Page 9

FIVE

Lilah

I blinked at my own reflection in the tiny looking glass in my hands, and tried not to allow myself to get buffeted by a passerby walking along the pavement.

The streets were busy. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d walked, rather than taken my carriage. There was usually a coachman willing and able to take me to wherever I needed to go in London. When I went further afield, I rode.

But for some reason, I hadn’t wanted to sit in the carriage this morning.

Not while the argument with William yesterday rang through my mind.

“I would have thought you could just charm them. Win their hearts, as you always did. Queen of hearts.”

“What, you think I'm charming?”

I blinked again. One of my curls around my eyes was twisting clockwise and the other anti-clockwise, and I concentrated on attempting to twist the latter into a better form .

Honestly, what was wrong with me?

Adjusting my hair in public? That was what a maid did on her way home between serving her mistress and meeting her follower. I was a duchess—a dowager duchess, but a duchess nonetheless.

Well. I had not been born a duchess, obviously. And I was not the Duchess of Rotherwick anymore, not after my husband’s nephew inherited. I had said once to William, there hadn’t been?—

I wasn’t going to think about him.

A gentleman standing on the opposite side of the street was staring. He wasn’t my type, but it was rather flattering to be noticed, even if it was on a busy day.

But the longer I realized he was watching me, as I put the finishing touches to my hair, the more his look unsettled me.

There wasn’t admiration in his look. He didn’t seem to think I was beautiful, which was what I had assumed at first. No, he was just…staring. As though we knew each other, but was having difficulty putting a name to my face.

Most inexplicable.

Though I suppose I’d interacted with enough people over the years to be vaguely memorable to a lot of them.

A lady halted at the gentleman’s side and they both smiled, the lady slipping her hand into the man’s arm as they left. I breathed out slowly, feeling tension I didn’t even know had built up in my stomach start to melt away.

Well, that was odd.

A younger gentleman was still standing nearby, and he immediately fixed me with the exact same stare.

Now that was odd. What was going on?

Turning my head slightly, I glanced behind me. Maybe there was an interesting display in the shop window behind me—maybe it wasn’t me that they were staring at.

But no, there was nothing particularly memorable or remarkable there. I turned back and the gentleman flushed. And kept staring.

I pulled out the note from my reticule as though that would distract me.

It had been sent by William Parry.

I almost hadn’t opened it. Almost left it to sit there, an irritating note that I did not wish to read.

But I couldn’t just ignore it. We were working together, even if I hated the idea, and surely this was a Gambling Dukes’s related message. Was it not?

We’ve changed the Gambling Dukes’ colors. I approved it in your absence last night. I think you’ll like it.

No matter how many times I read the note, it didn’t make sense.

Changed the Gambling Dukes’ colors? How could he? Last night? I hadn’t been sent anything last night?

After quickly checking my letters that morning with Bellamy and seeing absolutely nothing from William or anyone from his household, I had glared at his note again.

We’ve changed the Gambling Dukes’ colors. I approved it in your absence last night. I think you’ll like it.

It was a bold move, and not one I liked. William’s judgement wasn’t something I trusted…but then, I had asked him to assist in building our reputation, not stroke my ego.

And there were other things I wanted him to stroke…

Heat flared in my chest as I tried to push the thought away. No, I wasn’t going to fall into that trap. This was the man who broke my heart. Was I really so foolish as to let him into my life again?

No. I was smarter than that. In more control than that .

Swallowing did nothing to calm the strange fluttering sensation in my chest.

I think you’ll like it.

William thought I would like it?

What did William know about what I liked and did not like? He hardly knew me now, I was a completely different person.

Even trying to tell myself that, in the privacy of my own mind, wasn’t persuasive enough.

Biting my lip and stuffing the note back into my reticule, I couldn’t stop thinking about the message William had sent.

Was this just a huge mistake? Should I have ignored my instinct, refused to work with William—even if it might mean saving the club?

I glanced up, irritation pouring through my lungs, and tried to think what to say when I saw him. The trouble was, the gentleman who had been standing opposite me was now gone, replaced by a woman probably about my own age.

And she was staring at me.

I frowned and her gaze darted away, evidently embarrassed that she had been caught. But before I looked down at my reticule, her eyes tilted upwards again to stare at me.

This was London. People were nosey, right? It didn’t mean anything.

“M’lady?”

I looked around. A messenger boy had approached me, wide eyed and curious.

“M’lady Rotherwick?”

“Yes,” I said gingerly.

The boy stuck out a dirty hand holding a slightly smeared note. “For you.”

I should have known, the moment he handed it to me, that when I unfolded it, I would see William Parry’s handwriting.

When am I going to see you again?

The spark of hope that flared in my chest was quickly doused by reality.

William did not mean it like that, I told myself firmly, fingers gripping the edges of the note. He didn’t mean it to sound like…

Well, like we meant something to each other. Like there was a chance the flames that flickered and died out years ago could be fanned back into a flame. Like he missed me.

No, I was fooling myself and only myself if I tried to convince myself he cared about me. There was no possibility of it.

William was doing a job, just like I was. The only reason he was back in my life in the first place was because Markham, my idiot friend, had made it almost impossible to find another client to wager with after his ridiculous stunt.

Our reputations would be secured, the Gambling Dukes would gain the wager it needed, and William Parry would be out of my life.

For good.

Again.

“Is there a reply?” the messenger lad blinked.

Still, I couldn’t help but smile. Before I could stop myself, I’d given a reply. “Soon.”

Soon.

The moment the messenger lad had gone, I regretted it. Was that flirtatious? Saying too much? Perhaps not saying enough—what sort of person was that vague about the next meeting?

Trying to clear my head, I looked up.

Once again the woman opposite was staring .

This was just too much. What was wrong with people today? What, they thought they could just stare at people on the street as much as they liked?

I stepped forward, crossing the street and approaching her with the question, “Are you quite well?”

“What, me?” she said with a faint flush. “Yes, quite well.”

I waited for her to continue—to explain why she and everyone else in the street had somehow thought it was acceptable to stare at me.

But she didn’t say anything.

Though discomfort was prickling my heart, I couldn’t leave it. “Why are you staring?”

Her face fell in surprise, as though it was perfectly obvious. “Well…that’s you, is it not?”

She was pointing at me. No, not at me—just behind and above me. At the pasted posters on the upper floor of the shop where I had been standing. You know the sort, advertising bread, or a meat market, or an upcoming play at a theater with a questionable reputation.

I twisted my neck to look up. Then my heart dropped.

It was my face. My face.

My actual face.

What was my face doing on a poster in the street?

Heart thundering, palms sweating, I blinked and tried to take in the detail.

It was a reproduction of a relatively old portrait of me, actually, when my hair had been a pinned back with greater curls, but it was obviously me.

No wonder everyone standing opposite me, standing underneath my own stupid face, had been staring.

The poster was for the Gambling Dukes. Our crest, my face, and a short phrase.

Accept a wager with the best .

I groaned, but thankfully no one could hear it under the noise of the carriages.

“Thank you,” I muttered to the woman who was still staring at me, agog.

Every step along the London street was one of mortification. How many of those posters had been made? Were they all over London?

Dear God, he wouldn’t have put my face all over London, would he?

And what was with that terrible line?

Accept a wager with the best.

I groaned again under my breath as I pushed past passersby, every step taking me closer to the one place I had told myself I wouldn’t have to go to today.

William Parry’s townhouse.

Heart hammering in my heart, my throat dry, I knocked on the front door and ignored the footman, marching past him into the hallway.

“What on earth were you thinking?” I demanded of the tall, handsome man who was playing absolute havoc with my life.

William

Excitement had been rushing through me since that the early hours. Of course it had. I’d woken up with the single best idea I had ever come up with.

Thankfully Carey was an early riser. We had the design finished by daybreak, and I’d pulled in a favor with the printers on Fleet Street. Within twenty minutes of me delivering the poster design, printed versions were being pasted all around London.

Damn, but I was good .

“—still think the wording was a little strange,” Carey said with a laugh as a few other footmen cleared the luncheon from the dining table.

I snorted. “A little strange? It was there to be noticed, there to be admired. And that’s what this needs. A little notice—a little admiration.”

Advice that Lilah could take, just as much as her club.