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СКАЧАТЬ thought he might play a role in politics? By God, if Sloane had Heronvale’s endorsement, what man would dare question his reputation? He felt triumphant!

      He returned to the ballroom where a set was forming. Scanning the room, he found Morgana unattached. She was the one person in the room he wanted to be with at the moment. As casually as he could manage, he crossed the room and asked her to dance with him.

      ‘You look happy,’ she said when the country dance brought them together.

      It was a simple observation, without any teasing flirtation attached. ‘I am indeed.’

      The figures separated them. When they came close again, she asked, ‘Why so?’

      He halfway considered giving her some bantering, evasive answer. It is what any other partner would expect. But this was Morgana with whom he shared many secrets. Why not share his good fortune with her as well?

      ‘I have had a brief chat with Heronvale and I’m engaged to dine with him tomorrow.’

      She looked perplexed. ‘This is the source of your happiness?’

      They had to complete the figures again before he could explain.

      ‘Heronvale will make a powerful ally.’

      ‘I see.’ She glanced over to where Heronvale stood conversing with Castlereagh. She frowned. ‘Will he make a good friend, though?’

      A friend? Such a notion was unfamiliar indeed. It took him aback. ‘Yes. I do believe I would like him for a friend.’

      She smiled and the dance separated them once more.

      At the end of the set, he was reluctant to leave her side, but he forced himself to circulate, even asking Hannah for a second set. Hannah’s conversation was as gay as usual, but the set seemed unusually long.

      Sloane declined her invitation to share the Cowdlin carriage for the trip home. He left the ball early, another errand to perform. Walking out into the night air, he became himself again, watchful and alert as he set off on foot to his destination, an innocuouslooking town house off of St James’s Street.

      He sounded the knocker and a huge bear of a man dressed in colourful livery opened the door.

      ‘Good evening, Cummings,’ Sloane greeted the man and handed him his hat.

      Cummings made no sign of noticing that Sloane had not crossed this threshold for at least three months. ‘G’d evening, sir,’ Cummings responded in his deep monotone.

      ‘Is Madame Bisou available?’

      ‘In the card room.’ Cummings disappeared into the back room where he stowed the various cloaks, hats and canes.

      Madame Bisou owned this establishment, a gaming hell and brothel, as honest and clean as any gentleman could expect. She was also indebted to Sloane, who, right before he made his decision to abandon this sort of gaming, had broken her faro bank with one mad night of reckless play. He’d not had the heart to call in the debt. She was, therefore, much beholden to him.

      He climbed the stairs to the gaming room where he’d once played whist with a woman in disguise. The Wagering Widow, they’d called her, and it had been wagers over her that drove him to make his empty threats about Heronvale’s sister-in-law. Sloane had lost badly over the Widow. Twice. And he hadn’t fancied being known for it.

      When he entered the room, several men looked up from their cards. One older fellow called to him, ‘Sloane! It has been an age! Come partner me.’

      Sloane shook his head. ‘I’m not playing tonight, Sir Reginald.’

      Madame Bisou caught sight of him and came bustling over. ‘Oh, Monsieur Sloane,’ she cried in her atrocious French accent. ‘How delightful to see you!’ Her flaming red curls bounced as energetically as the flesh the low neckline of her bright purple dress failed to conceal.

      She gave him exuberant kisses on both cheeks, but regarded him with some wariness. ‘You have perhaps come to collect?’

      He smiled. ‘No, but there is something I wish to discuss with you.’

      ‘You wish time with me?’ She spoke so loudly everyone in the room could hear.

      He glanced around, but everyone was too busy with their cards or dice to heed her very public invitation.

      ‘To confer with you,’ he clarified. ‘But I will pay for your time.’

      ‘Oh, no,’ she protested as she led him out into the hall. ‘We shall deduct it from what I owe you.’

      She took him to the supper room and they seated themselves at the same out-of-the-way table where he’d got bloody drunk over the loss of his first wager over Lady Widow.

      Madame Bisou lowered herself into a chair with a noisy rustle of satin skirts. ‘What is it, mon cher, that you require of me?’ She fluttered her lashes seductively.

      ‘Ease off, Penny.’ Sloane took the seat across from her.

      She frowned at his use of her given name. ‘Speak quietly, Cyprian, or I shall shout your name across the room.’ Her French accent fled and she talked like the Chelsea girl she’d once been.

      He laughed. ‘As if everyone does not know it. My father has made certain of that.’ He signalled to one of the serving girls, who brought them a bottle of brandy and two crystal glasses.

      He poured for her. ‘I am in need of a favour, Penny. An odd one, but I am persuaded you will be the perfect person for it.’

      As methodically as he could, he described Morgana’s plan, trying to make it sound as if it were not completely irrational. After he finished he downed a whole glass of brandy in one gulp.

      Penny leaned towards him. ‘Do you mean to say a baron’s daughter has taken in some of Fortuna Rice’s girls and she wants to train them to be high-flyers?’

      Sloane poured himself more brandy. ‘You have grasped it, Penny.’

      ‘And you want me to teach them how to seduce men?’

      He gave her a sly smile. ‘If you know such things.’

      She slapped him playfully on the arm. ‘Of course I know such things! You know I do, darling. I am an expert!’ She straightened in her chair and fussed with the lace on her bodice. ‘I am to go to Mayfair, into this lady’s house?’

      Sloane’s eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose I could bring them here—’

      ‘No!’ she cried. ‘I want to be invited to Mayfair. Now tell me, Cyprian. How much is she willing to pay?’

      He wagged his finger at her. ‘Do not rook her, Penny, or you will answer to me. If you tutor these girls, your debt to me is forgiven. That should be payment enough.’

      She grinned and her eyes danced. She looked almost like the ambitious and beautiful young doxy he’d met ten years earlier. ‘I declare I might have taken this on at no charge at all. It sounds a splendid lark.’

      ‘But СКАЧАТЬ