It sounded fanciful to Unity. “Is he really as attractive as they say?”
“Helene says more so.” Mabel gave a fluttery sigh. “Not that we’ll ever meet him.”
That was true enough. Most unmarried gentlemen of the ton took mistresses, but the duke scarcely needed to bother. The most beautiful women in London presented themselves to him every Saturday. There was no need to go shopping when the samples brought themselves to one’s door.
“They say his hazel eyes emanate unimaginable heat,” said Rhoda.
“They also say he can be unspeakably cold,” Unity reminded her.
“Lambley could bark like a dog and still be lusted after,” Mabel said. “But he’s a sworn bachelor. As untrappable by the ton as he is by the likes of us.”
Rhoda shook her head. “He might be sowing his wild oats now, but he’s a duke, and by all accounts a good one. He may not be in a hurry, but he’ll marry some fancy debutante one day.”
Mabel snorted. “She’ll never guess about the parties. Ton misses are impossibly sheltered. They wouldn’t know what to do with a cock if it sprang up in front of them.”
Gladys affected a wholesome voice and widened her eyes. “‘Oh dear, whatever could that be? We must summon a surgeon at once, Your Grace! It’s swelling at an alarming rate!’”
Laughter filled the tiny room.
“Don’t move,” Unity scolded Gladys, still grinning. “I’m almost done with your chin. Besides, it’s not true and you know it. The reason Lambley’s parties are so scandalous is because ladies of the tondoattend.”
“Maybe that’s the kind of woman he wants,” Mabel said with a sigh. “A lady on the outside and a harlot on the inside.”
“That’s what they all want.” Gladys’s blue eyes twinkled merrily. “We might not personify both roles, but we can offer the best half of the bargain.”
“In fact,” Mabel said, “after yesterday’s show, I met a man who…”
Unity stopped listening to her friends in order to concentrate on applying their cosmetics. Hers wasn’t a glamorous post, but it was all that she had and she needed to keep it. For now.
She’d helped others become rich. If she was half as clever as others claimed, she could find a way to do the same for herself.
Oh, not diamonds-and-fur wealthy. Where would she wear such fripperies, anyway? Unity aspired to be just rich enough that she need not worry about money ever again.
The next business she built would be hers to keep. Every brick. Every penny.
Hers, and hers alone.
Chapter 3
Unity strolled along the pavement down a busy cobblestone street in a so-called undesirable section of London and dreamed of opening her own enterprise right here in her neighborhood.
She didn’t mind hard work. It wouldn’t evenfeellike work, if it were hers. Oh, there would be tough times and bad days, like with anything else, but no matter what challenges befell her business, it would still behers.
Unfortunately, one couldn’t wish such a thing into existence. Businesses required capital. If you didn’t have any funds of your own—and, let’s face it, she could save her meager theatre wages for the next two centuries and still not accumulate anything resembling “funds”—then what you needed were investors.
Such creatures were almost as impossible to obtain as funds.
Almost.
Unity personally knew two gentlemen with wildly successful businesses. Their businesses were wildly successful because Unity had made them that way. One might think this proven ability would give her cachet and leverage. One would be extremely naïve.
Unity could sneeze out the holy grail itself and she would still be an unmarried, twenty-four-year-old woman with light-brown skin and life savings totaling one hundred and thirty-five guineas, hidden beneath a loose floorboard in a rented apartment. But once upon a time…
The first fool she’d turned into a rich man was her cousin Roger.
Despite being paternal first cousins, Roger had treated his young ward like a maid-of-all-work. As she grew into adolescence, even he could see she possessed something special. Eventually, he’d let her take over the management of his gentlemen’s club—as a favor to her, mind you. Don’t come asking for extra coins.
Just do what she could to outpace the unfair success of that upstart gaming den in unfashionable Cheapside her cousin despised so much. A lower class establishment with higher popularity simply could not be borne.
