“Excellent,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said, her tone pleased. The veil shifted, and Anna caught a flash of teeth. “Then you will be perfect to help me with my little pest problem.”
Anna’s insides twisted, but she didn’t back down. “What kind of pest?”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon stood and walked to the silk rope in the corner meant to call a servant and pulled. “The gentlemanly kind—oh, you need not look so disgusted. I mean nothing untoward.”
“Of course not, Mrs. Dove-Lyon.” That was exactly what Anna had thought. If not placing her in the role of some desperate lightskirt, then what?
“Marriage.”
Anna choked on her quick inhale. “‘Marriage’?”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon nodded. “Yes, marriage. One quick ceremony of vows and all debts are paid in full.”
The twisting in Anna’s gut turned viselike. She pressed the heels of her hands against the desktop to keep her balance. “There has to be another way.”
“No, Miss Greene,” said the widow with the authority of a queen. “There is not.”
Oh, to rail, to scream. Torageuntil tears burned her eyes.
Tears never solved anything and in fact merely attracted the predators faster. They certainly wouldn’t see her brother home.
Anna stared down at the dark grain of the desktop, the swirls chaotic and far too similar to her situation to be calledbeautiful. She’d come here looking for answers... and she’d found herself face to face with her own limitations.
With matrimony to a stranger her only way out.
A flash of a man’s face—a boy, really. Young, raven haired with eyes like the sea. And her, equally young, fresh-faced, and ruined by what she’d thought had been the tapestry of love.
Anna gritted her teeth and picked at the silly fantasy until the edges frayed and the image was nothing but a knotted mess of color. There would be no more holding out hope. No more idiotic wishing for the past.
Nothing but a single thread pulling her toward her future.
Elise had been right. Anna had been soundly caught by the Black Widow of Whitehall, thespider, and there was no other option but to take her deal.
Anna’s future happiness in exchange for the freedom to continue the search for William.
So be it.
Anna dropped her handkerchief to the desktop, the white flag of her surrender, and demanded, “Which gentleman?”
Chapter Two
Jackson Cole, theDuke of Grandfellow, slammed his hand on the table, the China set on top of the mahogany rattling dangerously. “This is madness!”
A single hand of cards had stood between him and victory. Thirty-three cards dealt and played. Most in the discard pile. Six on the table. One blasted hand possible with a higher count than his. Less than two percent odds he’d lose.
And he’d lost.
Not some measly fortune. It would take a catastrophic loss at every gaming hell in England to deplete the accounts of his estates. No, what he’d lost was more precious.
“You are welcome to refuse, Your Grace,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said from her seat on the red velvet settee, the teacup and saucer in her hand not sporting so much as a drop of tea out of place after his outburst.
‘Refuse’?
No, he bloody well couldn’t. There was more than his bachelorhood on the line.
The woman dug the knife deeper. “You knew the stakes.”
He did. Win and he pocketed a bit of extra change—and slid one step closer to taking down his target.
