Everything.
“I hate it when she is here,” she said, to herself more than to Asriel. He knew her well enough not to reply. And yet Georgiana could not help but bring Caroline to London every few months. She told herself that it was because she wanted her daughter to know her uncle. Her cousins. But it wasn’t true.
Georgiana brought Caroline here because she could not bear the emptiness she felt when the girl was far. Because she was never in her life so satisfied as when she placed her hand on her sleeping daughter’s back and felt the rise and fall of her breath, filled with dreams and promise.
Filled with everything Georgiana did not have, and everything that she had promised to give her child.
No dreams of a marriage of convenience turning into a love match?
The words from the prior evening came quick and unwanted, as though Duncan West were with her again, tall and handsome, blond hair falling over his brow begging to be brushed back, to be touched. The man was handsome to a dangerous degree, in large part because he was so intelligent—his mind understanding more than was said, his eyes seeing more than was revealed. And his voice, the darkness of it, the way it traced the peaks and valleys of language, the way it cradled her name, the way it whispered the honorific she so rarely used.
The way it made her want to listen to him for hours.
She resisted the thought. She did not have time to listen to Duncan West. He’d made a generous offer of help, which was all she needed. Nothing else.
She wanted nothing else.
Liar.
The word whispered through her. She ignored it. Returned her attention to her daughter. To the promise she’d made to give her a life. A future.
It had been ten years since Caroline was conceived and Georgiana had run from the world for which she had been bred. Ten years since that world had damned them both. And in the years since, Georgiana had built this empire on Society’s greatest truth—that none of its members was far from ruin. That none of those sneering, insulting, horrible people would survive if their secrets were revealed.
She had partnered with three fallen aristocrats, each stronger and more intelligent than the rest of Society, each ruined without question. Each desperate to hide from the ton even as he ruled it.
And together, they did rule it. Bourne, Cross, Temple, and Chase held London’s most powerful men and women in their thrall. Discovered their darkest truths. Their deepest secrets. But it was Chase alone who reigned, in part because it was Georgiana alone who would never fully be able to return to Society.
Every mistake, every scandal, every humiliation faced by the men of the aristocracy could be wiped away. Titles bought respectability, even for those who had fallen from grace.
Had she not proven it?
She’d chosen her partners for the mistakes they’d made when they were young and stupid. Bourne had lost his entire fortune, Cross had chosen a life of gaming and whoring over a life of responsibility, Temple had landed himself in bed with his father’s fiancée. Not one of them had deserved the punishment Society had meted out.
And each of them had been restored to his place, richer, stronger, more powerful.
In love.
She resisted the thought.
Love had been secondary. Her partners had been restored to their places because Georgiana gave them the avenue for their restoration. She was lucky enough to have—despite her failings—a brother who was willing to do anything she asked. Secure any invitation. Provide any cover. He owed her.
With her scandal, she’d given him the freedom to marry the woman of his choosing, and he’d given her something much much more valuable . . . a future.
She might never again be accepted by Society, but now she held the power to destroy it.
For years, she’d planned and plotted her revenge—the moment she showed them all the truth—that they were nothing without her—the ruined girl they’d thrown away.
Except, she couldn’t.
As much as she loathed it, she needed them.
Not just them.
She needed him.
West’s handsome face flashed again—all easy power and lazy smiles. The man was far too arrogant for his own good. And that arrogance tempted more than it should.
But he was everything she did not desire. Everything she did not require. He was untitled, not even a gentleman—come from nowhere, accepted in polite company because of his sickening wealth more than anything else. For God’s sake, the man had a career. It was a miracle he was allowed this side of Regent Street.
She required his assistance for one thing and one thing only.
Securing Caroline’s future.
The door behind Asriel snapped open, revealing her daughter, lit from behind by a collection of blazing candles. “I thought I heard you.”
“Why are you still awake?”
Caroline waved a red leather book. “I cannot sleep. This poor woman! Her husband forces her to drink wine from her own father’s skull!”