She smiled. “I’m not surprised. When it first opened, I was my cousin’s ward. It would have been scandalously improper for a young lady to attend a gentlemen’s club as a guest, but Roger saw no ethical argument against dressing his adolescent cousin as a maid and saving a few pence on servants’ wages.”
Julian grimaced. “He didn’t pay you?”
“A pittance. He felt I should be grateful for room and board.” Her lips twisted. “I was an excellent maid. The other staff said I had the skills to become a housekeeper at a grand estate and earn more money in a month than the entire lot of us did all year working for Roger.”
“Did you try to find a post in a better house?”
She shook her head. “The thought of being ‘rich’—which is what a housekeeper’s two hundred guinea per annum sounded like to a fifteen-year-old girl—was attractive, indeed. But I didn’t want to take orders from someone else. My mind moved too quickly, and I had ideas of my own.”
“What you didn’t have was an opportunity to use them.”
“Until I did. It all started when my cousin’s man of business walked out after one of Roger’s fits, never to return. Roger hadn’t the least idea what his man of businessdidor how to decipher the journals of accounts.”
“But you did?”
“I did. Being a maid didn’t takeallday—not anymore. My first act had been to restructure and re-delegate tasks so that everyone on staff had more time. Roger didn’t know the difference. I enjoyed frequent conversations with the other employees, most of whose posts I briskly rearranged into easier, more efficient versions of the drudgery they’d once held.”
“I imagine they loved you for it.”
“We were a family of sorts,” she said. “And my gamble worked. When Roger realized I could fill the role of man of business, what purpose was there in scrounging up some other feckless employee to pay, when his cousin could do the task for pennies?”
“No raise in wages?”
“Not a farthing. By then, I was eighteen and long out of the schoolroom. It was Roger who had arranged for my few tutors. By his count, I had a debt to pay, and taking this post would do nicely.”
“You didn’t send him to the devil?”
“I was in heaven,” she admitted. “I was inchargeof something for the first time in my life. My first decision was to make all of the decisions. I brought no correspondence to Roger unless absolutely necessary.”
Which had suited him just fine, as it gave him more time to sip his fine brandy and brood sulkily out of the front window.
“Roger said it was unfair that his club was overlooked and ignored. Why, some no-account nobody had opened an embarrassingly gauche gaming hall in unfashionable Cheapside, and it already had more customers than Roger’s fancy establishment.”
Julian raised his brows in question.
“Eshu’s Altar. I didn’t know it then, but its owner, Sampson Oakes, would later become one of the best friends I ever had.”
She took a sip from her wine as the memories washed over her.
“Roger hated him,” she continued softly. “I was never certain if Sampson’s greatest crime was being born poor or Black, or simply luckier than Roger. His humble gaming hell wasn’t taking London by storm, but Sampson was doing better than Roger, which simply could not be borne. It was a travesty. A mockery. A personal attack on Roger’s obvious superiority.”
Unity rolled her eyes in disgust. She had learned to close her ears to her cousin’s endless rants against the good fortune of a mortal enemy who didn’t even know Roger’s name.
“I presume Sampson’s day-old cravat is cleverer than your cousin?”
Unity grinned. “You would win that wager. It was I who began the renovations on my cousin’s club. Oh, how infuriated he had been, then! What was this? What were they doing? Who had authorized these changes?”
“His ‘man’ of business.” Julian’s lips curved. “And he couldn’t gainsay you without looking incompetent himself.”
“Not publicly,” she agreed. “Then came the advertisements, posted without his permission or counsel. I barely ducked the bottle flying at my head for that. Roger might have throttled me with his bare hands, had a fashionable gentleman not chosen that moment to stride through the door and inquire about membership.”
Julian leaned forward. “How did you do it?”
“I had let it be known that Roger’s club was very, very exclusive. So exclusive, it was absolutely not open to new blood unless you had a current member who could vouch for you.”
The duke frowned. “But I thought...”
“You’re right. Therewereno current members. Which meant no one in the ton had anyone to vouch for them. Not that they would admit this failing to their peers. Instead, they showed up privately to plead their case, happy to pay thrice the annual subscription if Roger would please say, ‘Oh, of course, Lord So-and-so hasalwaysbeen a member,’ if anyone asked.”
