Bretagne strode toward the door, and Rhys had no choice but to follow. Still, he yet had a question to ask. “So, you’ve known for years that Sir Felix is a card cheat?” He tried to ask offhand, but wasn’t sure he succeeded.
Bretagne didn’t bother glancing over. “I did.” He sounded utterly bored.
“Then why didn’t you ever expose him?”
Bretagne met his gaze, his expression both incredulous and slightly amused. “Why would I?”
Righteousness surged through Rhys. A surprising feeling, that, and one he couldn’t rightly say he’d experienced in recent years. “Cheating is wrong.”
Bretagne smiled—like a wolf. “But it’s one waster cheating another waster. I’ve no dog in that fight.”
Rhys felt the sting of Bretagne’s words.
A year ago, he was one of those wasters.
Bretagne was, of course, correct in his view.
When they reached the corridor, his host said, “I’m headed the other direction. You know the way out?”
“Aye,” said Rhys, taking Bretagne’s hand in a parting shake.
Then he was winding down corridors and staircases toward the ground floor and the door that led out a side entrance. Bretagne and his wife occupied a residence in the east wing of the opulent, sprawling mansion belonging to his father, the Duke of Arundel, a practice that was common in aristocratic families. Rhys was, in fact, an outlier in this regard, as several years ago, he’d taken up a flat of rooms on Bennet Street. It wasn’t by happenstance that Bennet Street was near his favorite clubs and gaming hells on St. James’s Street. A real blessing to the wastrel rake.
Of course, much had changed in the last year.
He was now a reformed wastrel rake.
Or making the attempt, anyway.
It had to count for something, but he was having a difficult time seeing how, for the universe hadn’t exactly shown itself in a benevolent mood for his past transgressions. Otherwise, it would tip up Papa’s signet ring and indicate all was forgiven, wouldn’t it?
But, nay, apparently the universe had yet more to teach him, and he had only himself to blame.
How had he let it come to this?
The ring was nowhere.
Even Bretagne, a former and possibly present spymaster, had heard nothing.
Perhaps the blonde and Sir Felix had been in league, after all.
But Rhys had doubts about this theory.
When Sir Felix had approached them on the dancing floor, the panic that had sparked in the blonde’s eyes had been genuine. Then she’d been running, and Rhys following. But where she was able to find angles and slip through the crowd, he’d met obstacle after stubborn obstacle—and he’d lost her.
It hadn’t been her first time running from a man.
Rhys knew that much.
He knew something else, too.
She wasn’t an aristocrat.
Her voice had revealed East-End beginnings.
Then, when he’d returned to the ballroom to confront Sir Felix about how he knew the woman, the rotter had been gone, too.
And Rhys was left with precisely what he’d entered the Royal Pavilion holding—nothing.
