One Night Is Never Enough by Anne Mallory Read Free Book Online Page B

into a seedier section of town.
    Her father sat across from her, his back as straight as hers—like a board propped against the cushions behind. He hadn’t had a drink all day, and the strain of it was starting to pull at his eyes, deepening the creases there at the edges. She knew his abstinence was likely to end as soon as he delivered and washed his hands of her.
    “Lord Downing and Mr. Trant demanded to attend the exchange.”
    The exchange. Her father’s marker for hers.
    She didn’t respond or change her expression.
    “Stop staring at me in that way,” he said harshly. “If anyone can talk Merrick around, it’s Downing.”
    “I thought you said the man would destroy us if the bet weren’t satisfied?”
    Bennett sneered, but there was fear there, deep in his expression. “Downing wields enough power to negotiate with Merrick. And you were smart enough to become friends with that wife of his. He might get Merrick to take something else.”
    There was that pinched look to his features again, and she wondered what her father had tried, and failed, to negotiate. What else did the Chatsworths have to “take?”
    “And what might Downing then ask?”
    “That will be dealt with when it occurs.” He licked his lips—he needed such a thing to occur, for his fear was far too palpable. She tried not to let the feeling bind her too, but nausea rose from the pit anyway. “I am sure you will be able to flap your lashes and get us out of it entirely. That wife of Downing’s is soft in the head.”
    Charlotte wondered if Miranda knew what was to happen tonight and what her reaction had been or would be. Soft in the head she was not. Charlotte could almost see her stowing away in her husband’s carriage, coming to rescue her.
    Charlotte allowed the image to warm her a little. But she was too used to rescuing herself.
    She was a rational girl. She had to be to survive. And she was of the ton, where sex was often a tool of the trade. Something that was bartered. For marriage, mistresses, pride, money. And obviously for debts to be paid.
    She had been silly last night to let her desperation show through. This would be a cold business transaction. Part and parcel of something that she would do in order to survive in this world and keep it clean for Emily.
    The fact that Charlotte was in her third season with virginity and heart intact made her think perhaps she was truly the ice queen she was called. Doomed like her mother for a frosted marriage bed and a brittle future of turning the other cheek.
    But she’d use the cold. Use her mind and social standing to ascend the peak. She’d host elaborate parties. Rule the ton. Sit high on top, untouchable and likely acidic. Eyes jaded and brittle, like some of the matrons and dowagers who decided the fates of all.
    If she had been married her first season, she would already be in the running for a cicisbeo or two. Perhaps a man to warm her, to make her laugh, to stop the constant push of the balloon.
    The start of her first season had been magical. Her second, increasingly chaotic. Now in her third, she felt the stretch of skin about her mouth like a sunburn that never eased.
    “And if this Merrick does not accept alternatives?”
    She had heard of the Merricks. Nothing very specific—they were whispered about in back rooms, the topic of conversation deemed unsuitable for ladies’ ears. They owned a number of very fashionable—and a number of very seedy—clubs in London. The young men-about-town frequented the more fashionable establishments, though occasionally those fresh from school, without a care in the world, ventured into the latter. Usually with nothing left in their pouches—or of their pride—when they emerged. Lucky to emerge physically unscathed.
    She had never cared much about listening to such talk except to curse gambling in general. She wished now that she had paid closer attention. Hadn’t Margaret Applewood said something about one of the men in a