Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(23)

Dahlia’s smile became a grin. The duchess had not overstated her reputation—she was pure merry widow, but instead of a dead husband, she’d been gifted an absent one—a disappeared duke who had no taste for sparkling London life, and instead lived on a remote estate in the wilds of the Scilly Isles. “I am always surprised to see you on nights that are not for Dominion.”

“Nonsense. Dominion is for show, my dear,” she said, leaning in close. “Tonight is for secrets.”

“Unmasked secrets?”

“Not my secrets, darling. I’m an open book, as they say!” She grinned. “Everyone else’s secrets.”

Dahlia smiled. “Well. Whatever the reason, we’re grateful for you.”

“You’re grateful for the business I send your way,” the duchess said with a laugh.

“And that,” Dahlia allowed. The duchess had been a vital early customer—someone with access to the brightest stars in Mayfair, and wild support for women who wished to explore themselves, their pleasure, and the world that was offered without hesitation to men. She and Dahlia held each other in the mutual respect that came from two women who understood each other’s immense power, a respect that could have been the seed of friendship but had never been cultivated—for no other reason than that they both held too many secrets for honest friendship.

Secrets that neither woman had ever tried to divine, a fact for which Dahlia was regularly grateful, as she knew without question that, with the right motivation, the Duchess of Trevescan would be one of the few people in the world who could uncover her past.

A past she had no interest in revisiting ever again.

The memory came from nowhere, like a runaway carriage, with eyes the color of twenty-year whisky and a fall of dark blond hair and a stern, square jaw that had taken her blows like it had deserved them.

He had deserved them.

She stilled, for a moment losing her easy smile. For a moment losing her place.

The duchess’s dark brows knit together. “Dahlia?”

Dahlia shook her head, simultaneously clearing it and waving her off, taking a beat to turn to the quartet of women—masked and draped over a silk-upholstered chaise behind the duchess. She found a bright smile of greeting. “And you’ve brought that business tonight! Welcome, ladies!”

No one in 72 Shelton Street would ever breathe the name or title of a member, but Dahlia immediately catalogued the quartet who often came to Shelton Street unannounced in the wake of the duchess: Lady S__, a notorious scandal who enjoyed Covent Garden more than Mayfair; Miss L__, a bluestocking who routinely said the wrong thing and landed herself in peril with the ton; Lady A__, a quiet, aging spinster whose keen eye was worth that of a half dozen of Dahlia’s rooftop spies; and finally, Lady N__, daughter of a very rich, very absent, very accommodating duke, and lady love to Dahlia’s brothers’ second-in-command.

Dahlia met Lady N__’s smiling eyes. “I see you are without your lady.”

She waved a hand in dismissal. “Your brothers have a ship in port, and a late night ahead of them. You know as well as I that, without her, they’d all drown in the ship’s hold. But that’s no reason for me to stay home and rend my clothes, is it?”

The Bareknuckle Bastards smuggled goods wildly taxed by the Crown into London on ships laden with ice; the cargo, moved quickly and always under cover of darkness, provided income that was both perfectly legal and exceedingly illegal. Such was the business of Covent Garden.

“Well, we are more than happy to have you with us tonight, my lady.” Dahlia laughed, before turning back to the duchess. “I assume you are not here for companionship?”

The duchess inclined her head. “In fact, no. We are simply here to read the news.”

To collect whatever gossip they could. “You’ll be happy to know we’ve a wide assortment of material this evening, then.”

The women—whispered about in ballrooms as a hodgepodge of ineligibility—were more than welcome at 72 Shelton, where they rarely took advantage of the more sensual perks of membership, instead choosing to languish in receiving rooms and attend the fights downstairs when they were scheduled. After all, private rooms did not deliver gossip, and this group traded in information above all.

“We’ve three fights scheduled for tonight, and an ever-expanding membership, which is making Zeva a bit grumpy.”

Zeva looked up from a quiet conversation with a liveried footman in the corner. “You pay me to be grumpy.”

The duchess laughed before lowering her voice with Dahlia. “I confess, I expected that there’d be a higher level of security tonight—” She looked over her shoulder toward the door, guarded by a pair of the biggest Covent Garden brutes anyone could find. “Though I suppose those two do just fine.”

Them, and a half dozen markswomen on the rooftops surrounding the club, but no one needed to know that outside of a select few. Still, “Why would we require additional guards?”

The duchess lowered her voice for privacy and turned, her gaze traveling over the women scattered throughout the room, richly upholstered in scarlet and awash in a decadent golden glow. “I’m hearing there are raids.”

Dahlia’s brows rose. “What kind of raids?”

The duchess shook her head. “I don’t know. The Other Side was closed two nights ago.”