Page 66 of The Danger of Desire
Sixteen
Warren gazed at the woman he meant to marry, the woman who’d gone strangely silent and wary. But he wouldn’t take back his words. The very thought of Delia trying to blackmail some card cheat made his blood run cold. If he’d had any idea she was plotting such a mad thing, he’d have fought harder to stop her earlier.
“Are you forbidding me to continue looking for the card cheat?” she asked with deceptive calm.
Uh-oh. “I’m saying that since the situation with Camden Hall will be handled by me and my attorneys, there’s no longer any reason for you to search for this fellow and risk your very life to get money from him.”
“I still can’t let him get away with what he did. Surely you see that.”
A vise tightened around his gut. “So itisrevenge that you seek. Not just money.”
Hanging her bonnet from the latch on the window, she headed for the spiral staircase. “Can you blame me? My brother died because he was so distraught over what he’d done that he stumbled off a bridge. If not for that blasted lord—”
“I realize that.” Warren was missing something here. Why did she so directly connect her brother’s death with his losing all the family funds? Men got drunk and stumbled into rivers and lakes all the time. The drowning could have been just a tragic accident.
Not that he would be able to convinceherof that. She was clearly consumed by the idea of avenging her brother’s death. “Nonetheless, revenge is another of those dangerous games that rarely turn out the way you plan.”
“How would you know?” she clipped out.
“Trust me, I do.” He’d seen what had happened when Niall had taken his just vengeance on Clarissa’s attacker. “I understand how you feel, probably better than you can imagine. So if you’re determined to exact revenge, I can take care of that, too.”
She halted to regard him warily. “What do you mean?”
“God, I know I’m going to regret what I’m about to say,” he mumbled. “But if you really want me to, I’ll root out your card cheat on my own and get him to admit to what he did.”
“How?”
“By asking questions of the right people. It should be easier for me than it was for you or Owen. A lord showing a casual interest in another lord won’t be considered suspect.”
She sighed. “But as the new brother-in-law of the late Mr. Trevor, you’ll be more suspect. So ifyoustart asking questions, everyone will know why. And no one will admit the truth.”
“I can be discreet. One of the hallmarks of the St. George’s Club is discretion. Among our members are the former investigator Lord Rathmoor, and Lord Fulkham, undersecretary of state for war and the colonies. Either of them might know something. And the club exists to look into troublesome matters for the women in members’ lives.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Really? Aunt Agatha says your club exists so men can get together and gossip.”
He bit back a smile. “That, too. We do drink and play cards and the like there. Itisstill a gentlemen’s club, after all.”
Hope lit her face. “And you would seriously pursue my card cheat for me?”
“Do you think I’m lying about it?” he asked quietly.
“No! I mean... it’s just that—”
“—you’ve already been lied to a great deal by the men in your life. I’m right, aren’t I?”
With a terse nod, she turned away to climb the first flight of the staircase. He ascended behind her in silence, wondering if she would reveal anything else.
When she reached the next floor, she released a shuddering breath. “My father often made empty promises to us. ‘This is the place we’ll settle, my darling,’ he’d say to Mama. Or he’d tell me, ‘Here we’ll stay for good, my girl.’ ”
She hardened her voice. “But then, it was always, ‘Next time, dear. We have to leave town now—things have grown sticky with that club owner.’ Or ‘I heard that there’s lots of money to be made these days in Nice.’ He dragged us across half of Europe, following rumors about pigeons ripe for the plucking. If he hadn’t won Camden Hall in that card game, I daresay he’d still be at it.”
Coming up beside her, Warren placed his hands on her waist. “As I recall, your brother also promised to stop gambling, then headed off to London to lose all his money.”
“Exactly. He railed against the life of a serious gambler. Wouldn’t even go to the city. He was always saying he couldn’t afford to leave the estate because of one thing or another.”
“I remember your aunt saying he wouldn’t even take the time to give you a proper debut.”
“Yes.” She gazed off past him to the window that showed the forest beyond. “But I suspect it was more a matter of money than time. The estate was already in a bad way when Papa won it. It took a lot of workandready blunt. Plus, Reynold said he wanted to bring it up to snuff not by seeking an infusion of capital from gambling but by managing the place properly—investing in better crops, helping his tenants improve their farming practices.”
