She did as she was told, feeling like an imbecile. “I do mean it.”
He collected her in his arms. “You don’t, but as you are terrified of this world and what you are about to do, I shan’t press you on the subject.”
She stiffened. “I am not terrified.”
He cut her a look. “Of course you are. You think I don’t understand it? You think Bourne doesn’t? And Cross?” he added, referring to the two other owners of the gaming hell. “We’ve all had to crawl out of the muck and back into the light. We’ve all had to clamor for acceptance from this world.”
“It’s different for men.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Surprise crossed his face and she realized that she had accepted his premise. “Damn.”
He lowered his voice. “You will have to control your language if you want them to believe you’re a tragic case mislabeled a scandal.”
“I was doing perfectly well before you arrived.”
“You were hiding in the corner.”
“It was not hiding.”
“What was it then?”
“Waiting.”
“For those assembled to issue you a formal apology?”
“I was rather hoping for them to drop dead of plague,” she grumbled.
He chuckled. “If wishing made it so.” He spun her across the floor, the candles lit around the room leaving trails of light across her field of vision. “Langley has arrived.”
The viscount had entered not five minutes earlier. She’d noticed immediately. “I saw.”
“You don’t expect a real marriage from him,” Temple said.
“I don’t.”
“Then why not do what you do best?”
Her gaze flickered to the handsome man on the other side of the room. Her choice for husband. “You think blackmail is the best way to go about securing a husband?”
He smiled. “I was blackmailed in advance of finding a wife.”
“Yes, well, I am told that most men are not such masochists, Temple. You’ve been saying I should marry. You and Bourne and Cross,” she added, ticking off her partners in The Fallen Angel. “Not to mention my brother.”
“Ah, yes, I’ve heard that the Duke of Leighton has placed a heavy dowry on your head. It’s remarkable you are able to stand upright. But what of love?”
“Love?” It was difficult to voice the word without the disdain.
“You’ve heard of it, no doubt. Sonnets and poems and happy-ever-after?”
“I’ve heard of it,” she said. “As we are discussing marriage at best for convenience and at worst for debt relief, I hardly think a lack of love is of issue,” she said. “And besides, it is a fool’s errand.”
He watched her for a long moment. “Then you are surrounded by fools.”
She cut him a look. “Every one of you. Besotted beyond reason. And look at what has happened because of it.”
He raised his dark brows. “What? Marriage? Children? Happiness?”
She sighed. They’d had the conversation a hundred times. A thousand. Her partners were so idyllically matched that they could not help but foist it on everyone around them. What they did not know was that idyll was not for Georgiana. She pushed the thought away. “I am happy,” she lied.
“No. You are rich. And you are powerful. But you are not happy.”
“Happiness is too highly prized,” she said with a shrug, as he turned her across the room. “It’s worth nothing.”
“It’s worth everything.” They danced in silence for a long moment. “Which you see, as you wouldn’t be doing this if not for happiness.”
“Not mine. Caroline’s.”
Her daughter. Growing older by the second. Nine years old, soon ten, soon twenty. And the reason Georgiana was here. She looked up at her hulking partner, this man who had saved her as many times as she had saved him. Told him the truth. “I thought I could keep her from it,” she said quietly. “I steered clear of her.”
For years. To the detriment of them both.
“I know,” he said quietly, and she was grateful for the dance that kept her from having to meet his gaze too often. She didn’t know that she could.
“I tried to keep her safe,” she repeated. But a mother could keep a child safe for only so long. “But it wasn’t enough. She’ll need more if she’s to climb out of our swill.”
Georgiana had done her best, sending Caroline to live at her brother’s home, doing her best to never sully her with the circumstances of her birth.
And it had worked, until it hadn’t.
Until last month.
“You can’t be talking about the cartoon,” he said.
“Of course I’m talking about the cartoon.”
“No one gives a damn about scandal sheets.”
She cut Temple a look. “That isn’t true and you of all people know it.”
The rumors had abounded – that her brother had told her she could not have a season, that she’d begged him. That he’d insisted that, as an unwed mother, she remain indoors. That she’d pleaded with him. That neighbors had heard screaming. Wailing. Cursing. That the duke had exiled her and she’d returned without his permission.
The gossip pages had gone wild, each trying to outdo the other with tales of the return of Georgiana Pearson, Lady Disrepute.
The most popular of the rags, The Scandal Sheet, had run the legendary cartoon – scandalizing and somewhat blasphemous, Georgiana high atop a horse, wrapped only her hair, holding a swaddled baby with the face of a girl. Part Lady Godiva, part Virgin Mary, with the disdainful Duke of Leighton standing by, watching, horrified.