CHAPTER 1
FEBRUARY 1816, LONDON, SOHO.
The plan was madcap… but Alice Winslow had decided to follow through with it anyway; shehadto, no one else was in the position to get justice for her sister.
Plucking the slip of paper from her reticule with a trembling hand, she read, “The Vipers Pit.”
It was a gambling den owned by Lord Rutledge; a tall, bright blond-haired gentleman with the face of Apollo, blessed with high cheekbones, squared jaw, full lips… and the tongue of the Serpent who had tempted Eve.
He was a known rake, but in the last few months, he had spun a spiel of love and affection for Alice’s sister, Penelope—and after two months and a day of ‘courtship’, he had seduced her into bed, taking the one thing a lady of her stature could bargain with—her innocence, before disappearing.
Alice was determined to get him to do the right thing and marry her, otherwise her sister’s spinsterhood fate was sealed.
When the hackney stopped, she paid the indifferent driver, and while her heart thumped up a storm under her breastbone, she approached the marble steps of the club. As she glanced around through the fog-shrouded night, her body felt incredibly alive, every sense feeling somehow sharper.
It was late, almost midnight, as she headed toward the large door, and knocked before she fixed her mask and the silk cowl over her head.
She had carefully chosenthisnight, the masquerade night, for two purposes. To blend in with the rest of the patrons, and to hide her identity should anyone familiar with her family see her.
Thank the heavens that I know how to sew.
Her mask was passable, a lace and feathered disguise large enough to cover most of her face, while the white cloak lent the image of a dove.
“Penelope, dear sister, I am doing this for you…”she whispered as the door opened and a footman looked down on her.
“Invitation?”
“I was invited by Lord Rutledge,” she said boldly.
“Everyoneinside here was invited by him,” the footman said languidly. “If you cannot tell me the—”
“Scarlett parlor,” she blurted. After weeks—no, almost a month of fervent digging and speaking to people she had risked her life to converse with, she’d uncovered a code into the man’s den of vices. “T-that is what he told me to say.”
Her ploy must have succeeded for the impatient gleam left the man’s eyes and was replaced by one of... interest? “You are forthatparlor, hm? Well, come in then.”
First barrier breached.
The door swung open and with relief, she stepped into a lavish front parlor that simmered with sinful decadence; it was a place any proper miss would skirt with a mile much less step inside.
She looked around as if in a daze and felt oddly off-balance, well aware she would have been wise to avoid such a wicked place. She had to find the lord, and quickly. She turned in place to see through the melee of men and women parading past.
The interior was luxurious, rich red and black carpets covered the floor, and swaths of red and golden drapes twined themselves around massive white Corinthian columns.
A scattering of tables was placed in an organized sprawl on this lower floor, and many lords and ladies sat around them, cradling drinks in their hands, some lords with cigars between their lips.
Dice clattered as they rolled on the tables while young men shuffled, flicked, and cut cards with artistic expertise.
“A thousand pounds, my lord?” one of the men asked.
The man in question rolled his drink, then looked to the lady beside him parading a fortune of jewels at her ears and throat. “Make it three.”
Abject disgust at the waste of money made her stomach roil; to her, fifty pounds was afortune, three thousand would make someone comfortable for a year, even two.
“Where do I find you, lord snake?” she asked herself.
Looking up, she saw a jutting balcony above, and lo’ and behold, the very man she was searching for was leaning on the railing, looking down like a king over his court. Two women came to either side of him, one teasing him with a glacé cherry while the other stroked down his chest.
Glancing around for a staircase, she crossed the floor and hurried up while hoping the man would be in the same place when she got to the floor above. And she arrived there just in time to see him round a corner with the two ladies on either arm.
