1
London, England
March 1822
Adolphus Merrick, the third Earl of Kendal, had been accused many times in his life of being unfeeling. It was a claim he did not refute. Why would he when it so often played to his benefit?
He slid a cool glance toward his left where his sister, Lady Marguerite Merrick, stood in men’s attire. She had gone without the concealment of the mask she usually wore when overseeing Mercy’s Door, the gaming hell they owned together. After all, she was well acquainted with Lord Gullsville. He was one of the few members of the ton who knew her true identity.
It was through his generosity that she had been spared.
But Lord Gullsville didn’t regard her with equal fondness at present. He flicked a nervous glance in her direction. “She doesn’t have to be here, does she?”
Irritation squeezed at Kendal’s gut as he surmised at that moment what the other man wanted.
Money.
Again.
“She’s as much of a part of this operation as I am,” Kendal replied dryly. “As you well know.”
Gullsville ran a hand over his cropped, silver hair.
“You’ve requested an audience with me.” Kendal leaned back in his seat, putting himself at ease when the other man was so clearly in discomfort. “Why?”
“Fox’s Den,” Gullsville muttered the name of Kendal’s rival gaming hell with a fitting level of shame.
“I beg your pardon?” Kendal asked, despite having heard perfectly well the first time.
Gullsville lifted his head in agitation. The tip of his straight nose was threaded with spidery veins, and his eyes were perpetually bloodshot. A habitual drinker. One who had not honored his family properly after his wife had passed.
If he hadn’t saved Marguerite...
“Fox’s Den,” Lord Gullsville repeated with vehemence.
Why was it that sods in trouble became angry at the ones there to help them out?
Marguerite cast Kendal a sympathetic shake of her head. She always did have a soft spot for the older man.
Still, Kendal was loathe to open his safe to the man. Especially after the Earl of Gullsville had burned through his own annual income and an additional two thousand pounds Kendal had graciously loaned him.
“How much do you owe this time?” Kendal drawled out.
In response, Gullsville exhaled heavily. A wash of his sour breath swept over the short distance of the desk.
Kendal kept his face impassive, but his stomach twisted—more with dread than at offense at the odor.
Lord Gullsville had never hesitated to speak a number before. Whatever the man had to say would not be good.
Gullsville pressed his lips shut, opening them as he took a breath in preparation to speak. “Th…three…”
Kendal gritted his teeth. “Three hundred?” He kept his voice intentionally bland to conceal his growing aggravation.
The man winced, evidently aware of how abysmal his situation was due to his vice.
Kendal had a reputation for being unfeeling, yes, but in truth, he was not. In fact, he cared too much.
He could not airily push aside his loyalty to the man who had saved Marguerite when Kendal had nowhere else to turn.
Nor could he nudge away the knowledge that Gullsville had a son who would someday inherit the earldom—however tattered it might be—and a married daughter and a younger unwed daughter who had yet to set her heart on a beau. The latter was a lovely thing, one with enough interest to choose any husband she wanted. And unfortunately, one who appeared to be in no hurry to stop spending her father’s dwindling funds and settle down.
No, he couldn’t leave the man destitute.
“Three hundred?” Kendal repeated for confirmation as he pushed up to his feet. “This is the last time, Gullsville.”
“Three thousand.” Lord Gullsville expelled the appalling number from his chest in a puffed exhale.
Kendal froze. Marguerite’s eyes shot to his, conveying the same horror that was now crystalizing like ice in his veins.
“You are aware we are not a bank?” Kendal regarded the man.
“It is a considerable sum, yes, I know,” Gullsville rushed. “I was down. I didn’t want to come to you again and thought I could win. I was so close, but the other man had an ace. An ace.” He balled his hand into a fist. “If it had been any other card, any other…” His voice trailed off as he watched Kendal.
Gullsville gave a hard swallow. “You aren’t going to help me, are you?”
“You ask too much,” Marguerite said.
He swung his attention toward her and his expression crumpled with desperation. “My son must have something left to inherit. And my Sophia is still unwed. You wouldn’t have them to suffer the faults of their wretched father, would you?”
Marguerite looked away. A certain indicator her resolve was cracking.
“I saved you.” Gullsville’s words were whispered, but they rang out in the room like a gunshot.
“Don’t.” Kendal was in front of the older man in a flash.
Marguerite turned her head more firmly away. No longer the strong, confident figure she’d become, but once more the damaged girl.
But then, everyone had their Achilles’ heel, didn’t they?
The earl knew both of theirs, and he was digging into those tender wounds with meat hooks.
Gullsville ignored Kendal, his gaze fixed pointedly on Marguerite. “I saved you when you would have otherwise been ruined. You owe this to me.”
Kendal blocked the older man’s view of Marguerite. “Gullsville, I warn you—”
“If it weren’t for me, your sister would be just as tarnished as your mother.” Gullsville curled his lip. “Just another whore.”
Kendal’s fist shot out before he could even think to stop it. Not that he would have.
His knuckles connected with Gullsville’s jaw with an intensity that made the older man’s head jerk upright. His lashes didn’t so much as flutter as he collapsed gracelessly to the floor.
Silence filled the small room. Kendal put his back to the earl and regarded his sister. Her eyes, a deep brown that was nearly black, so like his own—so like their mother’s—were wide with a vulnerability he hadn’t seen in years.
It made the place inside him that needed to protect, that wound that would never fully heal, split open. He wanted to tell her all would be well. And he wanted to say it without lying.
“Are you all right?” he asked tentatively.
Her pointed chin notched, and her eyes flashed with defiance. “Of course, I am.” She withdrew a black mask from her jacket pocket. The thing fit her from forehead to chin and obscured all of the beauty she’d inherited from their mother. Which was exactly what Marguerite wanted.
The disguise had left their patrons talking for years about Marcus, the name Marguerite had adopted, with conjecture and wild assumptions. It was rumored Marcus was really a duke determined to protect his identity. Or he was a victim of a terrible fire that had burned most of his body and left him horribly disfigured.
On and on the speculation went, growing more preposterous as time carried on. Yet no one assumed the most amazing truth of all: Marcus was Marguerite, a woman who shunned society and the ton's hypocrites. A woman who once resigned herself to life in the country before fighting for a chance to come back and thrive in London the only way she could bear.