A Lady’s Rogue to Ruin (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #6)

Chapter 1

There had been a time in Blaze Jagger’s life—and not too long ago—when a ramble up Sloane Street would have been outside the realm of advisable.

In the eyes of the world, he was nothing more than an East End rogue, and this street was of that pure, rarified air of the haut ton.

But the usual that had been for most of his life hadn’t been the usual for the last two years of it.

Blaze Jagger had come up in the world, hadn’t he?

Now he had all the trappings—the fine, tailored togs; the flash gold pocket watch; the pinky ring with a sapphire the size of a back molar that he’d got off a swell who’d made the advisable choice to give up the ring for his gambling debts rather than an actual back molar.

And who said lords couldn’t be pragmatic?

Now, he could stroll along the freshly washed cobbles of Sloane Street to have tea with his sister, Lady Bea, a personage no less lofty than a capital L lady, as proud as he pleased and there wasn’t no one who could say naught to him about it.

Two years was enough time for the circumstances of a man’s life to have completely changed, wasn’t it?

For example, he no longer accepted back molars as payment for gambling debts.

Blaze Jagger, these last two years, was a man on the straight and narrow path.

If the straight and narrow path was wide enough to accommodate a man who was the majority stakes holder in the most exclusive gaming hell in London.

To his way of thinking, he rather thought it was.

Folk on the straight and narrow did enjoy their vices, after all.

So, he was a man with every right to be setting foot on Sloane Street.

The weather above, however, didn’t give two figs for neither man nor his perceived rights.

The weather—English weather, in the specific—had its own agenda in the game.

Which at this moment was to open the dark blanket of clouds above and pour rain down.

That said deluge landed directly on top of his spanking new silk top hat was of no consequence to the weather, either.

He cast his gaze about for shelter. The perfectly spaced plane trees lining the other side of the road would be of no use with the wind blowing sheets of rain sideways.

And with the solid row of townhouses standing shoulder-to-shoulder on his side of the street, he didn’t expect to find shelter there, either.

He’d had to buy himself a fancy townhouse to be admitted into one.

These wouldn’t be opening their doors to the likes of him.

Movement half a block up the street caught his eye. He squinted. What was that? A mass of folk, mostly gents, but a few women, too, crowding the front door of one townhouse in particular. It would be some sort of public place, wouldn’t it?

Shoulders hunched against the driving rain, Blaze’s feet were on the move without another moment’s hesitation, and soon he was at the back of the crowd.

They were a whispery, quiet lot. As he crossed the threshold of the establishment, he caught sight of an engraved brass plaque that, presumably, would be bearing the name.

He remained unelucidated.

And while he might yet persist in ignorance as to either the name or the purpose of this place, one thing he knew right off the bat was it wasn’t like any place he’d ever encountered.

It wasn’t the décor that was unusual, with all its tasteful woods and carpets that quieted a boot heel right down and oil paintings of boring, old countrysides.

When English folk wanted to tell a man very discreetly exactly how much blunt they’d squirreled away beneath the floorboards, this was how they decorated.

Naw.

It was the quiet.

He was six deep in this line that led to a front desk, and everyone in it was silent and still and when they did speak to the woman behind the desk, it was all hush-hush murmurs.

If he were mystically inclined, the word that would fit here was eerie.

But not a drop of mysticism flowed in his blood, and all he found himself was curious.

He didn’t have to stand in this line and talk to that woman. He could prop a shoulder against the front doorjamb, set his gaze out over Sloane Street, and wait out the storm. But something inside him kept him in this line and demanded he see what this place was all about.

When he made it to the front, he found himself confronted by two obstacles—the sour-faced matron with her black linen blouse buttoned up to her chin, giving him a thorough up-and-down, and a large open book on the table between them.

Best to deal with the woman first, he reckoned.

Her mouth opened, the heave-ho perched on those firm lips, but he was an old hand at the upstage and beat her to the first words between them. “What’s this place all about, anyway?”

A less-than-polite greeting, but they set the tone he wanted—of him in charge—and it wasn’t by politeness that he ever got anywhere in this old world.

The matron let a haughty few seconds pass, her dense black eyebrows making a run for the ceiling, before she said, “You’ve entered Sirens Circulating Library.

” She sniffed. “Are you a member? Or perhaps you’ve entered the wrong establishment?

” Her gaze narrowed on the diamond stud winking in his left ear.

“I’m thinking no to the former and yes to the latter.”

A tight smirk formed at the corners of her mouth. “Then I shall bid you good day.”

She began to turn away, and Blaze experienced a sizzle of irritation. Nothing would delight him more than to wipe that smirk right off her face. Toward that end, he asked, “How much?”

Membership—that meant money.

Which he had.

Mountains of it, in fact.

A fact that would needle beneath this woman’s skin no end.

Again, her eyebrows were breaking for the ceiling. “I beg your pardon?”

Blaze reached inside his chartreuse paisley waistcoat—he’d heard his penchant for dressing in bold colors described as garish on more than a few occasions—and pulled out three guineas. “Will this suffice?”

Round as saucers, the woman’s eyes went.

He never did get tired of seeing his blunt have that effect on the unsuspecting.

“Erm…” She cleared her throat. “Quite.” She reached for a book from a shelf behind her and set it directly on top of the book on the table and opened it.

With its neat lines and columns, Blaze knew it for a ledger.

She placed a ruler across and bisected the page with a straight line, creating a new column.

“If you would fill out your name and address, Mr.…” she said, leadingly, her tone gone miraculously civil.

Amazing what miracles a few guineas could magic up.

“Jagger,” he said. “Blaze Jagger of Tichborne Street.”

Two years ago, upon acquiring his majority share in The Archangel, he’d bought a fancy townhouse on a fancy Mayfair street to go with his fancy new job title.

Not that he slept there two nights out of ten.

It was the principle.

He plunked a fourth guinea down onto the blank line. “And would you be a pet and fill that in for me?” he asked, all charming rogue. His usual X would give the game away. “And what’s your name, if I may be a bold one?”

He knew the effect his densely lashed gray eyes wrought upon the female sex. For good measure, he brought out his dimples, too.

A smile twitched about the woman’s mouth. This one lacking a smirk. “I’m Mrs. Dunlevy, and, of course, Mr. Jagger.”

And like that, Mr. Blaze Jagger was a member of Sirens Circulating Library.

He felt like a traveler to a foreign land as he entered the room to the left and found himself surrounded by books…

everywhere. Shelves and shelves of books, from floor to ceiling on the four walls…

stacked on the room’s central table…held in the hands of members sitting in leather chairs, sunk deep into the contents of what they were reading.

And in the next room, it was mostly the same, except the contents were newspapers of all sorts.

Then in yet another room, it was back to books, but less crowded. These must be the dry, old boring ones, then.

It all smelled like wood and leather and dust—earthy. It should’ve been off-putting. It wasn’t. He’d never partaken of this scent, God’s truth.

His snout picked up other scents, too. Crisp and clean, yet warm, as if baking was happening in the kitchen.

Welcoming. It was the strangest sensation, but there was this feeling in the center of his chest like he’d come home.

What was peculiar about it was that no home he’d ever occupied was like this place.

Yet the feeling had taken up house inside him.

He stepped to a wall of shelving and slid out a random book. Just before he opened it, he brought the spine to his nose and inhaled, confirming the scent. It settled deep in his lungs. If someone could bottle this, they’d make a quick quid.

“Oh,” came a bright, female voice, “are you an admirer of Tacitus’s Annals, too?”

Blaze’s nose startled back from the book, but rather than immediately swivel around, he let his mind work out a few details about the possessor of that question first.

It wasn’t Mrs. Dunlevy.

The owner of this voice was a few decades younger.

Also, she was a lady.

No mistaking it.

So, a young-ish lady, then.

For reasons both general and specific, he steered clear of capital L ladies.

But every last one of those reasons deserted him the instant he turned and beheld the capital L lady before him.

One would forgive a man for thinking he’d died and gone to heaven.

This lady was an angel with her bright inquisitive eyes that held no malintent; her strawberry-blonde hair coming loose from the twist at her neck; the demure muslin dress that revealed not an inch of improprietous skin, but all her curves that zigged, then zagged in all the right places beneath.

But Blaze knew he hadn’t died for one very simple reason.

When he did bite the dust, his immortal soul wouldn’t be ascending to heaven, and the likes of this capital L lady wouldn’t be there to greet him where he surely was going.