He was back within minutes, ushering in a tall, aesthetic-looking man who, by his attire and manner, would easily pass for a gentleman, and a woman of middle height with lush black hair and strikingly pale skin, neatly turned out in a dark blue gown.
Both male and female paused some yards from the desk and inclined their heads. “Sir,” they said in unison.
Roscoe studied their faces, their eyes, then, slowly straightening from his elegant slouch, waved to the chairs before the desk. “Please be seated.”
His initial impression was that, as Jordan had said, the pair had buried their differences, but, given the root cause of those differences, he felt it prudent to reserve judgment. Jenny Edger was unquestionably the best piquet player he had on his books, other than himself. As such, she was best employed in the Pall Mall establishment, his club closest to the houses of the older aristocrats, who still preferred that particular game and were happy to wager large amounts on every point.
Jenny was an asset he intended to exploit to the full, but Gelman, who otherwise managed the subtleties of running the Pall Mall Club to his and Jordan’s complete satisfaction, had taken what, on the surface, appeared to be an instant and unreasoning dislike to Jenny, matched in virulence only by her apparently equally instant dislike of him.
Roscoe’s own assessment was that the pair should just sleep with each other and get it over with—or at least move on to whatever the next stage in their relationship might be—but meanwhile each too often provided the spark for the other’s tinder. Both were otherwise levelheaded and pragmatic, but put them together and drama and fireworks inevitably ensued. Last month, after being alerted to a near disaster on the floor of the club, Roscoe had called the pair before him and given them both a vicious dressing down.
By insisting on continuing to see them both together—holding them both responsible for the profitability of the club, which in fact was the case—he hoped to make each of them more aware of the other’s importance to him, as well as underscoring that their continuing employment hinged on them both performing to his satisfaction.
The meeting went well; by its end he was hopeful that the pair had at least accepted that they had to work together.
Satisfied for the moment, as Tomkins ushered Gelman and Jenny out, he turned to Jordan. “Who’s next?”
“The Tower.” Having closed and removed the ledgers of the Pall Mall Club, Jordan opened another set, laying them on the desk. “I think we need to take a closer look at the faro table. I’m not sure, but I think there’s something not quite right there.”
That was the sort of thing Roscoe would know; just by looking at the figures he could tell whether the variation in take was within reasonable limits, or . . .
Two minutes of looking and he grunted. “You’re right. Clapham’s the manager—is he here?”
“Yes. He’s waiting.”
“Good. Let’s have him up so we can ask him who he’s let loose on his faro table this month.”
The rest of the day proved very much a case of business as usual. Of the four reviews he conducted—two clubs, one den, and one hell—the Pall Mall meeting was the least troublesome. He sent two of his men back with Clapham to the Tower Club to deal with the crooked faro dealer—to explain his transgressions and see him off the premises. The Tower had its own security staff, but his men were of a different caliber—the sort to instill fear into those who sought to cheat without resorting to violence. He himself had taught them the knack of intimidation by suggestion, a skill he’d been forced to perfect through his early years in the business.
The den, in Soho, a recent acquisition, was having difficulties coming up to scratch in the matter of adhering to his standards of play; he had from his first foray into managing gambling establishments instituted a policy of no cheating, no card sharps, no weighted dice. In all his establishments, the house played fair—one of the principal reasons gamblers of all stripes flocked to his doors. His ironclad rule, backed by an inflexible will and an iron fist where necessary, had at first been regarded as a ridiculously naive ploy . . . until the results had started to show.
Ten years later, those few others who owned gambling establishments in London knew that to compete with his premises, they had to provide the same uncompromising guarantee . . . which very few could.
After due deliberation, he sent the den’s manager off with a flea in his ear, then called in one of his gambling specialists, an unprepossessing little man who could spot a cheat with remarkable and unerring accuracy. After dispatching Bowen to monitor the den for the next week, he spent half an hour with Jordan working out limits the exceeding of which would instantly trigger another, more urgent, review. Between Jordan’s financial vetting and Bowen’s practical vetting, Roscoe felt confident that if the den did not swiftly rectify its problems, he would be in a position to do so.
The problem at the hell, off the Strand, was more disturbing, but more easily dealt with. Two female staff leaving from the back of the building in the early hours had been attacked. They’d managed to scream and guards from the hell had come to their rescue. Roscoe consulted with his bodyguards, Mudd and Rawlins, then dispatched them to hire additional men to monitor the alleys surrounding the hell sufficiently to ensure the female staff were safely away every night.
Very early in his career, he’d realized that women were far better dealers and bankers; a very large percentage of those who ran his tables were female. As he reiterated to the hell’s manager, keeping his female staff safe and happy to work was critical to generating income; to drive the point home to the manager, his male staff, and the females concerned, Roscoe arranged to have several of the large, well-trained men he kept on retainer step in for a time to oversee the new recruits.
By late afternoon, his desk was clear.
Jordan gathered up the ledgers, saluted, and left.
Roscoe waved Tomkins in in Jordan’s wake, then slouched back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and relaxed.
His mind wandered . . . throwing up an image of a face far less striking than Jenny Edger’s, yet infinitely more riveting. Large hazel eyes under finely arched brown brows, a straight, no-nonsense nose, a mouth a trifle too large yet with lips luscious and full, pale, flawless, peaches and cream skin, brown hair glinting honey and gold, and a firm yet feminine chin, all set in an expression that held too much seriousness, too much . . . unrelenting sobriety.
Why he should feel that he had no idea, but his instincts were rarely wrong.
Why he was sitting there thinking about Roderick’s sister was an even greater mystery.
Banishing the image, shaking free of the compulsive spell—the impulse to learn more about something he didn’t understand—he sat up and opened the center drawer of the desk.
Extracting the latest missives from his family, one from his mother, the other from his sister-in-law, both delivered that morning, he briefly debated, then opened the packet from Caroline. After reading her brief note, he unfolded the enclosed report from Eton. Reading that made him smile.
Setting those sheets aside, he opened the slimmer missive from his mother, one of her usual brisk communications bringing him up to date with his sisters and their offspring. This one informed him that his sisters would be descending on Ridgware in a week’s time to spend several days planning Edwina’s wedding. The youngest of his sisters, Edwina was the last to wed. Despite the unstated yet underlying suggestion that his input would be welcome should he be able to visit, he couldn’t imagine that the five females who would be closeted at Ridgware would need any help from him.
He’d attended Millicent’s and Cassandra’s weddings by slipping inside the church at the last minute, remaining out of sight, then sliding out again before the bride and groom had even turned to come back up the aisle. If matters had been otherwise, he would have led both girls down the aisle . . . Henry, a mere boy, had had to stand in for him.
And that had hurt.
More than he’d expected.
r /> Now Edwina was about to marry, and he wouldn’t be able to lend her his arm down the aisle, either.
Staring at the letter, imaging his little sister walking down the aisle—experiencing in a visceral way the irretrievable passage of time, of years gone that he could never have back, of opportunities passed up that would not come again—his mind slid in a direction he rarely allowed it to take, to dwell on his regrets.
On the dreams he had, so long ago, set aside.
At the time with little thought, with little real appreciation of what he was sacrificing. That hadn’t seemed important at the time. Now . . .
Twelve years on, his frame of reference had shifted.
He was thirty-eight and could see no hope of ever achieving the one goal that, underneath all else, solid and real but unrecognized until recently, encompassed his ultimate desire.
Family had been his lodestone, the pivot about which his life had swung . . . but the family he’d given up so much for was fragmenting. The girls would soon all be married, with husbands and children, families of their own. His mother was aging, and Henry, although currently still dependent on him, would be grown and his own man all too soon.
And he . . . would be left with no one.
No family to care for, no one to look out for.
He was too cynically clear-sighted not to know that his role—his one true purpose in life—had always been to protect others. That was who he was.
So who would he be, and what would he do, when he had no one?
The blankness in his mind cleared, and he saw again the face that had proved so riveting last night.
He wondered why his mind made the connection . . . then recalled that he’d told her Roderick no longer needed her to watch over him.
His lips twisted; the advice had been sound. He knew all about sacrificing, and then having to let go.
A moment passed, then he sat up, set his mother’s letter back on the desk. Determinedly shaking off his melancholy mood, he reached for a pen and settled to write to his sister-in-law, reassuring her that Henry’s performance at Eton was perfectly acceptable—indeed, to be expected. Anything more and he would have been concerned that his nephew wasn’t learning all that he should.
Imagining Caroline reading that, he grinned.
“These pigs’ trotters in calf’s-foot jelly are excellent.” Gladys looked at Miranda, seated at the foot of the table. “We should have them when Mr. Wraxby comes to dine. I’m sure he’ll appreciate them.”
Miranda nodded. “I’ll speak with Mrs. Flannery in the morning to make sure Cook gets more in.” On Corrine’s death, she’d assumed control of the household; it gave her something to do, something to accomplish. Glancing at Roderick, seated in the large carver at the table’s head, she added, “We don’t yet know when—or even if—Mr. Wraxby will be able to dine, but he wrote to Aunt Gladys that he’ll be in town next week and will look to call on us.”
Roderick arched a brow. He made no comment, but she read his thought clearly in his expression: Wraxby wrote to Gladys?
She looked down at her plate. Roderick thought Wraxby a cold fish and no suitable suitor for her, but Roderick, with his light brown hair, clean-cut features, and significant fortune, wasn’t the one facing a lonely old age.
The thought of Roderick’s sizeable fortune brought her discovery of what he was planning to do with at least some of it back into her mind. In the drawing room earlier she’d had a few minutes alone with him before Gladys had joined them, but she hadn’t yet made up her mind whether to broach the subject. If she did, how would she explain how she’d learned of his private endeavor?
As Roscoe had implied, Roderick had grown to be no callow youth, no dissolute profligate, but a quiet, steady, and able gentleman. He’d thought things through and had decided to do good, and in joining the Philanthropy Guild he was on the right path.
He’d found the Guild, and the support of its members, on his own.
There was no avoiding the obvious conclusion: in this, Roderick didn’t need her help.
By the time Hughes ferried in the trifle, Roderick’s favorite dessert, she’d decided that the time had come to step back and let her little brother have the privacy he was owed.
“Pigs’ trotters.” Mrs. Flannery made a note on her list. “Now, as for luncheon today, I was thinking of a light bisque to begin with, and then perhaps . . .”
Miranda sat at her escritoire in the morning room and, with Mrs. Flannery in a chair nearby, worked through the menus for the day. They’d already settled sundry other matters, including the purchase of new linens and moving the tweeny’s day off.
“Now, for dinner, Mr. Roderick told Hughes he wouldn’t be dining in, so as it’s just you and Miss Cuthbert, miss, I was thinking we could . . .”
Miranda nodded but barely heard a word of what followed. Roderick had told Hughes, but she’d passed Roderick in the corridor earlier and he hadn’t said a word to her.
“So, miss, do you think that’ll do?”
Blinking back to the moment, she found Mrs. Flannery looking at her inquiringly. “Yes. I’m sure that will be ample.” She paused, then asked, “Is there anything else we need to discuss?”
“No, miss. I think that’s it for this morning.” Mrs. Flannery rose. “I’ll leave you to your work, and I’ll get on with mine.”
She found a smile for the housekeeper, but it faded before Mrs. Flannery had quit the room.
Roderick had always told her . . . well, until recently.
Until he’d stepped into adulthood and taken charge of his own life.
As he should.
As she’d always hoped he would.
But now he had . . .
She shook her head irritably and told herself she would simply have to get used to not being Roderick’s keeper anymore.
She kept herself busy for the next two days, filling her time with all the minor household tasks she often let slide. She focused on her role as de facto lady of the house and filled it to the very best of her ability . . .
Until the afternoon she found herself walking the garden, shears in hand, deadheading the numerous rosebushes dotted about the beds. The gardener, digging at the back of one bed, eyed her anxiously, as if worrying that her sudden burst of activity might presage a cutting back of his duties.
Reaching a large bush of faded roses, she halted.
What was she doing?
Trying to convince herself that she had some real role, that running Roderick’s house wasn’t a temporary occupation, one she’d have to hand over to his bride when he married?
The realization rocked her. She could manage this household to the top of her bent, yet it never would be hers.
Just as Roderick, and managing his life, no longer fell to her.
Neither Roderick, nor his household, could provide her with an ongoing purpose, could give long-term meaning to her life.
She stared at the withered roses, one question, strident and unavoidable, in her mind.
What am I going to do?
With the rest of her life.
After dinner two evenings later, Miranda started up the stairs, intending to fetch the novel she’d been reading and sit with Gladys in the drawing room, when she heard Roderick’s footsteps striding along the upper corridor, then he swung onto the stairs and came hurrying down. Smiling, she stopped on the landing and drew back to let him pass.
Dressed for the evening, polished and precise, he grinned but didn’t slow. “I’m off for the evening.” With a wave, he continued down the lower flight. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She remained on the landing, staring after him. Reaching the ground floor, he strode toward the front hall. She heard voices, Hughes and Roderick speaking, then the front door opened. A moment later, it shut.
If she asked . . . would Hughes know where Roderick had gone?
Not that she would ask.
It was, patently, no longer any of her business, no concern of hers.
&n
bsp; Her time as Roderick’s carer and protector—as his big sister—was over.
“So what now?”
The whisper echoed softly in the stairwell.
Turning, she resumed her climb.
As advised, Wraxby called the following afternoon. He’d visited three times earlier in the year but had retreated to his estate in Suffolk over the summer to oversee his three sons during the months they were out of school.
“Now they’re once more at Rugby, and as I had to venture to London to attend to business, I felt I should not pass up the chance to renew our acquaintance, Miss Clifford.” Wraxby bowed over Miranda’s hand.
He’d already paid his respects to Gladys, ensconced in an armchair flanking the drawing room fireplace and watching their interaction like a predatory owl. Roderick wasn’t at home; Miranda hadn’t seen him yet that day, but she was determinedly not keeping track of his whereabouts.
“We’re delighted to receive you again, sir.” Retrieving her hand, she waved Wraxby to the sofa, then sat at the opposite end. “Will you be remaining in town for long?”
“A day or two.” Wraxby fussily settled his coattails. His attire was always rigidly precise, not fashionable so much as finicky.
The conversation that followed—a set of stilted statements from Wraxby with which Gladys invariably agreed—left Miranda questioning what her lot would be if he made an offer and she accepted, and he no longer felt the need to put himself out to be entertaining.
Inwardly sighing, she told herself to give him a chance—to give herself a chance to discover if, via him, she might find a life of her own to live.
Difficult with Gladys there, encouraging him to remain strictly within the unchallenging social parameters Gladys deemed suitable for the drawing room.
Somewhat to Miranda’s surprise—perhaps noting her silence and that his entire conversation was with Gladys and not her—Wraxby himself took the initiative. “Perhaps, Miss Clifford, you would do me the honor of walking with me in the nearby square? I drove in along the river and noticed the new tea gardens at the end of the street. Have you sampled their service?”