“Go on,” another man urged.
Rhys was on the cusp of calling it off. Jess’s mouth quivered, her facade of confidence faltering.
“Claremont, may we have a word before this young woman impales you?”
Rhys recognized the voice. Aidan Iverson had been invited to the party, but Rhys had given up on him attending. He was happy to see his friend, if only because it meant freeing himself from further target practice.
Though now that Iverson was here, he didn’t look at all festive. And he wasn’t alone. Nick, Duke of Tremayne, stood beside him. Both of Rhys’s partners in co-ownership of Lyon’s lingered on the threshold of the crowded room, their faces a grim contrast to the evening’s gaiety.
“Please, everyone, carry on.” Rhys gestured toward the quartet of violinists in the corner of the room and stepped down from the platform. “Time for music and dancing.”
He cast a look at Tremayne and Iverson. They definitely wouldn’t be dancing. Their gazes were so serious that he dreaded whatever news they’d come to deliver.
“Quite an impressive performance, Your Grace.”
Rhys looked over his shoulder and found the brunette who’d called out to him earlier watching with an assessing gaze. She’d come with a friend, a viscount who had been a member of Lyon’s for years. He couldn’t bed her, but she possessed a porcelain beauty that was hard to ignore.
“Everyone says so.”
One gossip rag claimed he possessed all the qualities a bon vivant nobleman could ever require: charm, wealth, an insatiable appetite for pleasure. He was renowned throughout London as the blazing spark of any party. A man whose smile could charm a lady from across a crowded ballroom. The most daring investor of the Duke’s Den.
Rhys almost believed the stories others told about him. Almost.
A good tailor helped with the appealing facade he presented to the world. An adept valet was a godsend. Being a lucky man, he possessed both.
Wealth had come easily. As the firstborn son of the Duke of Claremont, he’d been afforded the best education. Excellent tutors. Long-suffering types who remained in their post no matter how difficult it was to teach a duke’s son who couldn’t read or memorize his numbers like other children. University had been a bit of a nightmare, but the allowance from his father had started then. With those funds he’d been lucky enough at gambling to grow a sizable wealth of his own.
And now, atop all of his other blessings, he’d added his father’s title. A dukedom could only enhance a man’s merits.
He was the most favored of men.
Which was why he’d confided to no one that the weight of the responsibilities that had been heaped on his shoulders in the past weeks were crushing him like a millstone.
He glanced back at the brunette, her long shiny ringlets swaying in a sinuous fall above a petite waist and shapely hips. She turned as if she sensed his notice and a wicked smile curved her lush lips. When he winked in reply, he fought a wave of fatigue that made him want to close both of his eyes and lean heavily against the nearest wall for a short nap. How long had it been since he’d tasted a bit of the pleasure he was renowned for seeking?
No. He could do this. He’d hear whatever news his partners had for him and then return to his guests.
Revelry was his talent. Revelry and the instinct to know when an investment might go well and turn a profit. Unlike Iverson and Tremayne, he didn’t rely on facts and reports or carefully calculating the return on his investment. He simply felt his way through decisions. And he applied the same principle at gaming tables and to every amusement life had to offer.
And he excelled at all of it when he wasn’t so bloody exhausted. The fatigue that weighed on him like ballast had begun a month past on the evening he’d received news of his father’s death. An estate, tenants, a seat in Parliament, a coterie of servants—all of it had passed to him overnight, along with a pile of unexpected debt.
He admitted to no one that his nerves jangled like the traces on a runaway carriage.
“What is it?” he said as he approached his friends, trying to temper the panic welling up in his chest.
“We need to talk.” Tremayne glanced around the room. “Not here. The balcony.”
Rhys followed the men, each step building a wave of unease. Upon reaching the private space high above the gaming tables of Lyon’s, Iverson gestured toward a cluster of upholstered chairs. “Shall we sit?”
Rhys ignored him and headed for the drinks cart. “Don’t coddle me. Let me get a swig of whiskey down and say whatever you must as quickly as you can. The long looks on your faces don’t give me much hope for pleasant news.”
Iverson took up a position near the cart, boots firmly planted and arms crossed.
The same nervousness making Rhys’s hand shake as he lifted a glass to his lips was also radiating off of Tremayne, but Iverson simply stood, still and calm. He’d always been the steadiest of the three of them.
“When was the last time you were in touch with your sister?”
Rhys cocked his head and locked eyes with Iverson. “Is she unwell?”
“No.” Iverson lifted his hand in a calming gesture. “Nothing like that.” He gazed over his shoulder at Tremayne. “But you haven’t brought her to London or taken her back to the estate in Essex?”
Two drums began a fearsome tattoo in Rhys’s head, one behind each temple. “My sister is at finishing school in Hampshire.”
“She’s finished,” Tremayne said drily. “Lady Margaret sent me a letter because she hasn’t heard from you. She graduated nearly a fortnight ago and was expecting a carriage to escort her home.”
“Christ.” Rhys scraped a hand through his hair. He’d been living so hard of late the days had merged together. So much so that he’d bloody forgotten the date and his only sister. “I’ll send for her immediately.”
“Already done,” Nick told him in the voice he usually reserved for frustrated noblemen who came to complain that they’d lost too much at the club’s gaming tables. “She should arrive at Edgecombe tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” Rhys let out a sigh of relief but none of the tension in his body loosened.
Meg had inherited their mother’s kindness along with a full measure of their father’s impatience. He could well imagine the words she’d have for him when she returned home. He deserved them all.
“She’s concerned about you,” Nick added in a gentler tone. “We all are.”
Rhys looked up. He deserved whatever disappointment his longtime friend felt for his irresponsibility. But Tremayne lowered his head and stared at the carpet. He couldn’t look Rhys in the eyes.
“There’s more. Don’t spare me. Just say it.”
Iverson crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. “You recall Mr. Carthorpe?”
“Yes, of course.” Rhys didn’t have Tremayne’s aptitude for numbers or Iverson’s shrewd head for business matters, but his memory rarely failed him. “The horseless carriage chap.”
Rhys recalled him as young and fidgety, but the man’s invention was an exciting prospect and every member of the Duke’s Den had been eager to invest.
“Don’t tell me he’s run off with our money.”