Page 3
TWO
Lilah
Well, I’d done it. I’d discovered a new torture technique.
Slowly, very slowly, I lowered my head onto my desk with a heavy groan. “I’m never going to look at a ledger again.”
“Wrong, Lilah,” said Markham with a laugh from the other side of the room. “Come on, you’re honestly telling me you don’t love it when a ledger is all color coded and it spits out the right answer at the bottom?”
I closed my eyes, my throbbing headache starting to truly overpower me. “Yours gives you the right answer? Any answer?”
His laughter filled the study which he and I shared in Kineallen’s home as I groaned again.
Honestly, I wasn’t the right person to do this.
I was the charm offensive for the Gambling Dukes, and I was good at it.
I knew how to motivate people, get them smiling, get them aligned.
I could look at a crowd and know precisely who to smile at, who to listen to seriously, who to touch on the arm just so to make them feel connected, feel heard.
I also hosted a pretty good dinner, though I say so myself.
What I wasn’t good at? Creating the damn ledger in the first place, anything to do with maintaining our reputation in Society, and weirdly, enjoying white wine. I could just never get the taste for it.
Right now, it was two out of those three weaknesses that were my problem.
“Lilah?”
I opened a bleary eye and gazed up at my friend. “Leave me to wallow in my own misery.”
“As tempting as that sounds,” Markham said with a snort. “Here. Have a cup of tea.”
I grabbed the large cup of hot heaven, and forced myself to sit up. The ledger on my desk was still staring accusingly at me, saying I hadn’t done enough yet today. The sun had gone down hours ago, but that didn’t matter. Not at the Gambling Dukes.
Not when I was the one single handedly not saving the day.
“Drink that tea and tell me all about it,” said Markham with a grin as he leaned against the end of the leather sofa that sat in the middle of the room, demarking the separation between my desk and his. “But don’t take too long, will you? I’ve got a gorgeous woman waiting for me.”
I rolled my eyes. “That wife of yours puts up with you too well.”
“What? I can’t help it if she adores me?” Markham said with a chuckle. “She is rather wonderful.”
I made a face as I sipped my tea. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
That was the trouble with friends falling in love and getting married. I mean, friends did not talk to friends like that. I did not wish to hear of his happiness—not because I was bitter.
At least, I was almost certain it was not because I was bitter.
“Do you miss him?”
I blinked, my cheeks hot at the memory of William Parry, speaking to me like—like his absence the last three years had not occurred. “Miss him? Of course I don’t miss him!”
Markham blinked. “I just thought…well. You were married to him.”
The hackles on the back of my neck calmed. Oh. “Well. It was four years ago.”
That was one of the things which had drawn us all together.
Markham had married my sister and she had died two months later.
Georgiana’s husband had died suddenly, though not surprisingly—he had been a half century her senior.
It had been Georgiana’s sister who had married Kineallen, dying in childbirth along with the babe.
We were all widowed, had all lost spouses. In that loss, we gained a friendship which could not be broken.
Though there were some things one did not even tell one’s closest friends. About rogues like William Parry, for example.
“How did it go at the Norfolk?”
I winced, but there was no way round it. I hadn’t met a single person at that Norfolk thing our friend Kineallen had recommended, leaving empty handed. Without any fresh connections, any good ideas?—
Or a man to take to my bed, my brain whispered to me with a sly laugh .
I pushed the thought away immediately. A lover? I didn’t have time to take a lover. I had a club to save.
Besides, after my last romantic experience, I wasn’t sure there was any point in taking a lover at all. Men? They couldn’t be trusted. Particularly?—
“Let’s just be honest, shall we? You want me. My position in Society, my witty banter…perhaps even more.”
My fingers tightened on my teacup and I tried not to think of the rake. Of all the people I could have met there, it had to be him.
It was frustrating as hell, and I wish he hadn’t bothered to speak to me. What was there to be said? He’d made me feel like an idiot, then betrayed me when he grew bored of me.
William and I had been lovers for almost six months. I had been owed better than that.
“Lilah?”
I blinked. Markham was waving a hand, trying to catch my attention. “Sorry.”
“You must have needed that cup of tea more than I thought,” said Markham with a wry smile. “And I can see why. That ledger, you need to?—”
“You two still here? There are no advantages in tired minds,” said a low voice.
I didn’t even need to turn around to see who it was. There was only one person who spoke like that—and besides, we were in his townhouse. “Kineallen, what are you doing up?”
Our eldest friend, Kineallen, stepped into the study.
Goodness, he looked tired. I couldn’t remember the last time Kineallen had looked well rested, to be honest, he’d been putting in so many hours to get this wager agreed with a willing participant .
Guilt seeped through my chest and into my heart. A wager I was risking with every meeting. It felt awful to be the one letting the club down, but it wasn’t just about us now, was it?
Hundreds of people depended on us. Their jobs depended on me, families who wouldn’t be able to pay their rents, heat their homes or put food on the table, because I couldn’t get my act together.
I glanced over my shoulder at the dreaded ledger. I was getting distracted.
“I wanted to hear how the Norfolk Club went last night,” Kineallen said, dropping into Markham’s chair and looking over at me. “Meet anyone interesting?”
Try as I might, I couldn’t stop my cheeks from flaring what I knew was a mightily impressive red. “No.”
Why I had tried to lie to my friends, I did not know. We were the Gambling Dukes—though of course, Georgiana and I had baulked at the name. We’d been playing poker every Thursday night for years. They knew when I was bluffing. They knew when I wasn’t holding a single card.
“What’s his name?” said Markham with a grin.
“Nothing!” I said hurriedly. “There’s no?—”
“I managed to get you an invitation to the Norfolk’s monthly drinks so you could hunt down someone who could help us with our reputation, improve our image,” said Kineallen sharply. “I didn’t think you’d use it to find a lover!”
“I didn’t!” Why oh why were my cheeks flushing so hard? “Honestly, Kineallen, a gentleman approached me clearly with such an end in mind, but I was absolutely not interested. When hell freezes over, maybe.”
I had hoped that would be the end of the conversation. I sipped more of my tea, taking a slightly bigger gulp than I had thought, and the hot liquid burned the back of my throat.
It did, at least, explain why my cheeks were burning. Hopefully my friends would leave me alone and?—
“You liked him, though, I can tell,” said Markham slowly, looking at me closely. “What was his name?”
“And does he have a rock solid reputation?” Kineallen said quickly. “Wait, that’s a foolish question, he was in the Norfolk. Why didn’t you let him seduce you?”
“Kineallen!”
“Just to gain some of his reputation, that’s all,” my oldest friend said, waving a hand. “Anything for the Gambling Dukes, right?”
I glared at Kineallen.
It was so easy for him to say. Kineallen had no emotional bone in his body. I didn’t think he’d ever even taken a mistress since his wife died, and he had precious few friends. Everything he did was for the club, everything he thought about was the Gambling Dukes.
He wouldn’t think twice about taking a mistress to his bed to pick their brain to improve our wagers.
Not something I could countenance.
“Look,” I said heavily, knowing this was a mistake but simultaneously knowing they would never get off my back unless I told them the truth. Hell was about to break loose. “It was…it was Parry.”
As expected, my friends reacted swiftly.
Markham swore under his breath and Kineallen straightened up, taking a few steps toward me. “Did he?—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, lifting a hand in my defense. “He accosted me, I told him to drop dead, I walked away. Do you understand?”
“After what he did to you,” Markham said darkly .
“The point is,” Kineallen interrupted, with an inscrutable look on his face, “did he offer you any help?”
I stared, open mouthed, at my friend.
No, not my friend. The leader of the Gambling Dukes. Because that’s who I was really talking to right now, wasn’t it? It wasn’t my friend who cared about me, who didn’t want me to have to deal with a cad like William Parry.
No, it was the leader of our club. Our club that was about to go bust.
“Lilah, you’ve got to speak to him,” Kineallen said sternly.
“I do not!” I said hotly. The very idea of going back to William and asking—no, I couldn’t do it! “You cannot be in earnest, I'm not going to?—”
“If you can, you should.”
I stared. Markham had spoken in a quiet, low voice. It was so unlike him. He was always teasing me, always jesting. There never seemed to be a moment when there wasn’t a laugh on his lips.
But he was looking at me now with far more seriousness than I thought possible. “Seriously, Lilah. The money is only going to last for so long. Then it’s time to close up and wish all our servants well.”
I winced. “It hasn’t come to that, not yet. And William?—”
“William Parry broke your heart, I know,” said Kineallen quietly. “But honestly? I think he’s the only one who can help us. He’s one of the rising stars in good Society.”
His words nettled. “I'm one of the rising stars in good Society.”