Free Enslaved by Hope Tarr Page A

they’d be sleeping together within the week.

    Gavin found Rourke and Harry waiting for him at one of the few tables left standing, an empty whiskey bottle and three shot glasses littering the stained tablecloth. Other than an old African man sweeping the broken glass from the floor, they were the only ones left in the club.
    “You waited.” Feet crunching on broken bottle glass, Gavin approached. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d left.”
    Harry looked up from dabbing a spirit-soaked cloth on his split knuckles and shot him a wink. “Through thick and thin, mind?”
    So, he wasn’t the only one of them to remember their old oath. Gavin dragged over a chair and sat down.
    Straddling the back of a now three-legged chair, Rourke’s bloodied lips broke into a grin. “Christ, Gav, you took long enough. I hope she was worth it.”
    “Well worth it.” Dividing his gaze between his two friends, Gavin announced, “I’ve found her.”
    Rourke turned to Harry and rolled his eyes. “One rut with a showgirl and now he fancies himself in love.”
    Harry shook his head. “If that’s the case, we have to take you out more often—on second thought, maybe not.” He cast a rueful look downward to his black and blue knuckles, no doubt wondering how he was going to explain them, along with his bruised cheek and torn shirt, to his bride.
    Gavin shook his head. “It’s not what you’re thinking. We spent the time talking.”
    Rourke jerked his head to Gavin and scowled. “What a bloody waste.”
    “She’s Daisy,
our
Daisy.” Reading their worried looks, he hastened to reassure them. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m not drunk, at least not much, and I’m not delusional, either. Delilah du Lac is Daisy, or rather the stage name she’s taken for herself.”
    His two friends looked flabbergasted, but unlike him they hadn’t had the past hour to get used to the idea. “Are you serious?” Hadrian finally asked.
    “Are you sure?” Rourke added.
    Gavin nodded on both counts. “Quite.”
    Ever the skeptic of their group, Rourke asked, “In that case, do you mind my asking where the devil she’s been keeping herself all this time?”
    “Until a fortnight ago, she was living in France with the couple who adopted her. She’s come to London to try to make it as an actress—a serious actress. I promised to use whatever influence I have to get her an audition for
As You Like It
at Drury Lane, but first I have to find a way out of the contract she signed. Like as not there’s some legal loophole waiting to be uncovered, but I suspect this is one of those situations when out and out bribery will prove more expeditious than the law.”
    She’d insisted on staying to smooth things over with Sid, as she called it, though the club owner didn’t strike Gavin as the sort who was inclined to see reason. Money, or rather bribery, would be his bottom line. He cast his gaze about the room, mentally assessing the damage. At least a quarter of the table and chairs had been reduced to kindling and most of the floor-length mirrors survived as empty frames.
    He turned to Rourke, the businessman among them. “What is your reckoning of what replacing this rubbish will cost?”
    Harry and Rourke exchanged smiling looks. Harry spoke up and said, “I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you.”
    Gavin shook his head. He’d given Daisy his word and, by God, he meant to keep it. “I promised to pay for the damage; otherwise the club manager will as good as own her.”
    Despite the seriousness of the situation, Rourke looked amused. “Dinna fash, I know for a fact no reckoning will be required.”
    “Are you saying the club manager has decided to forgive the debt?” Having overheard Daisy’s charged back-and-forth with the club owner, the slimy Sid hadn’t struck him as the forgiving sort.
    “Indeed he has,” Harry confirmed.
    He and Rourke exchanged glances and then burst into laughter. Wondering if they might be