Except she would. No doubt, she had before. No doubt, that was why she had such easy access to this club, run by London’s darkest men, any one of whom could destroy her without hesitation.
He should stop her. He moved to, coming off the wall, ready to cross the wide mews, tear open the door to the carriage, and give her what for.
But the outrider was closer than he, opening the door and setting the step on the ground below.
West hesitated, waiting for her, for her white skirts, and that innocent silver slipper that had been his last, lingering glimpse of her.
Except the slipper that emerged was in no way innocent.
It was sinful.
High-heeled and dark—too dark to tell the color in the spare light from the carriage—showcasing a long, slender foot that arched with perfection. He came off the wall where he’d been leaning, gaze focused as the foot gave way to ankle and then a sea of silk the color of midnight, the mass of fabric ending at the point of a corseted bodice, threaded and tightened to showcase a glorious bosom designed to make a man salivate.
He swallowed.
And then she stepped into the light, painted lips, kohled eyes, and blond hair gleaming platinum.
Blond wig gleaming platinum.
Recognition flared, and he swore in the darkness.
Shock soon gave way to the acute pleasure that came with uncovering a remarkable story.
Lady Georgiana Pearson was no innocent. She was London’s finest whore.
And she was his answer.
Chapter 4
. . . Lady G— may not be thought much a lady, but she comported herself with grace and aplomb at the W— Ball, and attracted the attention of at least one duke and a half-dozen aristocratic gentlemen in search of wives . . .
. . . it seems that Lady M— and her compatriots are in rare form this Season, eager to dress down any who dare come near. Gentlemen of the ton should take care . . . the daughter of the Earl of H— appears to lack the grace of some of her lessers . . .
The Scandal Sheet, April 20, 1833
The following night, Georgiana entered her apartments high above the club, startling Asriel, one of the Angel’s security detail, who sat quietly, reading.
He came to his feet in a single, fluid motion, all six and a half feet of him, wide as a barn, with fists at the ready.
She waved him back. “’Tis only me.”
He narrowed his dark gaze on her. “What is it?”
She looked to the closed door he guarded. “She is well?”
“Hasn’t made a sound since she retired.”
Relief pressed the air from her lungs.
Christ.
Of course Caroline was well. She was guarded by half a dozen locked doors and as many men in the corridors beyond, and Asriel, who had been with Georgiana for longer than anyone else.
It did not matter. When Caroline was in London, she was at risk. Georgiana preferred the girl in Yorkshire, where she was safe from prying eyes and whispered gossip and hateful insults, where she could play in the sun like a normal child. And when she was in the city, Georgiana preferred the girl at her uncle’s home, far from the Angel.
Far from her mother’s sins. From her father’s.
The thought rankled. Fathers’ sins never seemed to stick. It was the mother who bore the heavy weight of ruin in these situations. The mother who passed it on to the child, as though there were not two involved in the act.
Of course, Georgiana had never spoken his name after he’d left.
She’d never wanted anyone to know the identity of the man who had played havoc with her future and ruined her name. Her brother had asked a thousand times. Had vowed to avenge her. To destroy the man who had left her with child and never looked back. But Georgiana had refused to name him.
He had not been the instrument of her ruin, after all. She’d lain in the hayloft with him under her own power, with her full faculties. It had not been Jonathan who had destroyed her.
It had been Society.
She had broken their rules, and they’d rejected her.
There had been no season, no chance to prove herself worthy. She’d never had hope of that proof—they had played judge and jury. Her scandal had been their entertainment and their cautionary tale.
All because she’d fallen victim to a different tale, pretty and fictional.
Love.
Society hadn’t cared about that bit. No one had—not her family, not her friends. She’d been exiled by all save her brother, the duke who married a scandal of his own and, in doing so, lost the respect of their mother. Of the ton.
And so she’d vowed to make Society beholden to her. She’d collected information on the most powerful among them and, if they owed money they could not pay, she rarely hesitated to use it to wreck them. This whole world—the club, the money, the power—it was all for one thing. To hold court over the world that had shunned her all those years ago. That had turned its back on her, and left her with nothing.
Not nothing.
Caroline.