The rage that surged through Clara stiffened her spine and her jaw. She glared at her father, all her words wrapped tightly within.
“Do you understand?”
Clara gave a single nod, snatched up the foolscap, and strode from the room.
Chapter Eight
Thursday, 4 August 1825
Campion’s Gentlemen’s Emporium
Covent Garden, London
Half-past eight in the evening
“You were thereless than half an hour. It could not have been that remarkable a visit.”
Michael looked up at his brother, unsure if he had heard Robert’s words correctly. “I beg your pardon?”
Robert grinned and rested his elbows on the broad cherry desk that was the heart of the Emporium’s office. “Have you heard anything I have said in the last ten minutes?”
Ten minutes?Michael shifted in the wingback that sat in front of the desk. “Um, apparently not.”
Robert chuckled. “I suspected as much, given you have been staring at the window the entire time, looking at nothing but the beams supporting the gaming floor.”
The one window in Robert’s office did not have a view of the outside streets but of the largest room of Campion’s Gentlemen’s Emporium. The office overlooked a gambling hall with more than forty tables of dealers and games, all intended to take money from gamblers of every social status and income, from the poorest apprentice to the richest duke. All were welcome to try their luck. While none of the tables were rigged, games of chance always favored the house. It had made Bill Campion, who had begun the Emporium and its associated businesses more than twenty-five years earlier, a most wealthy man—a wealth and estate that had passed to his protégé Robert Ashton when Bill had died a few weeks ago.
Robert’s involvement with the various and sundry businesses—a few of them illegal and most of them scandalous for a nobleman—had threatened to drown the Kennet name in disgrace. But the family was beginning to find a pathway through it, as the duke advised patience and caution. Robert, in the meantime, had focused on expanding his new empire instead of divesting himself of it.
One such effort was the reason Michael now sat in the Emporium’s office. After almost an hour of going over plans and ledgers, however, Michael’s mind had been jerked back to a receiving room in Mayfair, to a mane of red hair and eyes the color of emeralds, to a mind and heart that could be enraptured by the flight of a falcon. “Sorry, brother. I suppose I was distracted.”
Robert held his hands wide. “Far be it from me to criticize a man whose mind is muddled by thoughts of a lady. I have experienced just such a muddle over the past few weeks.”
“Lady Eloise Surrey.”
“Yes.”
“You think you can win her favor?”
“It’s more her father’s favor that I need to win, but if you had been listening to me, you would know that.” Robert’s grin twisted, as the left side of his face did not quite cooperate with the right. “And I am proposing to help you win the father of your lady fair as well.” He placed his hands flat on the desk. “It is always the fathers we rakes and rogues have to convince, especially if there is a rival in play. You mentioned something about a duke.”
Michael nodded. “Wykeham. Weaselly fellow with a loud voice. He arrived with such a flourish it was obvious I had to leave.”
“I know the name but not the man. I’ve seen his name on our books. Frequently.”
Michael’s eyebrows arched. “Indeed? He is indebted to the Emporium? He gambles here?”
Robert shrugged. “Most of the peers do, at one time or another. It’s one reason the house limit is so high. Why did you think there has been such an uproar about my inheriting Bill’s empire?”
“And here I thought it was because it is scandalous for a nobleman to own a brothel.”
His brother chuckled. “Hardly. It’s far more about the son of a duke now holding all their secrets, all their debts to the Emporium. A businessman, even a wealthy one, can be bullied by a title. I may not be the direct Kennet heir, but they have no leverage to bully me. Thus, they want to bring me down through scandal. The world is changing, as we both know, but the aristocracy still holds the power. Do not forget that we grew up with the Prince Regent attending our family’s Christmas balls. Because I assure you the other nobles do not overlook that detail, especially since he became king.”
“But even the heir to a duke, much less a third son, cannot compete with such a title.”
Robert leaned forward and gestured over the papers and books spread across the desk. “Do not count yourself out just yet, brother. Not when we have such plans in store.”
“I did hear your explanation about converting the estate in Maidstone to a boy’s school. Do you plan to draw students from the Emporium’s staff?” Michael knew that Campion’s Emporium had been long known as providing secure and safe employment for young children from the rookeries. Bill and Robert’s goal had been to keep them off the streets and away from more dangerous ways of acquiring money. He had seen the boys at work and knew the effect it had on them. He also knew his brother had longed to do more.
