Page 39 of A Duke's Keeper
“That’s nonsense.”
“Rule six,” Madam said. “Leave a man wanting more.”
Camille cringed at the mention of rules, remembering a different set that had run her life, until that awful night. “Not even children follow rules,” she said quietly.
Madam scooped the marquess’s file off the desk and tapped the edge on her open palm. “Mark my words: The man will be at the door before sundown.”
Those flutters turned the air in her lungs breathless. “Why?”
Madam’s gaze turned pitying. “He won’t be able to resist.”
*
Renard didn’t resist.
Whether the Amazonians clad in silk togas were women of strong nature, or a rumored branch of special Ponies Madam kept for clients ofparticularmale tastes, the outcome remained the same.
Coattails bunched and his arse bruised on the cold cobblestones in the narrow back alley, Renard considered his issued demand to Camille may not have been as charming as first thought.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Apparently, the woman disagreed.
“You should have tipped better,” came a voice above him.
Renard glanced up at a person looking over the edge of the building, their face obscured by a dark hood.
Yes, an amused audience was precisely what this situation needed.
He scowled and got to his feet, making a grand show of straightening his torn coat. “What would a street urchin know about money?”
The hooded figure chuckled. “There’s never enough.”
Renard grinned at that and noticed the thin creature was leaning over the building like they’d sprout wings instead of falling the hundred feet and bleeding out slowly from the head.
“Boy, you shouldn’t loiter on roofs. Come down where it’s safe and there’s a copper in it for you.”
That chuckle again. “My, you’re arrogant for such a handsome man.” A pause. “Then again, most handsome ones are.”
Hearing the distinctfemininelilt in the hood’s voice, Renard glanced up to find the figure—and her unwelcome while most dreadfully apt observations—had vanished.
He ran a hand through his hair, not entirely sure he’d imagined the person or not. A day of sobriety after years of steadfast abuse did things to a man’s mental health. His bruised bum was a solid reminder the throwing of his person into the dirty streets hadnotbeen in his head.
A strong drink awaited in his library for his return. If the woman didn’t want him, he was in no mood to freeze his toesoff in the streets. But if he left now, he’d fail whatever game they played. A sneaking suspicion told him if he left now, he’d miss a prize far beyond a bottle of fine scotch.
Taking in the metal, reinforced door to the club, Renard threw his hands in the air. “Now what do I do?”
On the sour and salty breeze coming from the direction of the harbor, he swore he heard faint woman’s laughter and the sage advice, “Wait for her.”
With his strained relationship with the good Lord, Renard had no choice. Be the strange, possibly fictitious, creature heaven sent or hell’s messenger, his own stubborn nature agreed. He crossed himself and prayed the rats here were friendly. Whoever had said love was a beautiful thing had never had to huddle in a piss-drenched London gutter. He hunkered down, flipping his collar up to block the damp from seeping to his bones.
He waited and waited.
Chapter Eleven
“He still outthere?” Madam asked from her desk.
Camille didn’t turn from the view from the tinted window—a rounded peephole that anyone outside would mistake for an ill-placed exhaust vent—and nodded.
