Chapter 12
THE ARCHANGEL, A FEW DAYS LATER
As Blaze sat across from Lady Bea, he marveled at how startlingly himself he must appear as he lounged in the chair opposite her, sprawled with his usual insouciance, tea arranged on the table between them.
Truly a feat when his insides had been twisted tight as a sailor’s knot these last few days. For if anyone would notice something rotten with him, it would be this lady with her keen gray eyes that were a perfect match to his.
He’d received a note first thing this morning that Lady Bea wanted to come and have tea with him this afternoon at The Archangel.
And he never said no to a visit from his sister.
Half-sister—but that didn’t matter.
Though she’d only known about him these last two years, he’d known about her most of his life. He’d always liked the idea of this sister. Then he’d met her and had immediately taken to her for herself.
“And The Archangel continues to do good business?” she asked to fill a break in conversation that had probably gone on too long.
“Good isn’t how those old moralizers amongst us would say it, but it’s making money hand over fist, in a manner of speaking.”
He’d already been a wealthy man when Acaster and Tessa cut him in to the club, but The Archangel was a sweet little moneymaker.
There was no denying the fact. It was why they were opening up shop in Brighton.
He’d pitched it as an expansion of their interests, and the duke’s eyes had lit up into the brightest blue one ever saw.
The man had been put on God’s green earth to invest in new ventures.
So, soon there would be an Archangel in Brighton.
“You’re quite skilled at making money hand over fist, aren’t you?” Lady Bea asked on a laugh.
He shrugged. Oh, he liked to see that pile grow, that was a fact, because the thing about money was it was useful. It put one in position to act on opportunities. But enough about him… “Do you ever miss writing for those turf rags?”
She smiled. “Who says I don’t occasionally dip my toes into those waters?”
“That so?”
“Lady Godiva Gallop is more exclusive these days. Let’s call her a special correspondent for the season’s major races.”
Lady Bea had grown up on the turf, dragged from horse race to horse race by her father, the Marquess of Lydon.
Well, Lydon wasn’t only Lady Bea’s father; he happened to be Blaze’s, too.
But Blaze had been born on the wrong side of the blanket.
Not that he’d missed anything by not having Lydon play Pa for him.
But while they were on the subject of Lady Bea’s writing, he had a question for her. “What do you know about novels?”
“I enjoy reading them.”
“You strike me as the sort who could write a novel if you put your mind to it.”
“Oh, I have.”
He sat forward in his chair. “Have you now?”
“Well, it’s still in process.” She didn’t look inclined to say more than that.
“Is it a romance?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“So, you haven’t sent it out to be published?”
She shook her head. Though she didn’t speak the words, her eyes were encouraging him to get to the point.
“And when you do decide to get published,” he continued, accommodating her impatience, “would you send it to an outfit like Sirens Publishing?”
She nodded, slowly, considering the question. “They’re young and new to the world of publishing,” she said. “But, yes, I most definitely would.”
“Why is that?”
“Because the ladies who run it have very good heads on their shoulders and are well on their way to making a success of their venture.” Her head canted, eyes slightly narrowed. “The Ladies Saskia and Viveca are the sisters of your business partners, correct?”
He nodded.
“So, I suppose you’ve met them, then.”
“Can’t say I have. Perhaps…perhaps not.” He attempted to shrug with indifference. “I meet lots of folk.”
It was only half a lie.
He’d never met Lady Saskia.
“Oh, you would remember,” said Lady Bea on a laugh. “One doesn’t forget the Ladies Saskia and Viveca Calthorp.”
“Now why is that?”
He knew why—a whole host of whys, in fact—but he wanted to hear Lady Bea’s host of whys.
“For one,” she began, “they are absolute knockers. The loveliest pair of ladies to enter the haut ton in a decade. And for another, they are intelligent and rather forward with that intelligence. Beautiful, intelligent, and fearless. One doesn’t forget them.”
He whistled. “I reckon one wouldn’t.”
He couldn’t rightly say why his insides were all in a tumult as Lady Bea described the Ladies Saskia and Viveca. He couldn’t speak to the one sister, but he could to the other—intimately—and nothing Lady Bea had said was off the mark.
Viveca was beautiful, intelligent, and fearless.
And she’d asked him to marry her.
His little old brain still had a hard time comprehending that one.
And he’d said no.
Of course, he’d said no.
No was the only option under the circumstances.
Yet there was a part of him left wondering about that no.
And now here was Lady Bea, sitting across from him, watching him with her head cocked and that look in her eyes—the look that saw too much and didn’t mind if you knew it.
Crikes, but hadn’t he acquired a bevy of interesting and observant women in his life these last two years?
Was the universe trying to teach him something?
And if that were the case, then what exactly was the universe trying to teach him by putting Lady Viveca Calthorp in his life?
And for the record, he didn’t think the universe gave a rap if he could read, so it wasn’t trying to teach him that.
He needed a distraction—and he had just the one. He reached for the little box under his chair and set it on the table between them. “Lest I forget, Lady Bea.” He slid a dainty pink-and-white striped box toward her.
“For me?” she asked, her eyes lighting up.
He nodded.
She unknotted the ribbon, lifted the lid, and there sat four perfect chocolate bon-bons. “Oh,” she sighed, lifting the white one and taking a little nibble.
They could be here for a while, for Lady Bea never devoured a chocolate in a single bite.
She treated each and every one like a precious thing.
It was that upbringing with Lydon that made her so, Blaze understood.
He might’ve been born on the wrong side of the blanket, but he’d had the better bargain, family-wise.
The chocolates, however, served another purpose beyond pleasing Lady Bea—they’d distracted her, too.
Once finished with the one bon-bon and having settled back into her chair with a second, she said, “I have news.”
He’d figured, given the short notice of this tea. “What’s that?”
“I am with child.”
Even as a smile tipped his mouth, he said, teasing. “Sounds biblical.”
She laughed. “Well, my husband is Lord Devil.”
“Naw, none of that,” said Blaze, speaking from the heart in a way that was rare. “I suppose your little sprig is going to be a little angel.”
“And why do you suppose that?”
“Because you’ll be his or her mam.”
“Oh, Blaze,” she said, swiping at her eyes of a sudden.
“Aw, have I gone and made you cry now?”
“They’re good tears, brother.”
Brother.
The word caused a constriction inside his chest in a way so closely resembling joy that it must be.
“I’m happy for you,” he said, then added, “sister.”
She dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “He or she will arrive right around Christmas.”
“What better gift?”
“I can’t think of one.”
“And this life you have with Dev,” Blaze found himself asking, “you like it?”
“I love it.”
“How is that, you know,” he said, gone awkward. “The sharing of a life?”
Why had his palms gone slick?
“It comes with its compromises and little difficulties,” she said. “But that’s to be expected. The thing is when one likes and loves the other person, you work it out.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“Well, it is once one gives over.”
Once one gives over.
Something Blaze had never done in his life.
He wasn’t the giving over sort.
That single characteristic, more than any other he possessed, formed the foundation of all he’d built.
Blaze Jagger didn’t give over—you’d have to plow through him, first.
But the way Lady Bea said it just now lent the notion appeal.
Head tilted to one side, she asked, “What’s this all about, Blaze? Is there something I should know about?” Now, her eyes were narrowing again. “Or perhaps someone?”
She didn’t look inclined to let up. A family trait, possibly. For though Lydon was a rotter and a wastrel, through and through, he was determined at it, wasn’t he?
But Blaze understood he could tell Lady Bea much, but not everything.
He couldn’t tell her that he’d recently been asked to share a life with another person.
He couldn’t tell her that person was Lady Viveca Calthorp—Viveca.
Lady Bea didn’t press it and instead asked, “Are your mam and granddad well?”
“They’re all right.”
Though she wasn’t related to Mam and Granddad, Lady Bea always asked about them. She knew how important they were to him, and that was enough for them to be important to her.
A tap sounded on the door just before it cracked open, a dark head appearing. “Boss?”
Dupratt—The Archangel’s floor manager and a ten-percent stakeholder in the club.
It had been a condition of Tessa’s that both Dupratt and Ricard, The Archangel’s trusted doorman, each have a cut for Blaze to be able to hold the majority.
Rather than taking offense, Blaze had recognized the wisdom of the deal.
If one wanted to learn something about life, one didn’t have to look much farther than Tessa.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s half-five.”
Blaze nodded and returned his attention to Lady Bea, who had already risen with her reticule and box of chocolates. “Dev will send out a search party if I’m not home when I said I would be, which is six o’clock.”
“Good lad,” said Blaze, accompanying Lady Bea from the office and out to the balcony that overlooked the main floor of the club.
Done in warm woods, brass fittings, and masculine leathers, The Archangel was all quiet class, not a hint of flash about it.
Well, except for Blaze Jagger. But the regulars, they liked that, didn’t they?
A familiar environment with an edge of danger about it.
Made their gouty, aristocratic hearts beat just that much faster, didn’t it?
He thought of himself as an enlivening asset.
“Any notable luminaries lighting up the roulette wheel that I should know about?” he asked, his gaze roving across a thin sea of top-hatted heads. The night was yet young.
“Not unless you count the Marquess of Lydon in that number,” said Dupratt.
Blaze felt Lady Bea tense beside him, even as his own body suffered through its familiar reaction at the sound of that name—a twisting of the gut, the unconscious clenching of his hands, the instinct to suck his teeth.
Still, he said in his usual loose way, “Give him the usual hour, then suggest he ply his fortunes elsewhere.”
Though he’d made great strides these last few years, Blaze could only tolerate the idea of being in the same building as Lydon for so long. He wouldn’t be able to relax until the marquess had vacated the premises.
“Why is Lydon here?” Lady Bea hissed at his side.
She’d want to know, wouldn’t she? “Better his debt stays in the family, no?”
Her straight dark eyebrows crashed together. “Are you continuing to collect his debt?”
He hesitated. But it was no use… “I am.”
The truth was he didn’t know precisely why he continued to hold and collect Lydon’s gambling notes. He’d started several years back—nearly as soon as he had two sovereigns to rub together—and hadn’t been able to break the habit.
At first, it had been to ruin the man. For to ruin Lydon had been his goal from the moment he’d learned the identity of his father, even at the tender age of seven years old.
His rise in London’s underworld had been fueled by it—vengeance against the man who had broken the heart of his sweet mam, who’d never done another living being harm in her four-and-forty years.
It had incited the sort of fury in a son that never quite quenched.
He’d named him right, his granddad had.
Blaze.
Then, two years ago, his vengeful trajectory had shifted course, first by Tessa Siren, then by his half-sister, Lady Bea.
Now he no longer held the notes to ruin Lydon.
Rather, he held them out of habit and a nagging sense of obligation to Lady Bea.
A need to protect her from their father.
She’d experienced a terrible upbringing with Lydon, and Blaze would ensure she was never impacted by that rotter’s profligacy ever again.
Not that her husband, Dev—Lord Devil—would ever let that happen, either.
From the sea of top hats arranged around a roulette table, a head tipped back and a ruddy, jovial face turned their way. “Well, well, well,” shouted Lydon, a hand cupped to his mouth, “look at this!” His guffaw echoed through the club. “If it ain’t a family reunion!”
A few laughs sounded around, though there wasn’t much amusement behind them.
Blaze’s status as the Marquess of Lydon’s bastard wasn’t common knowledge, though it could be if one actually looked at Blaze.
He was almost the split of the old wastrel.
Well, those society folk never did see what they didn’t want to, and didn’t it just suit him fine?
Lady Bea gave a little wave and snorted as Lydon got back to his gaming. “Look how charmed they all are by him.”
Blaze felt his jaw tense and release. The thing was folk were charmed by Lydon. A little aggravation, that, seeing as how his looks and determination weren’t the only characteristics he’d inherited from the man. His charm was a gift from the old rotter, too.
Once Lady Bea was seated inside her carriage, and just before Blaze closed the door, she said, “Oh, you’ll attend my musicale this Tuesday?”
“Naw, I thought—”
“The Ladies Saskia and Viveca Calthorp will be there, of course.” Was that a sparkle in her eye? “You can meet them, at last.”
Blaze’s tongue became a tangle in his mouth.
“Well, give it a think, won’t you?” And with that, she tapped the ceiling, and the carriage lurched into the motion.
And there was Blaze standing in the street, watching the carriage roll away.
The thing was, he wouldn’t have to wait until Tuesday to see Lady Viveca Calthorp.
He was going to see her tonight.
In a few hours, in fact.
He owed her this one last night.
And then they would be all even—no one could claim breach of contract—and they never had to see each other again.
At least, that was what the logic said.
But Viveca?
She didn’t abide by any logic other than her own.