Mara raised an auburn brow. “You are not entirely in a place to condescend about wives.”
Her partners’ wives were the worst women in London. Difficult in the extreme. Bourne, Cross, and Temple deserved them, no doubt, but what had Georgiana done to warrant their presence now, as she reconciled herself to the events of the past day? She wanted nothing more than to sit quietly and remind herself that it was her work and her daughter who were the most important things in her life, and everything else – everyone else – could hang.
“I heard that West was in the running,” Pippa said.
Starting first with her gossiping business partners and their nattering wives.
“Duncan West?” Penelope asked.
“The very same,” Mara said.
“Oh,” Penelope said happily to the boy in her arms. “We like him.”
The boy cooed.
“He seems a very good man.” Pippa said.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for him,” Mara agreed. “And he seems to have a soft spot for women who are followed by trouble.”
Something unpleasant flared at those words as she found she did not care for Duncan West having a soft spot for any women, particularly those who might decide they wished to be protected by him in perpetuity. “Which women?” Only after she’d lifted her head and spoke did she realize she was supposed to be pretending to work. She cleared her throat. Returned her attention to the file in her hand. “Not that I’m interested.”
Silence fell in the wake of her statement, and she could not resist looking up. Penelope, Pippa, and Mara were looking at each other, as though in a comedic play. Temple’s son was blessedly asleep, or he would no doubt be watching her as well.
“What is it?” Georgiana asked. “I am not interested.”
Pippa was the first to break the silence. “If you are not interested, then why ask?”
“I was being polite,” Georgiana rushed to answer. “After all, the three of you are chattering like magpies in my space, I thought I might play hostess.”
Penelope spoke then. “We thought you were working.”
She lifted a file. “I am.”
“Whose file is that?” Mara asked, as though it were perfectly normal for her to ask such a thing. And it might be.
But damned if Georgiana could remember whose file it was.
“She is blushing again,” Pippa said, and when Georgiana turned a glare on the Countess Harlow, it was to find herself under a curious investigation, as though she were an insect under glass.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know,” Penelope said. “We’ve all found ourselves drawn to someone who seems entirely wrong for us.”
“Cross wasn’t wrong for me,” Pippa said.
Penelope lifted a brow. “Oh? And the bit where you were engaged to another man?”
“And he was engaged to another woman?” Mara added.
Pippa smiled. “It only made the story more entertaining.”
“The point is, Georgiana,” Mara spoke this time, “you should not be ashamed of wanting West.”
“I don’t want West,” she said, setting down her file and standing, the frustration of these women and their knowing gazes and their attempts at comforting words propelling her away from them, to the massive stained glass window that looked out on the casino floor.
“You don’t want West,” Mara repeated, flatly.
“No,” she said. But of course she did. She wanted him a great deal. But not in the way they meant. Not forever. She simply wanted him for now.
“Whyever not?” Penelope asked, and the other women chuckled.
She could not bring herself to confess that he did not seem to want her. After all, she’d very overtly offered herself to him the night before – and he’d refused her. Wrapping a towel around his handsome hips and stalking from the room that housed his swimming pool without looking back.
As though what had transpired between them meant nothing.
Georgiana leaned into the window, splaying her fingers wide and pressing her forehead to the cool, pale glass that made one of Lucifer’s broken wings. The position gave the illusion of floating, of hovering high above the dimly lit pit floor, the tables empty and quiet now, untouched until the afternoon, when maids would lower the chandeliers and light the massive candelabras that kept the casino bright and welcoming in the darkness. Her gaze flickered from table to table – faro, vingt-et-un, roulette, hazard – every table hers, placed with care. Run with skill.
She was royalty of the London underground, vice and power and sin were her dominion, and yet a man, who made pretty offers and tempted her with lovely promises that he could never keep, had somehow flattened her.
After the long silence, Mara said, “You know, I never thought I could have love.”
“Neither did I, though I wanted it quite desperately,” Penelope added, standing and moving to the pram in the corner, where she settled the sleeping future duke into his pristine cocoon of blankets.
“I did not think it was real,” Pippa said. “I could not see it, and therefore, I did not believe it.”
Georgiana closed her eyes at the admissions. Wished the three women gone. Then said, “There are days when I find myself sympathizing with MacBeth.”
“MacBeth,” Pippa repeated, confused.
“I believe that Georgiana is suggesting that we are like witches,” Penelope said dryly, turning from her place across the room.
“Secret, black, and midnight hags and all that?” Pippa asked.