A Beginner's Guide to Rakes by Suzanne Enoch Read Free Book Online Page A

accounts—but just what was the countess up to in Vienna?”
    Now that was interesting, Oliver decided. Perhaps he’d weighed shock and dismay too heavily against curiosity and possible fodder for gossip. He did tend to misestimate propriety—one of the consequences of trampling it so often, he supposed.
    “Now will you tell me your opinion?” Manderlin asked.
    “I also admit to some curiosity.”
    “And do you know anything more about it than you did when you pretended not to remember her name? Everyone up to and including my groom knows you were to meet with Lady Cameron this morning.”
    Had she intended that, as well? That his involvement, unwilling or not, would help spread her chosen gossip? She had turned him into an investor, after all. “It’s to be called The Tantalus Club, and she means to employ only females. Apparently lovely and untouchable ones.”
    “Saint George’s buttonholes!” came from behind him. “Chits?”
    Oliver turned his head. “Henning. Didn’t see you lurking there.”
    Francis Henning gulped down a mouthful of ham. “Employ only females? To bank at the tables and serve the drinks?”
    “And to take hats and shuffle cards, apparently.”
    “But chits can’t manage money or cards,” the rotund fellow continued. “She’ll have to close the doors in a month.”
    “But what a month,” Lord Bentson broke in from opposite Henning. “I’ll be happy to take some of Lady Cameron’s blunt while it lasts.”
    That seemed to be the consensus at the surrounding tables. Diane was a fool about to lose everything, and every man wanted to be a part of taking it from her. Which would have been his opinion as well, Oliver reflected, except for the fact that it was his blunt she would be using. And once he moved his residence to The Tantalus Club, it would be his reputation as well.
    Very well. He could acknowledge that Diane Benchley had outmaneuvered him. This morning, however, had only been a skirmish. He had every intention of being declared the winner at the end of the war—once he figured out what a victory would entail.
    *   *   *
    “I can break out this wall,” Mr. Dunlevy grunted, slapping his broad hand against the salmon-colored blockade currently separating the downstairs sitting room from the library. “That gives you the most floor space.”
    Diane looked up from the house’s floor plans. “If we close off the foyer, add entry doors, and tear down the hallway walls as well, I can use the entire front of the house as the main gaming room.”
    The builder lifted one caterpillar of an eyebrow. “That much renovation ain’t inexpensive, my lady.”
    “Can you do it?”
    He looked more assessingly at their surroundings. “It’ll take a few pillars to bear the weight of the upstairs, but aye.”
    “Then let’s get to it. I intend to open my doors in a month.”
    “A mo— Yes, my lady.”
    The money she’d given him this morning undoubtedly had a great deal to do with his enthusiasm, but she was more concerned with his speed. Making grand statements and piquing everyone’s interest had been the first step. Now she needed to follow through with the club’s opening before a new bit of scandal or gossip made her potential clientele lose interest.
    Once she and Mr. Dunlevy agreed on the revised layout of her club, Diane made her way past what seemed like dozens of workmen already pulling down the terribly dated wallpaper, replacing carpet, and repairing stairway bannisters. The entire front of the house would belong to The Tantalus, with the large gaming room downstairs, the sitting rooms and private apartments upstairs, and the employees’ quarters in the large, renovated attic.
    The rear wing of the house remained hers, and the dozen rooms would be her sanctuary from what would, she hoped, become a very busy life. The irony that this small portion of the house was larger than her lodgings in Vienna didn’t escape her, either. Wagering was already beginning to