Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover_The Fourth Rule of Scoundrels

by Sarah MacLean

  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.

  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 d
oes 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.”