CHAPTER ONE
LONDON, 1815
Helen sensedshe was being watched long before the man stepped into view.
Keeping her eyes down, she pretended to rearrange her cards carefully while examining him from the corner of her eye. One had to keep their wits about them when playing deep at the Palais du Poussant, a gaming hell notorious for high stakes. Helen took a deep breath and focused again on the game at hand, keeping her attention on the men seated around the table. Commerce was a game of wits, strategy, and a large helping of bluff, and she needed to use each of those skills tonight.
Helen found that the men who congregated around the card tables at such places naturally tended to underestimate her, no matter that time and again she fleeced the lot of them before the night was through.
Apparently, Helen had built up a bit of a reputation, but that didn’t stop the gentlemen who frequented the club from trying to best her whenever she sat down at the table. Although, considering that some men of the ton took gaming so seriously,they would lay a bet on even the most trivial of things, she couldn’t really be surprised.
Boredom must be such aburdento the upper crust of society.
Just the other day, she had heard of a ludicrous wager based on which raindrop would make its way fastest down a window pane. Utterly ridiculous.
The Red Widow, was the name whispered behind her back, according to her friend, Amelia, an acclaimed singer and lady of the demi-monde who frequented such establishments. Apparently, it was a reference to Helen’s penchant for wearing a daring shade of red, but secretly she preferred to imagine it referred to the fact that night after night she sent the arrogant twits away with a metaphorical bloody nose.
Helen loved the thrill of winning as much as she enjoyed watching those who challenged her sullenly slink away with empty pockets.
Never in her previous,respectablelife, had she imagined she could ever become so mercenary, but finding out your beloved husband had harbouredan entire other family, complete with a nursery of children, had a way of changing a woman.
Helen would never forget the day the solicitor called her into his office a week after James' passing, explaining that the bulk of the estate had been set aside for the illegitimate son she had not been able to bear him. The will had left Helen with a mere pittance to survive on.
It had been especially heart wrenching since James had never once made her believe he was anything but happy with her. Holding her tight and soothing her as she lost first one babe, then another.
As childhood sweethearts, Helen had imagined the pair of them would weather all the storms of life together, but it seemed James had chosen to rather find his happiness elsewhere.
But that was then, and this was now.
Now,Helen was building a life, and a fortune, on her own wits. With no one to depend on, or disappoint her again.
When one was left penniless and heartbroken, there was nothing left to lose.
Helen glanced briefly around, searching for the man again. There was something about him that was out of place here. Maybe it was the easy air about him, or the sardonic smile that quirked his lips while watching the play. Whatever it was, it was clear he was not there for the stakes.
He was there for something else entirely.But what?
There were of course other pleasures to be found in the Palais, but those were tucked away in the deeper rooms that Helen had only ventured into once, long ago. The sensual pleasures indulged in there had not been to her interest at the time, but the longer she spent in this new, hedonistic world, the murkier her previously held beliefs seemed to get.
Sometimes, late at night alone in her bed, Helen imagined taking a lover.
Why should she not?
But in the harsh light of day, she always shrugged off the idea as nothing more than a moment of weakness.
No, it would not do to entangle her emotions with a man again.
Helen turned her attention back to the game, raising her bet and accepting another card from the dealer before throwing one away. Careful to keep her face as impassive as a still pond as she glanced down primly at her hand.
Although she might appear unmoved to an observer, inside, her limbs tingled with excitement.
Her odds of winning had just improved significantly.
Helen pretended to sip at her glass of wine, noting that the man next to her was deep into his cups, slurring slightly as he turned to the men standing behind him observing the action.He bragged loudly to the room, and the assembled spectators guffawed with laughter as if their good sense had long ago been drowned in excess and drink.
All the better. It was at this late hour that a fortune could be made, as arrogance and pompous impulsivity had the lords assembled here throw outlandish sums into the pot.
She leaned slightly forward, allowing a flash of cleavage in the low neckline of her wine-red silk gown. It was perhaps an underhand move, but Helen had no longer any qualms about using her feminine charms if it would further her cause.
