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.