Duncan was set back by the compliment. “Thank you.” He’d support the marriage, but did he have to like the man?
He took a breath, released it, and the viscount tilted his head, leaning in, “Sir, are you unwell?”
Yes.
He would be unwell forever once she became the Viscountess Langley, but he had promised her this moment. This win.
Tit for tat.
“You are courting Lady Georgiana,” he said.
Surprised, Langley looked away and then back, and West saw the guilt in his eyes. He did not like the pause – the meaning in it, as though Langley was not, in fact, courting Georgiana.
Except he did like it.
He liked it a great deal.
“Are you not?”
Langley hesitated. “Is this for publication? I have seen how keen your newspapers have been for Lady Georgiana’s return to Society.”
“It is not for publication, but I hope my newspapers have made a positive impression.”
The viscount smiled. “My mother is certainly invested in the lady.”
Success, he supposed.
“I imagine some would call my interactions with the lady courtship,” Langley replied, finally, and Duncan heard the edge of doubt in the words.
Duncan wanted to roar his disapproval. Did the man not see what he had been offered? “Are you mad? She is a tremendous catch. Beyond measure. Any man would be proud to call her his. She could have a king if she wished it.”
What had begun as surprise on Langley’s face was soon transformed into careful curiosity, making Duncan feel like a proper ass when he was finished.
The viscount did not hesitate in his reply, keen understanding in his tone. “It strikes me that it is not a king who wishes for her. Quite the opposite.”
Duncan’s gaze narrowed at the suggestion. At the truth in it. “You overstep yourself.”
“Likely, but I know what it is to want something you cannot have. I see now why you have taken such a keen interest in the lady.” Langley paused and said, “If I could trade my title for your freedom, I would.”
Duncan was suddenly deeply uncomfortable with the conversation. “That is where you are wrong. There is no freedom in being untitled. Indeed, if anything, there is less of it.”
The title brought security. Safety.
He, instead, lived in constant fear of discovery.
And that fear would ever shadow his future.
He met the viscount’s gaze. “You are her choice.”
Langley smiled. “If that is true – and I am not certain it is – I would be honored to have the lady to wife.”
“And you will care for her.”
One of the viscount’s brows rose. “If you do not, yes.”
The insolence from the titled pup made Duncan want to upend the hazard table from whence he’d come. He could not care for her. He would not saddle her with his life. With his secrets.
And she did not wish them.
What if we married?
For however long he lived, he would remember that question, spoken softly in his arms – the little possibility that came on a silly dream. When he breathed his last, in prison or at the end of a rope, that question would be his last thought.
It did not matter that she hadn’t meant it. Not the way he wished.
She wished the title. She wished safety and comfort and propriety for her daughter. And he knew better than any how important those were. How much she would give up for them.
And he would give them to her.
The viscount punctuated the thought. “You should be the one to care for her.”
“I will be,” he said. “This is how I will do it.”
Langley considered him for a long moment before nodding once. “Then if she will have me, I will have her.”
Duncan hated the way the words rioted through him, the visceral fury that came with them. The way he wanted to rail against God and the world that this was his fate – to love a woman he could not have.
But instead of that, he said, “If there is ever anything I can do for you, my lord, my papers are at your disposal.”
Langley rocked back on his heels. “I may come and see you sooner than you think.”
The viscount turned away, and Duncan was left alone at the edge of the casino floor, watching the crowds, waiting for her.
“I see your membership has been reinstated,” the Marquess of Bourne said at his elbow. “So you can see the fruits of your very idiotic labor?”
Duncan winced at the words, but did not resist them. He’d put a price on Chase’s head, and by extension, on this place and all her owners. Instead, he asked, “What is she planning?”
“All I know is that she’s about to make a damn mistake. But no one tells Chase how to live.”
“What mistake?” Duncan asked, not taking his gaze from the crowd. Desperate to find her. To stop her from doing whatever it was she was going to do. He’d made the mess of posting a reward for Chase’s identity – it should be he who cleared it up.
“She wouldn’t tell us anything else. Only that it was her decision to make – which is debatable at best – and some idiocy about us all having families now, and plenty of money, and the club having run its course.”
Dread pooled deep within. “She’s giving up the club?”
But why?
“In Chase’s fashion, she’s thought it all through,” Bourne said, exasperation in his tone, as though this were the whim of a silly girl and not the destruction of years of her work and dreams.
Duncan swore roundly.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
He couldn’t allow it. He could save her in another way. He searched for her again. “Where is she?”