Damn it, helikedher.
“There you are,” shrilled a voice. “Esther, go ask Miss Grenville why you haven’t received an invitation to the family musicale. She’s standing right there.”
Max jerked his gaze toward Bryony.
Miss Grenville.
Violin.
Musicale.
Basil Q. Jones was Heath Grenville’s sister. Hisbusiness associateHeath Grenville, secret-keeper for thetonand solver of problems, including the conundrum of how to raise startup funds for an unusual gambling club. Not to mention heir apparent to a barony.
Bryony’s parents weretitled. She didn’t just have a subscription to Almack’s. She was a member of the aristocracy. Sharing ices in the park was madness. His very presence could ruin her reputation, if he were recognized. Her father could hogtie him on a boat to Australia for such presumption.
As a lord, he would face no repercussion for the crime. Just sympathy from his peers.
Bryony knew this. Had known it all along and didn’t care.
She was too busy making some sort of statement in front of her friends. The dashing, rebellious hoyden who had brought a king of the underworld to heel. She hadn’t brought him here to discuss selling him the deed to his property. She had put him on display like a dog.
Max took a step backwards.
She glanced over at him sharply. “All the countless ways that I’ve been horrid to you, and you retreat when you discover I’m a Grenville?”
“I’m not your plaything,” he said. “And I’m not your gewgaw, to be gawked at by your fancy friends.”
She stepped forward, eyes startled. “That’s not what—”
“I’ll see you back at the office, Miss Grenville. Until then, don’t call.”
He tipped his hat to the onlookers and walked away.
Chapter 11
From her position hidden behind the folding screen separating the settee from the rest of the office, Bryony had begun to feel like an all-knowing but impotent ghost.
After Max had discovered the truth of who she was, Bryony had been afraid her status as daughter of a baron and all that entailed would cause him to shut her out. According to Society, she should have nothing to do with him, nor he with her—under any circumstances.
Then again, according to Society, a gambling den like Max’s should not exist, much less be as wildly popular as it was. To Bryony, the attraction of the Cloven Hoof was less the income it could raise and more the escape it could provide.
Indeed, she could not help but wonder if that was the reason so many gamblers of different backgrounds risked their livelihoods within its walls. A chance to escape from reality.
Perhaps she had overestimated the allure of an easy monetary windfall and underestimated the irresistible draw being somewhere absolutely nothing was expected of you.
“Thank you so much,” said the fourth person that evening.
Bryony knew because she had been transcribing each conversation into her journal. She couldn’t see who the man might be, but each word was clear.
“Remember,” Max told his visitor sternly. “No more horses.”
He had taken Bryony very much at her word. She intended to shadow his office for the next month? So be it. The Cloven Hoof had many shadows.
She was relegated posthaste to the corner behind the folding screen, and completely forgotten.
Ever since that day at Gunter’s, she’d spent more hours of each night on this settee than in her own bedchamber, to mixed results. She knew the Cloven Hoof and its clientele more intimately than ever. But her relationship with its arrogant, fiercely independent owner was icy at best.
“Are you too busy to interrupt?” queried a nervous male voice.
