Chapter 2
Rule 2
Never visit the gaming hell during the midnight hours.
Since Helena Banbury had been a small girl, her “brothers” had teased that she was better at reading numbers than people.
Given her remarkable lack of exposure to people, she rather thought their words said in jest made a good deal of sense.
This particular moment was no exception to her rather predictable, if safe, days—and nights—inside the Hell and Sin Club.
Tucked away in the small office at the back of the Hell and with her spectacles perched on her nose, Helena ran her gaze over the neat columns of numbers. Bellowing shouts sounded outside the doorway, and she continued working through the brawl taking place beyond the heavy wood panel. There was something to be said for having a solid oak door between you and danger. Until her rescue years earlier by her brother, Ryker, she’d had nothing to protect her from the perils of the world. That was the precarious lot of a motherless and fatherless child on the streets of London.
Chewing at her lower lip, Helena swiftly tabulated the weekly liquor expenses.
Fifteen cases of whiskey.
Fifteen cases of sherry.
Twenty cases of brandy.
A bothersome strand of brown hair escaped her tight chignon and fell across her brow. Noblemen and their bloody drinks. Not pausing in her writing, she blew back the tress and marked a final note in the column. Working a quick gaze over the numbers she silently cursed. They required far more brandy. She stretched in her chair, rubbing her lower back. Her bloody obstinate brother insisted on only purchasing the finest French spirits, despite Helena’s insistence that any cheaper brandy would do just as well. The swiftly depleting stock of spirits that week was proof of that.
A wry grin pulled at her lips. Yes, her four brothers of the street. Though she only shared blood with one of them, the bond between them all was no less strong. What most failed to realize was that if you knew how to read them, numbers could tell you a good deal about people. And the glaring details in the neat rows of her ledger said all number of unfavorable things about noblemen: they drank too many spirits; they spent too many pounds indulging in their liquor. And they demonstrated a remarkable lack of self-control.
Granted, those failings of character had resulted in the triumph of the Hell and Sin Club. And having risen from the dust and ash of the streets to become leader of the glittering underbelly of St Giles, her brother, the majority owner of the club, expected nothing less than even greater wealth and power. There was, however, always room for greater success. Dipping her pen in the crystal inkwell, she proceeded to add the cost of those pricey bottles. Helena drummed the back of her pen on the smooth mahogany surface of her desk, all the while contemplating the columns.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and she jerked her head up just as the door opened. Raucous laughter from the floor of the Hell spilled into the room, only to be muffled moments later, as her brother Calum stepped inside.
The tall, bearish man, with a jagged scar at the corner of his mouth, who stood at the front of the room would have terrified most women. “Your brother wants the figures.”
Then, she wasn’t most women. The jagged scars crisscrossing her back were proof of that. “Which brother?” she said, infusing a bored note into her question.
Calum snorted. “You know.”
Yes, she did. The jest was that Ryker had his hands, and head, in nothing but the club . . . and if he had a heart, then that would be in it, too. Long ago, however, the head of the club had demonstrated his cold, calculated approach to everything . . . and everyone—including the siblings he’d grown up with on the street.
Helena returned her attention to her columns. “Tell him, I’m not done.” She directed that pronouncement at the page, as she considered the area to best reduce expenses.
“Not good enough,” Calum drawled, and she looked up, a gasp escaping her.
“Christ on Sunday.” The pen slipped from her fingers. “Must you sneak?” Several inches past six feet, and broad across the chest, a man of his sheer size had no right to be so stealthy. It had served them well when he’d been one of the most skilled pickpockets in all of London, but it proved a bother when one was trying to focus.
He rested his hip on the edge of the desk, and stared pointedly. “The numbers, Helena,” he said, fanning her exasperation.
For as fortunate as she was to not be any bastard-born child whoring in the streets, a deep-seated irritation simmered inside for the still-powerless role that came with being a woman in her twenty-fourth year with so little influence.
“Does he want them now?” she snapped, pulling her spectacles off and tossing them on the desk. “Or does he want them correct?”
Calum grinned. “He wants both.”
Pointing her eyes to the ceiling, Helena threw down her pen. “Very well.” She shoved back her chair.
Ignoring the way Calum shot his dark brown eyes to his hairline, she started for the door.
“Where in hell are you going?”
She froze midmovement, and wheeled back. “To see—”
“Ryker is on the floors,” he interrupted, all earlier hint of amusement gone, replaced with a dark scowl. And with reason. Even the prospect of Helena setting foot on the floors, or outside the club, at the height of the early-morn gaming hours, was an act that had been expressly forbidden. It had also seen one careless guard fired, when she’d wandered onto those floors ten years earlier.
Helena folded her arms at her chest. “I live here.” The place she’d lived for nearly half her life.
Calum snorted, and then matched her pose. “I know where you live. Do you, Helena?”
She gritted her teeth, and tamped down the endless barrage of questions and pleadings she’d put to all of her brothers through the years—to no avail. There were valid reasons for her to stay tucked away, but also, as a grown woman, in charge of the finances for the club, there was a grating restiveness inside her. What power did she truly have? In a place where lords ruled the polite world and ruthless men led the underbelly, women were left on the fringe of both. “I swear you’d all have me a prisoner in my own home,” she muttered under her breath. She cast a covetous glance at the door that shook under the force of the ribald laughter from the floor below.
Calum settled a large palm on her shoulder, and she stiffened. “There are rules for a reason,” he said, with gruff gentleness.
Since Ryker had rescued Helena, a girl of six, from Diggory’s clutches, he had ingrained into her the necessity of rules. There were only, and always, rules. She lifted her gaze and held Calum’s stare with an unflinching directness. “I am not a girl, anymore, Calum.” And yet, they all still saw her as wee Helena, in need of protecting. Now, just three inches shy of six feet, she towered over most men.
“No, you’re not a girl. You’re something far more dangerous.” He cuffed her under the chin. “You’re a woman.”
With a sigh, she started over to her desk. Yes, she was a woman, who straddled two worlds. She’d never belong amongst those toffs on the gaming hell floors, but neither would she be viewed wholly as a member of the Hell and Sin. Not as the youngest, protected sister of the lethal Ryker Black. “He’ll need at least ten more cases of brandy before the week’s through.”
Calum whistled.
His otherwise silence spoke more words than a Shakespearean novel. Helena’s ears burned with heat and she swallowed back the defensive words on her lips. In their world, you didn’t make excuses. You took ownership of your decisions and actions. Even if you weren’t entirely to blame. Still . . . “I advised him to buy a cheaper quality, and larger quantity.” Even as the words left her mouth, the futility of them registered.
Calum gave her a pointed look that only sent further warmth spiraling to her pale cheeks. Blasted pale skin.
“Ryker expects the best.”
She firmed her jaw, Calum’s meaning clear. Ryker expected the best for his clients, and accuracy from his employees. And her status as sister to the ruthless owner meant naught. What mattered was that all saw to their responsibilities and the establishment ran with a fluid efficiency that plumped the owners’ pockets.
Calum started for the door, and she called out. “Perhaps if I were permitted on the floors, and able to evaluate the habits of our guests—”
“No.” The steel in that one-word utterance should have killed her efforts.
“But—”
“Use the goddamn numbers, Helena.” Calum quelled her protest with a glare.
She tipped her chin up. Be it a brother or powerful lord, she’d not let a single person cow her. Just as Ryker, Calum, Adair, and Niall took pride in climbing from the mire of London’s streets to build an empire of wealth and power, so too did she find satisfaction in all she’d accomplished. The once snarling, cursing, illiterate girl from the Dials had developed a head for numbers that even her indomitable brother could never hope to rival.
Releasing her stare, Calum looked away. His gaze snagged upon the ledgers, and he motioned to them. “You don’t need to go on the halls in the midnight hours, Helena,” he said with gruff gentleness. “You have free walk of the floor during the day, and during the evening you have the books to tell you everything you need to know.”
Yes, those numbers taught her everything about the inner workings of the club . . . but nothing about the world beyond these increasingly suffocating walls. Helena fisted her hands at her side. She may as well be spitting in the wind with all of her protestations. “Tell him I’ll have additional numbers for him in the morning.”
Calum nodded, and started for the door.
“And Calum?” she called out. He turned back. “Also, tell him that he’d be wise to consider finding a new supplier. His liquor provider now is fleecing him and delivering broken bottles.”
A wry grin twisted his lips. “You may be frustrated with your circumstances, Helena, but you are deuced good at what you do.”
“I expect Diggory has gotten to his supplier.”
All hint of amusement fled, replaced with a somber set to his features.
Diggory, the leader of a gang who’d also risen up from the Dials, now ran The Devil’s Den. Where the Hell and Sin catered to all—merchants, nobles, and sailors on the street—Diggory’s hell catered only to the lowest rung of humanity.
“I’ll let Ryker know.”
She nodded, grateful when he took his leave. As soon as the door closed, she let the tension seep from her shoulders. Though Calum’s parting words and confidence would have inspired pride in most, for her, they only grated. Letting out a curse that would have shocked most thieves in the Dials, she began to pace. How she despised Calum’s too-astute statement. If he sensed her frustration, then so too did Ryker, and every other owner, guard, and prostitute in the club. And she hated that they saw . . . hated it mostly because they recognized that she herself wanted more than the gilded walls of this protective cage.
As much as she’d learned the reason to fear the streets of London firsthand as a girl, there was also her growing need to look at the world as a woman grown and have some control. Control that extended beyond her brother’s protective influence.
She came to a sudden stop, and as her modest green satin skirts fluttered noisily at her ankles, Helena stared blankly at the door.
How many years had she been ordered about and away? She had a decided role to fill, just as each sibling did . . . and they were to not look beyond those responsibilities.
Do not do it, Helena . . . Do not . . .
Ignoring the logical litany echoing around her mind, she strode to the door and pulled it open. The distant rumblings of ribald laughter and cheering filled the corridor. Before her courage deserted her, or logic was restored, Helena started down the corridor.
She held her breath, and stole a glance about. Alas, her private offices were strictly off-limits for even the most loyal workers at the club. Guards were stationed at various entryways and stairwells to prevent wandering lords from reaching the main living quarters and offices.
“You are not doing anything wrong,” she muttered under her breath.
No, what harm was there in stealing belowstairs and discreetly evaluating the actual consumption habits of the guests? The same guests who were making a bloody mess of her calculations. Helena reached the end of the corridor, and started down the stairwell. She blinked several times, struggling to adjust to the dimly lit space. Ominous shadows, cast by a handful of sconces, danced off the white plaster walls. Panic rioted about her mind. Mayhap it was the earlier talk of Diggory, the demon of her past, but an icy shiver worked along her spine. Do not look. Do not look . . . Except, like a moth drawn to that fatal flame, her gaze strayed to the crimson tip of a candle. The acrid scent of smoke and burning flesh flooded her senses, and she grabbed the stair rail.
Helena sucked in slow, even breaths as memories assaulted her. The vicious agony as Diggory melted her flesh with a burning candle . . . her own screams and pleas . . . Stop!
A loud cheer went up, jolting Helena back to the moment. She slid her eyes closed as the boisterous excitement within the club continued to filter up the stairway, calming and safe. Ordinary sounds that blotted out remembered cries. Helena brushed her palms along her skirts.
Is this why Ryker kept her hidden away from the gaming floors and outside world? Did he see that for what she’d managed to survive all those years ago, there was this weakness in her, still? Firming her resolve, she pushed away from the wall and resumed her determined march downstairs.
The wood creaked under her footsteps; however, the increasing din on the gaming hell floor drowned out all hint of sound. She reached the bottom landing and wiped her hands on her dress once more. One of the guards quickly turned. Blast and damn. The day had apparently come where she, once a skilled pickpocket, couldn’t escape the notice of a handful of guards. Her mouth soured. How bloody frustrating to have had more freedom of movement as a child of five than a woman nearly two decades older.
Oswyn frowned. “Miss Banbury?”
“Hello, Oswyn.” All of the women employed at the Hell and Sin had perfected a distracting, whispery smile. By the pained twist of her lips, Helena’s attempt was really more a grimace than anything. The tall, muscled guard scratched at his bald pate.
Her tongue grew thick in her mouth. He’s going to have me sent abovestairs. And once again she’d be shut away while the world carried on around her. Say something. Say anything . . . “Ryker wished me to evaluate the inventory of spirits for the remainder of the week,” she said quickly. Which wasn’t altogether untrue. After all, she had been instructed to calculate the numbers. Those calculations, however, had in no way merited a night visit to the floors. Not by Ryker’s estimation, anyway. In Helena’s, well, she required more judicious movement in the club . . . and beyond.
With a nod, Oswyn stepped aside.
She hesitated. How many times as a young girl had she sat at the top of those very stairs, trying to make order of the discourse and laughter from those powerful peers below? Surely it could not have been this easy to gain entry? Oswyn looked questioningly at her, and that sprung her into movement.
Helena hastily stepped past the guard, and entered the hall. A cloud of cheroot smoke hung heavy in the expansive room, stinging her eyes. She blinked several times and continued to take in the club during the height of activity. The crystal chandeliers cast a bright glow upon the floors that lent an almost artificial sense of day to the nighttime scene. Hastily skimming her gaze over the crowded floors, she did a search for Ryker. With no hint of her fierce brother, she started along the perimeter, taking care to avoid gazes and notices . . . an easy feat given the well-placed pillars constructed about the hall. Heart pounding, Helena borrowed shelter from one Scamozzi column and surveyed the guests.
Alcohol flowed freely, with the tinkling of crystal touching crystal as bottles were poured. The women of the Hell and Sin Club moved between tables, providing additional spirits to the revered patrons. Helena did a quick inventory, silently counting. One, two, three . . . “At the very least, fifteen cases of whiskey,” she muttered to herself. And that was still being conservative in numbers because of her frugal brother.
She studied the gentlemen freely tossing cherished coins upon the card tables, and gave her head a sad shake. Granted, their freedom with their purses provided her and every other employee within this hall a livelihood. Yet, even with that, distaste filled her at the wastefulness of it all. Was life so boring and empty for these men, that this was all the joy there was? Recalling the task at hand, Helena gave her head another shake and did an inventory of the tables within eyeshot. Silently counting the bottles and glasses, she shook her head in exasperation. Her brother might fault her for the erroneous supply count, but the foxed lords deep in their cups consumed spirits the way a man stranded in a desert, who’d stumbled upon water, might.
How am I supposed to know that, unless I observe the proclivities of our guests . . . ?
In a bid to view additional tables, she took a step and then stopped. Her gaze collided with a pair of sapphire blue eyes. Time stood still in a charged moment, with the nightly revelries carrying on around her in a whir of muffled noise. In a world in which she was invisible to all, the burning intensity of the stranger’s stare stripped away her anonymity, and there was something so gloriously heady in being—seen. Her heart skittered a beat. Mayhap this is why Ryker keeps me shut away. Not with worry of the harm Diggory might do her, but rather to keep her from experiencing this irrational pull that robbed a woman of logic.
And then she registered the blankness within the fathomless depths. A profound sadness, and pain so deep, it stretched across the room and held her frozen.
In ways that moved beyond the beauty of his chiseled features and aquiline nose, the stranger’s barely concealed anguish made him stand out amidst the gaiety of the other patrons. He was a solitary figure, one who belonged even less than she did in this room. The golden-haired lord grabbed a bottle of brandy, and swiftly poured himself a drink. Then their eyes met once more. This time, there was no sadness but rather a piercing intensity that made her pulse race through her veins.
She swallowed hard. No gentleman had a right to be so gloriously golden and masculinely perfect. Even with the distance between them, there was an aura of commanding strength to his broad shoulders and square, noble jaw. The faintest cleft lent a—
A dandy in burnt orange satin breeches stepped in between them, and jerked her back to the moment.
Cheeks ablaze, Helena gave her head a hard shake, and continued on. After all, her visit to the floor had nothing to do with a too-handsome-for-anyone’s-good lord, and everything to do with the responsibilities she saw to in the Hell and Sin. For all the worries her brothers had for her well-being and safety, Helena had grown up in the streets. She might speak like a lady and read with an ease that would have impressed an Oxford scholar, but she could protect herself better than most men.
From across the club, a faint buzz went up, and she followed the attention. Ryker cut a path through the club. His face set in a hard, unyielding mask, he strode past gaming table after gaming table. One horrifying moment stretched on to eternity as she waited for him to notice her. Only when he stopped to speak to Calum without even glancing in her direction did she breathe again. Thank goodness.
It was one thing to embrace your freedom and a sense of control, but it was an altogether different matter to openly defy that man. Brother or not, Ryker Black would never tolerate broken rules—not in his club, and most definitely not by his sister.