The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(18)

Even drunk, there was an intelligence in his gaze, an intensity, as though he could see every foolish yearning she’d hidden from even herself.

Eyes that also suggested he knew he’d been the object of her scrutiny. A devilish half grin tugged at his lips, jerking her back from the momentary insanity that had clouded her senses.

Her skin awash with humiliated heat, Helena hopped to her feet. “You need to leave.” She jabbed her finger toward the long-case clock. “Now.” Squaring her shoulders, she stood with her feet spread, hands on her hips, until the intruder stood up and stumbled down the opposite direction. He turned the corner, and some of the tension left her. From down the length of the hall, a loud thump, followed by some inventive curses, reached her ears. Then silence, as he took his leave altogether.

She gave her head a disgusted shake, starting for her rooms once more. These were sad days indeed, when an exchange with a drunken stranger should highlight her otherwise tedious existence here.

She reached her chambers and pressed the handle.

Tension twisting inside, Helena began to pace. The audacity of him. To enter the private suites and collapse into his drunken stupor no less. She tapped the hilt of her knife against her palm. It would have served the scoundrel right if she’d summoned one of the men and had him physically removed.

So why didn’t you?

The strategically stationed guards alternated shifts throughout the day but someone was assigned to those positions at all times. Only her own earlier foray onto the gaming floor, the crowded tables and crush of patrons, merited one of the guards stepping away from his post.

Ryker would have bloodied senseless the employee who’d abandoned his post, and then tossed the careless man into the street for his failings. Having lived with the uncertainty of nothing but fear and hunger for company, she’d not risk another’s security in that way . . . even if he’d demonstrated an egregious lack of judgment.

But that is not the only reason, a voice needled at the back of her head. For if she were being honest, with at least herself . . . her reasons for not summoning Ryker moved beyond a noble reason to protect a guard from a beating and firing.

Had she raised an alarm, her brother’s men would have broken more than the stranger’s nose for having even walked the same halls as Helena’s chambers—and such an elegant, aquiline nose deserved far more than that ignoble fate.

Filled with restive energy, she strode over to the rose-inlaid secretaire stacked with ledgers. Since her brother had hired her the best tutors, and she’d discovered a calming peace in the constancy of those numbers, they alone made sense. They could be understood and explained. And more . . . they posed a distraction from the hellish memories that could only come from living on the streets, at the mercy of a ruthless gang. Helena tossed her knife atop the leather book containing last year’s numbers for the club and pressed her fingertips against her temples. In this instance, her mind was too muddled to work through the numbers Ryker expected of her tomorrow.

Restless, she peeled back the edge of the thick, sapphire-blue curtain and gazed down into the dangerous streets of St Giles. Even with the distance between her and the ground, the clatter of carriage wheels passing and raucous shouts from the streets carried up to her lone room. She rested her brow against the window and studied two dandies who stumbled out of the club and spilled into the streets, a bright splash of garish color in a dark night. How very small her world was. Envy twisted inside at the power granted and permitted men and gentlemen alike. In the company of a drunken stranger, all her deepest, long-buried yearnings to know a world beyond these walls reared once more. Oh, she didn’t desire the company of a drunkard. She’d dealt with enough beatings and lashings at the hands of one of those unpredictable bastards: the man her mother had married after her protector had turned her out.

But did she truly wish to remain an accountant and nothing more? A woman not many years off from her thirtieth year, she’d never left London or interacted with anyone beyond a handful of de facto family inside the Hell and Sin. Was it a wonder she was more comfortable with numbers than people?

With a sigh she let the curtain go and rescued the ledger at the top of the pile, along with one of the many pairs of spectacles that littered the club. She studied her glasses, fiddling with the wire frames. She’d been so content with managing the books that she’d not given true thought to what she wanted her future to be. With the increasing limits placed on her movements inside and outside the club, she’d begun to chafe at those boundaries imposed. For the vital role she contributed to the success of the club, she was still largely . . . powerless. With that absolute lack of control, she’d come to appreciate everything she did hunger for: the ability to go where she wished, the freedom to speak to whomever she wanted, and the right to play a public role in the running of the club, not play in the carefully guarded secret it had been.

Shoving aside the brewing frustration, Helena put her spectacles on, collected the ledger, and made her way across the room. There was no room or place for woolgathering at the Hell and Sin, and most especially not when her reports were still unfinished.

Helena climbed into the massive four-poster bed and in the dim light cast by the fire in the hearth, reviewed the previous year’s liquor expenses. The faint ticking of the porcelain clock at the side of her bed marked the passing moments in a grating, staccato rhythm, cutting across her efforts.