Page 6 of How to Best a Marquess

“No. I don’t doubt your intelligence. I never have. I remember your fondness for books.”

More memories assailed her. Memories of Hugh stealing a kiss in her family’s library. He’d claimed he was as attracted to her intelligence as much as he was to her red hair and freckles. He’d lied about that as well. She’d heard the whispers of other women; her shade of hair and her freckles were too bold to be pretty, and men preferred subtle and perfected beauty.

Hugh’s behavior had reaffirmed those whispers. The lady she’d caught him kissing in the gardens, Miss Isabelle West, had been a green-eyed, voluptuous brunette. Not one freckle had marred her pert nose.

“If you don’t doubt my intelligence, then you should understand my ambitions,” she said.

“No, I do not. Nothing changes the fact that you are a lady. An earl’s sister. You risk others discerning your identity. What of your reputation?”

Her hackles rose. “What of yours? A marquess who owns a gambling club?”

His brows snapped together in disapproval. “It’s not the same. Your idea is ludicrous.”

Hugh’s high-handed manner inflamed her further. “Ludicrous or not, we are in competition. One month to show who can run this place. I plan on winning.” She had to win.

He leaned close, too close, and his lips curled in a smile. “Challenge accepted.”

…

“Where to, miss?” the hackney driver asked.

Ellie gave an address, then lowered the shade a few inches. The hackney started with a jerk, and Ellie leaned back on the seat. An hour after leaving Hugh, she’d departed from the back of the Raven Club and walked to the end of the street to hail a hackney. Evading a chaperone had not been difficult. Her family assumed she was ensconced in the office looking over the club’s ledgers.

Fifteen minutes later, she arrived at her destination. The Cock and Bull Tavern.

Ellie stepped outside the hackney and paid the driver. Picking up her skirts, she crossed the street and waited outside. The tavern was a two-story red brick structure with a large bay window. An old man smoking a clay pipe stood outside the door, and a few drunken revelers walked the street.

A carriage pulled up, its harnesses rattling. Black and nondescript, no one paid it much heed on the street. The window shade parted a few inches, and a woman peered out.

Time to go.

Ellie hurried across the street. Not waiting for the driver to jump down and offer aid, she opened the door of the black carriage and stepped inside.

Violet Lasher sat on the padded bench, her voluminous skirts splayed about her. No matter how many times Ellie was in her presence, she stared. Violet was stunning, with blond hair, a porcelain complexion, and sapphire eyes. Her artfully cut bodice displayed the mounds of her breasts and slender waist. Diamonds glittered at her throat and ears. Ellie didn’t doubt they were real, not glass.

Violet Lasher was the highest-paid courtesan in London.

“Were you followed?” Violet asked.

“No.”

“Not by the marquess?”

“Definitely not.”

Ellie had penned a note telling Violet her predicament over the Raven Club and her challenge to win the establishment from the Marquess of Deveril.

“Good. We must keep these meetings secret.” Violet smoothed her skirts, and a ring winked on every finger, diamonds and emeralds. “Rose Belise is safely ensconced in Scotland by now.”

“Scotland?”

“A vicar’s wife needed a companion. Rose was pleased to go.”

“And her husband, the earl?”

“Drunk and raving mad. Looking for his wife’s lover, whom he believes is responsible for her disappearance.”

“Rose didn’t have a lover,” Ellie pointed out.