“As you know, our dear friend Duncan West has put out a reward for Chase’s identity . . .”
West froze as her words were met with a chorus of boos and hisses and hear-hears. Several men nearby clapped him on the back. “She’s after you, West,” one man whispered.
“And we have no doubt that very soon, one of you enterprising gentlemen will discover the truth about the founder of the Angel.” She paused. “Five thousand pounds is, after all, a great deal of money to a motley group that loses blunt so well.”
More laughter, but Duncan ignored it, desperate to get to her. To stop her, however he could.
“But we believe in fairness here! Or, at least, we believe that money should be flowing into our pockets, instead of out! And so it is time for a confession . . .” She paused for dramatic effect, and he realized he would not reach her in time.
She spread her arms wide. “I am Chase!”
It hadn’t occurred to him that they wouldn’t believe her, but as the laughter that came with the pronouncement rippled over them, he realized how he could save her, and the club, and how he could set them all free.
How many times had she told him?
People believe what they wish to believe.
And not one of the men in attendance wanted to believe that Chase was a woman.
He took to the nearest faro table, pulling himself up, standing to face her. “I shan’t pay until you provide proof, Anna,” he said, injecting his tone with relaxed teasing. He looked out across the room. “Would anyone else like to make an announcement? I’ll repeat myself, here in this glorious place Chase built. Five thousand pounds for his identity. I’ll pay this very night.”
He stopped, and prayed that one of her business partners was smart enough to see what he was doing.
Cross stood first, climbing high on a roulette table. “I don’t suppose you’ll believe that I am Chase, will you, West?”
Duncan shook his head. “I will not.”
“Nor I?” Temple was on a vingt-et-un table at the other end of the room. He reached down and pulled his wife up onto the table with him. “Perhaps the duchess?”
Her Grace called out, “I am Chase!”
And the room laughed.
One by one, men and women beholden to Georgiana claimed Chase for themselves from around the room. The club’s security detail, the pit boss, Bourne, croupiers, the women who worked the floor of the Angel. Two footmen. The club’s French chef somehow heard the commotion, came in from the kitchen, climbed up on a roulette table and proclaimed herself, “La Chasse.”
And then others got in on the fun—men who had never met her, never come close to her. They simply wanted the laugh that came when someone proclaimed, “I am Chase.”
Each time it was offered to the room—a bold, firm “I am Chase”—the gamers on the floor laughed, and Chase became myth. Legend.
For certainly there was no single Chase, not if all these people admitted to being the man behind the stained glass window, watching from his domain high above their world.
Duncan looked to Georgiana, standing, incredulous, on her table, watching her world stand for her. Without hesitation.
She met his gaze, and he saw the tears glistening in those eyes. He wanted to climb over the tables to get to her, to tell her how much she was loved. To tell her how remarkable she was.
“No!” The Earl of Tremley howled from his place on the floor of the casino, and Duncan turned to find the man clamoring to get to him. “It’s not true!” Tremley cried, high-pitched and nasal as he climbed up onto another table, facing him. “You only play at this game with your whore to keep your own history secret!”
Silence fell at the anger in the earl’s tone.
Duncan’s heart began to pound as Tremley turned to the room. “Ask yourselves, who is this man who runs your newspapers? Where did he come from? How did he rise?”
Duncan looked to Georgiana, taking in her wide, frightened gaze, knowing that this was the end—that Tremley would reveal everything, and with that, he would lose everything.
And strangely, as he waited for the axe to fall, the only thing he cared was that Georgiana was safe.
Tremley asked one final question. “What is his name?”
There was silence as Tremley’s words echoed through the room.
Duncan was holding Georgiana’s gaze, ready for what came next, so he saw it when she replied, her red lips curving into a bold smile that did not reach her eyes.
Her eyes were too full of fear.
“Don’t tell us his name is Chase, my lord.”
And with that single, well-placed sentence, she set the casino to laughing, his beautiful, brilliant love. She saved him. Just as he had saved her, in front of the wide world, where none but the two of them could see it.
At the laughter, Tremley went mad, reaching into his coat to remove a pistol, turning it on West. “I am through with you.”
The laughter in the casino died the moment Tremley extracted his pistol, quickly replaced by shock.