Chapter 8 #3
‘Am I to deduce that you have come for me to hand over his promissory notes? Will you threaten to put him in debtors’ prison should it prove necessary?’
Eveline answered before Margot could.
‘Yes,’ she affirmed, for she already had all the pieces well in place and could see the plan. ‘My brother will pay them.’
Gabriel let out a growl.
‘I would have preferred to cut off one of his ears than to receive the payment. That man is an insufferable Adonis, and his scar would be much improved by his lacking an ear to balance the whole.’
Eveline looked at him in horror.
‘Do you cut off the ears of those who cannot pay you?’
‘This is a business, Lady Eveline. You are far from Mayfair. How do you think I manage to be paid what I am owed?’
‘With written reminders?’ she inquired uncertainly.
Gabriel looked at her and smiled.
‘Adorable.’
‘Do not call me adorable.’
‘Then do not say adorable things in my study. Of course ears are cut off here from those who mean to swindle me!’ he barked.
Margot clicked her tongue.
‘You will not frighten her easily, Mr. Hope. She is Statony’s sister and shares a fair amount of his character, though she conceals it better, because her curls are more graceful than the duke’s side-whiskers.’
‘I am not trying to frighten her.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘A little,’ he acknowledged at last.
‘Then do not continue down that road. You will not make her burst into tears. Now that we have decided you will be a good boy and give us the promissory notes, we shall go and play and amuse ourselves about your club. You will guide us so that no one bothers us. ’
Gabriel drew himself up.
‘No.’
Margot smiled at him.
‘You will not give us the promissory notes?’
‘That I will do, but not the other.’
‘You will let us amuse ourselves in your club without offering us your protection? How inconsiderate, Mr. Hope! ’
‘You are not going to stroll about my club.’
‘Of course we are,’ the countess contradicted him.
‘Lady Ashbury…’ he began, trying to convince her that the two of them should go home at once.
‘Margot. Tonight I am only Margot.’
‘I do not intend to call you Margot.’
‘Then I do not intend to heed you. And I must point out that you have just done it, Gabriel.’ She permitted herself the luxury of using his Christian name even though he had granted her no leave.
Mr. Hope closed his eyes for an instant.
Eveline began to understand why Alice spoke of her brother with a mixture of affection, worry, and resignation.
There was in him an admirable capacity to seem dangerous and, at the same time, profoundly protective towards two women armed with nothing but silk and a clear bad intent.
‘Have we really come here to amuse ourselves?’ Eveline asked the countess.
Margot turned to her with an expression full of mischief.
‘Arden will never let you set foot in a place like this. I tell you because the same thing happened to me with Ashbury. He did not allow me even half the mischief I intended to get up to, and when I tried to make up for lost time, he was already too much in love with me to be reasonable. They call it protection; boredom is what it is for us.’ She touched her hand.
‘Do you not want to know what a little decadence truly is, my dear?’
Eveline looked towards the study door.
Beyond it were the voices, the wagers, the laughter, the smoke, the men who lost money, and the women who seemed to have learned how to move so as to be admired.
That was The Black Swan. Gabriel Hope’s club.
Eveline could enjoy a night she would never forget.
It would give Oliver a grave affliction if he were to learn what she had done.
And although Arden was no option for marriage, she knew he would condemn her for her want of judgment.
Ah, but neither Statony nor Arden was there with her.
And, for the first time in several days, Eveline felt the shame retreat enough to leave room for something lighter and more amusing.
‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘I want to know it.’
Gabriel looked at the ceiling, perhaps in search of patience or a crack through which to escape.
‘God protect men from stubborn and reckless women,’ he lamented. ‘Whether Statony or his friend Arden comes to demand explanations of me, I intend to lay the blame on you, my lady,’ he told the dowager countess.
‘Do not be dramatic,’ said Margot as she rose. ‘We shall only be in your club a while. No one need find out that, after settling the matter of the promissory notes, we amused ourselves a little.’
‘That does not reassure me. The more so, because I know that Lord Arden—’
‘Ah, ah, Gabriel,’ the dowager countess stopped him. ‘Say nothing more. You and I know it because we have seen it, but there are those who do not yet know the truth. ’
‘Not yet?’ He could not believe that the duke’s sister did not know that man was obsessed with her. Hope had been on a few occasions at his sister’s house, but the way he watched her without losing sight of her had always been evident. Lady Ashbury shook her head.
‘What is the matter?’ inquired Eveline, for she felt something was escaping her.
‘Nothing. Let us go and amuse ourselves. Lead the way, Gabriel,’ proposed the countess.
The club’s owner looked again at Eveline, then at Margot, and finally surrendered with an expression so somber it would have moved a woman less determined to enjoy her first grave sin.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But you will not part from me, you will not speak to anyone without my leave, and you will not accept drinks from any man who has teeth.’
Eveline arched an eyebrow.
‘Those without teeth, yes?’
‘Men without teeth tend to have little faith in their charm and will not tempt you.’
Margot let out a low peal of laughter.
‘Gabriel, I am beginning to believe this night will be even more amusing than I expected.’
‘And I am beginning to understand why your Ashbury would not let you go out alone, and why Arden will keep his lady on a short rein. The two of you separately are dangerous… Together? Death itself for any man.’
‘I do not intend to marry Arden,’ she said at once.
He looked at her with a touch of compassion.
‘Nothing stops a man once he has made a decision. Have you not been paying attention to your brother? I ask because your earl is not very different from him. ’
‘He is no “my” anything,’ she denied again.
‘Indeed,’ he said. And there he confirmed that the duke’s sister did not know even half the story in which she was the protagonist. He turned his face to focus on the woman in blue and asked: ‘And you—are you not going to deny that your husband did well to deprive you of your intolerable whims?’
The dowager countess threw him a look full of pride.
‘My dear Gabriel, Ashbury would not let me go out alone because he adored me, feared me, and, above all, coveted me. I am a woman too many men dream of, and he wanted to have me solely for his own enjoyment.’
Gabriel nodded a couple of times.
‘I pity your late husband, Margot. ’
‘Surely you do not mean to say you envy him?’ she challenged him.
Eveline suddenly looked the other way. God!
Mr. Hope handed them back their masks, opened the study door, and pointed to the corridor with resignation.
‘Do not tempt me, Margot, for if you wake the beast, I assure you that you will have nowhere to hide,’ he warned her.
‘Oh, promises, promises, promises…’ she set forth coquettishly, her mask already well in place as she went out the door.
Eveline followed her, trying not to laugh. Lady Ashbury had the incredible ability to leave anyone speechless, but until that moment she had not seen her leave fascinated the owner of an East End club who cut off the ears of those who did not pay him.
In truth, he seemed a great deal more than fascinated.