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

pay her back. As long as she wasn’t the one doing the wagering, it would continue to do so.
    If Lord Blalock hadn’t broken his neck and his solicitors hadn’t taken the liberty of countering his instruction to lease the old Monarch Club for her use, she would have been much closer to opening her own establishment. Even with the added expense and the … annoyance of recruiting Oliver Warren into her plans, however, she couldn’t deny a certain sense of satisfaction at turning Adam House into something that would no doubt have horrified the Benchley ancestors who’d gone to the bother of acquiring it.
    *   *   *
    “A gaming club?”
    Diane looked down into the foyer from her vantage point up against the balcony railing to see her former brother-in-law gawping up at her. Damnation. “Anthony. I’m afraid I’m not seeing visitors today.”
    “You can’t turn Adam House into this … thing,” he pressed, heading for the stairs leading up to her. “It’s been in the family for fifty years.”
    “And now it’s mine. Your brother did one good thing before he expired, and that was to see that I had a place to live. What I choose to do with it is my own affair.” She took a half step backward. “And be cautious of the stairs; they haven’t been repaired yet.”
    He stopped his ascent and gingerly returned to the foyer floor. “My brother signed over every unentailed bit of property in the family to you. Why do you need this one?”
    “I used the others to pay off his debts—which I believe saved you from having to do so. And while we might once have been siblings-in-law, we are no longer any relation whatsoever. I must ask you to leave. When the club’s doors open, you may apply for membership.”
    “Diane, this is ridiculous. What would your parents think?”
    The same parents who’d bartered her off in order to have a countess in the family? She drew a breath, shaking herself. Anger led to mistakes, and she could afford to make none. “Ask them. I certainly don’t care to do so. Good day, Anthony.”
    She left the balcony, stopping just out of sight to be certain he wouldn’t attempt the stairs again. Once she heard Juliet bid him good day, Diane resumed her way toward the back of the house.
    “He doesn’t worry you, then?” came from just below her.
    Turning around, she stopped to wait for Jenny to top the stairs. “The man climbed those stairs a week ago, and now he thinks they’re perilous simply because I said so. I’m not terribly concerned.”
    A workman tipped his hat at her with his free hand as he carried one end of a rolled carpet past her. When she’d told Oliver—damnation, she needed to become accustomed to thinking of him as the Marquis of Haybury now, rather than as the marquis’ nephew—that men were fit at best to run her stables, she’d neglected to include their worth in toting and hammering things.
    “Then I shan’t be, either.” Genevieve shifted her ever-present notebook from one arm to the other.
    “What do you think, then? One large gaming room on the ground floor, taking up the entire front of the house, with a larger dining room behind it on the left, and a smaller gaming room and a breakfast room on the right, a library and billiards room behind that. Though I’m beginning to wonder whether a narrow corridor running up either side might be more beneficial for the hostesses’ and the servants’ use.”
    “Ah. To keep the ladies out of sight until the last moment? I do like that.”
    “I do, as well. Have Mr. Dunlevy see me again, will you?”
    “Of course. Do you wish me to interview the applicants, then?”
    The discreet advertisement had appeared in the London Times this morning, where it would remain for precisely one week. Any longer would make her seem desperate and already fighting to sustain a failing scheme. If she hadn’t filled all the necessary positions by then, well, there were several governess schools about where she might find a