Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover_The Fourth Rule of Scoundrels Page 9

  “Under their noses.”

  She smiled. “They see only what they wish to. It’s a beautiful thing.”

  “I saw you.”

  She shook her head. “Not for years. You thought I was Anna, too.”

  “You could own your life beyond these walls,” he argued. “You do not have to play this part.”

  “But I like this part. Here, I am free. It is Georgiana who must scrape and bow and beg for acceptance. Here, I take what I want. Here, I am beholden to none.”

  “None but your master.”

  Except she was the master. She did not reply.

  He misread the silence. “That’s why you seek a husband. What happened?” he asked. “Has Chase tossed you aside?”

  She pulled away from him, needing the distance between them to return her sanity. To take her next steps. To craft her careful lies. “He hasn’t tossed me aside.”

  His brows snapped together. “He cannot expect your husband to share you.”

  The words stung, even as they should not. She’d lived all of this life in the shadows of The Fallen Angel masquerading as a whore. She’d convinced hundreds of London’s aristocrats that she was an expert in pleasure. That she’d sold herself to their most powerful leader. She dressed the part, with heaving bosom and painted face. She’d taught herself to move, to act, to be the part.

  And somehow, when this man acknowledged the reputation she had worked so hard to cultivate, the façade she had built with care and conviction, she hated it. Perhaps it was because he knew more of her truth than most, and still, he believed the lies.

  Or perhaps it was because he made her wish she did not have the lies to tell.

  No. She was falling victim to the hero in him, to the way he’d leapt to her aid only minutes earlier.

  She caught her breath at the thought.

  Only once he knew the truth. Her other identity. Her other life.

  Anger flared alongside disappointment and something akin to shame. “You wouldn’t have saved me.”

  It took him a moment to follow the change in topic. “I—”

  “Don’t lie to me,” she said, one hand flying up as if to stop the words on his lips. “Don’t insult me.”

  “I came after Pottle,” he said, raising his own hand, brandishing knuckles that would be sore in the morning. “I did save you.”

  “Because you knew the truth of my birth. If I’d been Anna alone . . . just a woman with a centuries-old profession. Just a painted whore—”

  He stopped her. “Don’t speak like that.”

  “Oh,” she scoffed. “Do I offend?”

  He ran his bruised hand through blond locks. “Christ, Georgiana.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  He laughed, the sound humorless. “What should I call you? Anna? A false name to go with your false hair and your false face and your false . . .” He trailed off, one hand indicating her bodice, padded and cinched to make her ordinary bosom look extraordinary.

  “I am not certain that you should call me anything at this point,” she said, and she meant it.

  “It is too late for that. We are together in this. Bound by word and greed.”

  “I think you mean deed.”

  “I know precisely what I mean.”

  They faced each other in the dim light, and Georgiana could sense his anger and frustration, matched by her own. How strange was this moment? Born of his protection of one half of her because of the existence of the other?

  It was mad. A wicked web that could not be unwoven.

  At least, not without ruining everything for which she’d worked.

  He seemed to understand her thoughts. “I would have stepped in,” he insisted. “I would have done the same.”

  She shook her head. “I wish I could believe you.”

  He took her shoulders. Met her gaze, serious in the dim light. “You should. I would have stepped in.”

  Her heart pounded. “Why?”

  He could have said a dozen things. But she did not expect: “Because I need you.”

  There was a little twinge of sadness at the words, so cool and collected. He needed her, but not in the way men needed women—impassioned and desperate. Not that she should care.

  “Need me for what?”

  “I want Lady Tremley to receive invitation to the ladies’ side of the club. I want the information she offers for entry. And for that information, you get your payment.”

  She should have been grateful for the change of topic. For the movement to safer ground. She wasn’t. She heard the frustration in her words when she said, “You mean Chase gets his payment.”

  He smiled. “No, I mean you.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Me.”

  “I get my information, you get Viscount Langley. My papers, at your disposal. Or, at Georgiana’s disposal, at least.”

  Tit for tat.

  Understanding flooded through her—understanding and respect for this man who so easily manipulated every situation to suit himself. Her match in power and prestige.

  “Or what?”

  He raised a brow. “Don’t make me say it.”

  She lifted her chin. “I think I shall.”

  He did not waver. “Or I shall tell the world your secrets.”

  She narrowed her gaze on him. “Chase may not care.”

  “Then you shall have to make him care.” He started to push past her and she hated the movement. Hated that he was leaving her. She wished he would stay, this man who seemed to see so much. “You need my power,” he said quietly. “Your daughter needs it.”

  She winced at the reference to Caroline here, in this place, in this conversation, as he continued, “You think they won’t see it?” he asked. “You think they won’t notice the way I did? That your two masks bear a striking resemblance to each other?”

  “They haven’t before.”

  “You weren’t news before.”

  She met his gaze and told him the only thing she knew was certain. “People see what they wish to see.”

  He did not disagree. “Why risk it?”

  “I wish I did not have to.” Truth.

  “Why now?” The questions came fast.

  “One cannot live a lifetime in my profession.” Either of them.

  He didn’t like that. She could see it in his eyes. “So, how will it work? Instead of giving you a house in the country and enough money to last a lifetime, Chase has given you a dowry? It’s not your brother’s money, is it?” he asked, the words full of understanding.

  Ironic, that, as he did not understand at all.

  I give it to myself.

  He laughed, and the sound lacked humor. “He cannot give you what I can give you, though. He would never reveal himself with such public deeds. You need me to give you the reputation. You need me to land you Langley.”

  “Something for which you appear to be charging a handsome fee,” she said.

  “I would have done it for free, you know.” There was disappointment in his words.

  “If only I’d been the little lost girl you thought I was hours ago?”

  “I never thought you lost. I thought you strong as steel.”

  “And now?”

  He lifted a shoulder. Dropped it. “Now, I see you are a businesswoman. I will help you for payment. And you are lucky for that, or else I’d be done with the lot of you. I do not typically get into bed with liars.”

  She gave him her most coquettish smile, desperate to shield the way his words stung. “No one’s invited you into bed.”

  She did not expect the air to shift, nor did she expect him to return to her, pressing her back against the wall, hunting her. She’d never in her life felt as she did now, her power stripped from her along with her lies. Most of her lies.

  All but the biggest one.

  His hands pressed against the mahogany on either side of her head, his arms caging her. “You’ve invited me into your bed every time you’ve looked at me for years.”

 
She hesitated, not knowing what to say. How to proceed with this man who was so different than he’d ever been. “You’re wrong.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m right. And to be honest, I’ve wanted to accept. Every . . . single . . . time.”

  He was so close, so warm, so devastatingly powerful that for the first time in her life, she understood why women swooned in men’s arms. “What has changed?” she said, hearing the breathlessness in her tone, brazening through. “A taste for innocents?”

  “We both know better.”

  She ignored the sting of the reply. The way they made her wish she did not masquerade as a whore. The way they made her wish he knew the truth. Instead, she soldiered on. “Then nothing has changed.”

  “Of course it has.”

  Now she was Georgiana.

  “You like the idea of a ruined aristocrat,” she said, blood pounding in her ears. “What did you call me? Terrified? What is it . . . you think you can save me every day? Every night?”

  He hesitated. “I think you want saving.”

  “I can save myself.”

  He smiled then, all wolf. “Not from everything. That’s why you need me.”

  She had more power than he could ever imagine. More power than he could ever know. When she lifted her chin and spoke, it was to prove it. “I don’t need you.”

  He found her gaze, close and hot. “Who will save you from them then? Who will save you from Chase?”

  She did not look away. Did not wish to. “I am in no danger from Chase.”

  His hand was on her again, cupping her jaw, tilting her head back. “Tell me the truth,” he commanded, refusing to let her hide. “Can you leave him? Will he allow you to walk away? To start a new life?”

  If only the truth were that simple.

  He saw the hesitation. Closed the distance between them and hovered a breath away from her. “Tell me.”

  How would it feel to lean into him? To let him help? To bring him into her inner sanctum and tell him everything?

  “You can help by getting me married.”

  “You don’t want marriage. Not to Langley, at least.”

  “I don’t want marriage at all, but that’s irrelevant. I need it.”

  He considered her words, and she thought that he might fight her. Might refuse. Not that he should care. Not that any of it should matter.

  After a long moment, he closed in on her, one hand moving from the wall to the side of her face, caressing her jaw, lifting her chin. His brown eyes searched hers, and when he spoke, it was in a low, dark whisper, demanding honesty. “Do you belong to him?”

  She should say yes. It would be safer. It would keep West at arm’s length if he thought for one moment that Chase might fight him for her. He needed Chase and all the information garnered and protected by The Fallen Angel.

  She should say yes. But in this moment, with this man, she wanted to tell the truth. Just once. Just to know what it was like to do so. And so she did. “No,” she whispered. “I belong to myself.”

  And then his lips were on hers, and everything changed.

  Chapter 6

  . . . And yet, there is a mystery to our Lady G—. One that forces even the staunchest of aristocrats to raise her lorgnette and consider the girl across the room. Is it possible that we have heaped her with false disdain all these years? Only the Season will tell . . .

  . . . Young ladies of London, heed our call! By all accounts, Lord L— is on the hunt for a wife. His list of desired attributes no doubt includes beauty, good humor, and proficiency with a string instrument. Alas, those who are not exceedingly wealthy need not apply . . .

  Pearls & Pelisses Ladies Magazine, April 1833

  He didn’t care that she was lying.

  Didn’t care that she had been protected for years by the most powerful, secretive man in London. Didn’t care that a man with that kind of money would not take kindly to anyone touching that which was his.

  He didn’t care that she was nothing she seemed—that she was somehow neither whore, nor ruined aristocrat, nor innocent.

  All he cared was that she was pressed against him in this empty space, all long limbs and soft skin, and, for a fleeting moment, she was his.

  The kiss was sin and innocence, like the lady herself—at once all experience and none at all. Her hand came to the nape of his neck, fingers threading into his hair with remarkable purpose while she gasped against his lips as though she’d never been kissed.

  Christ.

  It was no wonder she was London’s most coveted companion. She was red silk and white lace. Two tempting, unbearable sides of one coin. And for this moment, she belonged to him.

  But first . . .

  He pulled away barely, giving her a scant inch to breathe as he whispered, “I would have stepped in. Either way.”

  He hadn’t liked her implication that he’d only pummeled Pottle because she was from an aristocratic family. It had grated to think that she would imagine that he’d have left any woman to be mistreated so roundly. But more importantly, it sickened him to think that she believed he’d have left her if circumstances had been different.

  He didn’t know why it was important to him that she believe him. That she believe he was the kind of man who would fight for a woman. Any woman. Her. But it was important. “I would have stepped in,” he repeated.

  Her fingers danced at the nape of his neck, playing with the curls there and making him want her with their innocent, teasing promise. “I know,” she whispered.

  He captured the words with his mouth, stealing her open lips and taking the kiss deeper. Longer. More.

  Information or no, arrangement or no, double identity or no, this woman was irresistible. He would never betray her secrets. Not now that he knew she was so much more than she seemed.

  He wanted her without quarter.

  He caught her by the waist, pulling her closer, pressing one leg into hers, tangling in her skirts, in her scent, in her seduction. And she seduced him just as he did her. He’d never felt so well matched in his life.

  She leaned into the kiss, taking as he took, reveling as he reveled. And the sounds she made—the little sighs and gasps and pants—she was glorious.

  He lifted her in his arms and turned her, walking her to the opposite wall of the alcove as his lips trailed across her cheek and captured the lobe of one ear. “You’ve wanted this for years,” he whispered, teeth worrying the soft flesh as her fingers spread across his shoulders.

  “No,” she said. And in the lie, he heard such truth.

  He grinned against the skin of her neck, running his teeth down the glorious column. “You think I haven’t seen you? Haven’t felt you watching?”

  She pulled back from his caress. “If you’ve noticed, why haven’t you come for me?”

  He watched her for a long moment, staring into those eyes the color of liquid gold. “I’m coming for you now,” he said as he leaned in and bit her lower lip, pulling her toward him, reveling in the low, lush laugh that erupted from her.

  He chased the sound down the column of her neck to the place where it vibrated in her throat, worrying the spot with his teeth. She sighed at the sensation and he wanted to roar his satisfaction. His pleasure. Her lips curved, and he ached for them. Reached for them.

  She pulled back. “You didn’t want me until now. Until you discovered I’m her, too.”

  He stilled at the words. “Her.”

  “Georgiana.”

  The way she spoke of herself in the third person called to him. He turned her to the light, to see her. “Georgiana is other?” She closed her eyes briefly, considering her answer, and he changed the question. “You must think on the answer?”

  “Mustn’t we all?” she asked, the words soft and thoughtful. “Aren’t we all two people? Three? A dozen? Different with family and friends and lovers and strangers and children? Different with men? With women?”

  “It’s not the same,” he insisted. “I don’t play at being two people.�
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  “It is not play,” she replied. “I do not revel in the game of it.”

  “Of course you do,” he said, and she was again struck by how well he saw what few others did. “You adore it. I’ve seen you here, holding court over the floor of the club, as though you own it. Beautiful. Perfectly turned out . . .” He let his fingers trail over the edge of her gown, loving the way her breasts swelled as she inhaled at the touch. “. . . and that laugh, rich and welcome.

  “I’ve seen you entertain and entice, hang on the arm of the Angel’s wealthiest patrons while somehow giving those down on their luck the idea that they might one day bask in the glow of your attention.”

  She lifted her chin, acting out his words. “You have my attention now, sir.”

  “Don’t. Not with me. Why do it, if not for the pleasure of the masque?”

  Something flashed in her gaze at the question, there, then gone. “Survival.”

  Duncan had lied enough in his life to recognize the truth in another. It was what made him such a tremendous newspaperman. “What are you afraid of?”

  She laughed at that, but the sound lacked humor. “Spoken like a man with no fear of ruin.”

  If she only knew the fear he had in the dead of night. The way he woke every morning, afraid that today would be the day of his ruin. He pushed the thoughts aside. “Then why do it?” he asked, “Why assume the role of Anna? Why not simply live life as Georgiana? Isn’t Anna the role that threatens to destroy you thoroughly?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t. You worry that you cannot marry a high enough title to render your daughter’s reputation clean, and still you don your wicked silks and paint your face and run the lightskirt brigade at London’s most renowned casino.”

  “You think it idiocy.”

  “I think it reckless.”

  “You think I am selfish.”

  “No.” He was not a fool.

  “What then?”

  He did not hesitate. “I think there is no profession in the wide world that a woman would be less likely to choose than yours.”

  She smiled at that, and he was surprised at the honesty in the expression, as though she knew something that he did not know. And perhaps she did. “There, Mr. West,” she said, all feminine wile, “you are wrong.”