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.
“Temple,” Madame Hebert welcomed him, coming forward to rise up on her toes and deposit kisses on both of his cheeks. “You great, handsome beast. Were it anyone else, I would have denied the request.” She smiled, the pleasure in the expression matching the tenor of her rich French accent. “But I cannot resist you.”
Mara resisted t
he urge to wrinkle her nose as a chuckle rumbled from Temple’s chest. “You cannot resist Chase.”
Hebert laughed, the sound like fine crystal. “Well, a businesswoman must know where—as you English say—her bread is buttered.” Mara bit her tongue rather than ask if Temple hadn’t sent a fair number of customers in the dressmaker’s direction himself. She did not care to know.
And then Mara couldn’t speak, because the modiste’s dark gaze flickered to her, eyes going wide. “This one is beautiful.”
No one had ever described her as such. Well, perhaps someone once . . . a lifetime ago . . . but no one since that night she’d run.
Another thing that had changed.
The dressmaker was wrong. Mara was twenty-eight, with work-hewn hands and more lines around her eyes than she’d like to admit. She wasn’t painted or primped or pretty like the women she’d seen at The Fallen Angel that night, nor was she petite the way ladies in style were, or soft-spoken the way they should be.
And she certainly wasn’t gorgeous.
She opened her mouth, ready to refute the label, but Temple was already speaking, chasing the compliment away with his lack of acknowledgment. “She needs dressing.”
Mara shook her head. “I don’t need dressing.”
The Frenchwoman was already moving to light a series of candles surrounding a small platform at the center of the dressing room, as though Mara hadn’t spoken. “Remove your cloak, please.” The dressmaker cast a quick look in Temple’s direction. “An entire trousseau?”
“A half-dozen gowns. Another six day dresses.”
“I don’t—” Mara began before Madame Hebert cut her off.
“That won’t see her through two weeks.”
“She won’t need more than two weeks’ worth.”
Mara’s gaze narrowed. “She is still present, is she not? In this room?”
The dressmaker’s brows rose in surprise. “Oui, Miss—”
Temple spoke. “You don’t need to know her name yet.”
Yet. That single, small word that held so much meaning. Someday, the dressmaker would know her name and her history. But not tonight, and not tomorrow, as she draped and crafted the gowns that would be Mara’s ruin.
Hebert had finished lighting the candles, each new flame adding to the lovely golden pool into which Mara could only guess she was supposed to enter. Reaching into a deep pocket, the dressmaker extracted a measure and turned to Mara. “Miss. The coat. It must go.”
Mara did not move.
“Take it off,” Temple said, the words menacing in the darkness as he removed his own greatcoat and relaxed onto a nearby settee, placing one ankle on the opposite knee and draping the massive grey cloak across his lap. His face was cast in the room’s shadows.
Mara laughed, a short, humorless sound. “I suppose you think it is that simple? You command and women simply jump to do your bidding?”
“When it comes to the removal of ladies’ clothing, it often works that way, yes.” The words oozed from him, and Mara wanted to stomp her foot.
Instead, she took a deep breath and attempted to regain control. She extracted a little black book and a pencil from the deep pocket of her skirts and said, “How much does disrobing typically cost you?”
He looked as though he’d swallowed a great big insect. She would have laughed, if she weren’t so infuriated. Once he collected himself he said, “Fewer than ten pounds.”
She smiled. “Oh, was I unclear? That was the starting price of the evening.”
She opened the book, pretending to consider the blank page there. “I should think that dress fittings are another . . . five, shall we say?”
He barked his laughter. “You’re getting a selection of the most coveted gowns in London and I’m to pay you for it?”
“One cannot eat dresses, Your Grace,” she pointed out, using her very best governess voice.
It worked. “One pound.”
She smiled. “Four.”
“Two.”
“Three and ten.”
“Two and ten.”
“Two and sixteen.”
“You are a professional fleecer.”
She smiled and turned to her book, light with excitement. She’d expected no more than two. “Two and sixteen it is.” The coal bill was paid.
“Go on then,” he said. “Off with the coat.”
She returned the book to her pocket. “You are a prince among men, truly.” She removed her coat, marching it over to where he sat and draping it over the arm of the settee. “Shall I dispense with my dress as well?”
“Yes.” The answer came from the dressmaker, feet behind them, and Mara could have sworn she saw surprise flash through Temple’s gaze before it turned to humor.
She stuck one of her fingers out to hover around the tip of his nose. “Don’t you dare laugh.”
One black brow rose. “And if I did?”
“If I’m to measure you, miss, I need you wearing as little as possible. Perhaps if it were summer and the dress were cotton, but now . . .” She did not have to finish. It was late November and bitterly cold already. And Mara was wearing both a wool chemise and a wool dress.
She placed her hands on her hips, facing Temple. “Turn around.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“I did not give you permission to humiliate me.”
“Nevertheless, I purchased it,” he said, easing back onto the settee. “Relax. Hebert has impeccable taste. Let her drape you in silks and satins, and let me pay for it.”
“You think three pounds makes me malleable?”
“I do not pretend to think you shall ever be malleable. But I expect you to honor our arrangement. Your word.” He paused. “And think—when all is said and done, you’ll have a dozen new frocks.”
“A gentleman would allow me my modesty.”
“I have been labeled a scoundrel more often than not.”
It was her turn to raise a brow. “I do believe that over the course of our acquaintance, I shall call you much, much worse.”
He did laugh then. A warm, rich promise in the dim light. A sound she should not have liked so much. “No doubt.” His voice lowered. “Surely you’re strong enough to suffer my presence while you’re in your underclothes. You’ve a chaperone, even.”
The man was infuriating. Utterly, completely infuriating. And she wanted to hit him. No. That was too easy. She wanted to addle him. To best him in this battle of wits . . . in this game of words that he no doubt won any time he played. Because it wasn’t enough that Temple was strong in the ring. He had to be strong out of the ring as well—not agile simply with bones and sinew, but with thought and word.
She’d spent a lifetime under men’s control. When she was a child, her father had made it impossible for her to live as she liked, dictating her every deed with his army of spying servants and cloying nannies and treasonous governesses. He’d been ready to sell her off to a man three times her age who would have no doubt been just as domineering, and so she’d run.
But even when she’d run, even as she’d found a life in the wilds of Yorkshire and then in the sullied streets of London, she’d never escaped the specter of those men. She’d never been able to shake off their control—and they did control her, even as they didn’t know it. They overpowered her with fear—fear of being discovered and forced back into that life she’d so desperately wanted to escape. Fear of losing herself. Fear of losing everything for which she had worked.
Everything for which she had fought.
Everything she had risked.
And now, even as she promised herself she would get what it was she wanted, she could not escape the feeling that this man was another in a long line of men who wielded power like a weapon. Yes, he wished retribution, and perhaps it was his due. And yes, she might have agreed to his demands and
turned herself over to him, and yes, she would honor her word and their agreement, but she would have to face herself when all was said and done.
And she would be damned if she would fear him, too.
He was smug, and self-important, and she badly wished to give him a dressing-down.
Even if it meant she would be the one dressing down.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have said the words. Perhaps she should have held them back. Perhaps, if she hadn’t been so very irritated with him, she would have. Perhaps if she had known what would come once he heard the words . . . she would have held her tongue.
But it didn’t matter. Because instead of not saying them, she turned away, marched back to that golden pool of light, and took her place on the platform there before facing him once more, and allowing the modiste access to the buttons and fastenings on her dress.
She stared, unblinking, into the darkness, where she imagined a look of arrogant triumph spread across his face, and said them anyway.
“I suppose it shouldn’t matter. After all, it is not the first time you’ve seen my underclothes.”
Everything froze. She couldn’t have said what he thought she’d said. She couldn’t have meant what he thought she meant.
Except she clearly did, for the smug look on her face, the dancing sparkle in her knowing gaze, as though she had been waiting a lifetime to set him on his heels.
And perhaps she had.
He snapped forward in his seat, both feet firmly on the ground, the residual glow from the candles casting him in light. “What did you say?”
She raised a brow, and he knew she was mocking him. “Is there a problem with your hearing, Your Grace?”
She was the most disastrous, damaging, difficult woman he’d ever know. She made him want to upturn the dainty, velvet furniture in this utterly feminine place, and tear the clothes from his back in irritation.
He was about to stand and intimidate her into repeating herself—into explaining herself—when the fastenings of her dress came loose, and the frock fell to her feet in a remarkable, fluid swoosh, leaving her standing there in her pale wool chemise, unadorned corset, and little else.