Lady Vice Read Online Free PDF

considered a period of mourning. She understood what people would expect…the downcast eyes, the drawn expression.
    Assuming her role in the theater of grief was not a worry. She was a competent actress—first she had acted the devoted wife, then the vicious harpy. Neither role had revealed what lay beneath. Both had sharpened her skills.
    But mourning, and whatever inquiry into Vaile’s death that would accompany the nightmare, would require she withdraw from public interaction and would temporarily prevent her from hosting the Furies’ gambling salons—and the salons were her only source of coin.
    Though the law made a husband responsible for his wife’s debts, neither Lavinia nor the duchess had wanted to sue in chancery for an allowance, and she, Sophia, and Thea had come up with the idea of exclusive gambling salons with games and wagers and betting books benefitting the hostesses.
    If she could not host the salons with Thea and Sophia, how would she collect gold? If she could not collect gold, how would she continue to pay Vaile’s procuress to keep her silence?
    Soon after Lavinia had left Vaile, the Madam, known on the streets as Iphigenia, had made her terms clear: gold for silence. With the coroner’s court about to convene, Lavinia needed, now more than ever, to keep her secrets. And she was already a payment behind, because last evening the Madam had not appeared at their usual meeting place.
    Lavinia rubbed her forehead.
    “My lady?”
    She blinked. What had Maggie asked? Dye for mourning.
    “Collect the clothes Vaile favored.”—designed to be stripped off the wearer on demand—“Dye those, not the ones I purchased this year.”
    “Very well.” Maggie lifted Lavinia’s bodice and squinted.
    “I ruined it.”
    “No, I think not. A nice bit of embroidery will fix this right up.” Maggie turned with a knowing expression. “You have ruined less than you believe.”
    Lavinia sank onto her dressing table chair. Maggie lied. She was ruined in body and soul. Soon the details of her shame would be fed to a ravenous public anxious to judge and condemn.
    Maggie began gathering the clothes. “I will take these down to the press room while you rest a spell. Should I brush out the man in the library’s coat as well?”
    Lavinia’s throat dried. Max.
    “Yes,” she replied. “Thank you.”
    She closed her eyes. The myth of the untouchable Lady Vice had drawn singularly aggressive male attention this past year, yet each man’s flirtations had left her unmoved. His kiss, however, had been heavenly. When they kissed, she had become young again.
    She grimaced. As if she could ever be young again. Young and full of hope for a future that would never come. Her future had never looked bleaker. Pain hunched her shoulders, and she bit her lower lip. She had been selfish and foolish to allow him to stay.
    She reached for her quill, then changed her mind. Because Max had risked his reputation to prepare her for the worst, he deserved better than to be dismissed in a hastily written note.
    “Maggie, will you send the man in the library to me by way of the servants’ stair?”
    “I will.”
    As Maggie left, Lavinia wandered to her window. Across the courtyard garden, light emanated from Sophia’s study window. Lavinia frowned with concern. Lately, the end-of-the-evening company Sophia kept with Lord Randolph had been lengthening with every salon, even as their mysterious ten-game-wager approached its much-speculated-upon finish.
    By all appearances, Randolph was a dissolute earl whose interest lay more in women and gambling than in the management of his estate and the goings on in the House of Lords.
    Sophia insisted she had no interest in a man who was a rogue through and through, but Lavinia was certain Randolph had designs on Sophia, just as she was certain there was more to Randolph than met the eye.
    Lavinia pulled the curtain closed.
    For tonight, she would have to trust Sophia’s judgment and assume