows.
“Undoubtedly,” Penelope said wryly. She firmed her jaw. Polite Society would inevitably see the truth, even if her family did not. She’d matured from hoyden to proper young lady. And despite her brother’s cynical views to the contrary, some worthy gentleman would look beyond her family’s name, and past the whispers, to see Penelope.
“It hardly matters,” Poppy said, flipping onto her stomach, kicking her legs up.
Do not rise to her bait. You are a proper lady now. “What hardly matters?” Penelope asked.
“Well, scandal will eventually find you. After all . . .” Her sister flashed a wicked grin. “We are Tidemores.”
Where Penelope sought the stability of a predictable life, her youngest sister openly delighted in the scandalous reputation the Tidemores had earned.
“There will be no scandal,” she said firmly.
Poppy quickly climbed to her feet. “Ah, yes,” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “What is the mantra? ‘No scandals. No elopements or rushed marriages. You are to be everything and all things proper.’”
All the time. Her sister had forgotten that last crucial detail. Penelope tossed her black ringlets. “I assure you, there will be no scandal.”
An inelegant snort burst from Poppy. “Yes, I daresay, I’ve heard that before”—she rolled her eyes—“from the other three Tidemore siblings.” With a jaunty wave, Poppy skipped to the front of the room. Yanking the door open, she exited and closed it hard behind her.
With her sister gone, Penelope grabbed the copy of the Times and quickly reread the words written there.
Her first ball. Well, if one didn’t include those staid events at Almack’s with warm lemonade and not even a waltz for the lords and ladies present. This moment would be one she always remembered. And for her cynical brother’s reservations, and her mama’s fears, Penelope had greater expectations for her eventual entry into Society.
Again setting aside the newspaper, she grabbed her diary and carried it to her secretaire. Quickly flipping through the book, she found her last entry and claimed the narrow wood seat. With a smile, she reached for her pen, and began to write.
This promises to be the most memorable evening of my life . . .
Chapter 2
Dear Fezzimore,
I sipped my first glass of brandy. And my last. I don’t understand all Jonathan’s fuss with it. Silly boys and their spirits.
Penny
Age 11
Somewhere between Ryker Black’s rise from guttersnipe to ruthless owner of the Hell and Sin Club, the world had learned—one did not cross him, interrupt him, or interfere with his dealings.
Ever.
That rule went for the lords who tossed away fortunes at his tables and the other proprietors of the club who’d proved more brotherly than if they had shared blood.
Standing on the fringe of the Hell and Sin, Ryker surveyed the club. Dandified fops and jaded lords in their bright silk fabrics flooded every corner like they’d been tossed from an overstuffed drawer. “Tell her to make an appointment,” he ordered in low tones. Raucous laughter and the sharp clink of coins filled the hell with nearly deafening volume.
“Your sister is here, requesting a meeting, and you want me to tell her what?” the other man choked out.
Ryker remained silent. He’d grown up on the life lesson that speaking too much and too loudly would get you gutted on the streets, a blade in your belly. Instead, he studied three vacant places at a hazard table and frowned.
There was no place for anything less than excellence.
“I am not telling Helena that,” Calum said, flexing his jaw. “I may be your second, but I’m not your blood lackey, my lord.”
Ryker’s hackles went up. With those taunting words, his brother plucked at a frayed nerve. After saving the now Duke of Somerset from death in the Dials, Ryker had been duly rewarded for his efforts with a bloody title from the King. A bloody title his brothers found great humor in, and about which they never lost an opportunity to tease him. “Tell her whatever you wish, then,” he said icily, not rising to Calum’s bait. He’d not allow himself to be distracted. Not now.
Calum and the others had always coddled Helena. “You’re a coldhearted bastard,” Calum said bluntly. “She’s the sister you rescued from the streets.” Yes, he’d rescued her when she was a small girl. But not before she’d been scarred by life on the streets. Years later, she’d risen from master bookkeeper of the club to, now, Duchess of Somerset.
Ryker peeled his lip back. For all Helena’s loathing and disdain for the nobility, for having seen their mother whore herself to a duke. “She chose the life she wants.” One amongst the haute ton. “And our world was not it.” As such she had no place here, now or ever.
Calum’s eyes blazed with fury. He opened his mouth, but a loud shout went up across the room. They swiftly looked to the roulette table, where a cheering dandy was being slapped on the back by a fellow patron. Ryker scowled. Patrons reveling in their wins—there was not a sound the owner of a gaming hell detested more.
“You sent her away,” Calum pointed out, refusing to abandon their argument. “You were the one to send her away from Diggory’s clutches, and now you’d punish her for making her way in a new world?” There was a sharp accusatory edge there.
Diggory, the late owner of their rival club, the Devil’s Den, had been a thug who’d tormented them all on the streets. He’d extended that warfare years later into their gaming hells. Ryker had sent her away. At Calum’s knowing stare, his neck heated. “Diggory discovered Helena’s skill with the books. He wouldn’t have rested until she was dead, you know that,” he said gruffly. In the end, Diggory had paid the ultimate price for his greed.
“I do . . .” Calum paused. “I do not, however, hold her to blame for finding happiness outside these walls.”
Helena could have returned to the Hell and Sin. Instead, she had carved out a life amongst polite Society. Ryker rolled his shoulders. “I’ll not say anything else on it,” he said, the matter at an end.
“She is one of us,” Calum retorted. He lifted his gaze to the glass panel that only the proprietors knew oversaw the gaming floor. “You owe her.”
That handful of words left a charged tension in their wake. For in a world where he was not driven by emotion, feelings, or any sentiments that could weaken, Ryker did honor the code of the streets. Despite the decision she’d made to join the ton, Helena had once been a member of their street family. She’d scrapped and clawed alongside them. And more, when he, Calum, Adair, and Niall, the other members of their clan, had struggled with the skills needed to survive in their new world, Helena had proved adept in ways they never had or would ever be able to. Her business acumen had single-handedly helped build their empire. With a silent curse, he stalked off.
“Adair showed her to your office,” Calum called after him. Since Helena had left, Adair looked after the books. On a good day, Adair could never be Helena with numbers on a bad day.
His gaze trained forward, he marched through his club; lords hurried out of his path, granting him a wide berth.
No, Ryker didn’t welcome, or accept, interruptions to his daily routines. Helena knew as much. They all did. And yet something brought her here.
He exited the gaming hell’s floor and made his way abovestairs. The wood steps groaned in protest to his shifting weight. Reaching the landing, he started down the hall, then abruptly stopped. The storage room door stood ajar. With one swift movement, he jerked his knife out and kicked the door in. Ryker quickly worked his gaze over the darkened spac
e. Empty. The linens, shredded and torn, had been strewn about. With a curse, he yanked the door closed and sheathed his dagger. Another goddamned storage room destroyed. Bloody Killoran.
Given the constant fights that broke out on the gaming floors, and the lost bottles and inventory, Killoran had already infiltrated the club. Had Killoran’s men, bent on revenge, also found their way into polite Society, to where Helena was? A frown formed on his lips. He could not help her as long as she was outside these walls.
Quickening his step, Ryker strode down the corridor and turned.
A tall, broad figure stood outside Ryker’s office. Arms clasped at his back, his brother-in-law, the Duke of Somerset, waited. “Black,” the other man greeted quietly.
Somerset belonged to a people Ryker despised, but he’d also stepped in to save Helena. For that alone he had Ryker’s respect. “My sister?” he said tightly, coming forward.
“Helena is inside.”
Ryker reached past him and pressed the handle. They might be joined as family now, but he’d never call Somerset his brother. Wordlessly he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
Helena jumped up from where she sat perched on the edge of a chair before his desk. “Ryker.”
“Helena,” he said tersely, making for the sideboard. Grabbing a bottle of whiskey, he poured himself a glass. “What do you want?” he asked, carrying his drink to his desk.
“It is lovely to see you, too,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. Unhurriedly, she reclaimed her seat.
Ryker sat behind the cluttered mahogany piece and got to the heart of it. “Diggory’s men?”
Her smile withered. “No. It is not that. Them,” she amended.
Some of the tension left his shoulders, but he remained tightly coiled. To let one’s guard down meant a man’s ruin. That wariness went for those you called family, and the thieves on the street.
Laconic as she’d always been, Helena smoothed her gloved palms down the front of her skirts, drawing his attention to the new attire she wore—elegant blue satin skirts adorned in crystal beading, befitting a duchess.
He peeled his lip back in a sneer. How easily she’d let go of her former life here and slipped into her role amongst the peerage.
Bringing her chin back a notch, she held his gaze. “I require a favor, and I know the rule on the element of surprise.”
So that was why she had come at this late hour. Cradling his glass between his hands, Ryker leaned back.
“I have not been completely . . . welcomed by Society.”
Burned on one cheek, the bastard daughter of a duke, and the sister of a club proprietor—had she expected she would be? “Oh?” he drawled.
Part of him, a weak, pathetic piece of him deep inside—he’d sooner slay himself than admit to it—cared that his sister wasn’t welcomed with open arms by the ton. Still, he said nothing. One didn’t show weakness. Not even to a sister begging a favor.
“Questions surround our family,” she went on when he still said nothing.
He arched an eyebrow. “When did you ever give two damns what anyone said about us?” He’d raised her better. Disappointment filled him.
“I don’t give a bloody damn what anyone says,” she said pragmatically.
If he were capable of smiling after all the sins he’d ratcheted up in his life, this would have been the time for it.
“Society wonders about you,” she explained. “You are a duke’s son.”
“A bastard son,” he said bluntly and lifted his glass in salute. He had been a child who hadn’t mattered a jot to the man who’d given him life. How easily his sister had forgotten that key distinction of her own blood, too.
Helena drew in a deep breath, and then spoke in a rush. “They also talk about my husband, speculate there is bad blood between you.”
Ah, so this is why she is here, the Duke of Somerset. When he’d sent Helena away for her safety, never had he believed she would bind herself forever to one of those fancy toffs. “Ah.” Ryker turned his lips up in a humorless smile.
“He did not ask me to come,” she said, hurriedly. “Robert said the ton could go hang with their opinions.” The duke rose another notch in Ryker’s estimation. Helena scrambled forward in her chair and turned her palms up. “But I care, Ryker. I love my husband, and they are saying rotten things about him.” Her mouth tightened. “They say my husband will not open our home to you. They say he is ashamed of you because of your birthright and has shut you from our lives.”
In actuality, it was Ryker who had no interest in any dealings with Somerset, title of brother-in-law be damned. Ryker took a bored sip of his whiskey and studied Helena over the rim of his glass. “What do you want?” The curt question brought his sister’s lips together, tightly.
“I am throwing a ball.”
A goddamn ball. How could she endure the frivolity of her new life? In running the hell, they’d created wealth and work here for many . . . Where was her purpose now?
“I want Calum, Adair, and Niall there.” She paused. “And you. I want you to attend as well, Ryker.”
Ryker stilled. He’d misheard her. He’d not been paying attention beyond her mention of those frivolous entertainments.
“I want you there,” she repeated, with a quiet insistence. “I wish to show a—”
“No.”
“United front,” she continued over him. “I want the world to see we are truly a family and have them know Robert and I are proud of you.”
“A family?” He scoffed. Is that what she believed he was to the Duke of Somerset? All because she’d married the gent?
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “You are my brother, and Robert is now your brother.”
“He is no brother of mine,” he growled, and Helena jerked, her cheeks going ashen.
Taking another lazy sip, he arched an eyebrow. “Do not demand a meeting, enter my office, and feed me lies that this is for me,” he said coolly. This was for her husband and her.
Proving her mettle, Helena went toe-to-toe with him. “Very well, this is not solely for you. This is for all of us.” She skimmed her gaze about the room and lingered her stare on the cracked, framed piece of art hung above his desk, the only adornment to grace his room. “You have never truly trusted anyone, Ryker,” she said, pulling her attention away. “Oh, you may say you trust our brothers, but you do not truly. You keep all of us at arm’s length, questioning the motives . . . of those who would lay down their lives for you.” She gave him a long, meaningful look. “My motives are true. There is no lie in them. I’m not capable of that. But neither will I beg you to attend.”
He met her words with more silence. Silence was always far safer. It allowed a person to compose his thoughts and an opportunity to gauge and assess his opponents.
Helena, glancing down at her toes, was first to break the impasse. “I’ll simply ask and hope you see that I need you to be there for me . . . and my husband.”
Ryker withdrew his watch fob and consulted the timepiece. “I’ve to return to the floors.” And speak to Niall about the latest break-in on the apartments.
Helena came to her feet. “Of course.” She picked her reticule off the floor and fished inside. Leaning over, she set something on his desk.
Ryker froze, staring blankly down at the words on that thick vellum. “It is Friday,” she clarified. “Consider this your formal invitation. I do not ask you to come for the entire event, but if you’d stand beside us for even a short while,” she held his gaze squarely, “then I would be forever grateful.”
She could have reminded him of the years of service she’d given the club, and how she’d helped build this empire . . . but she did not. It was a sign of her weakness. “Helena,” he said, lifting his head.
“Ryker.” Helena dipped hers in return, and proudly marched out of his office.
As soon as the door closed behind her, he let loose a curse. She’d asked him to step out of the only world he’d ever known and to enter h
ers. To what end? To help Somerset. A sound of disgust escaped him. Though she’d not pleaded or reminded him of past favors she’d done the club, they lingered there.
His sense of street honor, where you paid your debts and did your due, was ingrained in him from the moment he’d been old enough to walk, and as he’d learned his place in the Dials.
A knock sounded at the door. What now? “Enter!” he barked.
Calum stepped inside and looked around. A frown settled on his lips. “She’s gone already?”
“Yes.” Ryker downed the contents of his drink, welcoming the fiery trail it blazed down his throat.
“Is it Killoran?” Calum pressed, coming forward. Diggory’s number two, now in command of the Devil’s Den, had yet to attempt his revenge for Diggory’s death. The time was coming, and Ryker braced for it. Welcomed it. It was the ruthlessness he knew.
“You want to know the matter of urgency that brought her here?” Ryker swiped the invitation from his desk and tossed it at the other man. Calum easily caught the invitation.
As he skimmed the page, his brow furrowed. “A ball?” the other man asked skeptically, turning over the invite.
With a biting laugh, Ryker accepted the thick vellum, and set it aside. “That is the pressing matter of business you called me away from the floors for?” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re growing weak,” he cautioned.
Calum flared his nostrils. With his volatile displays of fury in the streets against their enemies, and his worrying over Helena, he had always been vulnerable in ways Ryker never had been, or ever would be. “Why does she want you there?” Calum asked, relentless.
“To silence the gossip about me and Somerset.” Registering Calum’s pointed stare, he snapped, “What?”
Offering an infuriatingly nonchalant shrug, Calum said, “Oh, I would simply expect given that Somerset watched after Helena and followed after her, taking a bullet surely meant for her, that there would be some sense of obligation.”
A thick, tense silence fell.
Goddamn it all. Where any bloody duke, baron, or lord in between could go hang on any other day, Calum was right on this. Somerset had selflessly returned to St. Giles to come for Helena when Diggory had snatched her. It mattered not whose bullet had ended the bastard . . . but rather who had taken a bullet that day.
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