—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 15
The Rokebys’ ballroom was too damn crowded, not to mention unbearably hot and stuffy despite the fresh dusting of snow outside. Such an unholy crush, Gal was sorely tempted to turn around at the door and head back outside into the cold where he could at least breathe. He didn’t, because these necessary forays into society were for business, not pleasure, and were more necessary now than they had ever been. The majority of the well-dressed bodies filling this place were potential future customers he had been subtly ingratiating himself with for years, but he needed to start seriously wooing them if he was going to get them—and their heavy purses—through his doors when he opened them in the spring.
For the sake of family and professional harmony, he also needed to build some bridges between himself and the prickly Miss Venus now that fate had decided they were going to be neighbors. There wouldbe no avoiding her once he signed the papers, and the last thing he needed was to be cast as the villain of the piece again because she was the family saint and he had always been more sinner. A gambling club coexisting peaceably next to an orphanage was destined to be a difficult enough sell, without the added complication of their fraught relationship. So he had given the matter a great deal of thought to find a way around it. Enough that he had already come up with a plan to ensure things went smoothly.
First, he would make a concerted effort to turn the permanently frosty atmosphere between them more cordial before he bared his hand: to unruffle her perennially ruffled feathers where he was concerned and declare a truce. That unfortunately would require him to get to know her better, which he had always avoided like the plague although he couldn’t quite explain why, even to himself, and to temper his overwhelming inclination to rile her a little at every given opportunity. Instead, while he anxiously waited for the contracts and while he interviewed tradesmen to do the extensive renovations needed once he took possession, she’d be treated to the Galahad who lived up to his noble and courtly name. The charming, diplomatic, and gallant Galahad he usually had no problem being for every other woman who walked on this earth, but whom he had never quite managed to muster for her.
Second, when everything was signed and sealed, and when they were on a friendlier footing, he would tell her of his purchase while buttering her up further with an offer she couldn’t refuse—a nice, healthy annual donation to the Covent Garden Asylum for Orphans. A calculated bribe that benefited the orphanage and made his club a more attractive neighbor.
And third, in a few more months—fingers crossed—if the untrustworthy Mallory didn’t renege on the deal before the papers were signed and his lifelong ambition was finally up and running and ready to rake in the coin, Gal would do everything in his power to go back to avoiding her again wherever possible.
For some inexplicable reason, he was looking forward to that part of his new plan most of all.
He stared at the crush again, sucked in a fortifying lungful of air, then huffed it out before he pasted an approachable expression on his face.
Once more unto the breach.
“Good evening…”
“Nice to see you again…”
“It’s been too long…”
Gal took a full fifteen minutes to thoroughly charm every member of the great and the good he passed before he spied Giles at his usual spot beside the refreshment table engaging in his favorite pastime—eating. Although where the irreverent Duke of Harpenden put all the food he consumed was a mystery because there wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on his impressive frame.
Giles maneuvered his loaded dessert plate to his other hand before he shook Gal’s. “Why the bloody hell did Lady Rokeby invite so many people when this room is hardly big enough to swing a cat and is hotter than blasted Hades?”
“It beats me—yet here we all are anyway. At least I’m here to finesse a few future customers. What’s your excuse?”
“Diana.” Giles gestured toward the seemingly empty alcove with his plate as he dropped his voice so only Gal could hear. “She’s working.”
“Still?” That beggared belief when theton’s most unconventional duchess was due to give birth to their second child in less than two months. “I thought she would have taken some time off fromThe Tribuneby now.” His voice was hushed, as only the most trusted few in the family circle knew that Diana was the Sentinel—unmasker of criminals and ne’er-do-wells as London’s most feared newspaper columnist.
“So did I, old chap.” His cousin shrugged in a what’s-a-man-supposed-to-do way. “But the harridan is a law unto herself and completely unstoppable. She’s been chasing some swindler for months and is convinced she’s almost got him, so I’ve been tasked with putting ona sociable show for the Rokebys while she does some subtle eavesdropping on her prey.” A bite-sized strawberry tart disappeared into his mouth. “How goes your quest to buy a building?”
“I might have a lead on something interesting.” As much as he trusted Giles and had happily shared all his lofty plans with him over the years, Gal wasn’t one for confiding in anyone. He preferred to hold his cards close to his chest until it was safe to bear them. The best-laid plans, like life, could always change with the flip of a card, as he well knew from bitter experience, so he would hold these until the ink was dry on all the legalities and the debauched Mallory had handed over the keys. “Certainly more interesting than anything else I’ve seen up till now, so we shall see.” He tapped his nose, which was about as much confiding as he was prepared to risk until the deal was all done and dusted. “I have a good feeling about this one.”
“It must be good as I’ve never heard you be quite so gushing about bricks and mortar, old chap.” His cousin sighed in delight as he popped a second strawberry tart into his mouth. “If you’ve finally found a suitable building, you really do need to give some serious thought to a suitable name for your fancy den of iniquity. I’m still convinced it should be called Sinclair’s—just to infuriate all our illustrious ancestors and have them spinning in their ostentatious graves. It’s simple, it’s neat, and it already has the wordsinincorporated into it. If ever there was a namesynonymous with improper behavior, it is surely ours. We’ve been rotten for centuries.”
“But Sinclair’s makes it sound so… British.” Gal had been mulling the name ever since he had decided to make this alien city home. Especially as he had a feeling his original choice and the name of his grandpa’s place—The Four Leafed Clover—wouldn’t work here. It made it sound like a common tavern, when it would be anything but.
“When in Rome, Galahad. It’s worked for White’s and Brookes’s so there is really no need to start from scratch.”
“Maybe… but I want to sound different. Be different.”
“I am right. You know I am right and once you come to your sensesand acknowledge that, I shall be able to say that I told you so. Sinclair’s has an understated elegance to it as well as a dash of ancient and aristocratic gravitas that will draw in the hordes who aspire to that. When you are the cousin to a scandalous duke, it would be foolish not to capitalize on the association.”
“Why is everything here about class and station?”
Giles shrugged as he eyed the refreshment table with interest. “Because it is, old chap, and that is that. We British are a pompous lot.” He groaned as he gestured left with a brief lift of his eyebrow. “And talking of pompous…”
Heading directly toward them was Venus. Hanging on the arm of the dull Lord Dorchester again while the rest of her family trailed behind them.
She hung on his arm a lot of late, he had noticed, although he was damned if he could fathom why beyond the fact that the irritating minx had a knack for setting her cap at the worst sort of man. She’d picked some duds over the years—libertines, dandies, fortune-hunters, flatterers, dyed-in-the-wool fornicators, and failures—but she was really scraping the barrel this time.
In Gal’s humble opinion, Dorchester was the dictionary definition of what the Brits called a prig. A puritanical, vacillating, know-it-all fuddy-duddy who acted older than his already extensive years and wiser than Socrates, and was too puffed up with his own importance to notice his shortcomings. What the hell did she see in him? When he was almost old enough to be her father.
More important, why did he care?
