Chapter 8
Nicholas turned a page in his accounting book and then turned it back, his brow furrowing in confusion. He had yet again made another false sum. Grumbling, he crossed it out and started again.
“You seem pleasant this evening.”
He looked up with a glare ready to stick the devil at his assistant, Darren Martin, and he snapped the accounting book shut and stood.
“What do you know of pleasant?” he parried, and Darren grinned, leaning against the doorjamb.
“So, what’s this I hear about you marrying a young lady, a viscount’s daughter, is it?”
Nicholas glowered, walking to the corner of his office, where he kept strong whisky. Pouring himself a glass, he swallowed it down and then faced his colleague.
“Who told you that then?”
“It’s all over town.” Darren straightened. “Special license and all that.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s a matter of business. David died and left me his money and left her his children. We are merely making the most sensible decision.”
“So, she’s beautiful then.”
Nicholas’s grip tightened on his glass, but he refrained from throwing it against the wall. The memory of Cordelia’s lips was still with him and would not be gone. Even if he’d lived a thousand years, he would never forget that moment when he’d been an utter fool and kissed her.
“What of it?”
Darren took a step inside the office, his knowing smile becoming more irritating. “So, she is then.”
“Yes, she’s beautiful. It is no matter. We are to be married so that the children will be safe and protected.” He poured himself another glass of whisky. “If you’re wondering, she loathes me.”
“I didn’t think there was a woman in London who loathed you, Nick.”
He grumbled, thinking back to Cordelia’s embarrassed face when he’d told her he was no honorable man after the kiss.
That kiss.
“Yes, well, this one does.”
“How…unusual.”
Nicholas drank the whisky down and then turned back to Darren.
“Did you come to me for a reason or simply to taunt me at my place of work?”
Darren cleared his throat. “Banbury is here again, doing his usual.”
“Heaven’s sake.” Nicholas rolled his eyes. “Fine. I will handle it.”
“Excellent. You seem in the perfect mood for it too.” Darren gleefully left, and Nicholas considered more whisky but thought better of it before he left his office, shutting the door behind him.
He went out onto the landing and looked down at the establishment he had built from the ground up.
Cordelia was right; it was not exactly honorable, but by God, it was fun.
It was teeming again with customers, as usual, and ladies worked their way through the crowd with drinks or with other favors on offer.
After spying Banbury, looking far too drunk already and talking to one of the ladies in a feverish whisper, he rolled his eyes and hurried down the steps. Nodding at a few acquaintances, he watched the dealers as they kept their customers happy but kept to the rules.
He wove his way through the crowd until he found the drunk, pudgy Banbury, clasping onto one of the women and berating her in his usual way.
The man was slurring his words as he said, “But I am such a good customer, a loyal customer. Surely that entitles me to liberties.”
Finally, Nicholas was close enough to grasp a hand tightly around Banbury’s wrist.
“Oh!” Banbury, looking up at him with wide eyes and a sweaty brow.
“Unhand the lady, Sir Banbury. She is not your property.”
Banbury followed the order and took a step back, looking frightfully offended.
“Yes, well, Your Grace, they are here to be ‘rented out’ as it were.”
Nicholas took a deep breath, wishing to hit the man in the face. But instead, he gave him a sickly smile. He glanced back at a furious Marianne.
“Feel free to go on your way, Mari. You’ll get no trouble from him anymore.”
“I had better not,” she said, stomping away.
Nicholas grabbed Banbury by the cravat and dragged him closer to the edge of the room.
“I have told you once and I have told you many times. You are a customer. This is not your home, nor is anything in this place your property. These women are working women, and they are here as my employees to work and serve the guests of this establishment. They are under my protection, and none of my staff will be abused by drunken fools. Do you understand me?”
By then, his face was close to the quivering Banbury’s, and the man nodded.
“Good. I think you may take your leave now, Sir Banbury, and return home. The evening has taken it out of you.”
The man opened his mouth and closed it again like a fish, and Nicholas nudged him away towards one of the burly security men who dragged him towards the exit. As he looked on, Marianne approached him.
“You saved us yet again, Your Grace.” She smiled.
“I think I had better ban him from the premises. What say you to that?”
“I think me and the other girls would be most happy indeed.”
He chuckled as she walked off. No one at the gaming tables had even looked up during the whole of the interaction, and that was the way Nicholas preferred it.
He pulled on his jacket sleeves and brushed down his lapels when he spotted the last person he both expected to see or wanted to see in the whole of the world.
The Duke of Wexford. Making a disgusted sound under his breath, he headed towards the stairs again, only for the duke to follow him.
“Quite the establishment you have here, Your Grace. A duke running a gambling house. Disgraceful.” The man had said it far too loudly, but thankfully, no one seemed bothered by it.
Nicholas spun around on the first stair. “I do not see why on earth you could be here, Wexford. Unless I am dead and this is hell.”
The duke bristled under the comment, and he looked around him. “We are certainly close to the devil in here. You were such a bad influence on my son, and I was forever attempting to separate you two.”
“Is that so? Well, I have it on good authority that David was at his happiest when he was bloody well away from you.”
He scowled and then stomped up the stairs, only to have the duke follow him once more. Nicholas was not eager to have any discussion with the man he hated most, but it was better than having it on the floor of his gambling den. The duke followed him into his office, but Nicholas kept the door open.
Nicholas leaned against the edge of his desk. “My establishment is a place for men to be honest about their vices. Can you say the same of your house?”
The duke’s pale face suffused with color. “How dare you?!”
“I dare because you are here in my place of business with your comments and your jibes. What is it you want? Are you upset about the money or the children?” He didn’t wait for a reply.
“Likely both. Although, judging by the way you treated your son and his wife, it is very reasonable that they should wish to keep your grandchildren as far away from you as possible.”
The duke stepped closer, his fists at his sides, and he said, “I do not know why you are taunting me with such words. It is that spinster who has the children, not you.” He grinned, and as it always had done, it made a prickle of unease move down Nicholas’s spine.
“I shall start by ruining her until she has no choice but to hand over the twins, my legacy, those who will carry on my name.”
Nicholas rose, heading back to the whisky again.
He was trembling with rage. He had kept from hurting the duke on David’s behalf, but David was no longer here to stop him.
Nicholas could think of nothing more satisfying than planting a fist in the old man’s face.
After pouring a glass and not offering one to the duke, he took a sip and turned back again.
The duke’s eye dipped to his glass. “It seems you have your own vices then. I have entered the den of iniquity.”
Ignoring him, Nicholas said, “If you should like to get to Miss Debrett, Your Grace, then I’m afraid you will have to go through me.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“For she is to become my wife.” For the first time in days, the words sounded right.
The duke straightened, his angry face growing even redder. “You lie.”
“Not at all. It seemed the most sensible choice to combine the money and the children.”
“Damn you! I had not wished to believe it, but I eventually discovered David’s great foolishness in leaving you his fortune. He was always so swayed by you. I can only believe that you somehow convinced him.”
Nicholas seethed. “I told you. It did not take any convincing for David to wish for everything that was his to be as far away from you as possible.”
Sputtering and furious, the duke spun around, hurrying out of the office.
Nicholas put his whisky down and followed him.
The duke pushed through the crowd, but then he knocked down one of the ladies on his way, shouting at her and towering over her as he did so.
Nicholas’s patience wore thin. He hurried down the steps and pushed himself between the duke and the young woman.
“You are out of line, old man,” he spat.
“Am I? It is not I who concedes to have whores in his establishment.”
This time, Nicholas could feel the eyes of the crowd on him, even though the buzz of noise remained the same.
“They are not whores. They serve food and drink to my guests. They are women earning a living, just as anyone has the right to.”
“Oh, and I’m sure you enjoy taking a bit on the side.
Just like your father. Poor Miss Debrett.
She has no idea what sort of marriage she will be entering,” he teased, and Nicholas saw red.
His father had been a reprobate in many ways; that was true enough.
But the duke was no prize. “Well, if you are going to be unfaithful, Meinster, then you had better keep it to that and not kill her like you killed your mother.”
At that, Nicholas’s worn patience now snapped.
He cared not for the duke’s age or anything else.
He punched the man square in the face, and it was the most satisfying sight to see the duke cry out in pain and tumble over in the view of everyone in the gambling hall.
Darren lifted a brow from where he stood and smiled.
This time, there was silence as the old man struggled to his feet, breathing heavy, with a heavy glower. There was a cut on his lip, and he lifted a shaking finger in Nicholas’s direction.
“Enjoy your little gaming club while you have it, Your Grace.” He spat blood onto the carpet. “For it will not be long.”
Nicholas knew the duke’s tenacity when it came to ruining others, but he would not show weakness. With his fists clenched at his sides, he stood at the doorway to leave.
“Run along now, Wexford. And best get some cold meat on that soon-to-be black eye.”
Seething, the duke stomped out without a word, and Nicholas slammed the door behind him. Applause rose up from the room, and Nicholas waved them to silence.
“Carry on,” he said and then left for the stairs. He needed a plan now. For the duke was a man without principle, but in these sorts of vengeful matters, he was most certainly a man of his word.