Chapter Two #2
She would have loved to argue this point in other circumstances. “How singularly blessed you are in that regard.”
Another of those minute little pauses ensued, during which she sensed she was being continually assessed, and it was impossible
to know whether it was to her advantage.
“To the matter at hand . . . ” he continued. He pushed the little paper-wrapped bundle over to her. “We finally managed to disentangle
the Earl of Highgrove’s cravat from the chandelier. He lost his grip while he was twirling it around his head whilst dancing
on the billiards table. I’m afraid there’s a slight singe mark where it struck a candle. Thankfully the cravat didn’t become
a wick and light the entire premises on fire. We were unable to repair the singe, but there’s no charge for the laundering.
Just one of the many benefits of membership at Lucifer’s Fall.”
This was a dizzying amount of new information to take in at once.
She gingerly dragged the bundled cravat toward her.
Despite everything, her heart squeezed at the idea of her shy, gangly brother dancing with happy abandon. Ever since their
parents’ accident, he’d been conservative in speech and motion, unfailingly punctual and scrupulously polite and thoughtful.
As if in so doing he could forestall chaos and impose some sort of order on the shocking caprices of fate.
“Thank you.” It was difficult to deny that laundry service was a clever benefit. “Obviously my brother got his money’s worth
from the evening.” She said this a trifle bitterly.
Mr. Marchand merely nodded slightly.
“I don’t think Hogarth has ever been drunk before. Not even at university.”
“That much was clear to everyone witnessing the event.”
Oddly, he didn’t make it sound like a compliment.
“Hogarth is in fact quite shy, dutiful, and studious,” she pressed on. “A very sweet young man. I’m fairly certain he’s never
gambled outside the pennies we use to play whist at home. He has always been cautious and responsible in all matters. He has
never once put a foot wrong in his life . . . until he entered Lucifer’s Fall.”
Mr. Marchand was not taken in by her melodramatic pause. “It’s difficult to predict what a gentleman might do whilst drunk.
Overcome a phobia. Dance on tables. Gamble away his inheritance. That sort of thing.”
And thusly he’d steered them to the crux of the meeting.
She gathered her nerve. “Given his obvious inexperience and youth and naivete, I suppose I’m wondering why you allowed him to lose so much money.”
She said this mildly. But her heart was jabbing away in her throat.
“Why I let him lose . . . ” he repeated slowly, marveling. He studied her, idly tapping his fingers. “Miss Woodville, did you happen
to read the sign at the front of this building?”
He said this mildly. She wasn’t fooled. Nothing about him was mild.
“The one that says ‘Lucifer’s Fall’? It’s a very fine sign. Discreet. Exquisite lettering.”
“And are you familiar with the biblical story of Lucifer and his alleged plummet from grace?”
“Oh, that Lucifer? Yes, I’ve heard of him.”
“Very good. Does the name Lucifer’s Fall then strike you as the name of a nursery?”
“It wouldn’t be my first choice for a nursery, granted. ‘Kittens and Unicorns’ might be more appropriate.”
She didn’t know how he’d gotten those faint lines around his eyes, but she was growing more certain it wasn’t from laughing.
“Perhaps, then, Miss Woodville, you’ll agree that the name of this establishment implies the nature of the risk inherent in
entering it.”
In other words, ruination and falling from grace were built right into the name.
“More of that irony you enjoy, I expect, Mr. Marchand.”
“Indeed. I would have named it Kittens and Unicorns if I felt it captured the sort of experience my customers are seeking.”
She considered pointing out Kittens and Unicorns would also be ironic, and thought better of it.
“But you admit there is a risk inherent in entering your premises.”
“There is a risk in getting out of bed in the morning, Miss Woodville.” He sounded indulgent and almost bored. This was her
least favorite way for men to sound. “I was assured by the earl—Hogarth, if you will—when I interviewed him for membership
that he has reached his majority. Is this not true?”
“He is twenty-one. I am older by three years.” She was feeling older by the minute.
“In other words, yes, he has reached his majority. When he requested a tour of Lucifer’s Fall, he professed flattering admiration
for all we offer and told me he’d long yearned to be a member. He struck me as gracious, pleasant, and mature. He was also,
he assured me, deep of pocket. Which is essential, as the gentlemen at Lucifer’s Fall expect deep play from fellow members.”
Marchand returned to his sheaf of papers. “This”—he pushed a document over to her from his hatefully efficient little stack—“is
the agreement your brother signed when he applied for membership at Lucifer’s Fall, agreeing to the membership fees and to
the rules regarding conduct, discretion, debts, and payments.”
She glanced down at it. There was Hogarth’s signature, tidy and even apart from big, silly loops on his “l”s.
It gutted her to think that her bashful brother had secretly yearned for something so louche.
He’d never made friends easily. He snorted when he laughed, and he laughed when he was nervous.
She could easily imagine Hogarth laughing and snorting during his tour of Lucifer’s Fall, because he would have been desperate to impress Marchand, whose charisma was engulfing.
Ginny breathed carefully through a fresh surge of righteous anger.
Mr. Marchand thoughtfully drummed his fingers again. “Miss Woodville. You look as though you might have a brain in your head.”
“Well. Faint praise is better than none, I suppose,” she said brightly.
“So no doubt you understand that those not fortunate enough to be born into wealth and status must forge their own ways in
life, using the skills and experience at their disposal. Would you agree that everyone is entitled to a chance to prosper?”
If he thought he could persuade her that running a gaming hell was a legitimate and perfectly reasonable vocation for any
man, regardless of his social status, he was sorely misguided.
“Oh, I think I take your point,” she said brightly. “And if you’re referring to yourself, Mr. Marchand, I think it was very
clever of you to discover a way to exploit wealthy men for profit.”
He went rigid.
And then he leaned back so very slowly in his chair she was reminded of Dot lowering the tea tray. More accurately: of an
arrow being primed for launching.
A scary glint in his eye suggested that he’d just been thrown his favorite red meat.
It was a moment before he spoke.
“Bored, wealthy men are indeed one of England’s greatest resources.
But do we exploit chickens for their eggs?
Do we exploit sheep for their wool?” He paused.
“Do pretty, penniless women exploit wealthy men when they marry for money?” He’d lowered his voice confidingly, which started a traitorous, fuzzy heat at the back of her neck, as if he’d blown a breath there.
She cleared her throat again. She was parched from nerves; a gentleman would have offered her tea. She would not even have
rejected a glass of something stronger. Marchand clearly intended to hasten her out of here.
“Quite apart from the fact that those are all debatable and perhaps even specious examples,” she continued recklessly, and
had the satisfaction of witnessing that scary glint flash again, “all the things you mentioned have in common some useful
societal function.”
“So your position is that any male recreation that serves no redeeming social purpose is contemptible.” This he said neutrally,
as though humoring a madwoman.
She was beginning to feel the impact of their exchange in her back teeth, as though they were instead swinging broadswords
at each other. She resented Marchand’s immovable calm in the face of her barely contained, sweaty desperation, his glossy
confidence, the almost banal efficiency with which he conducted a business built on terrifying gains and losses and the destruction
of lives, the fact that his waistcoat, striped in chestnut and pewter and done up with silver buttons, looked gorgeous with
his coloring. Unusual yet tasteful, dashing without being gawdy. Perfection.
“There’s always cricket, I suppose,” she said. “It fosters sportsmanship, at least. And if a man takes a ball to the head
and drops dead, it only destroys his life, not the entire team’s.”
“The risk is the point, Miss Woodville. The risk is the fun part,” he said with sorrowful incredulity. As though he was disappointed in her powers of reasoning. “Man wasn’t fundamentally
intended to exist in ceaseless ease, like a pet. A little peril is the spice of life, particularly for a certain kind of comfortable
gentleman. They find it stirring to feel a little frightened as long as they’re certain they’re safe. It’s a game in every
way to them—even ‘the Reaper’ nonsense.” He gestured; his skull ring winked in the light. “If Lucifer’s Fall were to vanish
off the face of the Earth tomorrow, they would simply search out this type of experience in some other way, in some other
place. I provide a valuable service by allowing them to forget their responsibilities for a time and indulge sometimes outrageous
risks in a discreet, beautiful, safe environment.”
This sounded like so much elegant hucksterism; she could imagine the gentlemen who applied for membership lapping it up. What
stopped her from rolling her eyes was the unsettling grain of truth she sensed in it. They were laughing right up until the high-flyer rounded the bend, the neighbor who’d witnessed her parents’ accident had told her. As though she would somehow find this comforting.
How could a man with a wife and four children be bored enough to be so reckless?
And even if he had been bored, how could he be so self-indulgent?