No going back now.
Finally, Lydia smiled, bright and honest. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Mara caught her breath at the words, at the way they flooded her with relief. “When he gets his way, I shall be found out.”
Lydia met her gaze evenly, knowing what the words meant. Knowing that Mara would be run out of London. That the orphanage would lose everything if she were linked to it. Knowing that she would have to leave. “And will he get his way?”
Retribution.
The man would not stop until he did so. But she had plans as well. This life she’d built might be over, but she would not leave without ensuring the boys’ security. “Not without my getting a way of my own as well.”
Lydia’s lips kicked up in a wry smile. “Just as I expected.”
“I understand if you want away from here. If you want to leave.”
Lydia shook her head. “I don’t wish to leave.”
Mara smiled. “Good. As this place will need you when I am gone.”
Lydia nodded. “I will be here.”
The clock in the hallway beyond chimed, as if marking the moment’s importance. The sound shook them from the moment. “Now that that’s done,” Lydia said, extending the envelopes she held to Mara, “perhaps you’d like to tell me why you are receiving missives from a gaming hell?”
Mara’s eyes went wide as she took the offered envelope, and turned it over in her hands. On the front, in deep black, close-to-illegible scrawl, was her name and direction. On the back, a stunning silver seal, marked with a delicate female angel, lithe and lovely with wings that spanned the wax.
The seal was unfamiliar.
Mara brought it closer, for inspection.
Lydia spoke. “The seal is from The Fallen Angel.”
Mara looked up, heart suddenly pounding. “The duke’s club.”
Blue eyes lit with excitement. “The most exclusive gaming hell in London, where half of the aristocracy wagers an obscene fortune each night.” Lydia lowered her voice. “I hear that the members need only ask for what they want—however extravagant or lascivious or impossible to acquire—and the club provides.”
Mara rolled her eyes. “If it’s impossible to acquire, how does the club acquire it?”
Lydia shrugged. “I imagine they are quite powerful men.”
A memory flashed of Temple’s broad shoulders and broken nose, of the way he commanded her into his home. Of the way he negotiated the terms of their agreement.
“I imagine so,” she said, sliding a finger under the silver wax and opening the letter.
Two words were scrawled across the paper—two words, surrounded by an enormous amount of wasted space. It would never occur to her to use paper so extravagantly. Apparently, economy was not at the forefront of Temple’s mind—except, perhaps, for economy of language.
Nine o’clock.
That was it. No signature, not that she required one. It had been a dozen years since someone had exhibited such imperious control over her.
“I do not think I like this duke of yours very much.” Lydia was leaning across the desk, neck craned to see the note.
“As he is not my duke, I have little problem with that.”
“You intend to go?”
She had made an arrangement. This was her punishment. Her penance.
Her only chance.
Ignoring the question, she set the paper aside, her gaze falling to the second envelope. “That’s much less interesting,” Lydia said.
It was a bill, Mara knew without opening it. “How much?”
“Two pounds, sixteen. For coal.”
More than they had in the coffers. And if November was any indication of what was to come, the winter would only get colder. Anger and frustration and panic threatened, but Mara swallowed back the emotion.
She would regain control.
She reached for the duke’s terse note, turning the paper over and going for her pen, dipping the nib carefully in ink before she replied.
£10.
She returned the note to its envelope, heart in her throat, full of power. He might dictate the terms, but she dictated the price. And ten pounds would keep the boys of MacIntyre House warm for a year.
She crossed out her name on the envelope and wrote in his before handing it back to Lydia.
“We’ll discuss the bill tomorrow.”
Chapter 5
A dressmaker. He’d brought her to a dressmaker.
In the dead of night, as though it was a crime to buy new gowns.
Of course, in the dead of night, creeping through the back door to one of Bond Street’s most legendary modistes, it did feel a bit criminal. As criminal as the shiver of pleasure that threaded through her as she brushed past him into the sewing room of the shop, unable to avoid contact with him—big as an ox.
Not that she noticed.
Nor did she notice that he was far too agile for his size, leaping up and down from carriages, opening doors—holding them for her entry with quiet smoothness—as though he were a ballet dancer and not a boxer.
As though grace had been imparted to him in the womb.
But she refused to notice all that, even when her heart pounded as the door closed behind him, his bulk crowding her further into the room, its half-dozen lanterns doing little more than cast shadows around the space.
“Why are we here?”
“You needn’t whisper. Hebert knows we are coming.”
She cut him a look. “Does she know why?”
He did not meet her eyes, instead heading through the shop, weaving in and out of the empty seamstress stations. “I would imagine she thinks I want to dress a woman and I’d like to keep the situation secret.”
She followed. “Do you do this often?”
He stopped, and she nearly ran into the back of him before he looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ve little reason to keep women secret.”
A vision flashed, young, handsome Temple full of bold smiles and even bolder touches, tempting her with broad shoulders and black eyes. He needn’t keep them secret. No doubt, women fell over themselves to assume the role. She cast the thought aside. “I don’t imagine you do.”
“Thanks in large part to you,” he said, and pushed through a heavy curtain into the dressing room, leaving her to follow.
She should have expected the reminder that his life had been something else before it was this. He’d been the son and heir to one of the wealthiest, most revered dukedoms in Britain. And now he might still have the wealth, but he spent it in shadows. He had lost the reverence.
Because of her.
She swallowed back the twinge of guilt she felt at the thought, and instead hovered at the exit. “When do I receive my funds?”
“When our agreement is fulfilled.”
“How am I to know that you will keep your word?”
He considered her for a long moment, and she had the keen sense that she should not have questioned his honor. “You shall have to trust me.”
She scowled. “I’ve never met an aristocratic male worthy of trust.” She’d met them desperate and angry and abusive and lascivious and filled with disgust. But never honorable.
“Then you should be grateful that I am rarely considered aristocratic,” he replied, and turned away from her, the conversation complete.
She followed him into the dressing room of Madame Hebert’s, where the proprietress was already waiting, as though she had nothing better to do in all the world than stand here and wait for the Duke of Lamont to arrive.
His words, still echoing in her ears, proved true inside the salon. She wasn’t here for the Duke of Lamont. She was here for one of the powerful owners of London’s most legendary gaming hell.