Of Sin & Sanctuary: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Read online

  “Is your inspection of my current state satisfied, Vee? I am hideous, I know it. You now know it. So let us move onward.” Theo pointed to Logan over her shoulder. “Tell him, Vee. Tell your man to allow the marker I need.” Theo swayed slightly in a slow circle that threatened his balance.

  Brazenly presumptuous, as always. That had not changed.

  She glanced about the room, noting all the wide eyes eager for her next move—for her to dole out humiliation. She bit her tongue.

  For how she had just gawked at him, she owed him that much—to be spared any more indignity. She conjured her most patient smile. “Lord Alton, can we discuss this in private?”

  “Anything you say can be heard by all my new friends here, Vee.” Theo’s left hand swung out, motioning to the men and women at the table.

  Violet glanced to the octagonal card table. By the setup on the table and the pot in the middle, the group had been playing a rather high-stakes game of Loo. A game that was not over.

  She looked to Theo. “Please, Lord Alton. Just for a moment in private, please.”

  He stepped toward her, his left arm flopping along her shoulders again. “Truly, Vee. No secrets here.”

  His weight shifted, using her for a crutch against his inebriation. A fresh waft of brandy hit her, the smell smothering her. Violet spread her feet wide, bracing herself against the extra weight on her shoulders. Her look landed on Lord Jiften across the room—one of the most dreadful gossips of the ton.

  She glanced up at the side of Theodore’s face.

  The bugger.

  He was abusing the situation—the room. He knew she wouldn’t humiliate him in front of these people. But the unpaid credit he had managed to draw out of Cassandra the last time he visited the Revelry’s Tempest had put Violet’s bank into the negative for months. Violet had been at Dellon Castle, visiting Adalia, and Cassandra had assumed responsibility for the Revelry’s Tempest while Violet was away. Cassandra had felt horrible for the incident, having never even questioned Theodore’s ability to satisfy the markers when he had asked for the credit.

  Violet would not make that mistake. “I would rather not discuss private matters in public, Lord Alton.”

  “Public—private—everyone knows everything, Vee.” His voice took on a demanding tone. “You know that as well as I. So you can draw up that marker now.”

  That was her limit. It was one thing to be asked. Quite another to be ordered. “I am afraid we cannot offer further markers to you, Lord Alton.”

  His head jerked back, shocked for a moment before a strained grin came to his lips. Anger simmered under the smile. “Violet, surely you understand that my sister would approve any marker, since this is legally her house.”

  Violet stepped forward to duck away from his arm and turned to face him directly. “I actually have no doubt your sister would approve of exactly what I am doing, Lord Alton.”

  His top lip curled in a sneer. “My hideousness too much for you, Violet? You cannot trust a monster like me?”

  The back of her neck flushed. She recognized exactly what he was doing—exploiting her guilt at her earlier boorishness. It was so very easy for her to now see through his manipulations—any man’s manipulations, for that matter. Little did Theo know plying upon her guilt wouldn’t work.

  She opened her mouth to tell him exactly that just as her eyes met his.

  His eyes.

  The color she recognized from long ago, the cool blue of ice under a clear sky. Bloodshot, but the silver-flecked blue was there. Angry. Overbearing. But also struggling. Raging. Raging against everything in this world.

  She recognized that, the fierce depth of the torment. It made her mouth clamp closed, hiding the slight gasp bubbling from her chest.

  Without a word, she walked around Theo.

  Logan still stood by the door and she paused next to him, going to her toes to whisper in his ear. “Allow him enough to make it through the next hands. But throw as much brandy as you can down his throat. The quicker he loses consciousness, the less money we will lose.”

  Logan nodded.

  Her chest growing heavy with dread, she left the room. Down the stairs to the ballroom, she avoided eye contact with everyone in the crowd as she weaved her way through the hazard and card tables to her office at the back of the main gaming room.

  Her avoidance didn’t stop the portly Lord Hortman from grabbing her arm as she passed him. Her look whipping to him, she cocked her head upward so she could stare down her nose at him. She was a widowed viscountess and expected the respect the title demanded, but she also owned a gaming house—and that made far too many men audacious with their grabby paws.

  “Lady Vandestile, I have been waiting for you to make an appearance this eve in the ballroom—you have been my good luck.” Lord Hortman motioned to the French roulette table in front of him. “What say you, red or black?”

  She forced a sweet smile at him. “You bring your own luck with you, Lord Hortman.”

  He laughed an overly hearty chuckle. “The luck I bring is poor tonight, my lady. I need some of yours. Come, you have much to spare.”

  Violet doubted that, what with the scene upstairs with Theodore. She had an overwhelming suspicion her luck was quickly waning. The smile on her face spread wider, sweeter. “Whatever you see in my face, Lord Hortman—red or black, that is the one to bet on.”

  He considered her a moment, eyes canny, and then he laughed. “Red it is, my lady.” He set his markers down onto the red velvet of the table.

  Violet walked away from the table before the wheel stopped. A whoop followed her as she opened the door to her office. Red it was.

  Closing the door behind her, both of her hands gripped the doorknob behind her back as the farce of the smile slipped from her face, her head dropping forward. The brass knob a lifeline, she leaned back against the door, gasping for breath after breath.

  She could play the part she needed to in order to fill the coffers—play the sweetly flirtatious widow for every idiot looking to part ways with his coin. She could do that to ensure she had complete control of her funds, her life.

  But each and every time she had to slap a smile on her face in front of a man, she had to simultaneously swallow back a gag in her throat and instant panic in her chest.

  She couldn’t let that show. Especially not to another idiot man, just as her husband had been.

  Her head lifted, her eyes landing on the calendar on her desk. Even from across the room, she could see the word “Gala” in thick ink, taunting her.

  It would be a success. It would.

  As long as the entertainment fell into place. The Spanish wine shipment arrived from Montes de Malaga. The new games of chance were developed. The right food was chosen to specifically fatten bellies and loosen purse strings.

  As long as everything was perfect.

  She needed it. Needed to make Adalia proud of her. Needed to finally secure her own future after years of paying off debts.

  And the gala would do just that.

  Secure her future.

  { Chapter 2 }

  Violet shoved open the skinny door on the fourth level of the Revelry’s Tempest. So hard, it made the door swing inward and knock the side wall.

  The bang did nothing to wake the inert mass of the man unconscious on the floor inside.

  Three stomps of her boots across the tiny room, and she kicked the man in the ribs.

  He jolted upright and his head knocked into a low rafter, sending him back to the floor.

  Good.

  He landed on his side, still for a long moment. A low groan rumbled from his chest, his hand slowly going to the crown of his head. He rubbed his scalp as he slowly pulled himself up to a sitting position. Resting his forearms on his bent knees, he looked up at the morning light coming in the tiny window first, then to her as his eyebrows collapsed together over squinty eyes. “You put me in the servants’ quarters.”

  Her hands went to her hips, her glare pier
cing him, her toes aching to kick him in the ribs again. Hard. “You are lucky I didn’t toss you into the gutter, Lord Alton.”

  He blinked hard, his eyes attempting to focus on her. “The gutter hardly seems like the place for me, Violet.”

  “The gutter is exactly where you should be—the only reason you are not is that you are Adalia’s brother.”

  She took a step forward, her heel stomping hard onto the floorboards. “The last time you were here at the Revelry’s Tempest you ruined my bank for months with your disastrous gaming. And now you have sunk the blasted ship again.”

  His hands lifted, the butt of his palms rubbing his eyes before he looked at her with a sigh. “Just what is it you believe me to have sunk, Violet?”

  “You don’t recall?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Ten thousand pounds, to be exact. Ten thousand pounds slipping from your fingers.”

  He flipped his fingers into the air. “A trifle.”

  “A trifle?” Her voice went shrill. “Forgive me, Lord Alton, but do you not think that is an outrage? Ten thousand pounds—lost?”

  He looked up at her, his words sharp. “Forgive me, Vee, but do you not run a gaming house? I would think your outrage at my poor gambling skills is not warranted. That you are accustomed to watching such losses. Especially as the proprietress of said house.”

  She leaned down slightly, her words sliding through gritted teeth. “Outrage is warranted when it has sent my bank to the edge of collapse. You have no idea what you have wrought, do you?”

  He shrugged and then laid himself back onto the floor on his side, his hand rubbing his forehead. “Just what is it that I have wrought, Vee?”

  “You weren’t losing your money last night—you were losing my money. Money you have no way to pay back. You have put me in a precarious position. My bank is now in the negative, and I will need to borrow money for the gala in a month. And to do that, I need some sort of security for my lender.” She paused, a long exhale hissing from her mouth. “Of which, I have none.”

  His eyes closed as he settled his right hand under his head as a pillow. “That does sound like a predicament you have gotten yourself into, Vee.”

  She nudged him in the stomach with the toe of her boot. “Do better, you sluggard.”

  “Why not just ask my sister for more funds?” He didn’t bother to even turn his head up to her, much less open his eyes.

  “This is not the time to put this upon her shoulders—do you not know carrying this babe has been very difficult for her? I refuse to add anything to her worry.”

  His eyes popped open, his look jumping to her face. “Adalia is not well?”

  “When was the last time you visited her? Wrote her?”

  He stared up at her, not answering, yet his look of concern didn’t waver.

  Violet sighed. “Adalia is well enough, as of now. She is resting. In bed day and night. And I intend to keep her there by, one, not bothering her with any matters of the Revelry’s Tempest, and by, two, not reporting her ne’er-do-well brother’s latest antics here in London.”

  “I am a ne’er-do-well now?”

  “Yes.”

  He rolled over onto his back, his hand clasping onto his forehead. His chest rose in an exaggerated sigh. “So what do you want of me?”

  “I want you to right the predicament you put me in last night. I need something—anything with a stake that I can use as a guarantee against a loan so I can make it through the gala in a month.”

  “A gala?”

  “Yes—the Gala of Three. A celebration of the three years the Revelry’s Tempest has been open.”

  “That is a particularly obvious name.”

  “It is a particularly obvious event.”

  His hand on his forehead slipped over his eyes. “I would think you would have planned the balance of your bank more appropriately, Violet, if this was so important.”

  She growled and nudged him with her boot again. “I planned my funds out very well—down to the penny. What I did not plan upon was Adalia’s oafish brother showing up and losing ten thousand pounds of my money.”

  He scoffed. “What? Ten thousand pounds?”

  “Yes, ten thousand pounds. Have you not been listening to me?”

  His hand moved from covering his eyes and he looked at her. “Ten thousand? No. Ridiculous. I would never have done that.”

  “Never has come for you, then.” She poked him in the ribs with her boot. “You did. And it would have been far more had you not drunk yourself into a stupor.” Violet paused, drawing a deep breath, striving for calm when all she really wanted to do was jump on top of him and choke him. “So now I ask you again, do you have anything of value—anything I can use as security?”

  He shook his head as his fingers went to his temples and rubbed. His eyes closed. “You truly should not have approved my credit, Vee. That was quite careless of you.”

  A screech escaped her. She leaned down even further to him, hovering above his face. “You do realize I am a breath away from setting Logan upon you, Theo? If you thought your scars hideous before, you will not like the mirror at all when he is done with you.”

  The temple rubbing continued, his face not even flinching at the threat. “Logan does not scare me.”

  “He should.”

  Theo shrugged and then his eyes popped open. “How about the mine?”

  “Your lead mine?” Violet straightened a bit, her arms crossing in front of her. “That is worthless. It has been for years.”

  Theo pushed himself up to sitting once more, his knees bending as he steadied himself. “You seem to have intimate knowledge on the matter.”

  “I do. Adalia asked me to look at all of the Alton finances years ago.”

  His hands gripped the tops of his knees as he looked up at her. “Years ago? Why would she have had you, of all people, look at the Alton finances?”

  Violet ignored the obvious derision in his comment. Theodore wasn’t the first man to underestimate her knowledge of numbers. “It was when you were missing after Caldwell died. When you had abandoned her.”

  “I didn’t abandon her.”

  She gave a slight shake of her head. She wasn’t about to spare him the truth of the matter and she had been sitting on this scolding for two and a half years. “Well, you were not here. She lost two of her brothers to early graves, and you were missing. All three of her brothers gone and she was left with the responsibility of the estate and two nieces. But you were alive, and yet you stayed away for what?”

  Her lips drew back in a disgusted line as her eyes went to the low slanted rafters just above her head. She rushed on without waiting for an answer. “For the devil only knows why. So yes, you abandoned her, Theo. She thought you were dead.” She looked down at him. “Do you know how alone she was? How scared? How she struggled—scratched every day to keep the Alton estate afloat? Your name. Your title. Not that you cared then. Not that you care now.”

  His gaze dropped from her. “My sister is a saint. I understand.”

  “She would be the last person to say that about herself. But, yes. Adalia managed to figure out a way to maintain the estate—your estate—to feed your nieces, to survive. All without your help.”

  “Done so well, I just should have stayed missing—dead.” His head suddenly jerked up, his blue eyes meeting hers. “Did you know they put a gravesite out for me at Glenhaven House? Headstone and everything. Awkward, looking at your own death.”

  Violet drew a sharp intake of breath.

  He was trying to throw her off-balance again.

  She exhaled slowly. It wouldn’t work. “I don’t know what happened to you those many years ago, Theo. Adalia never told me, and I never asked. It clearly was painful. But frankly, I don’t care. All I know is you are now a person that is manipulative, boorish, drunk at every turn from what the gossips say, abusing your relationship with your sister, and most importantly, threatening my livelihood.”

  “No
, you’re wrong, Vee.”

  “About what?” Her crossed arms tightened.

  He met her glare, challenging it. “About the mine. It is worth something—we have been digging. We have been for the past year. There is a new vein.”

  “If that was true, Adalia would have told me.”

  “She doesn’t know.”

  “What do you mean, she doesn’t know? She knows every step you take, you have her worried so.”

  “Yes. Well, she doesn’t know this.”

  Violet shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t believe you, Theo.”

  He shrugged. “Believe me or not. It’s all I have.” He motioned to the doorway. “So get out and leave me to this floor for a few hours. I have nothing else to offer you, Vee.”

  He was lying. The bloody idiot was lying.

  There was no doubt.

  And she was wasting her time even talking to him. He could have his blasted floor.

  She turned to move to the door.

  “Come and see it then, Vee.”

  Her boot heels clicking hard on the floorboards, she took three steps to the doorway. At the threshold, her feet slowed against her own better instincts. Instincts she should never trust. Instincts that had been harsh in their failure before.

  She stopped, sighing. “You think to show me the mine?”

  “If it will make you believe me, then yes. I can show you the vein.”

  She stared at a top black hinge on the door, debating.

  She needed to walk away. Walk away this instant from Theodore. Walk away before he drew her into his madcap existence—just as he had the previous night.

  But a mine was a mine, and she had nothing else to secure a loan. She would just need to convince her creditor, Mr. Olston, the mine was worth something, about to produce—and hope he knew nothing of the sad affairs of the Alton holdings.

  “Just sign a portion of the mine over to me.” Her eyes closed as she said the words against her better judgement. “That will suffice. I will sign it back to you once the loan from my creditor is satisfied. I assume that will be immediately after the gala.”

  “No.”

  Her eyes flew open as she whipped around to look at him. “No?”