Barbara Metzger Read Online Free PDF

it?”
    Forrest’s lips curved in a slow smile. “Nothing he won’t outgrow.”
    “That’s all right, then.” Roxy considered that smile, and the viscount’s well-muscled figure leaning nonchalantly against the door frame. “Oi don’t suppose you’d ... ?”
    Lord Mayne’s head shook, but his smile widened, showing even white teeth.
    Roxy turned back to her reflection. “Well, you can’t blame a girl for tryin’ . ”
    “Au contraire, chérie, I am honored.” He raised her hands to his lips in farewell. “Enchanté, mademoiselle.”
    “Enchant-tea to you too, ducky.”
    * * * *
    The proprietor of the gaming rooms on King Street recognized the crest on the carriage. It was Alf Sniddon’s business to know such things. He made sure his doorman told Viscount Mayne the place was closed till evening. The doorman made sure he’d stay alive till evening instead, and was therefore richer by a handsome tip besides. The place was open for business, but not for long, it seemed, unless Mr. Sniddon changed his policy.
    “But I don’t make the bets or take the young gentlemen’s vouchers, my lord.”
    “No, you take only a hefty cut of the winnings. Let me put it this way, Sniddon: How long would you stay in business if word went out in the clubs that you ran a crooked table, plucking young pigeons with drugged wine?”
    Sniddon calculated how long it would take to find new quarters, change the name of the establishment, change his name, establish a new clientele. It was cheaper to change policies.
    “Right-o, cash on the barrel it is, my lord, for all young gentlemen.”
    “There, I knew we could agree. And who knows, you might just set a new style, an honest gaming hell. I’d be tempted to stop in myself.”
    Sniddon recognized Mayne’s soft-spoken words for the mixed blessing they were: a threat that the powerful lord would be monitoring Sniddon’s compliance, and a promise of reward, for where the handsome viscount led, his well-heeled Corinthian set followed. Sniddon nodded. He’d try it the nob’s way a while, then move if he had to. It wouldn’t be the first time.
    * * * *
    So much for business. The viscount tapped his cane on the coach roof to signal his driver on to the next destination. It was time for pleasure.
    * * * *
    Otto Chester lived in rooms at 13 Jermyn Street, where accommodations were cheap because of foolish superstitions. Such imbecilic notions meant little to a man used to making his own luck with marked decks and loaded dice. Today his luck was out. Otto Chester wished he’d been out, too. Instead, he was in the act of setting the folds in his neckcloth when Lord Forrest Mainwaring strode into the room without waiting to be announced. Fate seldom makes an appointment.
    Chester was a jackal dressed in gentlemen’s togs. He was everything Viscount Mayne despised: pale, weak, preying on the unwary like a back-biting cur. In short, he was a coward, not even attempting to regain his feet after Forrest’s first hard right.
    “But—” he gulped around the rock-hard fist that was embedded in the material of his neckcloth, dragging him up and holding his feet off the ground. He batted ineffectively at the viscount’s steely right arm with an effete left. “But I had notes of my own. You know, debts of honor, play and pay.”
    Forrest sneered in disgust. There wasn’t any satisfaction in darkening the dirty dealer’s daylights; the paltry fellow was already quaking in his boots. On second thought, he reflected, there might be a modicum of satisfaction in cramming the muckworm’s mockery of the gentleman’s credo down his scrawny throat. “You wouldn’t recognize honor if it hit you on the nose,” he growled, following through with a cross punch to said protuberance. “Now you will.”
    Lord Mayne tossed the offal aside like a pile of rags and wiped his hands on a fresh neckcloth waiting in reserve on a nearby chair back. He threw it to the sniveling scum in the corner. “Here,