Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover_The Fourth Rule of Scoundrels

by Sarah MacLean

  “I have to stop her.”

  Bourne raised a brow. “I confess, I had hoped you would consider doing so. I’ve a family to feed.”

  The Marquess of Bourne had enough money and land to feed all the families in Britain, but Duncan had other things to do than joust with the man. “Where would she be?”

  Bourne looked up, to the stained glass, where Lucifer tumbled to the casino floor. “If I had to guess . . .”

  Duncan was on his way, pushing through the crowds, weaving between tables, headed for the heavily guarded door at the far end of the room. He was nearly there when he heard his name, behind him, in a voice that at The Fallen Angel was equally familiar and foreign.

  After all, the Earl of Tremley was not a member.

  Duncan said as much, and Tremley smiled, coming closer. “I was invited tonight. By your Anna. I was told she was pretty, but once one meets her—she is—glorious.”

  The words sent fury through Duncan, who could not bear the thought of Georgiana and Tremley breathing the same air, let alone being in the same room. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing that you didn’t do yourself,” Lord Tremley sneered. “Indeed, you painted with a rather broad brush—five thousand pounds for Chase’s identity? You think he will simply lay back and let the hordes come to find him? I got it done.”

  He froze. “Got what done?”

  “Your girl. We made a trade. It was really quite sweet.”

  No.

  Duncan knew what was to come before Tremley revealed it. “She did it for you, the poor creature. Thinking that if she revealed Chase’s secrets, she would save you.” He looked to West. “We both know that’s not true.”

  She was doing it to save him.

  She’d said as much, hadn’t she?

  Tremley had given her a choice: her club or him.

  I choose you.

  She’d made the choice without hesitation.

  It is time for you to trust me.

  He could not let her ruin her life. Could not let her give up this world that she had worked so hard to build. Something danced at the edge of his thoughts—something that did not sit well. Her plan—if it was to be a public reveal—would not help Tremley. If the whole world had Chase’s identity, Tremley was still beholden to the Angel, which held his secrets.

  But now, he knew how to make Georgiana dance.

  And Tremley would do it. Forever. He would hold Georgiana and this place in his sway with the same simple threat he’d held over Duncan for a lifetime.

  And Duncan had had enough.

  He’d spent years waiting for Tremley to report his crimes, to send him to prison, to string him up. He’d spent years amassing fortune and favor to ensure that, should it ever happen, someone somewhere would care for Cynthia. He’d groveled and scraped and done Tremley’s bidding.

  But he was done.

  He opened his mouth to tell the earl just that when a cacophony of shouts came from across the room, where Georgiana stood, dressed head to toe in scarlet, atop a hazard field. Behind her, Lucifer fell.

  She was going to do it.

  “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” she called out, moving her arms to indicate that they should settle. “And ladies.” She looked to a small band of masked women at the edge of the room.

  A man on the floor by the table reached for her slipper. West was already in motion, heading to destroy the vermin, when she stepped on the blackguard’s wrist, eliciting a sharp cry. “Oh,” she said, all smiles. “Do excuse me, Lord Densmore. I did not know your hand was so near to my foot.”

  He stopped, a roomful of masculine laughter crashing around him as she continued, “We are all so happy that you have joined us for what will be a supremely edifying evening.”

  Shit.

  She was going to do it.

  He was moving toward her, but the crowd was thick and would not budge. This was, after all, the strange occurrence for which they’d been waiting.

  “As you know, our dear friend Duncan West has put out a reward for Chase’s identity . . .”

  West froze as her words were met with a chorus of boos and hisses and hear-hears. Several men nearby clapped him on the back. “She’s after you, West,” one man whispered.

  “And we have no doubt that very soon, one of you enterprising gentlemen will discover the truth about the founder of the Angel.” She paused. “Five thousand pounds is, after all, a great deal of money to a motley group that loses blunt so well.”

  More laughter, but Duncan ignored it, desperate to get to her. To stop her, however he could.

  “But we believe in fairness here! Or, at least, we believe that money should be flowing into our pockets, instead of out! And so it is time for a confession . . .” She paused for dramatic effect, and he realized he would not reach her in time.

  She spread her arms wide. “I am Chase!”

  It hadn’t occurred to him that they wouldn’t believe her, but as the laughter that came with the pronouncement rippled over them, he realized how he could save her, and the club, and how he could set them all free.

  How many times had she told him?

  People believe what they wish to believe.

  And not one of the men in attendance wanted to believe that Chase was a woman.

  He took to the nearest faro table, pulling himself up, standing to face her. “I shan’t pay until you provide proof, Anna,” he said, injecting his tone with relaxed teasing. He looked out across the room. “Would anyone else like to make an announcement? I’ll repeat myself, here in this glorious place Chase built. Five thousand pounds for his identity. I’ll pay this very night.”

  He stopped, and prayed that one of her business partners was smart enough to see what he was doing.

  Cross stood first, climbing high on a roulette table. “I don’t suppose you’ll believe that I am Chase, will you, West?”

  Duncan shook his head. “I will not.”

  “Nor I?” Temple was on a vingt-et-un table at the other end of the room. He reached down and pulled his wife up onto the table with him. “Perhaps the duchess?”

  Her Grace called out, “I am Chase!”

  And the room laughed.

  One by one, men and women beholden to Georgiana claimed Chase for themselves from around the room. The club’s security detail, the pit boss, Bourne, croupiers, the women who worked the floor of the Angel. Two footmen. The club’s French chef somehow heard the commotion, came in from the kitchen, climbed up on a roulette table and proclaimed herself, “La Chasse.”

  And then others got in on the fun—men who had never met her, never come close to her. They simply wanted the laugh that came when someone proclaimed, “I am Chase.”

  Each time it was offered to the room—a bold, firm “I am Chase”—the gamers on the floor laughed, and Chase became myth. Legend.

  For certainly there was no single Chase, not if all these people admitted to being the man behind the stained glass window, watching from his domain high above their world.

  Duncan looked to Georgiana, standing, incredulous, on her table, watching her world stand for her. Without hesitation.

  She met his gaze, and he saw the tears glistening in those eyes. He wanted to climb over the tables to get to her, to tell her how much she was loved. To tell her how remarkable she was.

  “No!” The Earl of Tremley howled from his place on the floor of the casino, and Duncan turned to find the man clamoring to get to him. “It’s not true!” Tremley cried, high-pitched and nasal as he climbed up onto another table, facing him. “You only play at this game with your whore to keep your own history secret!”

  Silence fell at the anger in the earl’s tone.

  Duncan’s heart began to pound as Tremley turned to the room. “Ask yourselves, who is this man who runs your newspapers? Where did he come from? How did he rise?”

  Duncan looked to Georgiana, taking in her wide, frightened gaze, knowing that this was the end—that Tremley would reveal everything, and with that, he wou
ld lose everything.

  And strangely, as he waited for the axe to fall, the only thing he cared was that Georgiana was safe.

  Tremley asked one final question. “What is his name?”

  There was silence as Tremley’s words echoed through the room.

  Duncan was holding Georgiana’s gaze, ready for what came next, so he saw it when she replied, her red lips curving into a bold smile that did not reach her eyes.

  Her eyes were too full of fear.

  “Don’t tell us his name is Chase, my lord.”

  And with that single, well-placed sentence, she set the casino to laughing, his beautiful, brilliant love. She saved him. Just as he had saved her, in front of the wide world, where none but the two of them could see it.

  At the laughter, Tremley went mad, reaching into his coat to remove a pistol, turning it on West. “I am through with you.”

  The laughter in the casino died the moment Tremley extracted his pistol, quickly replaced by shock.

  Georgiana could think only of Duncan.

  She had not just saved him in one way to lose him in another. She looked across the room at Bourne and Temple, both of whom were headed for the place where Tremley stood, but they were too far and the club was too full. They’d never get to him in time.

  Duncan raised his hands into the air. “My lord,” he said. “You do not want to do this.”

  Tremley laughed, “There are few things in the world I want to do more than this. How dare you think you can use my sins against me? Does it not occur to you who I am?”

  “I know who you are,” Duncan said. “Many people do. Everyone here. And if you kill me, they will know it.”

  “But they won’t care.”

  “I think they will,” she announced, impressed that she was able to keep the fear from her tone. Terrified that he would shoot.

  Terrified that she would lose Duncan before she had a chance to tell him how much she loved him. Terrified of life without him.

  Tremley turned the weapon on her, and she’d never in her life been more grateful than when Duncan was no longer in harm’s way. “They certainly won’t care if I kill you.”

  “No!” Duncan’s shout came loud and clear and full of fury, and from the corner of her eye, Georgiana saw him running for the earl, leaping from table to table.

  Georgiana focused on the pistol, wondering if Tremley had the courage to pull the trigger. Wondering who would care for Caroline if she were killed.

  Wondering who would love Duncan if she were killed.

  Wishing she’d had the courage to tell him she loved him. Just once.

  “Tell me, my lord,” a strong, clear voice rang out next to Georgiana, and she turned to see a masked woman, standing on a table behind Duncan. “Who will care if I kill you, you treasonous bastard?”

  It was Lady Tremley.

  Georgiana placed the voice a split-second before Duncan leapt to tackle Tremley to the ground, and a gunshot sounded in the massive room.

  Tremley and Duncan fell from the tables, and Georgiana was instantly in motion, heading for them, her heart in her throat, before they hit the ground.

  The crowd went wild, screaming and scattering, nearly trampling each other in their rush to get away from the weapon and the scene of the murder. Georgiana couldn’t find Duncan—between the smoke from the pistol’s report, and the crush of people, she could not see him..

  She flew over the tables, staying on high ground, leaping from roulette to faro to vingt-et-un to hazard, crossing the casino floor to where he had been moments earlier.

  Praying that he was safe.

  When she found him, he was on the floor, on his back, eyes closed. She leapt down beside him, crying his name. “No . . .” she whispered, putting her hands to his chest, unbuttoning his coat. “No no no no.” The word became her chant as she slid her hands into his jacket, throwing the lapels back, searching his chest for blood or a wound. Or anything.

  He captured her hand in his. “Stop.”

  Her breath caught. “You’re alive.”

  He opened his eyes. “I am.”

  She burst into tears.

  “Oh, love,” he said, sitting up and pulling her into his arms. “No. Don’t cry.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Christ,” he whispered to the hair there. “You were magnificent. You saved me, you gorgeous, perfect girl.”

  “I thought you were dead,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I am not.” He looked past her, finding Tremley’s motionless body on the floor nearby. “The lady is an excellent shot.”

  Tremley was dead.

  Duncan straightened his coat, feeling in his pockets for brief moments before he turned back around to look at the floor.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He leaned over, lifted something from the carpet nearby. “In your desperation to touch me, you nearly lost my most prized possession.” He straightened, brandishing a feather.

  Her feather.

  Plucked from her coif on the first night they’d met as Georgiana and West, at the Worthington Ball.

  The tears came again as she watched him slip the feather into his coat pocket, against his heart. He reached for her, brushing the tears from her cheeks. “Don’t cry, darling. I am well. Sound. Here.”

  But for how long?

  “I thought he was going to kill you,” she said, hating the way the words shook from her, the way her body had gone cold and shaking in the wake of his near loss. “I thought I would lose you.”

  “He didn’t kill me,” he promised. “And you’ll never lose me. You’ve ruined me for all others. Forever.”

  She loved him. She should tell him so.

  But he was pointing to Lady Tremley. “She did kill him, however. Perhaps we ought to do something to keep her from the end of a rope?”

  Yes. That was something she could do.

  Anna stood, and the entire room went silent, every person assembled stunned by the events of the evening—none more so than Lady Tremley, who seemed thoroughly shocked by the fact that she’d murdered her husband.

  And it was murder; Lord Tremley grew cold even as the owners of The Fallen Angel looked to each other. Something had to be done, for if there was ever a man who deserved killing—this was he.

  Georgiana surveyed the room in the silence, finally deciding to take control, returning to the tabletop, taking her spot on the roulette field. “I shouldn’t have to remind any of you that every one of you has a secret kept in our confidence.”

  Temple understood immediately what she was saying, pulling himself back up to stand on a table. “If a breath of what happened here tonight—”

  Bourne rose, too. “Not that anything has happened here tonight—”

  “Nothing besides obvious self-defense,” Georgiana said.

  “And, of course, saving two perfectly innocent people from their own demise,” Duncan pointed out, joining her.

  Cross spoke from his place on the floor. “But if something had happened, and information left this room, every one of your secrets—”

  “To a man,” Georgiana said.

  Duncan climbed up beside her. “—will be printed in my papers.”

  There was a beat as the words sank in around the room, silence fell as the membership of The Fallen Angel remembered why they came to this place, where their dues were paid in secrets.

  For the tables.

  The gaming began almost immediately.

  Georgiana and Duncan climbed down from their perches, easing to the side of the room, where he stopped and smiled down at her, and she, up at him.

  Tremley was dead. And Duncan was alive.

  Alive and free. No more fear for his future.

  The threats had perished with the man who delivered them.

  He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “We are a tremendous team, love.”

  It was the truth.

  They were a perfect match.

  She took a deep breath, terror still shaking the air in he
r lungs. “I thought he would kill you,” she repeated. “And I would not have had the chance to tell you that—”

  Something flashed in his gaze. Something like pleasure, chased quickly away by regret. By loss. “Don’t,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her temple. “Don’t tell me you love me. I’m not sure if I will be able to bear it when you leave.”

  When she left.

  It would come, and all that had happened today to Anna and Chase . . . it would not affect Georgiana. Tomorrow, she would still require propriety.

  Tomorrow, she would still need to think of Caroline.

  The title. The respectability. Chase and Anna and West had been saved . . . but Georgiana was still a scandal.

  She ignored the ache in her chest that came with the knowledge that he was right. That none of it mattered.

  Tonight, everything had changed. And somehow, nothing had.

  Chapter 22

  Two mornings later, Georgiana awoke in her bed at her brother’s home, to the smell of flowers and the face of her daughter.

  And to a deep, abiding sadness, which had come the moment Duncan West had left The Fallen Angel two evenings prior, and hadn’t left.

  Didn’t show signs of leaving.

  “Something has happened,” Caroline said from the side of the bed. “And I think you ought to know about it.”

  A thousand things had happened. Her club had been saved. Her identity had been protected along with her secrets. A traitor had been killed, his wife saved—already on her way to Yorkshire, to make a new life for herself.

  And Georgiana had learned to love, before she’d had no choice but to turn her back on it.

  But she did not think Caroline meant any of those things.

  Georgiana sat up in her bed, moving to make room for Caroline, who refused to climb in, which was rare. “What has happened?” She reached out to touch the pink rose haphazardly placed in her daughter’s hair. “Where did that come from?”

  Caroline’s green eyes were wide with excitement as she touched the rosebud as well. “You’ve flowers. A great deal of them.” She lifted Georgiana’s hand. “Come. You must see.”