The Lady Risks All

by Stephanie Laurens

  “No!” She halted.

  When he didn’t stop walking, she hurried to catch up, then tipped up her chin and breathlessly amended, “That is, there’s no need for me to see—”

  “Oh, but there is.” He kept his expression utterly impassive, but inside he was smiling.

  Reaching a door set in the paneled wall, his hand on the knob, he halted and faced her. “You would have to possess a remarkably peculiar view of such things to imagine I would host an orgy in my library.”

  She blinked. “I would?”

  “Trust me—I hold no orgies in my library. So the worst you’re going to see is eight men gambling, although in fact it won’t even be that.” He met her gaze, open challenge in his eyes. “You followed your brother here intent on discovering what he was about—are you going to turn tail and run at this point, or are you brave enough to face the truth?”

  He was enjoying himself, and despite his best efforts some glimmer must have shown. Her eyes slowly narrowed, then, lips firming, she nodded. “Very well. Show me.”

  Opening the door, he waved her in.

  Head high, she stepped over the threshold. He followed her into the first-floor gallery that circled the library proper, on the ground floor.

  She clung to the shadows by the book-lined walls, staring down at the seven gentlemen seated about the central table. Ledgers and notebooks at the ready, they were waiting for him to open the meeting, meanwhile trading the usual social conversation gentlemen of their ilk used to pass the time.

  The gallery was thickly carpeted, allowing Miss Clifford and him to move without attracting attention. Lifting a large armchair, he set it down by the gallery railing and waved her to it.

  She hesitated, then crept forward and sat. He waited while she settled her cape and set her reticule in her lap, then, standing behind the chair, he leaned over her and whispered by her ear, “Unless you stand up, they won’t see you. Unless you make a loud noise, they won’t hear you. You, however, can see, and you’ll be able to hear every word said about that table.”

  Ruthlessly suppressing the intense, unprecedented, and unnerving sensations that deep voice murmuring in her ear, his breath stirring the tiny tendrils of hair dangling about her nape, evoked, Miranda tuned her ears to the conversations about the table and discovered he was right. The gallery was perfectly positioned acoustically; she could easily make out all that was said, even though the men were speaking relatively quietly.

  Roscoe was still hovering over her—close, too close; his warmth, his strength, his scent—everything about his nearness made her senses seize. Her lungs felt so tight she could barely breathe; with an effort, she managed a nod.

  Satisfied, he started to draw back, paused, then returned, lowering his head to murmur, again maddeningly in her ear, “Incidentally, we call ourselves the Philanthropy Guild.”

  She blinked.

  Before she’d fully processed his words, he’d slipped back to the door and left.

  Roscoe joined his fellow Guild members around the library table, apologized for keeping them waiting, then opened the meeting and fought to keep his mind on the business he and the other seven had gathered to discuss.

  Their organization was straightforward. They ran charitable projects, with each member having oversight of one project at a time and reporting to the group on progress at each meeting. Normally they met once a month, but lately they’d been evaluating and embarking on several new projects—Roderick’s, given he’d only recently joined the group, and two others replacing completed projects—so had stepped up the frequency of their meetings.

  Each project was financed through a fund administered by a finicky, dour solicitor. Each of them contributed however much they wished, but the minimum contribution of five thousand pounds a year kept the membership exclusive.

  Ro Gerrard, Viscount Gerrard, had been the first real member. Ro might have made an excellent gambler, but his heart had never been in it. However, the same incisive mind that would have proved an advantage juggling odds was even better at gauging risks and potential outcomes of more human-based investments. Venturing into the arena of philanthropic endeavors, Ro had stumbled across Roscoe, and, after getting over his surprise, had—as Ro was wont to do—asked questions, and offered suggestions, and persisted until Roscoe had agreed that joining forces was a sensible move.

  From that small beginning, the Guild had grown.

  “The young women at the academy seem to be responding well to Mrs. Canterbury’s methods of instruction.” Sebastian Trantor, relatively recently recruited after he’d married Ro’s sister-in-law, continued with his assessment of progress at a Guild-funded school in Lincoln that taught selected female orphans the necessary skills to become ladies’ secretaries.

  Roderick followed with the latest information on the project he was assessing—a small bailiff-run school in Battersea. It was a straightforward proposal, one the other members felt would help Roderick cut his teeth. “I’m not yet entirely satisfied with some of the suppliers the school wishes to continue to use. I believe we should hold firm to our principle of not allowing firms owned by relatives of those running the establishment to be engaged—not unless they are the only supplier available.”

  “Hear, hear,” Max Gillard said. “We instituted that rule early on, and it’s saved us—or rather our blunt—countless times.”

  Roderick nodded. “I’ll tell Hendricks, the head bailiff.”

  “If I were you,” Roscoe said, “I’d also have a quiet word in Father . . . is it O’Leary’s? . . . ear. He’s on the school board, and while he might not feel the prohibition is necessary”—with a cynical smile, Roscoe looked around the table—“telling him that our considerable experience will not allow the Guild to invest in any project that doesn’t adhere to such rules will almost certainly be sufficient to ensure he sways all the other board members. No need for you to waste time trying to argue them around when he can do it for you.”

  “I second that,” Hugh Bentley put in. He met Roderick’s eyes. “It’s not simply a matter of getting them to do things our way—the trick is to leave them feeling that it was their wisdom behind it.”

  Roderick grinned, nodded, and jotted a note in his journal.

  The reporting continued around the table, with Roscoe briefly detailing the progress of his own current project—an endeavor to teach young boys from the dockside slums enough to allow them to become apprentices in the nearby shipyards; the Guild already worked with the shipyard owners to oversee the training and subsequent placement of the apprentices into paying jobs.

  As Hugh—Lord Hugh Bentley, the Duke of Raythorne’s second and rather more brilliant son—took center stage, Roscoe sat back and wondered what his uninvited and disapproving guest in the gallery was making of the meeting.

  Of the eight men about the table, seven—Ro, Sebastian, Marvin Grayle, Edward Bremworth, Hugh, Max, and Roscoe himself—were scions of noble houses. The only exception was Roderick. While nobility of birth wasn’t a criterion for membership in the Guild, the simple fact was that, other than in exceptional cases such as Roderick’s, most of the money available for charitable works lay in the hands of the aristocracy.

  Considering their secret observer, Roscoe wondered if she was squirming yet. He hadn’t known Roderick hadn’t told his family about joining the Guild, but given his sister’s overbearing protectiveness—given Roderick was twenty-three and in sole charge of his considerable fortune—it was understandable that Roderick had wanted to do something entirely on his own. A declaration of independence, as it were.

  Despite the fifteen years and the lifetime of experience that separated Roderick and him, Roscoe could nevertheless appreciate that.

  His mind returning to the hoity Miss Clifford, he wondered if she would.

  Miranda sat through the meeting in absolute silence.

  The men’s voices reached her clearly, their every word sinking her deeper into a quagmire of embarrassment heavily tinged with mortif
ication.

  But how could she have known?

  Even before Roscoe had appeared in the library to take his chair at the head of the table, she’d picked up allusions to the social status of the other men. They knew each other well enough to refer to each other by name rather than title, but while trading jocular remarks several had called one of the others “lord” and in one case “viscount.”

  Alerted, she’d looked more closely at their features, all of which confirmed the likelihood of their belonging to the aristocracy, including, once she saw him in better light, Roscoe himself. There could be very little doubt that features like his derived from noble progenitors, but in his case said ancestors had presumably engaged on the wrong side of the blanket.

  Regardless, that face . . . held her attention effortlessly. While she heard the various reports and absorbed the implications, her gaze remained, not on whoever was speaking, but on Roscoe. At no point did he glance up at the gallery, leaving her free to indulge her now rampant curiosity and study—examine—him.

  It wasn’t every day she got the chance to so closely scrutinize any male, let alone one of his caliber. One who embodied the devilish attraction she’d spent all her life being warned, in dire terms, against.

  He wasn’t prettily handsome; he was too old for that, and there was a touch of harshness, of sharply edged hardness, in the sculpted planes of his face. His finely shaped lips often held a cynical twist, while his heavy lidded dark eyes—she still wasn’t sure what color they were—combined with his frequently impassive expression, hinted at world-weariness and distance.

  If his face, with its suggestion of veiled strength and reclusive personality, intrigued, his body fascinated. She’d been impressed enough in the gallery, but being able to measure him against other men left her even more appreciative of his height, his long-limbed grace.

  He moved in a manner that transfixed her senses. He leaned back in his chair, listening to one of the others speak, and she drank in the pose, one that spoke of a male in his prime who was utterly at ease in his large, powerful body.

  Only when the meeting broke up and he rose and, with the others, left the library—still without glancing her way—did she blink free of the spell and finally turn her mind to other things.

  The instant she did, the import of all she’d heard rushed into the forefront of her mind.

  No matter how she viewed things, what she’d learned through the meeting made it abundantly clear that in suggesting that Roscoe was corrupting Roderick, she’d transgressed. Badly. She would have to apologize.

  Sincerely.

  Roscoe might be a noble bastard, might be London’s gambling king, but beneath his hard, aloof, and powerful exterior lay a thinking and caring man. A man who deserved her applause, not her censure.

  He might not be a gentleman, but clearly he was accepted by others within the pale, and as long as Roderick’s association with him remained discreet, no matter from what angle she viewed the situation she couldn’t see any valid reason to interfere. Roderick would come to no direct harm through interacting with Roscoe in his role as chairman of the Philanthropy Guild. Indeed, Roderick most likely would learn a thing or two from London’s gambling king—a conclusion that was faintly discombobulating.

  Stranger situations no doubt existed, but she couldn’t offhand think of one.

  A part of her—the more craven part—wanted to leave the gallery and, while Roscoe was engaged with seeing his guests out, slip out through the rear garden and hurry home . . . but no. She’d come into his house and insulted him, but he’d allowed her to watch the meeting and through it learn what she’d needed to know about Roderick’s new venture.

  Rather than being anxious about her brother, she was now rather proud of him.

  And that—the slaying of her anxiety and her improved appreciation of Roderick—lay at Roscoe’s door, so like any considerate guest, she sat and waited for him to return and show her out.

  Five minutes later, the door opened. Her disconcerting host halted in the doorway, filling it, and looked at her.

  Drawing in a determined breath, she rose and faced him. Raising her head, she met his gaze levelly. “My apologies, Mr. Roscoe. Clearly I was laboring under several misapprehensions with respect to both yourself and my brother. I must thank you for allowing me to learn the truth.”

  Roscoe didn’t blink, but he was surprised. In his experience, ladies with strong opinions—and Miss Clifford struck him as very much that sort—didn’t readily change their views. Yet scrutinizing her expression, and her lovely hazel eyes, he detected nothing other than absolute sincerity.

  Roderick’s sister, it seemed, was one of those rare strong women strong enough to admit to being wrong.

  Releasing the doorknob, he inclined his head. “Apology accepted.” He’d anticipated spending half an hour goading her, eventually dragging a grudging apology from her; she’d taken the wind from his sails, but he could hardly admit to feeling deflated. “And most who know me call me Roscoe.”

  Why he’d added that he wasn’t sure, yet it seemed appropriate. Stepping back, he waved her to join him. “Come—I’ll walk you home.”

  She’d started forward but now stopped and met his gaze. “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. As I daresay you know, we live just around the corner.”

  He couldn’t keep his lips from curving. “Yes, I do know. However, Miss Clifford, it appears you’re harboring yet another misapprehension—a gentleman like me would never allow a lady to walk home alone, whether at night or during the day.”

  Miranda studied his face; the set of his lips—that suggestion of a smile—was subtly taunting. She’d apologized, and he’d accepted, but he wasn’t yet finished rescripting her view of him.

  Replaying his words, she searched for some way to acceptably decline, but what could she say? I’m not that much of a lady?

  Accepting the inevitable, she inclined her head and went forward to join him in the corridor.

  Side by side, they walked back to the gallery. The lamps had been lit; in the soft light, she paused to look more closely at one of the paintings. She pressed her lips tight but couldn’t hold back her question. “Is this . . . ?” She waved at the canvas.

  “An original? Yes. One of his better works, I feel.”

  She glanced at him; he’d halted at the top of the stairs, waiting with unruffled patience for her. “I’m tempted to make some comment about the wages of sin, but that would be another misapprehension, wouldn’t it?”

  He smiled. A genuine, utterly heart-stopping smile, it warmed her in places she hadn’t thought could be warmed. But “Yes, it would” was all he said.

  She glanced at the other two paintings, then at the tapestry, then, having delayed the inevitable for as long as she could, joined him.

  They went down the stairs; she’d wondered if he would lead her through the rear gardens or go via the streets, but she wasn’t about to argue his choice. Despite the risk of being seen with him—and given it was so late, in such a quiet neighborhood that wasn’t so great—at this time of night, she would much prefer the open streets to the narrow alleys.

  His butler was hovering in the front hall. Tall, gray-haired, and stately, and so well-trained that he evinced not the slightest sign of surprise at the appearance of a lady who, as far as he knew, hadn’t been admitted to the house, the butler bowed, then at Roscoe’s request went to fetch his coat. She used the moment to look around the hall, drinking in the elegant paneling and the three large landscapes adorning the walls.

  The butler returned bearing a stylish overcoat. As Roscoe shrugged into it, then settled the sleeves, she allowed herself to glance at him again. Lowering his head, he looked at her, and in the stronger light cast by the lamp on the hall’s central table she finally saw his eyes well enough to make out their hue.

  Dark, sapphire blue.

  It was an arresting shade, jewel-toned and vibrant. As for his hair, fashionably cut, the thick locks layered over h
is well-shaped head, she suspected it was a deep sable brown that appeared black in most lights.

  The butler had moved to the door. At Roscoe’s glance, he opened it.

  With what she now realized was innate grace, Roscoe waved her through. As she descended the shallow front steps, he told the butler, “I’m walking the lady home. I should be back inside half an hour.”

  “Indeed, sir—I’ll let Rawlins know.”

  Pausing on the pavement, she turned as Roscoe joined her. Polite custom dictated that she shouldn’t ask, but . . . “Rawlins?”

  Roscoe met her gaze briefly, then waved, and they stepped out in unison. “One of my bodyguards. At least one of them is on duty at any time, and they get anxious if I disappear without warning.”

  “I see.” She paced beside him. He didn’t offer his arm, for which she was grateful; refusing it would have been awkward, but she would have done so nevertheless. Accepting his support would have signaled a degree of acquaintance that could never be. Helpfully, the street was, as she’d hoped, deserted. The dense shadows beneath the trees in the square spilled across the opposite pavement, but the moon shone unimpeded along their side of the street, lighting their way. “As you appreciate your bodyguards’ concerns, I hope you will also understand my motives in following Roderick to your house.”

  Roscoe hesitated, then murmured, “As a matter of fact, I do.” None better; he knew to what lengths protective instincts could drive a man, and, presumably, a woman, too. He waited, knowing what would come next.

  It took her several minutes to find the words, but eventually she tipped her chin a fraction higher and said, “I know I have no right to ask this of you, but if you could see your way to not mentioning my presence tonight to Roderick, I would appreciate your discretion.”

  “I hadn’t intended to.”

  Without looking at him, she inclined her head. “Thank you.”

  He waited a few seconds to let her relief sink in before saying, “I am, however, curious as to why you think Roderick, at twenty-three as levelheaded a gentleman as any I’ve met, still needs protecting.”