Chapter One
Her corset was killing her.
Mercy Kittinger fidgeted on the well-worn velvet squabs and tried to adjust the boning digging into her ribs. The modiste she had visited upon her arrival to Town insisted the contraption fit her properly and that it did wonderful things for her shape.
Mercy would not know. She was accustomed to the comfort and ease of her own modest garments. She lived on a farm. She never gave a thought to her shape. Nor did anyone else.
Her days were about function, about taking care of her sister and the house and the staff and making certain everyone was fed and everything was running smoothly. That was her life and she liked it very well.
And up until last week everything had been running smoothly.
Then her brother had arrived home. Her feckless, spendthrift wastrel of a brother. Her twin. Not that that bred any special loyalty within him.
Now she was here, doing what she always did—cleaning up Bede’s messes.
Mercy paid her fare through the hatch to the cloaked driver and stepped down from the hansom cab. Squaring her shoulders, she faced the building and shivered in the night—a shiver that had naught to do with cold. On the contrary. It was a pleasant evening. Only the task at hand was unpleasant.
She grasped a handful of her silk skirts as she started up the steps to the impressive brick edifice. It was one of the nicer houses in the modest neighborhood. Brightly lit with outside sconces. The three-storied house was no home, however. It happened to be one of London’s most notorious gaming hells and where her foolish brother had lost everything. She suspected a great many foolish men lost their fortunes in this place. But as her brother’s fortune was her fortune, it fell to her to reclaim it.
Nodding once, she entered the building, determination fueling her steps.
The place was busy. She was not the only one entering through its front doors. Nor was she the only woman beneath its roof. There were several ladies, all attired in much the same manner she was.
Just as she had hoped, she did not attract an inordinate amount of notice in her scandalous gown. She was merely another body. Another person getting lost in the revel.
When Mercy had visited the modiste, she requested a gown befitting a woman of looser inhibitions. It had hurt to part with the precious coin, but she had no choice. She knew she could not wear anything from her modest life. She would be playing a role, and it was not a game she could lose. Too much depended upon it.
The dressmaker had not even blinked at the request. The lady had obliged, attiring her in the requested level of bawdiness. She had plumped Mercy’s breasts that were on indecent display, the areolas of her nipples very nearly peeking above the edge of stiff black lace, and proclaimed, “Magnifique!”
More indecent than the front of her gown was perhaps the lack of sleeves. The whisper of wind over her bare shoulders and arms felt wicked and wholly unfamiliar as she wove through the crowd of tables and bodies. It was as though an entire swath of fabric were missing from her gown.
She felt virtually naked.
One thing was certain. Women of looser inhibitions did not dress for comfort.
Mercy longed to finish this evening’s unsavory business and return to her life.
She assessed her lively surroundings. After emerging from the darkness of the night, her eyes did not need much time to adjust to the indoors because the gaming hell was kept in dim lighting, the lanterns and sconces burning low.
Dozens of tables occupied the main room, which might have acted as a ballroom were this a traditional home. But there was nothing traditional about this scene.
Various card games were being played out. The players ranged in age and gender. Some of the faces were tense; others loose and jovial, flushed from an excess of spirits. Liveried servers wove through the rooms, quick to indulge, keeping glasses full to the brim. A small dais at one end boasted a string quartet.
Idly, Mercy wondered where her brother had sat when he was here. Which table had he occupied whilst he gambled away their lives?
Was the man who owned her family lands here even now? Sitting at one of these tables, taking the livelihood from another wretched soul as easily as he had taken it from her brother?
She’d known it had been an easy task. She knew that because she knew her brother. Many an evening had she played whist with Bede after dinner. Always she won. She won and she had no special training at cards. She had only ever played with family or, infrequently, with Imogen. What made the fool think he could win against the seasoned players of a gaming den? With the owner of this gaming hell, no less? She might be the best card player in her family, but she had no such illusion that she could stroll in here and handle herself against this veteran crowd.
She would reclaim her home, but not in a traditional game of cards.
No, her methods would be more questionable than that.
Mercy reached out to touch the arm of a woman who had just finished topping off champagne to the occupants at a table.
“Pardon me? Is Mr. Masters in the house this evening?”
The server looked her over from head to toe in a slow perusal. “He is here most every evening,” she answered as though that was widely known information. “And day.”
That information matched what she had been able to learn about Silas Masters. He kept no other address. This place was his sole residence. He worked and dwelled here.
Mercy nodded slowly and glanced over the room, pretending that she felt no real sense of urgency and was not on the verge of breaking any laws tonight. “Ah, and might you point out the gentleman to me?”
“You don’t know him by sight?” The woman looked amused as she asked the question.
“Um, no.”
“Interesting.” Again with that almost smile.
“What is?”
“It is just that most women who are looking for Silas Masters know what he looks like.” Her lips curled in a full-fledged smile now. “That is why they’re looking for him.”
Mercy shifted on her feet nervously. “Well, I don’t know . . .” Her voice faded as the woman raised her hand and pointed.
Mercy followed her direction to a second-floor balcony and the small group sitting there looking down upon the ground floor as though it was their small kingdom.
Mercy’s gaze skipped over the gray-haired gentleman and the lady, settling on the man at the center of the trio. He acted as a magnet, sucking in everything—especially her awareness.
“That’s him, there. Nice, hm?”
Yes. That was him. Silas Masters. She had deduced as much. “Oh,” she breathed.
“Oh, indeed,” the server chuckled.
Mercy nodded, understanding at once why women might wish to seek the company of Silas Masters.
Aside from his apparent fortune, he was quite something to behold. He possessed the kind of dangerously good looks one might expect from the owner of a gaming hell . . . or the gatekeeper to an antechamber to hell.
Thick dark hair longer than fashionable fell past his ears, and yet this man made it look good. Enticing. A style all of his own. Other men might attempt to replicate the look but they would only look foolish and unkempt.
It was the whole parcel of him. Hair. Face. The impressive breadth of his shoulders looming above the balcony. A closely trimmed beard dusting his jaw and cheeks. Sensually curving lips that promised sinister delights.
From across the distance the color of his deeply set eyes was indeterminate beneath the dramatic slash of thick eyebrows, but Mercy imagined them to be equally dark. They were certainly intense as they looked down on his domain.