Page 4 of A Cinderella to Redeem the Earl
Impossible. There was no way he would entertain second thoughts. Her father had ruined his family so she could live off the fat of the land while they languished in misery in France. She, and the family of the other man who had profited from the fraud perpetrated on his father, were going to suffer the same fate.
He deliberately recalled his father’s agony as his mother wasted away from some horrible disease in what was little more than a slum. It was the night she died that Damian had learned who had brought about his family’s downfall and made him promise to avenge his mother’s death.
After her death his father lost all hope. Night after night he drank himself into oblivion until he finally succumbed.
If only Damian had been able to do more, provide more, he might have been able to save them both. The guilt of it racked him. He could have done more if he had not let his scruples get in the way. He’d been offered a chance to participate in a lucrative robbery, but the sight of the pistols and knives to be used if anyone got in the way had deterred him. At fifteen he still had notions of honour and right and wrong.
Until the night his mother had died and he learned the truth about the way his father had been lured into debt by a man he trusted and then who denied any knowledge of the plot and refused to help.
If Damian had taken the opportunity, his parents might be alive today to enjoy their old age in security and comfort. All he could do now was keep his promise to his father and bring to justice those who had profited from their downfall.
He hardened his heart against the fleeting memory: a fascinating dimple in one soft cheek when a small smile curved her lips.
He cared nothing for her innocence or her reduced circumstances.Hehad been innocent, before he had been forced grow up among the stews of Marseilles. Innocence had offeredhimno protection. Scruples were nothing but a dead weight.
He entered what had once been his father’s study—his own study now. It smelled of mould and dust. One day he would restore the house to its former glory. Perhaps. Or maybe, once his goal was accomplished, he would leave it to rot and move on. Only bitter memories and regrets remained for him here.
There was no need to think about the future. Right now, he had to focus on the task at hand. Bringing his enemies to their respective knees.
The thought usually warmed him. Tonight, it left him feeling hollow. Perhaps because there was much left to be done and he wanted it over.
Pip, his friend who had helped him survive the streets of Marseilles, was one of those rare fair-haired men from the north of France. Glass in hand, he pushed his lanky six-foot frame from the overstuffed chair beside the hearth and went to the desk. ‘Brandy,mon ami?’ he asked.
Damian sighed. ‘Brandy would not come amiss.’
Pip poured him a generous serving from the decanter. They chinked glasses and Damian gestured for Pip to sit. They had been together for so long they needed no ceremony. Pip was his partner in some would call it crime—Damian called it justice.
‘Everything is ready for tomorrow evening?’ Damian asked.
‘Of course.’ Pip’s French accent was hardly discernible. Barely twenty-five and smart as a whip. That was what living on the streets since birth did for a chap.
Damian had been lucky to meet the younger man or the streets might have eaten him alive, he had been such a Johnny Raw. He still didn’t know what had moved Pip to befriend him rather than take advantage of his naivety. Together they had run rings around the local gendarmes.
But that was in the past. Now, after years of living in the backstreets of Marseilles, he was home. And he was well on the way to accomplishing all he had dreamed of these past fifteen years: revenge.
A return, with interest, for what had been done to him and his family by two self-serving noblemen. It wouldn’t happen overnight, of course. But his plans were well underway. Already, news of the exciting new club called The Rake Hell, a short drive from Mayfair, had spread far and wide among the younger members of theton.
Pretty soon, his fish would be in his net.
‘The cook has arrived,’ he said.
Pip cocked an eyebrow. ‘Is she as you expected?’
‘More or less.’ More and less. More beautiful. Less pliable, but not invulnerable.
‘We will have no more complaints from Chandon about feeding riff-raff who don’t appreciate his talents,’ Damien said. ‘If she is half the cook she claims to be.’
Pip chuckled. ‘The staff will be pleased if it is so. The meal Betsy cooked last week wasn’t fit to feed to a pig. How many will attend this week?’
‘At least thirty, by my reckoning. About a third of them female companions.’ Up from the twenty last week. ‘Now I wait for the other one to fall into our net and the real game can begin. In the meantime, we are making a fortune. The future bodes well.’
‘You are a lucky devil, Damian.’
‘So they say.’ His luck at the tables was legendary. He was counting on it to hold.
After the successes of the past few weeks, every gentleman in London would do anything to receive one of his prized invitations to an evening at the exclusive Rake Hell Club. It catered to only the richest and most well-connected members of theton—and their vices. Their need for excitement and titillation. Like children.
To Damian, the tables were the most important part of his venture, but the draw for his patrons was the club’s exclusivity and its upstairs rooms. A sprat to catch a mackerel.
