“And the duke?” Lydia knew. No doubt.
“I . . .” Mara paused, chose her next words carefully. “I met him . Once.”
Not false, and yet somehow not true. Met wasn’t precisely the word she would use to describe her interactions with him. The hour had been late, the night dark, the situation desperate. And she’d taken advantage of him. Briefly.
Long enough.
“On the eve of your wedding.”
She had dreaded this moment for twelve years—had feared that it would destroy her. And yet, as she stood on the precipice of admitting the truth for the first time in twelve years—of being honest with her friend and, somehow, with the universe, she did not hesitate. “Yes.”
Lydia nodded. “He didn’t kill you.”
“No.”
Lydia waited.
Mara shook her head, rubbing her forearm absently. “I never meant for it to look so . . . dire.” She’d meant to bloody her sheets. To make it look like she’d been ruined. Like she’d run off with a man. He was to have escaped before anyone saw what had happened. But there’d been too much laudanum. And too much blood.
There was a long moment while Lydia considered the words. She turned the envelope in her hand over and over, and Mara could not help but watch the small ecru rectangle flip again and again. “I can’t remember your name.”
“Mara.”
“Mara.” Lydia repeated, testing the name. “ Mara. ”
Mara nodded, pleasure coursing through her at the sound of her name on someone’s lips. Pleasure and not a little bit of fear.
No going back now.
Finally, Lydia smiled, bright and honest. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Mara caught her breath at the words, at the way they flooded her with relief. “When he gets his way, I shall be found out.”
Lydia met her gaze evenly, knowing what the words meant. Knowing that Mara would be run out of London. That the orphanage would lose everything if she were linked to it. Knowing that she would have to leave. “And will he get his way?”
Retribution.
The man would not stop until he did so. But she had plans as well. This life she’d built might be over, but she would not leave without ensuring the boys’ security. “Not without my getting a way of my own as well.”
Lydia’s lips kicked up in a wry smile. “Just as I expected.”
“I understand if you want away from here. If you want to leave.”
Lydia shook her head. “I don’t wish to leave.”
Mara smiled. “Good. As this place will need you when I am gone.”
Lydia nodded. “I will be here.”
The clock in the hallway beyond chimed, as if marking the moment’s importance. The sound shook them from the moment. “Now that that’s done,” Lydia said, extending the envelopes she held to Mara, “perhaps you’d like to tell me why you are receiving missives from a gaming hell?”
Mara’s eyes went wide as she took the offered envelope, and turned it over in her hands. On the front, in deep black, close-to-illegible scrawl, was her name and direction. On the back, a stunning silver seal, marked with a delicate female angel, lithe and lovely with wings that spanned the wax.
The seal was unfamiliar.
Mara brought it closer, for inspection.
Lydia spoke. “The seal is from The Fallen Angel.”
Mara looked up, heart suddenly pounding. “The duke’s club.”
Blue eyes lit with excitement. “The most exclusive gaming hell in London, where half of the aristocracy wagers an obscene fortune each night.” Lydia lowered her voice. “I hear that the members need only ask for what they want—however extravagant or lascivious or impossible to acquire—and the club provides.”
Mara rolled her eyes. “If it’s impossible to acquire, how does the club acquire it?”
Lydia shrugged. “I imagine they are quite powerful men.”
A memory flashed of Temple’s broad shoulders and broken nose, of the way he commanded her into his home. Of the way he negotiated the terms of their agreement.
“I imagine so,” she said, sliding a finger under the silver wax and opening the letter.
Two words were scrawled across the paper—two words, surrounded by an enormous amount of wasted space. It would never occur to her to use paper so extravagantly. Apparently, economy was not at the forefront of Temple’s mind—except, perhaps, for economy of language.
Nine o’clock.
That was it. No signature, not that she required one. It had been a dozen years since someone had exhibited such imperious control over her.
“I do not think I like this duke of yours very much.” Lydia was leaning across the desk, neck craned to see the note.
“As he is not my duke, I have little problem with that.”
“You intend to go?”
She had made an arrangement. This was her punishment. Her penance.
Her only chance.
Ignoring the question, she set the paper aside, her gaze falling to the second envelope. “That’s much less interesting,” Lydia said.
It was a bill, Mara knew without opening it. “How much?”
“Two pounds, sixteen. For coal.”
More than they had in the coffers. And if November was any indication of what was to come, the winter would only get colder. Anger and frustration and panic threatened, but Mara swallowed back the emotion.
She would regain control.
She reached for the duke’s terse note, turning the paper over and going for her pen, dipping the nib carefully in ink before she replied.
£10.
She returned the note to its envelope, heart in her throat, full of power. He might dictate the terms, but she dictated the price. And ten pounds would keep the boys of MacIntyre House warm for a year.
She crossed out her name on the envelope and wrote in his before handing it back to Lydia.
“We’ll discuss the bill tomorrow.”
Chapter 5
A dressmaker. He’d brought her to a dressmaker.
In the dead of night, as though it was a crime to buy new gowns.
Of course, in the dead of night, creeping through the back door to one of Bond Street’s most legendary modistes, it did feel a bit criminal. As criminal as the shiver of pleasure that threaded through her as she brushed past him into the sewing room of the shop, unable to avoid contact with him—big as an ox.
Not that she noticed.
Nor did she notice that he was far too agile for his size, leaping up and down from carriages, opening doors—holding them for her entry with quiet smoothness—as though he were a ballet dancer and not a boxer.
As though grace had been imparted to him in the womb.
But she refused to notice all that, even when her heart pounded as the door closed behind him, his bulk crowding her further into the room, its half-dozen lanterns doing little more than cast shadows around the space.
“Why are we here?”
“You needn’t whisper. Hebert knows we are coming.”
She cut him a look. “Does she know why?”
He did not meet her eyes, instead heading through the shop, weaving in and out of the empty seamstress stations. “I would imagine she thinks I want to dress a woman and I’d like to keep the situation secret.”
She followed. “Do you do this often?”
He stopped, and she nearly ran into the back of him before he looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ve little reason to keep women secret.”