Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake In London. Nicola Cornick

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СКАЧАТЬ bit her lip, trying to ignore his insinuation. ‘My apologies, Mr Kestrel,’ she said. ‘It seems you will have to wait a while to speak with my sister—unless you are party to the places where your cousin would take a lady to dine.’

      ‘I am quite happy to wait,’ Jack drawled. He looked at her. ‘As long as you are sure your sister will come home tonight, Miss Bowes.’

      Sally flushed at this thinly veiled slur on Connie’s virtue. She saw Dan take a step forward, his face flushed with anger, and Jack Kestrel square his shoulders as though preparing for a fight. She waved her manager back. She did not want a brawl, especially one that for once she was not sure that Dan would win. Jack Kestrel looked as though he might be a useful man in a fight. And, in truth, she could not be certain that Connie would come home. There had been times when her sister had been out all night, but after the first, terrible scene when Connie had screamed at her that she was not their mother, Sally had tried not to interfere. Her heart ached that she did not seem able to reach Connie, who went her own wayward path.

      ‘Then perhaps,’ Sally said, ‘you would like to take dinner whilst you wait, Mr Kestrel? On the house, of course.’

      Jack smiled a challenge. ‘I will gladly take dinner if you will join me, Miss Bowes.’

      Sally was shocked. If he had asked her the previous night, then she would not have been surprised, but now she could not imagine why Jack would want her company. Then she realised, with an odd little jolt of disappointment, that it was probably because he wanted to keep an eye on her and make sure that she did not slip away to warn Connie of what was going on. He did not trust her.

      And she did not feel like indulging him.

      ‘I do not dine with the guests, Mr Kestrel,’ she said coldly.

      Jack held her gaze. ‘Humour me,’ he said.

      The air between them fizzed with confrontation. Sally hesitated. She never dined with the customers at the Blue Parrot in order that there should be no misunderstandings about her role at the club. It was the job of the hostesses to mix with the patrons and to entertain them. The owner might mingle with her guests, but she preserved a distance from them. But if Jack Kestrel did not get what he wanted, she knew he could cause a great deal of trouble for her, and one dinner seemed a small price to pay whilst they waited for Connie to return. Then, she hoped against hope, she would be able to deal with this matter and remove the unexpected and wholly unwelcome threat to her business that Jack Kestrel posed.

      ‘Very well,’ she said reluctantly. ‘But you will need to give me time to change my gown.’

      Jack bowed. ‘I am happy to wait for you.’

      Sally saw Alfred’s brows shoot up towards his hairline. The staff had never seen her break her own rules before.

      ‘Dan,’ she said, ‘please show Mr Kestrel to my table in the blue dining room.’ She paused, her gaze sweeping over Jack. He might not be in evening dress, but she could not deny that he looked pretty good. Many men would kill for a physique like Jack Kestrel’s and the elegance of his tailoring could not be faulted. ‘We have a dress code, Mr Kestrel,’ she said, ‘but I suppose we can waive it on this occasion. Dan, make sure that Mr Kestrel has anything he asks for.’

      Jack inclined his head. ‘Thank you, Miss Bowes.’

      ‘My pleasure.’ Sally met his eyes and felt something pass between them, something hot and strong and heady as a draught of the finest champagne. She felt a little dizzy. Then Jack smiled and the breathless feeling inside her intensified. Damn and damn. She did not want to be reminded of the previous night and the fact that he possessed that fabled Kestrel charm. She had never felt quite like this before. She was never remotely attracted to any of the clients at the Blue Parrot. And why it had to happen now, with Jack Kestrel of all people, whose reputation was dangerous and intimidating and whose word could ruin her business, was not only deeply disturbing but also absolutely impossible.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said, masking her awareness of him with the cool composure she had cultivated for her role of a woman of business. ‘I shall not keep you waiting long.’

      And she turned and hurried away from him before she gave away too much of her feelings.

       Chapter Two

      He wanted her.

      He wanted the Blue Parrot’s cool-as-ice owner in his arms and in his bed and Jack Kestrel was accustomed to getting the things that he wanted. It should have been impossible with her sister’s blackmail standing between them, but Jack was determined to find a way to have Miss Sally Bowes.

      It had been a relief in some ways to discover that his instincts about her the previous night had been sound after all. Jack did not like being made to doubt his own judgement. But whatever the sins of Miss Connie Bowes, he was sure that her sister was as honest as she claimed to be. Sally was no blackmailer.

      He watched Sally as she mounted the fine silver-and-brass staircase to the second floor. She was a tall woman and she held herself very upright, with the unconscious grace of someone who had learned deportment in her youth. Not for the first time, he wondered about her background. He had been away from London a long time, too long to know anything of the owner of the most popular club in the city. But he was determined to find out more.

      Even though he knew the club servant was waiting to show him to his table, he waited and watched Sally out of sight. At the turn in the stair he saw her hesitate and look back, and he felt a powerful flash of masculine triumph that she had been aware of his scrutiny. Their eyes met for a long second and he felt the impact of that look through his whole body, then she disappeared into the shadows at the top of the stair and he became aware of the servant hesitating at his side.

      ‘This way, if you please, sir.’ The man said, his hostility barely concealed behind a display of immaculate deference. Jack smiled inwardly. He had sensed from the first that Sally Bowes’s employees were extremely protective of her. They knew that he constituted some sort of threat and so they did not like him. He found their loyalty to her interesting, and wondered what she had done to inspire it.

      The manager was leading him from the impressively arched entrance hall down a passageway with a thick red carpet underfoot, past doors leading to all the entertainments that the Blue Parrot had to offer. All the vices, Jack thought. The Smoking Room, the Blue Bar, the Gold Salon, where, no doubt, the gambling tables would be set up under a blaze of chandeliers, as they were at Monte Carlo. There was nothing so vulgar as the cabaret at the Moulin Rouge here, no dancing girls or painted devils serving the drinks. Jack thought that Sally had probably made a sound decision in not attempting to export the raffish style of Paris to London’s Strand. The Blue Parrot had all the elegant comforts of a gentleman’s club and country house combined, but it also had an indefinable edge of glamour and excitement that made it so much more attractive than the stuffy old clubs of St James’s.

      The servant was standing back to usher him through into the dining room, but then the door of the Gold Salon opened and Jack saw the glitter of the chandeliers within and the croupiers dealing the cards at the baccarat table. He paused.

      ‘Sir …’ there was a note of anxiety in the manager’s voice now ‘… Miss Bowes said that I was to escort you to the dining room.’

      Jack smiled. He was feeling lucky tonight. ‘Do not concern yourself,’ he said. ‘I will play a few hands whilst I wait for Miss Bowes to join me.’

      He СКАЧАТЬ