Free Taming an Impossible Rogue by Suzanne Enoch

being very discreet about you and Camille. If you think to instruct me on how to go about the remainder of my life, save your breath.”
    His cousin glared at him. “If you expect your reward, I expect you to do as I’ve asked. Camille Pryce has caused me a great deal of embarrassment. I suppose you did well in stopping more gossip from beginning, but you’re here to see she learns a lesson about the perils of defying propriety.”
    “I know why I’m here,” Keating snapped. “What I don’t know is why you’re still here. Leave.”
    With a last scowl Fenton stomped out to the foyer, where Hooper had miraculously reappeared just in time to pull open the front door. “Don’t play about with me, Keating. I’ve run out of patience.”
    Keating reached past the butler to slam the door closed. “Idiot,” he muttered, then had to pace the hallway for five minutes while he waited for his cousin to be well away from Baswich House. There was nothing worse than putting a satisfying exclamation on a conversation and then having to continue on with it because of ill timing.
    Finally he went out to fetch Amble and then rode to The Tantalus Club. Since he was only being admitted because he was Greaves’s guest, he likely should have made certain the duke was with him, but Greaves belonged to at least half a dozen other clubs in addition to the dozens of people who for some reason liked to schedule meetings with him. Keating couldn’t very well accomplish what he needed to in one morning or one evening a week.
    Camille wasn’t seating members. Rather, it was the lively redhead. “Good evening, Sophia,” he said, smiling as he stopped at the podium they’d put beside the Demeter Room doorway.
    “Keating. Are you alone tonight?”
    “For the moment. You’re not allowed to dine with me, are you?”
    Color touched her fair cheeks. “Heavens, no.” She cocked her head at him. “You do go looking for trouble, don’t you?”
    “Whenever possible. Your shy friend isn’t about, is she?”
    “Cammy’s dealing vingt-et-un tonight.”
    She was actually sitting at a table with men who might look askance at her? That was interesting. “I thought she only worked in the Demeter Room.”
    “We’ve all trained in every position. Sally is ill, and Cammy said she supposed she could count well enough to sit in for one evening.”
    The part of him that had felt … coiled up, steeling himself for a night of being glared at and avoided, loosened just a little. Mentally he counted the blunt in his pockets. Nine pounds give or take, about half of which he could afford to lose. Considering that he hadn’t played cards in six years it was a risk, but then again he could lose five pounds in exchange for ten thousand more.
    “I believe I’ll go play some cards,” he said, nodding at Sophia.
    “We do have a lovely roasted pheasant on the menu this evening,” she returned, gesturing at the crowded room.
    He grinned. “I’ll pass on dinner, but thank you.” Looking toward the three doors that exited the dining room, he frowned. “Where do I go?”
    “The Persephone Room. Don’t tell her that I mentioned she was working.”
    “My lips are sealed.”
    The Persephone Room seemed to be the largest of the gaming rooms, and if he’d needed more proof that The Tantalus Club was thriving, it lay all around him. Crowded tables, the scent of expensive American cigars, the murmur of cards and conversation, and pretty young women everywhere carrying drinks and dealing cards and supervising the tables. Some of the most powerful men in London, paying for the privilege of having ruined chits tell them when they were wagering too deeply and needed to leave for the evening.
    It took him a moment to find Camille. Her ash-blond hair had been pulled up into a curling knot, whitish tendrils escaping to frame her angled cheekbones. The demure muslin of the afternoon was gone, replaced by a shimmering blue gown that clung to her appealing curves.