The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(101)

A thick, tense silence fell.

Goddamn it all. Where any bloody duke, baron, or any lord in between could go hang on any other day, Calum was right on this. Somerset had selflessly returned to St Giles, to come for Helena when Diggory had snatched her. It mattered not whose bullet had ended the bastard . . . but rather, who had taken a bullet that day.

Swallowing another curse, Ryker strode for the door.

“Should I send round your acceptances?” Humor laced the other man’s tone.

“Send my goddamn acceptance,” he bit out, as Calum’s laughter trailed after him.

Ryker stalked through the halls, and marched an angry path to the observatory that overlooked the casino. He’d survived more blades in his person, gunshots, and street fights than any man had a right to live and tell of. And he’d welcome any one of those tenuous situations to entering London Society.

Cursing his sister, Ryker found his place at the window and stared at the drunken dandies stumbling about his club.

Yes, Ryker had survived life on the streets. He could certainly survive an evening with these same brainless fops and their equally brainless ladies.

Then his debt was paid to Helena and Somerset, and Ryker was free to carry on an existence where the only need he had of the peerage was the coin they tossed down at his tables.