Bishop’s jaw tensed when he recalled where the hell he stood. What the devil was she doing in the Lyon’s Den? What had brought the daughter of a duke to a place such as this?
One of three reasons.
Wealthy women came only for one thing.
A husband.
He cursed and stiffened when her gaze swept the room and passed right over him. Not even a pause. He should have been relieved. In the grand scheme of his current troubles, it was better she didn’t see him. Better she didn’t stir up what had no business coming back to life. So why in damnation did it feel like she’d cleaved straight through him?
A swell of fury surged through him, unexpected and blazing. He couldn’t tell whether it was for the fact that she was here to find a fool for a husband or because she did not recognize him at all.
Then remind her.
Bishop cursed. He couldn’t. Not now. Not here. Not while his true identity remained concealed. Not even his employer, the Duke of Crane, a man he also considered a friend, knew the truth. The truth meant danger. Meant death.
“What is Lady Alyssia doing here?” he still couldn’t resist asking Mrs. Dove-Lyon tightly.
“You have to ask that?” the widow murmured, the inflection of mockery not lost on him.
“I mean what drove her here?”
“Ah, that.” The widow waved a dismissive hand. “Lady Alyssia was caught in a compromising position but refused to marry the gentleman she was caught with.”
A compromising position?
The phrase scraped unpleasantly along his skin. And what position might that be, exactly? What man? He could not imagine any such thing. But if she’d rather marry one the fools here, what did that say about the man she’d been exposed with? Nothing good.
“So she will find a husband here tonight,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon went on.
“Like hell she will,” Bishop bit out, a wave of depthless rage burrowing into his bones and spreading throughout his body. Who the devil had wronged her to force her hand like this? Who would dare?
“It’s already done, Your Grace.”
He refused to believe that. “Undo it,” he demanded. “And damn it, don’t call me that.”
A chuckle. “I’m afraid I cannot do that.”
Such an infuriating woman.
This was damn madness. How could he allow Alyssia to make the biggest mistake of her life? And thiswasa big mistake—to wed a fool who wins a fool’s wager in this place. How could he allow this to proceed when he’d been her betrothed since the moment she’d inhaled her first breath? He also couldn’t stop what had been put in motion here. Damn it. To reveal himself was to risk everything he’d built, but to watch her marry another like this was unthinkable.
“I’ll compete,” he said roughly.
“Compete?” A smile touched that one word.
“Yes.” Bishop infused all his command in that one word. He refused to be refused.
“Without knowing the game?” Mrs. Dove-Lyon asked.
“I don’t care what the game is.” Not in this bloody moment. The stakes were all that mattered.
Alyssia Whitcombe might not recognize him, but he’d never forgotten her. And now that she’d stepped into, very arguably, his world, into the very place where desperation ruled, he would not let her be claimed by anyone else.
But him.
Overindulgence clung toevery surface of the Den, thick enough to choke on. Lady Alyssia Prudence Whitcombe set her jaw to keep from scrunching up her face. She would need to scrub her whole body to rid her skin of the stench once done here.
She hated the smell of smoke.
