Chapter 3
Genevieve had found a quiet corner of her gaming hell to hide.
The kitchens, to be precise.
The table was broad and accommodating. She had drawn a reasonably comfortable chair to it. Her ledgers, ink, and pen in hand, she set to work, tallying her expenditures. Reading was not a strength of hers. However, arithmetic had always made sense to her mind. Numbers, she found, were not nearly as difficult to comprehend and decipher.
And she could not deny that the chance to be on her own was welcome. For the past three days, Lord Sundenbury had been chasing her about like a lonely puppy nipping at its master’s heels. Only Blunderbury was significantly more irritating and deuced difficult to ignore.
But here, in the kitchens…why, it was heaven. No interloper in sight.
Indeed, no one was within at all, save her beloved dog Arthur, since the skilled French chef she had procured for her fledgling gaming hell was not within his sphere today. Chef Armande was frightfully dear to procure, which meant she was having to share him with The Devil’s Spawn, which was run by her half brother Dom.
Frowning down at her ledger, she wondered if she would need to bolster her wine stores. Or her gin? What did proper ladies drink? She would be damned if she was going to seek out bloody Sundenbury to ask. Having escaped him at all was merciful enough—
“I do believe it is time for our next lesson, Miss Winter.”
“Blast,” she bit out, jumping as she spun in her chair to find the lord in question stalking across the kitchens with his easy, long-limbed stride. The one that said he had been born a lord and everyone else could go to the devil.
Arthur, who was generally suspicious of everyone, rose from his place at her feet and moved to greet the marquess.
Sundenbury grinned, and the dreaded dimples made a return as he sank to his haunches to give Arthur a hearty scratch behind his ears.
“Good morning to you, sir,” Sundenbury greeted.
Arthur’s tongue lolled.
“Traitor,” Gen grumbled. Then she added in a voice she was sure to carry, “He is a vicious beast, you know. Unpredictable. Never know when he will strike.”
“And draw blood?” The marquess raised a brow, undeterred as he petted Arthur’s neck. “Sounds rather similar to his owner.”
Ever ready with a clever reply, the Marquess of Sundenbury. Ever charming, too, damn his hide. All the more reason for her to keep her distance. He had not even been haunting her establishment for a sennight, and already, he was causing her no end of difficulties. How could she possibly survive three more?
She frowned at him. “Keep your distance from the both of us, and your pretty lordly hide will be safe.”
“Pretty?” He rose to his full height at last, his gaze smoldering. “Why, empress. I had no notion you have been ogling me.”
Arthur barked, as if protesting the lack of attention he was suddenly receiving.
“You needn’t fear for your virtue, Blunderbury,” she said, skewering him with a narrow-eyed glare. “You aren’t the sort of cove who interests me.”
That was a lie. Part of the reason she had been keeping her distance was because the man was a terrible distraction. The last thing she needed was to be charmed by a wastrel aristocrat who could not keep away from the hazard table. Particularly this one. He was handsome as the devil and had managed to amass debts so deep, rival gaming hell owner Jasper Sutton had once sent men after him.
“No? What sort of manwouldinterest Miss Genevieve Winter, I wonder?” His light query, issued as he closed the rest of the distance between them, made warmth unfurl in her belly.
Hissort, apparently. Because Gen was a fool who had not learned her lesson well enough with the last rogue who had wooed her, stolen her heart, and smashed it to bits.
“None,” she lied.
And then, the blighter proceeded to sit on the table, beside her ledgers. Still grinning. Dimples mocking her. “Nary a one?”
Only the most vexing one currently in the East End.
Gen settled her forgotten quill in its well and gritted her teeth. “Tell me, yournabs, are you addled in the head? Why is it you never sit on a bleeding chair?”
“Chairs are deuced boring.” The grin deepened and those golden-brown eyes of his fairly sparked with mirth. And with something else, too.
Seduction.
