Page 58 of Dukes All Night Long

P reston Bailey, better known as Duke to those who frequented Covent Garden, leaned back in the wooden chair and propped his long legs on his desk.

Crossing his booted ankles, he balanced his seat on two legs, laced his fingers together, and rested them on his flat abdomen.

One thing he’d learned was silence could be far more intimidating than any amount of screaming or menace; an implied threat left the recipient plenty of room to delve into the darkest part of his imagination.

Often, recipients of this treatment began talking even before Duke needed to open his mouth.

“I’ll not be intimidated by you,” blustered the portly earl of middling years.

The sheen on his ruddy face, however, told Duke everything he needed to know.

“I am a peer of the realm and I’ll not be treated this way.

I am a paying member of this establishment and your lowborn brand of behavior is unacceptable. ”

Duke glanced at his solid gold timepiece.

He didn’t have time for this. The doors to Duke’s had just opened and much more important patrons would be arriving shortly.

As the premier gaming hell catering to London’s elite, his business was run with a certain level of punctuality and professionalism.

If he allowed Wexford’s moaning to drag on for too long then others would begin lining up at his door to plead their cases as well, and that was not something he could stomach, nor was it the image he wanted Duke’s to portray.

Sighing, he dropped his feet to the floor and rose to his full height of three inches over six feet.

The earl flinched as if he’d been struck.

Duke didn’t often resort to violence, but it suited his purpose to have men believe he did.

“You made an agreement when you were granted membership to this club. Your grace period for repaying losses to the house has been renewed three times over. I am a patient man, Lord Wexford, and I can be a forgiving one if I choose…but what I cannot stand is a man who repeatedly loses at my tables and does not assume accountability for his actions. It is worse in my estimation when a man then goes out of his way to claim he is being treated unfairly after he has been given extensions and leniency. That, to me, is no man at all.” Duke brushed an invisible bit of lint from the sleeve of his black velvet coat and then leaned into the baron’s space close enough that he could smell the pungent cigar and port the man had imbibed to work up the courage to have this meeting.

“And I take particular issue when a man has no concept that his debtors have eyes and ears. Did you or did you not just purchase a townhouse and phaeton for your current mistress? What about your tab at Fontaine’s?

You do buy doubles of everything the jeweler makes, do you not?

One for the wife and one for the bit on the side?

” The earl paled and then turned a sickly shade of green.

“I suggest you see if you can return some of your mistress’s pieces and bring your recoupments here within the week—leave the countess her baubles; she deserves them after tolerating you and your vices.

You will not be welcomed back at Duke’s until that is done and, if the sum is not received, then I shall call in your vowels and seize any of your properties or belongings I desire until I deem the debt repaid.

” Duke placed a hand on each of the armrests of the baron’s chair and hovered over him dangerously close, a cat taunting a rodent. “Do I make myself clear?”

The earl nodded so vigorously that his jowls quivered. Duke’s lips split into a grin that was deceptively saccharine. “Good.” He clasped the man on the shoulder a little more forcefully than necessary and all but dragged him from the room.

He stood at the banister that afforded him a view of the building’s main entrance. The earl was being guided out by two of his employees and appeared pathetically diminutive when compared to their large forms flanking him on either side.

One annoyance quashed for the time being.

“I am a member of this club and I demand you grant me access!”

And there was the other one Duke had been expecting.

He sighed, the weightiness of the gesture more out of resignation than anything else. Had he realized that dealing with incensed and whiny toffs this frequently was going to be a large part of his business, he may have rethought some decisions he made years ago.

“Baxter!” Duke barked.

“Yes, sir?” His assistant sidled up to him as silently and close as a shadow.

“I take it Lord Lufton was finally notified of his ban?”

“Yesterday, sir. Took it about as well as can be expected.”

The man had a gambling problem…but that was the least of the reasons Duke had to loathe him.

“Rather bold of him to return already,” Duke muttered, watching as his men prevented the lord from entering and spending even more coin he did not have.

Baxter made a low sound of agreement.

He couldn’t make out the words, but the voices of at least three men could be heard.

Rather than be annoyed at the situation, Duke felt only satisfaction.

Years of planning, scraping, fighting tooth and nail were finally about to pay off.

Revenge had been a long time coming, and, two decades later, everything was finally falling into place.

His heart began to throb in anticipation.

Nearly two decades spent making a name for himself, of founding and creating the perfect Golden Hell as a beacon to the ton , of releasing his former identity and adopting a new one, of luring in the weak-willed and foolish and prideful, and the day had finally come.

Oh, how he would savor it.

Lord Lufton shoved his way toward the open doors as another of his guards exited to assist with the irate man. “I have a right to be here!” he shouted, echoing a similar argument to the earl with whom Duke had just met. Something different, however, came next. “I’ve collateral!”

“Of course,” one of his men said in a mockingly placating tone, having heard this many times over from countless men desperate to gain reentry into the gambling club and the opportunity to win back their coin and their pride.

“I do! I’ve brought my sister. My luck will turn. Until then, she will stand in as collateral.”

Duke’s stomach dropped straight through the floor without hesitation as the heavy door closed and cut off Lufton.

Duke was paralyzed by memories of cinnamon-colored freckles and hair caught somewhere between brown and gold, eyes the precise shade of the stormy sky above the channel, and tiny hands tending to his injuries with great care, if not with talent.

The tender ministrations following yet another brutal beating by a lad who looked down his nose at everyone and used other boys as an outlet for his cruel, black heart.

“Let me help you…” The echo of a girl’s voice was faint, but never forgotten.

Throat uncomfortably tight, Duke gave himself a mental shake to rid himself of the ghost from his youth.

He began descending the wide curved staircase, his assistant close on his heels.

The sounds of Lufton’s grousing rose with every step he grew closer.

He could picture the man’s florid complexion, the way his fists clenched like a petulant child.

The whiny note to his voice hadn’t changed in fifteen years.

“Lord Lufton,” he addressed the man attempting to push his way into the building. “Baxter has told me that you were informed of the change in your status at this club.”

The earl shook off Duke’s nearest guard and smoothed back his brown hair several shades darker for all the pomade. “Utterly unacceptable,” he groused; Duke flexed his fingers in an attempt to relieve the need to punch the earl’s patrician nose. “I hardly think the sum in question warrants a ban.”

“It is less about the sum than it is the fact that you have made no effort to offer repayment.”

Lufton stood up straighter and smoothed his floral waistcoat. “That is why I am here. I have brought collateral.”

“So I heard,” Duke drawled, ignoring the way his heart skipped with the realization that Kate Bell was likely waiting in the standing carriage in the street below…

closer than he’d been to her in more than a decade.

The occasional report on her movements and wellbeing did not measure up to being in the same room as her—as having her hands and voice to soothe him.

“And?”

“What use have I for the sister of an earl?” Duke bit out more harshly than he intended. Kate was, of course, impossibly precious; he’d never expect a man like Lufton to recognize the treasure his sister was. He never had, and he never would.

“A companion. A governess. You will find something to do with her.” He seemed totally oblivious to the fact that an unmarried, childless man such as Duke would have no use for a well-bred woman in those capacities…

and, were he the man most believed him to be, then such a woman would not fare well in his care.

“You will hand her over that easily if your luck does not change? Pass her along into the care of a man such as myself?” The notion was utterly despicable, but it did not seem to bother Lufton in the least.

“But my luck will turn,” Lufton replied loudly, as if the volume of his declaration might convince the Fates to do just that.

Duke stared him down as one would an opponent in a pugilist match.

So close.

So damned close after all this time.

The man was desperate; it was agonizing for Lufton that Duke held the power. News of his barring from the club would spread like ash on the wind. Duke knew the amount the earl owed the books was not insignificant to the Lufton coffers. And now…there was the offer of Kate.

“There has been a change of plans, Baxter,” Duke said without removing his eyes from Lufton’s smug countenance. “Have the girl brought to my office.”