Free The Scoundrel's Lover by Jess Michaels Page B

Annabelle.”
    “Why?” she whispered, uncertain she was ready to hear the answer, but desperate to do so anyway.
    “Because I want to,” he said through clenched teeth. “Now, no more questions. Go home, Miss Flynn, and I will see you tomorrow evening.”
    He tilted his head and his focus returned to the ledger on his desk. She watched him for a moment despite his dismissal of her and couldn’t help but shiver at the sensual curve of his lips and the angled perfection of his jaw and cheeks. He was dashedly handsome, damn him.
    And he was right. It was far past time to go before she made more of an idiot of herself than she already had.
     

     
    The carriage turned onto the street away from the private, sheltered drive of the Donville Masquerade before Annabelle’s maid folded her arms and stared at her across the distance. She shifted with discomfort. Deirdre did not look pleased.
    “Miss Annabelle, do you know what kind of place that is that we just left?” her maid began, the light tones of her Irish accent strengthened by high emotion.
    Annabelle almost laughed as she thought of her first night at Marcus’s club and all she had seen. “Yes.”
    Her maid’s blue eyes widened further at her one-word, certain answer. “I don’t understand.”
    Annabelle brought a hand up to cover her face. Deirdre had been her maid for well near a decade now, and Annabelle knew she could trust her. Certainly Deirdre had never whispered to anyone about the family’s eccentricities and Annabelle could well imagine her maid had been asked about them below stairs from the spying servants of others.
    “You know Crispin is struggling,” Annabelle whispered.
    Her maid blushed slightly and nodded. “Yes, Miss.”
    “He comes to that place, to the hells, to gamble and…” She shook her head. “And God knows what else. I have gotten the owner of that particular club, Mr. Rivers, to agree to let me come and watch over my brother from a distance.”
    Her maid drew back. “You cannot mean to bring yourself to that place at night, when there are people there doing…doing things unfit for a lady’s eyes and presence!”
    Annabelle, looked out the window. “I have done so once already,” she mused softly.
    Deirdre made a strangled sound in her throat and Annabelle frowned. This was the reaction of her maid—she could only imagine that the response of those in her new circles within the ton would be worse. After all, they didn’t give a damn about her and were predisposed to view her in the worst light.
    “I know I have no place to tell you what to do,” Deirdre said. “But I cannot be comfortable with this idea of you coming to that place with only me as chaperone. Can you not speak to your mother or the duke?”
    Annabelle jerked her gaze away from the scene outside and back to her maid. “No! Please, Deirdre, you and I have been together for many years. You know me and you know my struggles thanks to the reputation of my family. You must know I would never endanger myself, especially now when I have a chance of finding respectability.”
    “But you might not have a choice in a place such as the Donville Masquerade,” Deirdre reasoned, her hands clenching and unclenching in her lap. “If your family knew—”
    “I’m begging you not to involve them,” Annabelle interrupted, reaching across the carriage to lay a hand over Deirdre’s clasped ones.
    Deirdre’s foot tapped nervously. “But Miss…”
    “I understand your hesitations completely, and I appreciate your worry on my behalf more than you could ever know,” Annabelle said. “But I won’t be alone. Mr. Rivers is a friend to both my brothers and he has agreed to look out for me while I am within the walls of his club.”
    Deirdre blinked. “Mr. Rivers,” she repeated incredulously. “And you trust this man, despite his involvement in such a shocking place?”
    That question brought Annabelle’s explanations and pleading to a screeching halt. Did she