by Erica Ridley
“It’s a beautiful day.” She lifted a hand toward the unseasonably clear sky. “I thought we should meet somewhere neutral. Not the Cloven Hoof.”
“Why?” he repeated.
“I wanted you to meet me as me,” she said after a long moment, as she played with one of her ringlets. “And perhaps share an ice or two.”
“We are not friends,” he reminded her. “I’m not your suitor or even a willing business partner.”
She stopped toying with her artful tendrils to frown at him. “You could be a willing business partner if you wished.”
He stared back at her without responding.
“And we could be friends,” she continued softly, hesitantly. “If you wanted to.”
He chose one of the bowls of slowly melting ice and handed her the other.
“Eat this,” he said gruffly. “And stop playing with your hair. It looks like it took an hour to curl.”
“Two,” Bryony muttered. “It apparently takes longer if you fidget.”
He frowned. “Why bother if you dislike it?”
“This is one of the first times I have bothered,” she admitted.
Max shoved a spoonful of flavored ice in his mouth before he could inquire whether she’d done so for him. Because she wanted him to find her beautiful. As if he didn’t already.
“I like your waistcoat,” she said shyly. “It reminds me of the deepest parts of the sea. Somewhere a Kraken might live.”
Damn it. It was hard to stay furious at a woman whose views mirrored his.
“Bryony,” squealed a trio of blonde females as they flocked over as one. “Tell your mother to send us a new invitation. Ours never arrived.”
“She won’t,” Bryony said between spoonfuls of ice. “She’s hoping to marry me off to the first man whose signature she can forge on a wedding contract, and it won’t work if all the eligible gentlemen are distracted by you three.”
Marry her off?
Surely the somersaults in Max’s stomach were because such a turn would be disastrous news for the future of his club. When Bryony married, the deed would belong to some titled nob, not to her.
The girls giggled and pouted. “How are you supposed to charm anyone if you’re playing the violin instead of conversing?”
“Mother believes that’s the only time I am charming,” Bryony said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “She’ll be at Lady Roundtree’s on Wednesday, if you want to press your case then.”
“Your mother doesn’t know everything,” one of the chits assured her earnestly. “Why, just look at your hair. It can curl!”
The other girls chimed in with their effusive agreement.
“Thank you for noticing,” Bryony said with a straight face. “These ringlets are my greatest achievement. The culmination of four Seasons’ hopes and dreams.”
“They’re very pretty.” The girls cast curious glances at Max. “And…”
Bryony stared back at them without blinking.
After an increasingly awkward stretch of silence, they curtsied and left without a single word in his direction.
“What a pleasant band of young ladies,” he said when they were gone.
“Oh, were you hoping they would speak to you?” Bryony asked sweetly. “I’m afraid they couldn’t do so without an introduction.”
“You could have introduced them.”
“And have them charm you out from under me? I think not. Especially when I haven’t a violin handy with which to drown out their sweetness.”
“Do you play in a theater?” he asked, curious despite himself.
She shook her head. “At home, and at my sister’s school.”
He had heard music at Vauxhall, but never touched an instrument of his own. “You must love it.”
“I hate it,” she admitted. “I often feel the only time I contribute as a respectable part of my family is when I’m on stage. And I’m always on stage.”
That… was not what he’d imagined it would be like.
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because I love my family,” she said simply. “Why else would I do anything? Aren’t the people you love always worth it?”
Damn it. Max set down his empty bowl with more force than necessary.
It was hard to stay angry with a woman who valued her family as much as he valued his.
“What kind of high-in-the-instep school needs a violinist?” he asked instead.
Bryony’s eyes shone. “A struggling boarding school in St. Giles. A few of the girls are paying students now, but most are orphans or runaways my sister felt should have a better life. She gives them an education and skills with which to find gainful employment of their choice.”
Max tried not to show how surprised and impressed he was. “The violin helps with that?”
“Not at all,” she answered with pride. “The violin is for pleasure. Music to dance by. Everyone deserves a few moments when they can truly be free.”
Max glowered at her.
It sounded perfect. She sounded perfect. Yet he could tell just by looking at her to which class she belonged. He’d spent his life vowing to outwit the aristocracy, not fall for one. He would not make that mistake.
“Is your mother truly searching for a husband for you?” he asked.
“As if it were her job,” Bryony answered with feeling. “Not that Mother would ever perform something so common as a job. Finding me a husband is more like… her calling.”
Max’s stomach once again gave an uncomfortable twist.
He wasn’t jealous. How could he be? He didn’t want Bryony for himself. Couldn’t have her, even if he did. Even if she weren’t from her class, even if he wasn’t from his, even if they’d both been born in the same rookery, romance still wouldn’t be an option.
She held the deed to his property and the upper hand.
He had to find a way to convince her to sell. And not using one of his sister’s harebrained ideas.
If it were even possible to marry Bryony, that would be cheating in the worst way. One must earn one’s success. He intended to be a self-made man before he wed, not because of it. Afterward, he would choose a wife for love, not papers, or he wouldn’t take one at all.
And Bryony would choose a husband for… Who knew what criteria a woman of her class would have? Money, he supposed. A title, no doubt. Looks, status, social connections. They couldn’t be more different. She was beauty and he was the beast.
He preferred being the beast.
It helped remind him that the only reason Bryony could be interested in him outside of the Cloven Hoof was because to her he was exotic and different. A way to be rebellious. A momentary diversion for now, and immaterial in the future.
In a few months, when she became Lady Whatever, the growing business he’d spent blood, sweat, and his life savings building from nothing would merely be an amusing anecdote she might share with her friends as they sipped champagne at some society ball. She belonged to the haut ton. He did not.
Max didn’t care about High Society. He had a world of his own, a world that didn’t include her. His club, his friends, his sister… Bryony didn’t fit any part of it. It was good for both of them to remember that.
“You’re scowling again,” she told him. “I presume I’ve managed to vex you in some new and unpredictable way.”
His eyes narrowed. “I was just thinking how grateful I am that I’ll never be forced to marry a spoiled rich girl.”
“Good one,” she said approvingly. “An arrow right to my spoiled rich parts.” She lowered her voice. “That’s all of me, in case you were wondering.”
He burst out laughing without meaning to.
She was impossible to offend. She didn’t take herself seriously enough. Her friends sounded tolerable, her mother sounded awful, and he himself wasn’t exactly known as someone who was easy company.
Except she made it easy. She saw him for who and what he was and didn’t appear to mind. If anything, she seemed to prefe
r him exactly how he was. She didn’t judge him. She didn’t care enough about what anyone else thought to bother. He could be open and honest with her in a manner that he could never replicate with the patrons of his club.
Damn it, he liked her.
“There you are,” shrilled a voice. “Esther, go and ask Miss Grenville why you haven’t received an invitation to the family musicale. She’s standing right there.”
Max jerked his gaze toward Bryony.
Miss Grenville.
Violin.
Musicale.
Basil Q. Jones was Heath Grenville’s sister. His business associate Heath Grenville, secret-keeper for the ton and solver of problems, including the conundrum of how to raise funds to launch an unusual gambling club. Not to mention heir apparent to a barony.
Bryony’s parents were titled. She didn’t just have a subscription to Almack’s. She was a member of the aristocracy. Sharing ices in the park was madness. His very presence could ruin her reputation, if he were recognized. Her father could hogtie him on a boat to Australia for such presumption.
As a lord, he would face no repercussion for the crime. Just sympathy from his peers.
Bryony knew this. Had known it all along and didn’t care.
She was too busy making a certain impression in front of her friends. The dashing, rebellious hoyden who had brought a king of the underworld to heel. She hadn’t brought him here to discuss selling him the deed to his property. She had put him on display like a dog.
Max took a step backwards.
She glanced over at him sharply. “All the countless ways that I’ve been horrid to you, and you retreat when you discover I’m a Grenville?”
“I’m not your plaything,” he said. “And I’m not your gewgaw, to be gawked at by your fancy friends. I’ll see you back at the office, Miss Grenville. Until then, don’t call.”
He tipped his hat to the onlookers and walked away.
Chapter 11
From her position hidden behind the folding screen separating the settee from the rest of the office, Bryony had begun to feel like an all-knowing but impotent ghost.
After Max had discovered the truth of who she was, Bryony had been afraid her status as daughter of a baron and all that entailed would cause him to shut her out. According to society, she should have nothing to do with him, nor he with her—under any circumstances.
Then again, according to society, a gambling den like Max’s should not exist, much less be as wildly popular as it was. To Bryony, the attraction of the Cloven Hoof was less the income it could raise and more the escape it could provide.
Indeed, she could not help but wonder if that was the reason so many gamblers of different backgrounds risked their livelihoods within its walls. A chance to escape from reality.
Perhaps she had overestimated the allure of an easy monetary windfall and underestimated the irresistible draw being somewhere absolutely nothing was expected of you.
“Thank you so much,” said the fourth person that evening.
Bryony knew because she had been transcribing each conversation into her journal. She couldn’t see who the man might be, but each word was clear.
“Remember,” Max told his visitor sternly. “No more horses.”
He had taken Bryony very much at her word. She intended to shadow his office for the next month? So be it. The Cloven Hoof had many shadows.
She was relegated posthaste to the corner behind the folding screen, and completely forgotten.
Ever since that day at Gunter’s, she’d spent more hours of each night on this settee than in her own bedchamber, to mixed results. She knew the Cloven Hoof and its clientele more intimately than ever. But her relationship with its arrogant, fiercely independent owner was icy at best.
“Are you too busy to interrupt?” queried a nervous male voice.
“Not for you,” came Max’s immediate reply.
Bryony’s hidden smile was brittle.
He was angry with her for forcing him to make a compromise not of his choosing.
She hadn’t wished to hold the property deed over his head like blackmail, but she had been desperate. He had backed her into a corner from which she saw no other escape. She could not bear to lose him from her life so soon after finding him.
A month from now, her parents could have her betrothed and headed a hundred miles away. But between then and now, she wanted to spend as much time at the Cloven Hoof as possible.
It was the closest she had ever come to feeling like she was somewhere she belonged.
“—and ever since, the Queen of Diamonds has been my lucky card,” explained the current guest.
“When gambling one’s unentailed home,” Max said with considerable patience, “there is no such thing as a lucky card.”
Bryony grinned at the folding screen.
It would be easier if she could dislike him. If he truly were the demon society painted him to be. But she had seen the truth. She gazed at him through the crack beside the folding screen.
He was the angel of the underworld. A granter of miracles. A giver of hope, to those most in need.
One could not help but admire him.
“Have you considered my offer?” came a new voice, crackling with hope.
“I have,” Max responded. “I shall invest at ten percent.”
Her heart gave a little flutter. Everything she’d wished she could be doing when she used her anonymous accounts to transfer funds out of her savings and into lives where it would make more of an impact, Max did every day. Without pseudonyms. Without secrecy. Without shame. He was able to openly help others and receive much-deserved credit for all of his accomplishments.
Women like Bryony would never be able to do the same.
To be sure, she would soon be praised on the fine catch her parents managed to scrounge for her. It would be a lie. Her elder sister was sweet, biddable, and beautiful, and the suitor their parents had procured for poor Camellia was a man twice her age from the other side of England. So far away, the sisters had feared they would lose contact altogether.
Bryony’s fortune would be far worse than that. Her strongest qualities weren’t the sort that anyone admired.
Except for Max.
As angry as he’d been with her for manipulating him, he was no fool. He was a pragmatist. Once the deal was struck, he’d immediately put her to work. She was not behind the settee twiddling fingers as she eavesdropped. She was sharing the settee with a stack of old journals, a pile of new pencils, and a fresh journal in which to analyze, calculate, and conclude for Max’s benefit.
“What if he doesn’t pay his vowels?” came a tremulous voice on the other side of the folding screen. “I cannot take him to the courts. If the House of Lords won’t convict murder, they certainly won’t side with a humble shopkeeper over a marquess.”
“I don’t need the House of Lords at my disposal in order to ruin him.” Max’s voice was calm. Simply stating facts. “Tell him he has a fortnight or he’s answerable to me.”
Bryony’s stomach flipped. He was as brilliant as he was ruthless. Driven to succeed at any cost. She could not have respected him more.
If she were forced to come up with something she disliked about Maxwell Gideon, it would be that he was able to perform his amazing feats and defy every odd, while she was powerless to even try.
Proper ladies did not run businesses of any kind. They were too busy running their husbands’ household. Any assets they possessed prior to the marriage were forfeit the day of the wedding. The husband’s word was now law. The wife’s role, to provide him with children. Sons. Someone who could inherit and be important. Someone capable of starting a legacy of his own.
It was enough to make a woman scream.
“Closing time,” came the low, familiar rumble of Max’s voice. “We are alone.”
A delicious shiver raced down Bryony’s spine.
Ever since that one electrically charged moment when he had almost kissed her, Max had not tri
ed again. Perhaps he no longer wished to.
Bryony did not feel the same.
When she did not immediately leap out from her hiding place to address him, Max’s footsteps stalked closer. With the swipe of one powerful arm, he shoved the offending folding screen out of the way and glared down at her for daring to disobey his unspoken wishes.
She grinned up at him. This was part of their routine. She was not the sort who obeyed, and he was the sort to act.
For the first time tonight, the intense focus of that dark glittering gaze was finally all hers. There were no more distractions. Just the two of them, and the live sparks crackling between.
“You were very sweet tonight,” she said to annoy him. “I love how benevolent you are to those who have nowhere else to turn. A soft heart is commendable.”
He was not amused. “You’ve read the journals. I make a tidy profit from my so-called benevolence.”
“Of course you do,” Bryony agreed. “How else would you continue to be the secret benefactor of the underworld?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I could use the money earned from gaming tables.”
“No doubt you will.” Bryony considered the idea. “You’re in a much better position to distribute their excess spoils where it ought to go than any of those featherwits.”
Max turned and walked over to his desk without replying.
She smiled.
He knew her as well as she knew him. Of course she would follow close behind in order to take her customary place perched on the corner of his desk. She brought the journals with her.
Mining their secrets had become something of an obsession. This might be her last opportunity to make herself useful in a situation such as this.
Max might not have explicitly asked for her help, but he had given her the journals. Trusted her with their contents. Trusted her conclusions.
Max, who trusted no one.
Except Bryony.
Some of her happy warmth faded. If only he liked her. Although he might trust her with his business, he definitely didn’t trust her with his heart. She doubted he ever would.
“Are you done yet?” he asked.
“Ye of little faith.” She placed her working journal on the desk in front of him. “I finished the first project yesterday. Indexes A and B explain the variables charting profit relationships between game and table, as promised. I have moved on to more complex functions including position in the salon as well as time and day.”