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If only it had been anyone but the Westleighs.
Rhys sounded the knocker on the door of an innocuous-appearing town house. A huge bear of a man in colourful livery opened the door. Rhys had not been to this house in perhaps a year, but it appeared unchanged.
‘How do you do, Cummings?’ he said to the liveried servant. ‘I have been gone too long from here.’
‘G’d evening, Mr Rhysdale,’ Cummings responded in his deep monotone. He nodded to Xavier. ‘Mr Campion.’
Cummings might act the doorman, but he’d be better described as the gatekeeper, allowing only certain people in, chucking out any patron who became rowdy or combative.
Cummings took their hats and gloves. ‘Nothing has changed here. Except some of the girls. They come and go. The game room is up the stairs. Same as always.’
Rhys was not interested in the girls, who often sold their favours on the side.
He glanced around the hall. Nothing appeared changed.
Three years ago he’d been a frequent patron of this place. He, like so many gentlemen at that time, had been intrigued by a masked woman who came to play cards and often did quite well. She’d been a mystery and that intensified her appeal. Soon the men were wagering on which of them would bed her first, all properly written down in the betting book. Rhys had not been interested in seducing a woman just to win a bet.
He shook his head. He had not thought of that masked woman in years. Who had won her? he wondered.
He turned back to Cummings. ‘And Madame Bisou. Is she here tonight?’ Madame Bisou owned this establishment.
‘Aye. She should be in the game room.’ Cummings turned away to store their hats.
Rhys and Xavier climbed the stairs and entered the game room, all a-bustle with activity as the time approached midnight. The hazard table was in the centre of the room, encircled by eager players. The familiar sound of dice shaken in a cup and shouts of ‘Seven!’ reached Rhys’s ears, followed by the roll of the dice on the green baize and more shouting. Now and again a patron might win big, but the odds always favoured the bank, as they did in faro and rouge et noir. The two faro tables stood against one wall, nearly obscured by players; the other side held the games of rouge et noir. Rhys avoided all these games, where winning was almost completely dependent on luck. He confined himself to games of skill.
‘I thought you came to play cards.’ Xavier nudged him.
‘I have,’ he responded. ‘But I have not been here in a year. I am taking stock of the room.’
At that moment, a buxom woman with flaming red hair hurried towards them. ‘Monsieur Rhysdale. Monsieur Campion. How good it is to see you. It has been trop longtemps, no?’
Rhys smiled both at the pleasure of seeing her again and at her atrocious French accent. ‘Madame Bisou!’ He leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek and whispered in her ear, ‘How are you, Penny?’
‘Très bien, cher,’ she responded, but her smile looked stressed. She turned to greet Xavier before Rhys could ask more.
In those difficult London days of his youth Madame Bisou had been Penny Jones, a decade older than he and just as determined to free herself from the shackles of poverty. They’d both used what God had provided them: Rhys, his skill at cards—Penny, her body. But she did not spend all the money she earned on gin like so many of the other girls. She’d saved and invested and finally bought this place. She’d been running it for almost ten years.
‘Why has it been so long since you have been here?’ She took Rhys’s hand and squeezed it.
‘I am asking myself that same question.’ Rhys smiled at her, genuinely glad to see an old friend.
Her tone changed to one of business. ‘What is your pleasure today, gentlemen? Do you wish a woman? Or a game of chance?’
Xavier answered her. ‘A game of whist, if we can manage it.’
Rhys would have preferred merely to watch the room for a little while, but Penny found them two willing high-stakes partners.
When the play was over, Rhys and Xavier collected their winnings, more modest than most nights, but Rhys had to admit to being distracted. They moved on to the supper room. One of the girls began a flirtation with Xavier. Rhys spied Penny sitting in a far corner.
He walked over to her. ‘It is not like you to sit alone, Penny. Is something amiss? Might I help?’
She sighed wearily and appeared, for the moment, much older than her forty years. ‘I have lost the heart for this, Rhys. I wish I could just walk away from it all….’
Rhys’s heart beat faster. ‘Are you thinking of selling the business?’
‘How can it be done? I cannot advertise.’ Her gaming hell was illegal. ‘I am too weary to even think how to accomplish it.’
This was unlike her. Penny always found a way to do precisely as she wished.
Rhys’s nostrils filled with the scent of opportunity.
Fate was shoving him in the direction he must go. He was the solution to Penny’s problems. He could save his old village. He could enrich his coffers.
All he must do was sell his soul to the devil.
His father.
The next day Rhys presented himself at the Westleigh town house. He’d not told Xavier his intention. He’d not wanted to be talked out of it.
It was well before the fashionable hour for making calls. Probably well before Ned and Hugh rose. It was half-past nine, a time working men and women were well into their day while the wealthy still slept. But Rhys needed to do this first thing or risk the chance of changing his mind.
The footman who answered the door led him to a drawing room off the hall. Unfortunately, the room was dominated by a huge portrait of the earl. Painted with arms crossed, the image of Earl Westleigh stared down, his expression stern and, Rhys fancied, disapproving.
Let his image disapprove. Rhys knew his own worth. He was determined the world should know it soon enough.
Still the earl’s presence in this house set his nerves on edge. Would he join Ned and Hugh for this interview? Rhys half hoped so. He would relish standing in a superior position to this man who once held power over his life.
But it was far more likely the earl would do anything possible to avoid his bastard son.
Rhys’s brothers, to their credit, did not keep him waiting long. He heard their hurried footsteps and their hushed voices before they entered the room.
Ned walked towards him as if he would offer his hand to shake, but he halted and gestured to a chair instead. ‘Shall we sit?’
Hugh held back and looked solemn.
Rhys calmly looked from one to the other. ‘I believe I’ll stand.’
His response had the desired effect. Both men shifted uncomfortably.
‘Are we to assume your presence here to mean you have reconsidered our offer?’ Ned asked.
Rhys inwardly grimaced. Ned called it an offer? ‘I came to further the discussion of whether I am willing to rescue you and our father from penury.’
‘Why?’ Hugh demanded in a hot voice. ‘What changed your mind?’
Rhys levelled a gaze at him. ‘Call it an attack of family loyalty, if you like. I did not say I’ve changed my mind.’
Ned placed a stilling hand on Hugh’s arm, but spoke to Rhys. ‘What do you wish to discuss?’
Rhys shrugged. ‘Well, for one, it takes a great deal of money to start a gaming establishment. Will I be expected to invest my own money? Because I would not stake my fortune against something so risky.’
‘How is it risky?’ Hugh cried. ‘The house always has the advantage. You know that.’
‘The house can be broken,’ Rhys countered. ‘It is all chance.’ Rhys succeeded at cards by reducing chance.
‘But it is not likely, is it?’ Hugh shot back.
Ned’s eyes flashed a warning to Hugh, before he turned to Rhys again. ‘The monetary investment will be ours.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It is now or never for us, Rhys. We’ve scraped the last of our fortune to bank this enterprise. All we want from you—all we need from you—is to run it.’
They must truly be desperate to devise a plan like this, especially as it involved him. Desperate or mad.
‘A gaming house will not make much money right away unless it can quickly build a reputation. It must distinguish itself from other places. Give gamblers a reason to attend.’ Rhys paused. ‘You want to attract the high-stakes gamblers who have money to throw away.’
‘It must be an honest house,’ Hugh snapped. ‘No rigged dice. No marked cards.’
Rhys gave him a scathing look. ‘Are you attempting to insult me, Hugh? If you do not think me an honest man, why ask me to run it?’
Hugh averted his gaze.
‘No cheating of any kind,’ Rhys reiterated. ‘And no prostitution. I will tolerate neither.’ He’d keep the girls at Madame Bisou’s employed, but he’d have nothing to do with them selling their bodies.
‘We are certainly in agreement with all you say,’ Ned responded.
Rhys went on. ‘Within the parameters of honesty, I must be given free rein in how the house is run.’
‘Of course,’ Ned agreed.
‘Wait a moment.’ Hugh glared. ‘What precisely do you mean by free rein?’
‘I mean I decide how to run it,’ Rhys responded. ‘There will be no countering of what I choose to do.’
‘What do you choose to do?’ Hugh shot back.
Rhys kept his tone even. ‘I will make this house the one every wealthy aristocrat or merchant wants to attend. I want to attract not only wealthy men, but ladies, as well.’
‘Ladies!’ Hugh looked appalled.
‘We all know ladies like to gamble as well as gentlemen, but ladies risk censure for it, so I propose we run the house like a masquerade. Anyone may come in costume or masked. That way they can play without risk to their reputation.’ This had worked for the masked woman who’d come to Madame Bisou’s and caused such a stir those years ago. No one had ever learned who she was.
Rhys had thought this all through. It had been spinning in his mind ever since Ned and Hugh first proposed he run a gambling house. He would call it the Masquerade Club. Members could join for a nominal fee. They could dress in masquerade as long as they purchased their counters with the coin in their pockets. If they sought credit or were forced to sign a promissory note, they must reveal their identity.
He continued explaining to Ned and Hugh. ‘This is my plan thus far. It is not up to negotiation. If I come up with a better idea, I will implement it and I will not confer with you beforehand.’
‘See here—’ Hugh began.
Ned waved a hand. ‘Leave it, Hugh. As long as it is honest and profitable, what do we care how the place is run?’ He turned to Rhys. ‘Anything else?’
‘I want half the profit.’
‘Half?’ Hugh shouted.
Rhys faced him again. ‘You risk money, but it is my reputation that will be at risk. We can charge a nominal subscription and call it a gaming club, but there is still the risk that it will be declared illegal. I must be compensated for that risk.’ Besides, he intended to give Penny a portion of his profits, as part of the sale, and Xavier, too, if he was willing to help.
‘I think your terms are agreeable,’ Ned responded. ‘Shall we discuss how much money you need to get started?’
Rhys nodded, but tapped a finger against his lips. ‘I do have a question.’
Ned looked up suspiciously. ‘What is it?’
‘Does the earl know you wish me to do this?’
The brothers exchanged glances.
‘He knows,’ Ned answered.
And was not happy about it, Rhys guessed. Something Rhys counted upon. Besides earning a profit, Rhys wanted the gaming house to provide him another pay-off. He wanted to rub the earl’s nose in the fact that it was his bastard son who pulled him from the brink of ruin. Rhys wanted revenge against the man who sired him and never, ever, acknowledged that fact, who had instead turned him away without a penny, not caring if he lived or died.
He tapped on the back of a chair with his fingertips. ‘Very well, my brothers—’ he spoke sarcastically ‘—I agree to run your gaming house.’
The two men who so resembled him visibly relaxed.
‘On one more condition,’ Rhys added.
Hugh rolled his eyes. Ned looked nervous.
‘Our father—’ Rhys spoke this word with even greater sarcasm ‘—Earl Westleigh, that is—must publicly acknowledge me as his son. It must seem as if I am accepted into the family as one of you, an equal member. I must be included in family functions and social occasions. I must be treated as one of the family.’ What better revenge than this?
Ned and Hugh gaped back at him with horrified expressions. Apparently the idea of accepting him as a brother was as anathema to them as it would be to the earl.
‘That is my condition,’ Rhys reiterated.
Ned glanced away and silence stretched between them.
Finally he raised his eyes to Rhys. ‘Welcome to the family, brother.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_39dd51e1-3355-5c84-af82-7aa24595cd27)
Rhys accomplished the sale and reopening of the gaming hell within three weeks of calling upon his half-brothers. He changed the décor and the menu and retrained all the workers. Madame Bisou’s became the Masquerade Club and news of its opening travelled swiftly by word of mouth.
The first days had been stressful, but each night the numbers of patrons had grown, as had the profit, which made the Westleighs less fraught with worry. Rhys could count on one of them—Hugh mostly—to come in the guise of an ordinary patron. Rhys knew they were keeping tabs on what he had created.
He’d been watching for one of them when he spied the beautiful masked woman who had just told him she wished to play whist.
Rhys had experienced his share of affairs with women. He and Xavier had enjoyed some raucous nights in Paris with willing elegantes, but rarely, if ever, had he been so intrigued as with this woman.
Her posture was both proud and wary, and she had come to the gaming house alone, in itself a courageous act for a woman. What’s more, her lips were moist and pink and her voice like music to his ears.
‘How might a lady find a willing partner?’ she asked.
