Chapter 8
After a long week of doing her best to seek out an appropriate suitor at soirée after soirée, Bryony could not stay away from the sanctuary of the Cloven Hoof for another moment.
Rather than let herself in a third time, she waited in the shadows until the last of the employees had left before rushing forward to knock on the rear door.
A sliver of moonlight fell across his face when he answered the door.
He scowled. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you alone?” she asked.
“Yes.” He cast his glance over her shoulders at the vacant alleyway. “Are you?”
She nodded.
He crossed his arms in annoyance, but he didn’t shut the door.
Her heart thumped. Perhaps she had a chance. “May I come in?”
His expression shuttered. “Bryony—”
“Please.” She hugged herself to keep out the cold. “Just for a moment. It has been a tough day.”
He wasn’t going to allow it. No was written in his eyes.
“It’s dark,” she said quickly. “And late. What if I promise to leave at first light?”
This was blatant manipulation. He knew it as well as she did. Bryony had clearly made it this far across town in her tailcoat and top hat. Surely she could find her way back home in the dark.
Yet a true gentleman would be unable to turn her away.
Begrudgingly, he stepped aside to let her pass. “Dawn is in less than an hour.”
She hurried inside before he could change his mind.
Even if she didn’t belong here, she felt less out of place hunched over Max’s desk in men’s clothing than she did mincing about with her corseted spine ramrod straight while forcing herself to giggle becomingly at inane observations about fresh scones or rainy weather.
Yet she tried. Time was running out. She would don any facade necessary to find a suitable husband before her parents assigned her one.
At the Cloven Hoof, everything was different.
Here, there was no need to mince or simper. Max might not know the details of her identity, but he was under no illusions as to what kind of woman she was. He had earned her respect. Although he bristled at her presence, she didn’t want to lose his company. Or the chance to make a difference.
“What was the reaction to the change in prices?” she asked, as if she had any right to the answer.
Well, technically, she did have every right to know, and would find out herself in the next monthly report. However, that detail was not something she could share if she wanted to continue to be received with open arms. Or at all.
She was not just an investor, but the owner of the land around them. A property Max very much wished to regain for himself.
After which, he would have absolutely no need for Bryony. Her stomach hollowed.
She couldn’t sell. The entire impetus behind sneaking in that first night was to discover whether the deed to his property was worth holding onto. The answer was obvious. Guard the asset and keep collecting rent.
Yet life was far from straightforward.
“Hmm?” he asked.
She cleared her throat. “The wine. Was there a strong reaction to the new prices?”
“As you suspected.” Max scribbled in one of his journals. “No reaction at all. Except mine, when I saw our higher profit.”
Bryony knew that Max wasn’t including her in his use of the word our, but her heart soared all the same. She had been useful. She had value.
If only she hadn’t had to disguise herself to prove it.
She glanced down at her shirt and breeches and sighed. Even though she knew he would never have allowed her into the club dressed as Bryony-the-debutante, she wished he could see her as more than some strange woman in trousers with an affinity for giving unsolicited advice.
For him, she suddenly wished to be beautiful. Elegant gown, hair ringlets, whatever it took to get him to notice her as a woman.
Yet this costume was the only way for her to pay him a visit. Disguised. Sexless.
It wasn’t fair.
She couldn’t come here to him as herself any more than she could attend society events as her true self. At one, she disguised her outside. At the other, her inside.
How she wished Max could see through the layers to the real her.
“Faro or whist?” he asked.
She blinked. “Are you asking me to play?”
“I don’t gamble,” he said with a straight face. “I want to add some new tables. Which would be the most profitable?”
“You don’t gamble?” she repeated in disbelief. “This is a gaming hell.”
“No cards, no dice.” He gestured at his obsessively organized desk.
“The Cloven Hoof is a gamble,” Bryony pointed out. “You didn’t know when you opened it if it would be a success or a failure.”
“Maybe I didn’t care,” he said with a shrug. “Is it a gamble if the outcome doesn’t matter?”
She narrowed her eyes.
The outcome did matter. Enough that he had used the only asset in his possession, his very home, as a lien. But no one knew that except Max himself, the potential investors who had reviewed his proposal, and Bryony’s brother Heath, who had arranged the deal.
As far as anyone else knew, Max had appeared from out of nowhere. No one knew where he was from, where he lived, whether his entire financial state was wrapped up in the Cloven Hoof.
That was, nobody knew but Bryony.
“Where would you put the tables?” she asked. “Would you replace the seating in the sole area currently dedicated to drink and conversation?”
“Would you?” he countered and pushed a journal across his desk toward her.
She picked it up, fingers trembling with excitement. “You’re asking for my help?”
“I don’t need your help,” he replied matter-of-factly. “But only a fool refuses to listen to outside opinions.”
Bryony grinned to herself. He was right; he didn’t need her help. At least, any more of it. But this was the first time her opinion on a business matter had been consciously solicited.
Her opinion. Not her anonymous male pseudonym. Directly solicited. Not like the last encounter, when Bryony had blurted out her opinions on prices without being asked.
This was unprecedented. Max might not know her identity, but he knew she was a woman. He believed she had a brain. And possessed an opinion that only a fool would fail to listen to.
She opened the journal to the first page. “What is this?”
“Daily profit by table,” he responded at once. “The key at the bottom indicates which game is played at which table, and the index at the back lists any dates in which a dedicated table changed from one game to another.”
Bryony warmed at his words.
What he did not say was, it may be too difficult for you to keep the legend straight.
Nor did he say, it will be impossible for you to hold the changes in dates in your memory as you sort through the daily profit records.
Perhaps he thought she could do it. Perhaps he did not. Either way, he took care not to presume. He simply offered her the opportunity to try.
She scanned the legend first. The fluttering did not leave her chest.
The journal was a work in progress. There was no way to sort and edit information after the fact, other than to completely rewrite the entire thing. This might be how she would have attacked the problem, too.
Twenty tables, numbered in order of purchase. Once the table numbers were fixed in her mind, she flipped to the rear of the journal for the index of dates.
It was not as difficult to track the numbers as she might have thought. Some tables by necessity were designed to do one thing, such as Faro, but other tables had changed from one game to another depending on its waxing or waning popularity at any given time.
She flipped through the pages of the book as fast as she could to get a sense of its composition.
Da
ily reports by table were summed at end of week, summed again at end of month, then summed again at end of year.
The daily report was the only place that showed all the profit and loss in full detail.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly as she handed back the journal.
He raised his brows. “It’s impossible to say?”
“It’s impossible to say at a glance,” she clarified. “You need to refine your calculations.”
He leaned back. “How so?”
“It would be helpful to know what a given table or game earns per hour,” she explained. “Perhaps time of day is a factor. It could be that whist tables are more popular in the afternoon, and casino by night. If that is the case, it could be more profitable to designate early games and late games rather than add additional tables that sit vacant part of every day.”
“But if you had to guess?” he pressed.
“Hazard, I suppose.” She grinned at him shyly. “Even at a glance I can see that game garners more players at higher bids, which implies a higher percentage to the house. But I would still do the other calculations to be certain.”
Max inclined his head. “I rather think you would.”
She was itching to do so, in fact. He kept a tantalizing puzzle in the volume of his journals.
All the necessary observations were right there. With enough time, she could tell him at what hour of what day which games reached peak profitability. Whether their position in the salon had a factor. Was it better to be closer to the bar? Or further from prying eyes?
What about the number of people at each table? Some games could only be played with a certain number of participants, but others were more flexible. Did an artificial cap create a false sense that one was more likely to win, thus encouraging riskier bids? Or did a greater number of competitors increase the pot on its own, encouraging higher and higher bids?
The answers were right there in his journal, waiting to be discovered. Her blood hummed at all the untapped potential. If this were her club…
But of course it wasn’t. She might own the deed to the property, but in a few weeks’ time, their original investment contract would come to an end.
Max would owe her nothing. No money, no monthly reports. Not even his time.
She could either content herself with receiving rents without knowing any other detail, or she could sell him the property outright as he so desperately wished for her to do.
In either case, she would soon belong even less than she did now.
She shifted uncomfortably on her perch on the edge of his desk.
Max glanced up at her. “New trousers?”
“Old trousers,” she said without thinking.
He tilted his head. “They’re different from last time.”
Her heart fluttered. “You’ve been keeping an eye on my trousers?”
He gave her a slow, devastating smile. “I’ve definitely been keeping an eye on your… trousers.”
Her cheeks heated in pleasure. Perhaps extravagant gowns weren’t so important after all. “They’re my brother’s trousers. Or at least, they were.”
“Does he know you took them?” he asked.
She nodded. “He gave them to me.”
He raised his brows. “I would like to meet your brother.”
You already have.
Bryony wondered what Max would think if he ever realized that Heath Grenville, arranger of all of society’s scandals, had willingly loaned men’s clothing to not one but two of his sisters.
“Have you any siblings?” Bryony asked instead.
He hesitated. “A sister.”
“I should like to meet her,” she blurted. Any sister of Max’s must be equally fascinating.
“No,” he said curtly and turned back to his journals.
Bryony could not help but feel that she had just received the cut direct.
It was embarrassing to think she was not good enough to meet the sister of a man who ran a gambling club, but nor could she blame him for being selective. Just because he tolerated her here did not mean he wished to spend additional time in her company. She glanced away.
What did he see when he looked at her? Neither man nor a woman, perhaps. An unwanted distraction.
He did not kick her out of his office, but nor had he ever invited her to return. She was supposed to be smart. Perhaps that was her clue.
What if he didn’t want her here at all, but was simply too much of a gentleman to demand that she leave, now that he knew she was a lady? Her heart twisted.
The Cloven Hoof had quickly become one of her favorite refuges. Yet perhaps all she was doing was ruining Max’s solitude. If she never came back, would he even notice her absence? Would he be grateful that she had finally taken the hint?
A shiver of mortification slid down her spine and she gave herself an involuntary hug for warmth. Foolish girl. She should leave. This had gone on long enough.
As if reading her mind, Max leapt to his feet.
Bryony slid from his desk in embarrassment. “I’m going to—”
“Let me stoke the coals,” he interrupted, and walked past her to the fireplace, where he reached for a fire iron.
Her heart skipped in wonder.
He had not registered her awkwardness, but sensed her shiver. He was not afraid she would stay, but worried she might go.
Speechless at this new development, she stepped closer to him just as he turned to face her. Their feet tangled.
He caught her before she could crash into him, but did not immediately let her go.
Possibly because she held onto him for dear life.
The fireiron clanged forgotten to the carpet. They both ignored it. Their eyes were on each other.
There were no protective layers of shift and gown and lace separating her legs from his.
His powerful thighs were encased in skintight buckskin, soft leather over hard muscles just inviting to be touched.
Her own legs trembled in thin nankeen trousers, her hips inches from his.
Because the club was not yet open, she had tossed her greatcoat on the settee where it too could afford her no protection. Her brother’s old jacket was too tight to button over her bosom, so she hadn’t bothered. Which left her with little between them.
The thin linen shirt might hide her chest from view, but Bryony suspected Max could sense the heaving of her lungs and the frantic beating of her heart all the same.
His breath had quickened as much as hers.
Was he going to kiss her? Or were they going to stand locked together like this for eternity? She wasn’t sure which she desired more. The anticipation was exquisite.
He lifted a hand to her cheek and dragged the pad of his thumb over her trembling lower lip.
“Where are you right now?” he asked softly. “Are you here in the moment with me or is that brain of yours off analyzing from afar?”
She was very much there with him. Every inch of her was more aware of his body and his presence than anything she’d ever experienced. His mouth was so close. She had not been calculating or analyzing their situation until he mentioned it, but now that he did…
Blast her luck.
Bryony swallowed. As much as she wanted him to kiss her, she could not let him do so. Not under subterfuge. He would have no interest in trading kisses with the investor who refused to sell him his property. The moment would be ruined.
Worse, she liked him too much to allow her first kiss to be under false pretenses. She didn’t want him to be smitten by some mystery persona that didn’t truly exist. She wanted him to see her as Bryony.
Her skin pricked with nervousness. She had kept her secrets for long enough. Come what may, she would not go another moment before telling the truth. She respected Max too much to keep him in the dark. Once they had complete honesty between them, they could decide where to take this attraction.
When he kissed her, if he ever did kiss her, she wanted it to be because he was truly choosing her.
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Chapter 9
Max was frozen in time and place.
He hadn’t meant to touch her. Had been trying as hard as humanly possible to keep his eyes on his sums and not on the rosy plumpness of her lips, just begging to be kissed.
Struggling to keep his hands busied safely atop his desk and not buried deep in her hair. Or curved about her cheek so he could stroke her lower lip as he was doing now.
This was a mistake. An aberration. He devised plans and he stuck to the plan, and in no version of any of his plans was he pulling a strange woman into his arms in the back of his office before he’d secured the Cloven Hoof as fully his own.
But Bryony didn’t seem like a stranger. Or rather, he liked all the ways that she was strange.
She was smart, quick. She could sum columns in her head, backward and upside-down, but it was more than that. Her strong opinions were not meant to show off, but to improve the Cloven Hoof’s profitability and efficiency.
Some men might not find a shared affinity for one’s gambling den as romantic as Max, but of course those men’s entire future was not wrapped up in the success or failure of a single venture. A month ago, Bryony hadn’t known him, and yet her gut reaction was to help whenever possible. Because she cared.
Her ideas were sound and selfless. Her pockets did not depend on the price of his imported wines. How refreshing was that?
He still didn’t know what twist of fate had caused her to sneak into his establishment that first night, but he had looked forward to each visit ever since.
Here was an intelligent woman who chose to seek out his company time and again. Her genteel accent indicated her birth was higher than his, but Max wasn’t proposing marriage.
Indeed, he had vowed not to start a romance of any kind until he finally owned the deed and was able to turn the Cloven Hoof into twice the success that it already was, ensuring a stable future for his sister, himself, and his eventual wife.
That much hadn’t changed. But there was a vast difference between a romantic entanglement and a simple kiss, was there not?
What harm could come of lowering his mouth to Bryony’s just this once? She was so open, so honest. And he yearned to taste her lips.
Rogues to Riches (Books 1-6) Page 113