The Lady Risks All Read Online Free PDF Page A

catering to the wealthy, the affluent, the aristocratic; gambling was one of society’s favorite vices, and Roscoe was, by all accounts, a past master at supplying exactly the right drug to sate society’s craving.
    Roscoe was known to be immensely wealthy and also to wield significant power, both in his own arena and in murkier spheres. He wasn’t, however, considered a criminal. Instead, he inhabited a nebulous strata between society and the underworld; he could rub shoulders with dukes one day, crime lords the next, and yet remain free of both worlds.
    Speaking generally, Roscoe was an enigma, and very much a law unto himself.
    He’d already been living in the huge white mansion on Chichester Street, overlooking the treed expanse of Dolphin Square to the Thames beyond, when Roderick had bought the house in Claverton Street, just around the corner, a year ago. Miranda had heard all about the neighborhood’s most famous citizen within days of taking up residence.
    She hadn’t, however, as yet set eyes on him, but she had no ambition to do so.
    “Wretched man.” She wasn’t sure if she was speaking of Roderick or Roscoe; that Roderick might wish to chance his hand at gambling wasn’t such a surprise, but . . . her lips thinned. “He can’t afford to become involved with Roscoe.”
    It wasn’t that Roderick couldn’t afford to gamble; even at Roscoe’s level, he most definitely could. But his wealth derived from trade, and as she and he had been taught all their lives, that meant that, far more than others born more acceptably, they had to cling, rigidly and beyond question, to respectability.
    Seeing Roderick walk into Roscoe’s house had instantly evoked the specter of their elder sister, Rosalind. The three of them had been orphaned as children; with Miranda and Roderick, Rosalind had grown up in the care of their aunts. Rosalind had been subjected to the same lectures on respectability, the same unbending strictures, but when she’d reached sixteen, Rosalind had rebelled. She’d run off with gypsies, only to return two years later, diseased and dying.
    Rosalind had died tragically, just like their mother, who had eloped with their father, the son of a mill owner.
    Every time anyone in their family stepped off the path of rigid respectability, disaster and death followed. Miranda didn’t want Roderick to die young, much less tragically; returning home and leaving him to his fate wasn’t in any way an acceptable option.
    Keeping to the shadows, she circled the lawn, making for the house and that glass-paned door. Her mind threw up images of what she might find inside—a private gambling party or . . . an orgy? From all she’d heard, she might stumble into either. Women were invariably a part of Roscoe’s entertainments; his clubs were renowned for their large female staffs.
    “With luck, I’ll pass, at least for long enough.” She was old enough, looked experienced enough. Reaching the terrace, she glanced down at the lilac twill walking dress she wore under her cape. It was hardly evening wear but was elegant enough to establish her class. Regardless, she wasn’t about to retreat. She didn’t intend remaining for longer than it took to find Roderick and catch his eye; that would be enough to shock him to his senses, after which he would walk her home.
    Crossing the terrace, she opened the door and stepped inside. A corridor wreathed in dark shadows stretched before her. Quietly shutting the door, she registered the oddity of the pervasive silence, of the dark, unlit rooms. Even from the other side of the lawn, where the entire back of the house had been visible, she hadn’t noticed any lighted windows, any sign of a party, no matter how refined. Halting, she let her senses stretch.
    The ground on which the house stood sloped sharply down to Chichester Street, leaving the rear garden elevated. The floor she’d entered on was in fact the first, not the ground floor, which fronted the street.