Page 42 of From Duke Till Dawn
“What is this place we’re going to now?” he asked.
“We call it the Union Hall,” she explained. “A place where fellow swindlers meet. If someone’s setting up a scheme and needs people to help, they come here. We share stories and strategy. We brag and sympathize.”
“Sounds like a club for gentlemen,” he noted.
“Except women are allowed in our place,” she countered. “A bit more equal—like America.”
“Filled with braggarts and schemers,” he said, “like America.”
Something that resembled a genuine smile flitted across her face. “Now there’s a thought. If this comes out all right, when it’s over, I can go to America. It’s the right place for someone like me.”
“Leave England?” he asked with surprise.
“Why not? There’s nothing here for me. Only reminders of bad times.”
A hard and dark knot pressed down on his chest. He hadn’t thought she would leave. Not for somewhere so faraway. He told himself he didn’t want her in his life—she’d caused too much hurt and anger. But did he want her sailing halfway around the world? It shouldn’t make a difference to him where she went, so long as she was gone.
Yet it mattered. Against his better judgment, he cared what happened to her.
“Boston’s full of lawless people like you,” he said.
She shook her head. “New York is better—bigger and noisier and wilder. Could be perfect.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” he reminded her. “Hughes is still out there with the money.”
She sat back and scowled. “Hell. I should know better than to dream of what might be.”
A stab of remorse pierced him. He shouldn’t have been so cold, so blunt. “We all dream,” he offered.
“Dreams kill,” she said flatly. “Especially when you believe in them and they never come to pass. Dreams took my mother, who wanted more for herself than a baby and a penniless husband. Dreams murdered my father, wasting away in debtors’ prison.” Her jaw tightened. “I dreamed about a new life for myself, thought it was mine, and look where it got me—betrayed, hunted by brutes like George Lacey.” Her mouth twisted. “Dreams. I can’t swallow their poison anymore.”
He’d spoken to veterans, talked with elderly, impoverished tenants. But never had he experienced so viscerally what it meant to be poor, and a woman, in a country that didn’t give a damn about either.
Alex struggled once more against empathy. She’d used and betrayed him.No excuse for that.
Except that she was trying to keep herself alive. And no one had ever shown her a dram of compassion, not even her own parents.
He wanted to drag his hands through his hair, or rub at his face, or curse aloud, or anything at all to release the pressure building up inside of him. It pressed at the seams, threatening to burst.
But he didn’t. Instead, he sat perfectly still as proper behavior dictated. He had to be in control. Always.
He needed to be right about her. Dukes were always right.
Weren’t they? Wasn’the?
She rapped against the roof of the carriage with her knuckles, and it came to a stop. After drawing a breath, she announced with the air of someone about to leap into the Thames, “This is it. The Union Hall.”
From the outside, the Union Hall looked like any of the dusty, sprawling warehouses that popped up like sores in this part of the city. Alex was too well-bred to show his disgust, but she saw the very corners of his eyes pleat into tiny lines, and his jaw firm. He didn’t like it here. And why should he? This wasn’t his world.
“There’s nothing but cheats and swindlers inside,” Cassandra said, tilting her head toward the building. “A virtuous man like you keeps esteemed company—nothing like this.”
“I’m certain my friends Ellingsworth and Langdon don’t pay their tailors’ bills on time,” he answered.
“Not the same thing.”
His grip tightened on his walking stick. “Wish I’d brought a pistol.”
“There’s a pecking order with us unsavory lot,” she explained. She held her hand out low. “At the bottom, cutthroats and murderers.” She raised her hand twelve inches. “In the middle, that’s the pickpockets, housebreakers, thieves. Way up here”—she lifted her hand high—“are the swindlers.”
