Temple’s black brows rose. “It never fails to surprise me just how ruthless you can be.”
She smiled her sweetest smile at him. “Never trust a woman.”
He laughed. “Not you, at least.”
“If he did not wish the information found out, he should not have used it to gain entrance to the club.” She moved to leave the room, but turned back. “You said two things.”
He nodded. “You’ve a visitor.”
“I’m not interested. Go yourself.” It would not be the first or the last time one of the other owners of the casino took a meeting meant for Chase.
Temple shook his head. “Not Chase. He insists on Anna.”
Neither would it be the first or last time that a man on the floor of the hell drank too much and called for Anna. “Who?”
“Duncan West.”
She caught her breath, hating the way the name rioted through her, as though she were a green girl. “What is he doing here?”
“He says he is here for you,” he said, and she heard the curiosity in his tone.
Matched it with hers. “Why?”
“He did not say,” the duke said, as though she were dim. “He simply asked for you.”
Perhaps it was the result of the melancholy she’d felt in Caroline’s room. Or perhaps it was because Duncan West had seen her at her weakest the prior evening and agreed to help her return to Society nonetheless. Or perhaps it was because she was so drawn to him – despite knowing better.
Whatever the reason, Georgiana surprised herself. “Tell him I shall be with him presently.”
She waited a quarter of an hour, taking a moment to make certain that her maquillage was perfectly applied. Satisfied with her outward appearance, Georgiana made her way through the web of passageways that connected her rooms to the main floor of the club, unlocking and relocking several doors carefully to ensure that no one could accidentally gain access to Caroline.
When she opened the final door and was delivered onto the floor of the club, she released a long breath. There was something terribly freeing about playing the lightskirt, though playing wasn’t precisely the verb Georgiana would use to describe her masquerade as Anna. After all, when one had worn the silks and satins of a celebrated prostitute for years, one tended to embrace the role.
Or, most of the role. Everything but the most obvious piece of it.
She hadn’t planned to avoid that bit – after all, the horse was rather out of the barn when a woman had birthed a child. Neither was it a lack of opportunity – half of London’s male population had approached her at one point or another.
It had simply never happened.
Which served Georgiana well. With no men on the floor of the club able to recount their time with her, her legend had grown. She was known now as a skilled madam, protected by the owners of the club and more expensive than any mere member of The Fallen Angel could afford.
And that legend had offered its own protection, giving her the freedom to move about the floor, to interact with members, and to play her part without fear of threat. No member of the club was willing to risk his membership for a taste of Anna.
She stood at the center of the casino floor, loving the massive room filled with gamers and tables, cards and dice, wins and losses. Every inch of the place was hers, every corner in her dominion.
It was a heady pleasure, this place of sin and vice and secrets – the throngs before her swayed in excitement, vibrating with desire and nerves and greed. London’s wealthiest and most powerful sat here night after night, money in their pockets and women in their laps, and played at chance, never knowing – or perhaps never acknowledging – that they would never beat the Angel. They would never win enough to reign here.
The Fallen Angel had its monarch.
It was the greed that kept them here – desperation for money, for luxury, for the win. Whatever club members wanted was theirs for the taking, often before they recognized the desire that ran hot within. And because of that, the club was marked the greatest in London’s history.
As White’s and Brooks’s and Boodle’s were for public schoolboys, the Angel was for men. And to gain entrance to the club, they would reveal all their secrets.
Such was the draw of sin.
And it was a pretty, pretty draw.
Her gaze landed on a collection of tables at the center of the casino floor, where roulette wheels spun in a blur of red and black, wagers strewn across green baize. It was her favorite place in the hell, in the middle of everything, where she could survey all she owned from its heart. She adored the sound of ivory balls on mahogany wheels, the clatter of the spin, the collective breath holding of the gamers at the table.
Roulette was like life; its utter unpredictability made it immensely rewarding when it delivered a win.
She turned slowly, searching the crowd for West, resisting the pounding of her heart, the excitement of the hunt for the man who held near-equal power in this room. She resisted, too, the way he made her feel, as though she’d met her match.
She knew she should be nervous at his summons… but she could not resist the temptation he represented.
Georgiana was bound by propriety around him.
Anna, however… Anna could flirt. And she found she was looking forward to seeing the man again.
The thought had barely come when she was captured from behind, heavy steel arms wrapping around her waist and lifting her clear off the floor. She resisted the urge to scream in surprise as a hot, drunken voice breathed at her ear, “Now, here’s a treat.”
She was trapped against the man, on show for the entire floor of the club – a score of members, who lacked either the courage or the stupidity required to approach her, stood, mouths agape, watching. Not one came to her defense. She watched a croupier at a nearby hazard field reach beneath the table, to no doubt pull a cord that would ring a corresponding bell in any number of rooms abovestairs.