Desire had been one of them, although that unwelcome reaction was the least of Gal’s worries and the most easily explained. A man would have to be made of granite not to be stirred holding that delicious armful of overt femininity so close. Miss Venus was an attractive woman with a figure tailor-made for seduction, so was it any wonder his body had been thoroughly seduced by hers? But desire was a transient and fickle thing, and one that could be easily transferred or indulged if he found another willing and less dangerous woman than his cousin’s venerated and pious sister-in-law to slake it on.
Unfortunately, his inappropriate and untimely desire wasn’t the only issue at play here, because Saint Venus had also managed to stir more than his blood during that dance. She had stirred his heart a little, too, and that had never happened before.
He’d always avoided any romantic entanglements that elicited feelings. Affectionate feelings were dangerous. Not only because they were a diversion he didn’t have the time for, but because there was a paralyzingreverse side to caring if fate decided to be cruel. He might never have beenin love, but he’d been crippled by grief twice in quick succession when someone he loved had been cruelly ripped away. That dark, vulnerable place wasn’t somewhere he had any desire to visit again, especially when experience had taught him that it was when your belly was exposed that people took the most advantage. And especially when he still had an unfulfilled dream to turn into reality and the safe harbor of a fortune to amass.
An entanglement with Venus was a distraction he could not afford right now, but despite that, he recognized all the worrying symptoms of a deeper attraction than the pure and uncomplicated carnal. And, Lord help him, he had been plagued with all of them this last week. He’d certainly pondered her far too much in the last seven days than was healthy, that was for sure. Wondered where she was or what she was doing more often than he was comfortable with. Pictured her in that orphanage, where he knew she would be in her element, doing her good deeds with a pretty smile on her face.
Gal glanced back down the table where she was smiling again, and he almost groaned aloud at the pathetic way his heart leaped at the sight. He’d conjured the dazzling image of that sunny smile more times than he cared to mention this week, too. Alongside the way her big blue eyes had danced when she was animated and talking about the things that she loved. Thankfully, his dreams, at least, had involved more of the carnal than not, so he was trying not to analyze them quite so much as he was his waking thoughts, but all of them combined pointed to a troubling preoccupation with her that he couldn’t seem to fight. The sort of preoccupation that fed temptation and gave a man ideas, when he was, by nature and circumstance, a lone wolf, and she wasn’t the sort of woman a man like him should be contemplating a dalliance with.
Miss Venus was the settling-down sort, always had been, and he wasn’t interested in that. He needed tobuildrelations with her, nothaverelations with her!
And he damn well needed to remember that distinction.
As his grandpa had been so fond of saying, if a job was worth doing, it was worth doing right, and sometimes a man had to make sacrifices to reap all the rewards of his labors.
He had waited a decade to do this. Worked all the hours God sent, scrimped and saved and sacrificed all manner of things to get to this pivotal place, so come hell or high water he was going to do it properly. Do what he had been born and raised to do and make a huge success of it—no matter what his needy body or his foolishly leaping heart had to say on the matter.
“You’re quiet tonight, Galahad.” Minerva’s observation startled him out of his reverie as he sipped the obligatory cup of tea the British began and ended every meal with. Or started every day with. Or produced at a moment’s notice in honor of every visit, occasion, or crisis as if it were as essential to living as air was for breathing. “A penny for your thoughts?”
“I fear you’d be wasting a penny, Minerva, as I am occupied with work. As usual.” It wasn’t a lie, he supposed, seeing as Venus was the current fly in his business ointment. “I’m always pondering ways to make more profit to see me through to my dotage.” Which was definitely the truth. He never wanted to be penniless again. The thought kept him awake at night—when he wasn’t thinking impure thoughts about her baby sister, of course.
“You know what they say about all work and no play.” There was no judgment in her tone, only concern for his welfare. “But I do understand the overwhelming urge for financial security, Gal, and respect your dogged determination to achieve it.” Like him, Minerva had had to work hard for her living before she married Hugh. All three of the Merriwell sisters had. “Don’t run yourself ragged trying to double your fortune overnight when Giles has proudly told us that you are already a man of some substance. Enough of one that you can afford to occasionally pat yourself on the back and smell the roses.”
“I intend to do precisely that in the not-too-distant future. Just as soon as…”
“He gets Sinclair’s up and running.” Sometimes his cousin Giles had the ears of a bat. “He thinks he might have finally found a home for it.”
“You’ve found some premises?” Minerva beamed. “That is wonderful news! Where? When? Have you made an offer yet?”
Suddenly all the eyes around the table rested on his expectant. “I’m still at the negotiating stage, so I’ll keep you posted.” His toes curled inside his boots at the lie, no matter how necessary it was at this delicate point in the proceedings. Even without the need to befriend Venus, the contracts might well be in the process of being drawn up, but he was too cautious to tempt fate until they were signed and the deeds safely in his pocket. Especially when this deal involved a snake like Mallory.
“His plans for the place are marvelous.” Giles was beaming proudly. “I’ve certainly never seen anything like it. Sinclair’s will be neither a gaming hell nor a gentleman’s club. It’s going to be part music hall, part tavern, and part pleasure palace.”
“I am not sure I like the sound of the last part.” Olivia’s eyes had widened. “I am also not sure we should be discussing brothels over dinner.”
Before Gal could correct her misinterpretation, his cousin did. “Bypleasure palace,I meant a place for everyone to have some fun at his tables. Ladies, too. Respectable ladies, Olivia, rather than thoseof the night—so we can all visit it together once it’s opened.”
“I’ve never been a brothel keeper, Olivia.” Gal decided that point needed additional clarification. “Nor have I any intentions of starting.” His grandpa had been a stickler for standards and had run a clean house back in New York, and as a point of principle he had always continued that tradition. Having been at the mercy of people who had shamelessly exploited him when life had robbed him of choices, it would be a cold day in hell before he followed suit.
“In that case, I shall look forward to visiting. When does your pleasure palace open?”
“As I said—” He loathed strapping on his liar’s mask as that hadalways been the most ill-fitting disguise in his collection. “—I haven’t bought anything yet, so I’m trying not to get too excited in case there’s a catch.” His gaze flicked involuntarily to Venus’s. “In the meantime, I’m focusing on the businesses I do have rather than the one I might.”
If ever there was a moment to change the subject subtly, this was it. “In fact, Minerva caught me pondering whether or not to expand the offering we give the customers at The Den.” It wouldn’t hurt to vocalize something that he had been genuinely mulling. Or had been a week ago, before he stupidly danced that fateful waltz. “Replace some of the hazard tables, which cause the most trouble with cards. Something that keeps those sailors drinking my liquor longer, requires more skill than luck, and, most important of all, doesn’t cause all-out war when a fella loses his shirt to another at the end of the game.”
“Your sailors have more restraint than some people I could mention.” Hugh motioned to Jeremiah with a flick of his eye. “Cards always cause all-out war here at Standish House. They have had to be temporarily banned—again—because somebody broke the card table when he knocked it over in a fit of pique last month. Not naming any names, of course.” But Hugh pointed his finger at his stepfather as he pretended to cough into his fist.
The rest of the table sniggered while Jeremiah went on the defensive. “It’s been four goddamn years!” He jabbed the air. “Four.Goddamn.Years!”
“There is no need to resort to coarse language, dear.” It always amused Gal that despite all her flagrant inappropriateness in other aspects of life, Olivia could not abide salty language—no matter how innocuous.
Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed at his wife’s quick admonishment. “There is every need. Because it isn’t possible and it’s driving me mad! Mad, I tell you!” He glared at Venus with irrational hatred for a moment, which was bizarre when he clearly adored her and thought of her as a daughter. “It’s not natural!”
“You had to kick that hornet’s nest, didn’t you, Hugh?” Dianashook her head. “Any second now he’s going to be spouting steam alongside all his festering theories of skulduggery.”
“Well, it certainly begs the question as to how the swindler does it.” Despite Jeremiah’s continued glaring, a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth Venus forked up the last piece of her dessert unfazed by his vitriol. “I’ve suspected for quite some time that there is foul play involved and I flipped that table to prove it!”
“And found nothing, dear, as usual.” Olivia rubbed her suddenly irate husband’s back while Miss Venus grinned smugly. “No hidden aces. No mechanical devices. Not even a tiny illicit mirror with which she could monitor an opponent’s hand.” She went from rubbing his back to wrapping her arm around his shoulders. “You need to let it go, Jeremiah. All this pent-up fury cannot be good for a man of your age.”
