“That’s my little secret. You’ve been avoiding my brother’s establishment of late.”
“I’ve been playing elsewhere.”
“Be that as it may, my brother has grown weary of waiting on you to bring what you owe him. Five thousand pounds is a lot of blunt.”
“I’m well aware. Unfortunately, my luck has yet to improve, asheis no doubt well aware. I don’t have the means to pay what I owe at this time.” He released his hold on the poster and straightened his back, although he did weave a bit as though the room was continuing to spin. “I’m good for it.”
“He’ll need some collateral.”
“See here—”
“Your watch, ring, and neck cloth pin should do it.”
“I’m not parting with anything at all—except for your company. See yourself out.”
Finn slowly unfolded his body. He had a couple of inches and a couple of stones on the dandified lord. He cracked his knuckles, the ominous echo filling the room. Even in the dim light, he could see the lord pale.
“Let’s not be hasty here.” As Dearwood spoke, he was unhooking his watch chain from his waistcoat button.
On silent feet that had the lord looking even more unnerved, Finn approached and held out his hand, suddenly recalling where their paths had crossed before. A ballroom. Finn hadn’t liked him then; he liked him even less now. Avoiding his gaze, Dearwood dropped the watch, ring with the diamond in its center, and the diamond stickpin onto his palm. “Which arm do you favor, right or left?”
The earl jerked his head back as though he’d been punched, no doubt a result of the threatening manner in which Finn had delivered his question. “What does it matter?”
“Which arm?” Finn asked in a tone that would brook no disobedience.
“Right,” the earl said hesitantly.
“Wear a splint on it for the next six weeks.”
“But it’s not broken.”
“It will be if I see it without a splint. I was to deliver some pain as a reminder not to run afoul of the owner of the Cerberus Club. I wouldn’t like for him to discover I’d not followed through on his orders.” A lie. As long as Aiden got paid, he cared nothing at all about delivering reminders.
“I shall gladly wear a splint.”
Finn grinned. “Wiser still to stop borrowing money with which to do your gambling.”
With his shoulder pressed to a beam that supported the landing, Finn looked out over the gaming floor below that was enshrouded in near darkness. He’d stopped off at the Cerberus Club to transfer the collateral he’d collected to Aiden and then made his way to his own club. The Elysium.
While Aiden’s was bustling with card play, drinking, and swearing as hands were lost, Finn’s was already closed for the night. He had only a dozen or so members, hadn’t really begun promoting the place yet because he’d been working to make it perfect. Had needed it to be perfect.
During the past three years since his release from prison, he’d worked for Aiden, learning how to manage a gaming hell. On occasion, he served as Aiden’s heavy, intimidating and collecting money or collateral from those who owed Aiden more than he suspected they could eventually repay. During his spare hours, he took lessons from Gillie regarding spirits, how to properly store and serve them. Which were the best and which ladies might prefer. When Mick had built his posh hotel, Finn had spent a lot of time studying it, because unlike Aiden’s shadowy and dreary place that catered to the darker side of London, Finn had wanted his club to reflect a lady’s tastes because his clientele was to be of the feminine variety. He’d intended it to be a secretive place where the ladies of the nobility could engage in all manner of wickedness.
His plan had been to adopt Aiden’s scheme of keeping the place elusive, so its allure was the fact that not everyone knew about it and many who did wouldn’t know where to find it. Its appeal rested in its clandestineness. But he wanted it bright and fancy like Mick’s hotel. He wanted to serve the finest liquors. And he wanted it done with a bit of stylishness.
He’d been creating a web of many strands, its main purpose to lure in Lady Lavinia Kent. He’d had no desire to go to her, but if he’d been able to get her to come to him...
After he’d gotten out of prison, recovering from the ordeal of his captivity, he’d not been in a state to confront her. In truth, he’d wanted to know nothing about her. He’d avoided the tabloids, hadn’t asked his siblings what they might know of her. Hadn’t wanted to know if she was betrothed or married or was mother to a horde of children already. He hadn’t wanted to know if she was happy or sad or regretful. He hadn’t wanted to know how she might have changed—for better or worse. He’d needed what he knew of the woman who’d betrayed him to remain unchanged in order to sustain his anger with her and his need to find some way to get back at her.
He’d created the place for her, out of vengeance, like a widow spider creating her web. He’d intended to lure her in, although he wasn’t quite certain what he would have done then. Ensured she lost all her blunt, watch from the shadows, report her notorious behavior to the newspapers and gossip sheets.
Working for Aiden, helping him to manage his club and occasionally putting the Trewlove fear into someone who had run up a debt and seemed in no hurry to pay it back, Finn had slowly been saving so he could purchase a building and everything he needed to turn it into what he dreamed of. Even when Aiden called it another one of Finn’s follies, he was determined not to give up on it.
Every afternoon, he took Sophie out for a ride in the park to let her stretch her legs, to keep her from going wild. A lord had spotted her and approached Finn about allowing his stallion to cover her, and the fee he’d paid had been enough to get Finn started sooner than might have happened otherwise.
Then damn it all to hell, last week he’d seen Vivi embracing three children in the wee hours and all his careful planning had seemed for naught. She wasn’t the girl of eight years ago. The woman he’d encountered tonight had been nearly a stranger.
Yet still he’d been drawn to her, intrigued by her as though no years had passed. Who was this woman who now roamed the midnight streets of Whitechapel as though they belonged to her? What happened to the girl he’d once intended to marry?
