Page 22 of Anything But a Duke
So many hours. Days. Years of attempting to engineer a success. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see sunlight glinting on the gilded edge of her father’s portrait.
She didn’t wish to be like him. Wasting her days. Disappointing her family and herself.
The furniture creaked as her mother rose and came to stand behind her, wafting her familiar perfume, tapping gently at the floor with her cane. She only used it at home, where no one else might see.
“Give me the month, Mama.”
“And then?”
“If I haven’t found an investor for my device—” The words stuck on her tongue like the gum arabic she used as adhesive in her workshop. “I will attend the ball and let my friends play matchmaker.”
Just speaking the words made her dizzy. Blood rushed in her ears. The urge to take it back was so strong, she clenched her teeth to keep from speaking.
“Thank you, my dear.” Her mother let out a long sigh of relief and laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re a clever young lady. I knew your good sense would win out.” She barely paused for breath before adding, “We should contact a modiste.”
“Mama. There’s no money for new dresses.”
Her mother squeezed her shoulder gently. “I’ve put some pounds aside. We must be prepared.”
“I intend to find the money to fund my device, Mama. Please know that I’m hoping Iwon’tbe going to the ball.”
After a moment her mother nodded, a taut smile stretching her lips. “We shall see.”
Diana placed a kiss on her mother’s cheek and strode to the room the family used as an office and library. She cut a square from a piece of foolscap, dipped a nib pen in the ink pot, and scratched out a note, not bothering with the precise penmanship she’d been taught at finishing school.
This move was a bold one. A risk, to be sure, but what did she have to lose?
When she’d finished and blown the ink dry, she folded her letter and slid it into an envelope, then added an address.
Aidan Iverson
c/o The Duke’s Den
St. James Street, London
She stared down at the words and dragged in a shaky breath.
Her knowledge of games of chance was limited to rounds of whist with her brother. Dom was the inveterate gambler in the family.
Diana prayed, in this gamble, her luck would be far better than his.
Chapter Seven
The woman was late.
Hours after his clash with Diana Ashby at the Duke’s Den, Aidan stood shrouded in darkness and watched for any movement beyond the windowpanes of the Earl of Wyndham’s St. James town house. Clouds hung low in the sky, blotting out the light of the moon and coating every surface in a steady drizzle.
But it wasn’t the cold or rain that caused a muscle to tick at the edge of his jaw. It was the waiting. Wasting minutes. He hated nothing so much as squandering time.
After flicking rain from his coat collar and lifting the fabric to shield his neck and face, he returned his gaze to the back garden of Wyndham House.
He couldn’t shake the sense of déjà vu and turned his head to glance down the row of houses, half expecting two thugs to materialize out of the fog.
His private inquiry agent had arranged the clandestine meeting with the earl’s housekeeper, but Aidan insisted on questioning the woman himself. Whatever information she possessed, it was his alone. No one else’s.
This time he’d come prepared. He gave his coat pocket a pat and felt the reassuring outline of a revolver. No thieving ruffians would spoil his plans this evening.
After the attack, he’d returned to Belgravia a week later and confronted Lord Talmudge, only to discover that the Mariah “Mary” Iverson who’d worked for him had been an aged widow who’d served briefly as governess. Far too old to have been the woman who’d given birth to two children during the period when Aidan and his sister were born.
