There had been hundreds of them. Enough for hatred to begin to settle, hot and unyielding, in her breast.
He seemed to understand. “They did not accept you.”
“Of course they didn’t. I was ruined. Unwed. A mother of a daughter, who is nothing. If she’d been a boy…” she trailed off.
“If she’d been a boy, she could have made her way.”
But she hadn’t been. And that had turned the hatred into rage.
And then into a plan to hold dominion over them all.
“And then Chase found you.”
Like that, they were returned to the present. To this place. To its secrets. To the lies she told.
She looked away. “On the contrary, I found Chase.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why masquerade as a whore? Anything could happen to you. Hell, Pottle nearly —” He did not finish the sentence, closing his eyes briefly. “What if I hadn’t been there?”
She smiled. “Women in my position, we hold tremendous amounts of power. I chose to be here, in this place. I chose this path. I choose this world.” She paused. “How many other women have the choice?”
“But you could have chosen anything. You could have been a governess.”
“Who would have hired me for that?”
“A dressmaker.”
“I cannot sew a straight line.”
“You know what it is I am saying.”
Of course she did. She’d heard it a dozen times from her brother. A hundred. And she’d told him just what she told Duncan. “None of those positions held the power of this one.”
“Consort to a king.”
King herself.
“I wanted power over all of them – every last one who stared down their nose at me. Every last one who judged me. Every last one who cast their stones. I wanted proof that they lived in glass houses.”
“And Chase gave it to you. Chase and the others, all wanting to do the same. You became the fifth in their merry band.”
Tell him.
There was no fifth. She was fourth.
She was first.
She could tell him. She could say the words. I am Chase.
Except she couldn’t. She’d just told the story of her deepest betrayal, the one that had ruined her, threatened Caroline, and would ever be the reason for her secrets. If she told him the rest, if she laid herself at his feet, what then?
Would he protect her, even once he knew she was the man who used him? Who manipulated him?
Would he protect her club?
This life she had worked so hard to build?
Perhaps.
She might have done it, if he hadn’t gone on. “And still, you protect him,” he said, and she heard the bitterness in his voice. “Who is he to you? What is he to you? If not your master, your consort, your benefactor? Who the hell is he?”
There was something in the last, something that was not for her.
Something that was not curiosity.
Something like desire. Like desperation.
He wanted Chase’s secret. Hers.
But if he had it, would he entrust her with his own?
She resisted the question, hating that even now, even here, after they had shared the powerful moment, they still dealt in information. Traded it.
He’d been with Tremley earlier in the day – taken the information she’d given him and done something unexpected with it. Something indefinable.
“Tell me who he is, Georgiana,” he said, and she heard the plea in the words. What did he want with her? With Chase?
She met his gaze, on alert. “Why is it so important?”
He did not hesitate. “Because I have been nothing but his good soldier for years. And it is time.”
“For what?” she asked. “To ruin him?”
“To protect myself from him.”
She shook her head. “Chase will never hurt you.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. “You are blind to his power. To the things he does to keep it.” He waved a hand at the door. “Have you not witnessed it? The way he plays with lives? The way he bolsters the men belowstairs? The way he tempts them to wager until they’ve nothing left? Until all they have belongs to him?”
“It’s not like that.” It was never so cavalier. Never so unplanned.
“Of course it is. He deals in information. Secrets. Truths. Lies.” He paused. “I deal in those things as well – which is why we make such a pair.”
“Why not leave it at that?” She didn’t want it to change. Everything else was shifting beneath her, around her. “You are well compensated. You have access to information throughout London. You ask, you receive. News. Gossip. Tremley’s file.”
He stilled. “What do you know?”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “What are you not telling me?”
He laughed at that. “The sheer sum of what you will not tell me, and you have the gall to ask for my secrets?”
She buttoned her shirt, protecting herself in more ways than one. “What is your relationship with Tremley?”
He met her gaze without hesitation. “What is your relationship with Chase?”
She was quiet for a long moment, considering the next. Considering the implications of her truth. Finally, she said, “I cannot tell you.”
He nodded. “And so it is.”
She stilled, watching him. He, too, had secrets. She’d known it, but she’d had no proof. But now, she did. And while the discovery should have made her immensely happy – as she was not the only one who spread lies between them – instead, it made her devastatingly sad.