Lord of Vice: Regency Romance Novel (Rogues to Riches Book 6) Read online

  Lord of Vice

  Rogues to Riches #6

  Erica Ridley

  Contents

  Lord of Vice

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Once Upon a Duke

  Thank You For Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Lord of Vice

  (Rogues to Riches #6)

  Vice merchant Maxwell Gideon is wickedly handsome, sinfully arrogant, and devilishly ruthless. Rumor has it, his gaming hell has the power to steal souls and grant miracles. Truth is, Max only owns half of The Cloven Hoof. He’d buy out his silent partner if he knew the man’s identity. But it’s hard to focus on business matters when a fallen angel tumbles right into one’s lap…

  Miss Bryony Grenville has a well-earned reputation as an unrepentant hoyden. But even the gossipiest of the pinch-faced matrons ruling High Society could never imagine the daughter of a baron secretly financing the ton’s most infamous gambling parlor. Its maddening, sexy proprietor doesn’t suspect a thing… and two can play at temptation!

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  Chapter 1

  London, 1817

  Miss Bryony Grenville was seated on the floor polishing a worn pair of lad’s boots when the door to her private drawing room flew open.

  In a flash, she hid the boots and the polish behind her back—then scowled up at her grinning elder brother.

  “Heath, you beast.” She placed the boots back before her. “I thought you were Mother, here to scold me anew.”

  “Has she been in here?” Heath looked about in obvious surprise.

  The drawing room had once been the private domain of all four Grenville siblings. Bryony was the only unmarried one left.

  “She scolds me everywhere, these days. I’m her pet project.” She brightened. “Have you brought me more castoffs to wear?”

  “I’ve brought you something better.” He flopped bonelessly onto the overstuffed settee just as he had always done. “First, tell me about Mother. Is she hounding you about marriage again?”

  “There’s no one else left to hound,” she replied morosely. “I’m considering pursuing a career as a violinist just to make myself unmarriageable to Society gentlemen.”

  Heath grinned. “I’ve no doubt you could do it.”

  Bryony perked up. “Really?”

  “Not that I recommend such an action,” he amended. “While you are indeed the most talented violinist ever to grace London with your music, I seem to recall the tiny detail of you actually hating the instrument.”

  “I don’t hate the violin,” she protested. “I don’t mind playing in our family musicales. And I willingly volunteer my time at Dahlia’s school with a minimal quantity of pouting.”

  “Because you love your family and enjoy helping other people,” Heath pointed out. “But if it’s not your passion, trading some boring marriage for a grueling soloist career is exchanging one unhappy circumstance for another. Are you certain there are no suitable gentlemen on the horizon? Even a semi-suitable one that you like marginally better than the violin?”

  “None I would make a good match with,” she admitted. “I wish there was a way I wouldn’t have to marry anyone at all.”

  “Isn’t there?” Heath frowned. “I thought that was what all your investments were for. To become a woman of independent financial means.”

  She winced. “I gave everything I could to Dahlia’s school.”

  “So did I,” he said with a crooked grin. “Yet I find myself here on behalf of one of your investments, so I know you have at least one iron in the fire.”

  Over the past two years, Bryony had sold all the unencumbered assets she’d earned from what felt like a lifetime of investing in order to make her anonymous donations to her sister’s struggling school. All she had left was ownership of one outstanding investment contract and a single property deed.

  Those pseudonymous investments had been the one thing giving her hope. Until now.

  “It doesn’t matter. Mother and Father are determined to wash their hands of me before the end of the Season. He’ll marry me off before allowing me financial independence.” The unfairness of it made the backs of her eyes prick. “They’ve given me the same ultimatum they gave Camellia. I’ve one month to nab an eligible bachelor, or they’ll select one for me.”

  He flinched. “The suitor they selected for Camellia was certainly not her best match.”

  “They’re not hoping for a personality match,” Bryony reminded him. “According to Mother, as the daughter of a baron I am all but contractually required to wed a man with an even loftier title.”

  “I can imagine how well that’s going,” Heath said wryly.

  “Dreadful,” Bryony said with feeling. “I don’t want some gentleman twice my age who will take over my investments and my life and my—”

  “What do you want?” he interrupted, laughing. “To take over his investments and his life and his—”

  “Oh, you.” She tossed a pillow at his head. “I don’t want to run anyone’s life but my own. Yet even that is impossible. Mother is trying her best to curtail my ways. Take up embroidery or somesuch. She says hoydens are ‘mannish’ and will never attract a good title.”

  The corners of Heath’s mouth twitched. “Lad’s clothing is, by definition, mannish.”

  “She doesn’t know I sneak out in them,” Bryony pointed out.

  He tilted his head. “She is right that you won’t catch a man that way.”

  “Why do I have to have one at all?” Bryony asked. “Why can’t I just be independent? I want to decide things for me, Bryony Grenville. Not from the shadows. Not under a pseudonym. As myself.”

  Heath’s gaze filled with sympathy. “If it were up to me…”

  Bryony had hoped to remain a spinster of independent means to avoid losing possession of her hard-won assets. Unfortunately, her parents had grander plans.

  “I know,” she said dejectedly. “Father has put Mother in charge of finding me a husband. She won’t rest until I’m under someone’s thumb.”

  “But until then…” He swung himself upright on the settee. “Perhaps I come bearing good news. I’m to report that Max has doubled his offer.”

  “Doubled?” That changed everything. Bryony hugged herself as she considered this new development.

  Max was Maxwell Gideon, owner of the most infamous gambling den in all of London. Not only was his gaming hell named the Cloven Hoof, the scandal columns intimated the owner might be the devil himself. He was rumored to be tall, dark, and sinfully handsome. Rumor had it, the man had the power to steal souls and grant miracles.

  Of course, few
if any of the gossipy matrons had ever laid eyes on him.

  He had no Almack’s voucher. No membership to high-in-the-instep gentlemen’s clubs like White’s or Brooks’s or even the slightly less distinguished Boodle’s. Had never received an invitation to any Society ball or soirée or dinner party, or if so, had certainly never accepted it.

  The “offer” Heath referred to was an increasingly desperate attempt to buy out Bryony’s portion of his vice establishment.

  Not that he had any idea a woman was involved.

  No one ever did.

  Long before she was out of the schoolroom, Bryony would sneak into her father’s office whenever he was from home, and pore over his financial journals and the business reports he would receive on his investments.

  With no one to guide her, at first it had been confusing. Quickly, however, she began to recognize patterns of risk and reward, of volatile markets and conservative investments, of all the untapped potential of the opportunities Father did not take.

  She hadn’t been able to resist trying her hand.

  Heath had helped her pawn several possessions of value to create that first nest egg. Bejeweled tiaras she’d received as gifts, sumptuous gowns she’d grown out of, the monthly pin money she’d been saving for most of her life. The sum wasn’t as much as she would have liked, but a few high-risk, high-reward, short-term ventures later, it had begun to look mighty respectable.

  She hadn’t been in a position to fund fleets of cargo ships or open textile factories, but when the opportunity arose to cover the initial costs for a fledgling gambling hell in exchange for ten percent of the monthly income until it repaid the original debt at a twenty percent profit, with a one percent stake for the first five years—well, she’d have been foolish not to take it.

  In fact, she was still baffled at having been given the chance at all. So many other investors could have easily taken her place, yet had overlooked the opportunity completely.

  Featherwits, all of them.

  The original contract had stated that if Maxwell Gideon did not settle the debt in full within five years, Bryony would receive fifty percent of the monthly profits instead of twenty. He had repaid the money within two years.

  His only mistake was underestimating Bryony.

  Gideon had been focusing so hard on the goal of escaping a five-year contract as quickly as possible that he had failed to appreciate the value of the money his club was generating.

  As the club did better and better, Bryony’s one percent stake became more and more lucrative. Yet time was against her. Only a few months remained on the contract and there was no reason for him to sign another. So she had used her earnings—and a pseudonym—to purchase the land and property that housed the Cloven Hoof. A brilliant maneuver.

  Before, the club’s rent had been going to a third party.

  Now, the money went directly to Bryony.

  The moment Maxwell Gideon had realized his new landlord was none other than the silent investor he’d believed himself almost rid of, he had immediately offered to buy the deed from her at a rate ten percent higher than what Bryony had paid to procure it. Then twenty. Then thirty.

  Now he had doubled the offer?

  This was indeed an interesting turn of events.

  “Well?” Heath asked with a droll lift of his brows. “Has that clever brain of yours calculated a decision?”

  “Not yet,” she said softly, her mind still whirring with possibilities. “More information required.”

  Her brother looked surprised. “Shall I request a report of some kind? I thought the terms of your contract required the Cloven Hoof to disclose details monthly.”

  “It does,” she agreed. “Which is how I know the amount of profit it has earned. Given he’s also had to finance his own life, Mr. Gideon would be forced to deplete most if not all of his current savings in order to double the offer. He either has more money than he has disclosed, or he is exceedingly foolish.”

  Heath shrugged. “Max wants to be full owner of the club.”

  “Understandable. But willing to give up everything for total control?” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s suspicious, to say the least.”

  Her brother frowned. “You think he’s hiding something?”

  “Available facts would suggest that conclusion.” She hated missing an important part of the picture. Especially when it came to finances. She would have to investigate. “I require a fortnight to perform an analysis of my own.”

  “Very well. I’ll have the appropriate response drawn up.” Her brother pulled a face when he glanced at the hour on the clock upon the mantel.

  “Late?” she asked with sympathy.

  “Dreadfully.” Heath brushed off his trousers and rose to his feet. “Good luck with your computations. Try not to think too hard!”

  And with that, her brother was gone. Bryony was once again alone.

  But this was fortunate, for tonight’s unexpected change of plans required solitude.

  She hurried from the sitting room to her dressing chamber. With a few careful contortions, she managed to twist out of her gown. She did not wish to summon her lady’s maid. Although the staff had turned a blind eye to the siblings’ various antics for more than a decade, the fewer eyes upon her transformation, the better.

  After quitting her shift, she reached in the back of the armoire where she kept her well-worn collection of lad’s clothing, and a strip of cloth to bind her bosom. In no time at all, she was dressed in white small-clothes, gray waistcoat, dark trousers, black boots. It was all so much easier than lacing up stays and fastening a hundred tiny buttons.

  And, if her mother’s rhetoric was to be believed, the disguise was completely unnecessary. All a woman had to do was step outside with un-curled hair, and the entire world could be forgiven for believing her to be a man.

  Bryony sighed. If she had been born a man, none of her problems would exist. But that was not her lot, and the only choice was to make do.

  Or go undercover.

  If costumes and pseudonyms were the only way she ever achieved anything meaningful, then so be it.

  She slipped into a sturdy black greatcoat that shrouded her from shoulders to shins and strode to the dressing table for some pins. Uncurled as her plain brown hair might be, ’twas still best to keep it pinned safely inside her hat.

  When she was through, she turned to the looking-glass to inspect her handiwork.

  The greatcoat was a bit too long, the hat a bit too big, but together all of the garments served to hide her form and shadow her face. It would do, just like it had done many times before.

  She shoved several coins, a tinderbox, a slip of paper, and a pair of bronze keys into her pocket. Then she hurried from her bedchamber to the servants’ staircase that led to the rear exit.

  As soon as she reached the street, she flagged down a hack.

  “Where to?” the driver asked without bothering to look over his shoulder.

  “Cloven Hoof,” she replied as gruffly as possible.

  He didn’t ask any more questions.

  Bryony, however, was full of them. Why was Maxwell Gideon so determined to own the lot? Only a fool would spend such a sum on an overpriced property merely out of pride.

  She slid her hand into her pocket to touch the keys. Bryony possessed a copy because she owned the building, but had never before dared to enter.

  Thanks to both the scandal columns and her monthly reports, she knew the Cloven Hoof was closed on Tuesdays. Mr. Gideon and the rest of his patrons had quit the premises at dawn this morning, and wouldn’t return until dusk tomorrow. All employees had the day off. The club would be empty.

  Except for Bryony.

  Excitement began to race through her veins. This would be just like sneaking into her father’s study as a child. Better, even. Bryony had been far more scared of the baron’s wrath than she worried about Maxwell Gideon. He would never even know she’d been present.

  What Bryony wanted to know was w
hatever he’d left out of his report. Why offer such an extravagant sum for a small rectangle barely brushing the border of the fashionable district? She’d plotted the earnings trends time and again. At this rate, Mr. Gideon could afford to purchase a much better venue within a few more years. There was no reason to spend one’s last penny on the current locale.

  Unless there was. In which case, she needed to know the reason.

  Now that her sister’s school was no longer in danger of closing without Bryony diverting her personal income to save it, she was free to save or invest her money as she saw fit. The price she’d been offered for the property would be a welcome windfall, indeed.

  It was also a short-term gain. If Mr. Gideon had no intention of relocating, she—or her future husband—would earn far greater returns by collecting rent month after month, year after year. The Cloven Hoof was doing a brisk business. Rent could be priced accordingly.

  Of course, following that plan would inhibit her ability to engage in other opportunities requiring ready cash. There would be no way to know which avenue offered the surer reward until—

  “Cloven Hoof.” The driver pulled his horses to a stop. “Looks closed.”

  “Rotten luck,” Bryony groused in as manly a voice as she could muster, and flipped the driver a coin as she bounded from the carriage.

  She did not pause at the Cloven Hoof, but strolled off as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  The driver wasted no time in continuing on in search of his next fare. Only once he was out of sight did Bryony circle around to the rear of the club and place her ear to the door.

  It was silent.

  She slid her key into the lock and twisted. The door unlocked with ease. She held her breath as she opened the door.