Women did not reject him for his arrogance. If anything, his increased status and financial prowess only served to attract fortune-hunters. Max was uninterested. When he chose to take a wife, it would be a woman who wantedhim, not one who sought to profit off of him.
He narrowed his eyes at Bryony.
What was she after? It was impossible to say. She did not appear to want anything from him personally, which implied rebellion or a search for adventure were the only reasons she continued to trespass where she didn’t belong. He should not allow her to do so.
That reality was enough to douse any warm feelings he might have felt toward her. Being used as an avenue for rebellion or adventure was as distasteful as being used as an avenue to deeper purse strings. In both cases, the attraction was not to Max but rather what an association with him might offer.
“Very well,” she said when he failed to rise to her bait about his marital status. “Don’t tell me. I shall shock you by admitting that I find myself a spinster with little hope of wedded bliss.”
“Not a spinster.” He took in her long lashes, her high cheekbones, her soft skin. The only reason her disguise worked at all was because she was still young. Yet it only worked at a glance. Upon closer inspection, her beauty gave her away. “You cannot be more than twenty.”
“Four-and-twenty. Now you see why my mother despairs.”
“She doesn’t despair because you are four-and-twenty,” he pointed out. “She despairs because you gallivant about London unchaperoned in men’s clothing. You’ll never find a nice gentleman that way.”
“Perhaps I don’t want a nice one,” Bryony said.
Max straightened with interest. He was very good at being very bad.
“Perhaps I don’t want a husband at all,” she continued indifferently.
For some reason, this rankled. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“I see no reason to fawn over every man who stands up with me at Almack’s. Being leg-shackled to the wrong husband would be a thousand times worse than not having one at all. How can I give them my hand if they can’t even keep my attention?”
Max’s flesh chilled to realize that her earlier comments about warm ratafia and tattered decor had been based on personal observation rather than idle gossip. Her vocabulary and accent indicated her education, but the well-worn lad’s clothing had not hinted at wealth.
This new knowledge gave him no further insight into what the devil a debutante would be doing in trousers and a waistcoat on the wrong side of town, but as strange a creature as she might be, he now knew her to be well out of his league.
Not that he should care. After all,hewasn’t going to offer for her.
In fact, he was going to have another talking-to with his staff to ensure misplaced debutantes never found their way into the Cloven Hoof again.
Chapter 6
Bryony had no idea what she’d said to spoil the mood, but even she could see that she had done so.
Max’s focus was not on her but on rearranging a small stack of journals that suddenly appeared to require the entirety of his attention.
Bryony tried not to be disappointed. Conversation with him had been so invigorating. She could not help but wonder what had just happened between them. The Cloven Hoof was a far cry from the sheltered sitting room she had once shared with her siblings, but for a moment she had felt a sliver of the same connection, the same camaraderie, the ability to just be herself.
Then in the space of a few breaths, Max had gone from tolerating her to ignoring her altogether. The awkwardness swirling around the silent room now felt more like her parents’ drawing room. A place where Bryony was always either alone, or silently being judged.
But she was not at home. She was in the hidden private office of an infamous gaming hell, alone with a dangerously handsome man whom gamblers worshiped as a saint and ladies decried as the devil himself. And he was doing sums.
If even a quarter of the rumors of Max’s unapologetic sinfulness were true, he could have debauched her three times over by now. Instead, he looked for all the world as if the column of numbers he was currently tallying was far more enticing than anything Bryony might have to offer.
She held her composure. It was not that she wished to be ravished by this tall muscular man with wide shoulders, tightly controlled composure, sensuous lips, too-long dark hair and even darker eyes that betrayed not even the slightest hint of what he was thinking.
Bryony had never been kissed, and she would rather start there.
She had not beenplanningon kissing the owner of the Cloven Hoof, but now that he was right in front of her, close enough to rub a finger along the rough whiskers shadowing his jaw, close enough to tumble forward into his embrace, close enough to slide her derrière off the edge of his desk and right into his lap, the thought of kissing him had simultaneously become the best and worst idea she’d ever had in her life.
She watched as he tallied another row of numbers. He did so briskly, efficiently, as fast as Bryony could have done herself, not in the least distracted by her presence less than an arm’s width away. She could not help but be impressed with both his cleverness as well as his remarkable ability to shut the rest of the world out in order to focus.
Perhaps that untouchable aura was also part of his allure. He had always been a mysterious figure in society, and meeting him had only deepened the mystery. She had been terrified when he’d discovered her that first night. What if he had believed her to be a lad and beat her for her trespass? What if he had seen through her disguise and punished her quite differently?
The fact that he had done neither had caused her to draw an unexpected conclusion. For all his ostensible annoyance at her presence and her interruptions, shedidfeel safe.
