“You are not a betting man, though,” Georgiana pointed out. As though it would stop him.
“He doesn’t have to be. I’ll put money on it,” Cross said, “I’ll happily mark it in the book.”
The betting book. The Fallen Angel’s betting book was legendary—an enormous leather-bound volume which held the catalogue of all wagers made on the main floor of the club. Members could record any wager—no matter how trivial—in the book, and the Angel bore witness, taking a percentage of the bets to make certain the parties were held to whatever bizarre stakes were established.
“You don’t wager in the book,” Georgiana said.
He met her gaze. “I shall make an exception.”
“For West running for Minister of Parliament?” Temple asked.
“I don’t care about that at all,” Cross said, throwing a card down. “I’ve one hundred pounds that says that West is the man who breaks Chase of her curse.”
She narrowed her gaze on the ginger-haired genius, recognizing the words. She’d made the same wager an age ago. She’d won.
“You shan’t have my luck,” she said.
He smirked. “Care to wager on it?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I shall happily take your money.”
“Mistake,” Bourne said. “He’s clearly after you. It’s a good bet.”
“Well, he’s after Anna, at least,” Temple corrected.
“It’s only a matter of time before he puts two and two together and discovers that Anna is Georgiana. Especially now that he’s . . .” Bourne waved a hand in her direction. “Sampled the wares, so to speak.”
She’d had enough. “First of all, there was no sampling of anything. It was a kiss. And second of all, he already knows that Anna and Georgiana are one and the same.”
The other three went silent.
She added, “Well. Miracle of miracles, I’ve rendered the three of you silent. The rest of London would be shocked beyond reason to discover that the owners of The Fallen Angel were nothing more than chattering magpies.”
“He knows?” Cross was the first to talk.
“He does,” she said.
“Christ,” Bourne said. “How?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does if others know, too.”
“No one else knows,” she said. “No one else has looked too long at Anna’s face. They’re too interested in her other assets.”
“But West has looked at her face. And Georgiana’s. And realized the truth.” This, from Temple.
“Yes.” The word made her feel guilty. As though she could have changed the situation. And perhaps she could have.
“You should never have brought him into this,” Bourne said. “He’s too quick. Of course he discovered you are both women. He was bound to. He likely knew the moment he agreed to help you land Langley.”
She did not reply.
“But he doesn’t know about Chase?” Cross asked.
She stood from the table, moving to the stained glass window that covered a full wall of the room, massive and menacing, depicting the fall of Lucifer. Hundreds of pieces of colored glass meticulously assembled to reveal the enormous angel—four times the size of the average man—as he tumbled from Heaven. From the casino floor, far below, it appeared that he was cast from light into darkness, from perfection into sin.
Destroyed and, in destruction, renewed. A king in his own right, with power unrivaled by all but one. Georgiana sighed, suddenly keenly aware of how powerless second-most-powerful could be.
“No,” she said. “And he won’t know who Chase is.”
That, she could promise.
“Even if he did,” Temple said. “He’s to be trusted.”
Georgiana had spent years working with the worst of humanity—learning them, judging them. She knew good men and bad. A day ago, she would have said that Temple was right. That West was to be trusted.
But that was before he’d kissed her.
Before she’d been drawn to him as she’d been drawn to another, long ago. One whom she’d trusted with her heart. With her hope. With her future.
One who had betrayed her without hesitation, and taken everything she’d given, ensuring that she would never be able to give it to another.
Ensuring that she would never want to.
Now, she did not trust her instincts around West. Which meant she had to rely on a different set of skills. “How do we know that?” she asked Temple, setting her cards on the table, no longer interested in the game. “That he is to be trusted?”
Temple shrugged one massive shoulder. “We’ve trusted him for years. He’s never betrayed us. You’re paying him handsomely with Tremley’s file . . . there’s no reason to believe that he’ll do anything but help. As always.”
“Unless he discovers Chase,” Cross said. “Now that she’s under his skin, he’ll be livid if he feels he’s been duped.”
Bourne nodded. “There’s no ‘feels’ about it. He has been duped.”
“I don’t owe him anything,” she said. The three men cut her identical looks. “What is it?”