The older man had leaned in, ignoring Cross’s bruised face and his bloody clothes and broken ribs and fingers. You think I don’t see what you’re doing? How you’re playing me? I won’t kill you. It’s not your time.
Cross’s eyes had been swollen nearly shut, but he’d watched as Knight leaned in, all anger. But I won’t let you fleece me again, the older man had said. The way you feel right now . . . this is my insurance. You come back, it will get worse. Do yourself a favor and stay away before I have no choice but to destroy you.
He’d already been destroyed, but he’d stayed away nonetheless.
Until today.
“Why am I here?”
Knight returned to his chair and tossed back a swig of clear alcohol. With a wince, he said, “Your brother-in-law owes me ten thousand pounds.”
Years of practice kept Cross from revealing his shock. Ten thousand pounds was an exorbitant sum. More than most men would make in a lifetime. More than most peers would make in a year. In two. And definitely more than Baron Dunblade could ever repay. He’d already parceled off every bit of free land from the barony, and he had an income of two thousand pounds a year.
Two thousand, four hundred and thirty-five pounds, last year.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep a roof over Dunblade’s wife’s and children’s heads. Enough to send his son to school, eventually. Enough to provide an illusion of respectability that allowed for the baron and baroness to receive coveted invitations from the rest of the ton.
Cross had made sure of it.
“How is that possible?”
Knight leaned back in his chair, rolling the crystal tumbler in his hands. “The man likes the tables. Who am I to stop him?”
Cross resisted the urge to reach across the table and grab the older man by the neck. “Ten thousand pounds is more than liking the tables, Digger. How did it happen?”
“It seems the man was given a line of credit he could not back.”
“He has never in his life had that kind of money.”
Knight’s tone turned innocent and grating. “He assured me he was good for it. I can’t be held responsible for the fact that the man lied.” He met Cross’s eyes, knowledge glittering there. “Some people can’t help it. You taught me that.”
The words were meant to sting—to recall that long-ago night when Cross, barely out of university, bright-eyed and cocksure, had played the tables at Knight’s and won. Over and over, he’d mastered vingt-et-un—unable to do anything but win.
He’d gone from hell to hell for months, playing one night here, two there, convincing every onlooker that he was simply lucky.
Every onlooker but Digger. “So this is your revenge? Six years in the making?”
Knight sighed. “Nonsense. I’m long past it. I never believed in revenge served cold. Always liked my meals hot. Better for the digestion.”
“Then clear the debt.”
Knight laughed, his fingers spreading wide over his mahogany desk. “We’re not that even, Cross. The debt stands. Dunblade’s a fool, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m owed. It’s business, I’m sure you’ll agree.” He paused for a long moment, then, “It’s a pity he’s a peer. Debtor’s prison might be better than what I have in store for him.”
Cross did not pretend to misunderstand. He ran a hell himself, after all, and knew better than anyone what secret punishments could be meted out to peers who thought themselves immune to debt. He leaned forward. “I can bring this place to rubble. We’ve half the peerage in our membership.”
Knight leaned forward as well. “I don’t need half the peerage, boy. I have your sister.”
Lavinia.
The only reason he was here.
A memory flashed, Lavinia, young and fresh-faced, laughing back at him as she pulled ahead on her favorite chestnut mare along the Devonshire cliffs. She was youngest by seven years, spoiled rotten and afraid of nothing. It was no surprise that she had come to face Knight. Lavinia had never been the kind to stay quiet—even when it was best for everyone.
She’d married Dunblade the year after Baine had died and Cross had left home; he’d read about the marriage in the papers, a fast courtship followed by an even faster wedding—via special license to skirt the issue of the family’s state of mourning. No doubt their father had wanted the marriage done quickly, to ensure that someone would marry his daughter.
Cross met Knight’s brilliant blue gaze. “She is not a part of this.”
“Oh, but she is. It is interesting how ladies manage to get themselves into trouble, isn’t it? No matter how hard one tries to keep her at bay, if a lady has it in mind to meddle, meddle she will,” Knight said, opening an ornate ebony box on his desk and extracting a cheroot and tapping the long brown cylinder, once, twice on the desk before lighting it. After a long pull on the cigarette, he said, “And you have two on your hands. Let’s talk about my new acquaintance. The lady from yesterday. Who is she?”