To Dance until Dawn - Emma V. Leech Page 0,71

lips and kissing her gloved fingers. “No, only one way. I am besotted, beguiled, yours to command. Only name your desire and I shall obey.”

For just a moment something hot and dark flickered in her expression, and his entire body grew taut. Then she gave a regretful sigh.

“This night has a purpose and I wish to achieve it, but….” She blushed a little but held his gaze, lowering her voice. “I shall not forget you said that, Max.”

“Phoebe, darling,” Mrs Abercrombie said as she and the viscount drew closer. “You look ravishing. My word, that gown is quite….”

“Scandalous,” Phoebe said, with a delighted grin. “Yes, I know. My poor father would have conniptions if he saw it.”

“Somehow I cannot imagine Montagu having conniptions,” Kline said, shaking his head. “I could believe his jaw might grow tight and his eyes get that icy look of displeasure that freezes one to the marrow.”

Phoebe laughed.

“Oh, but that is a conniption for Papa,” she said gravely.

Max smiled and let out an uneven breath as he considered just how the marquess would greet them if he returned his daughter ruined and still unwilling to marry him. One problem at a time, he counselled himself. After all, if Phoebe refused him, he wasn’t entirely sure he cared what happened to him next. Lucian could do his worst, and it would be nothing compared to the regret of having lost Phoebe through his own idiocy.

They escorted the ladies out to the waiting carriage, and Phoebe bade Max wait a moment before he helped her in. She moved towards the horses to where Jack waited at their heads.

Jack scowled as he glimpsed the scarlet gown beneath her cloak, but Phoebe just laughed, drawing the old villain to one side. The two spoke in low, hushed tones that Max could not decipher and so he turned away, lest the desire to eavesdrop became too fierce. A light touch on his arm drew his attention, and Phoebe smiled up at him.

“Ready when you are, Max.”

***

From the outside, the façade of Rouge et Noir was entirely forgettable, a building like so many others on the street, rising to six storeys and with every window shuttered against the night… and against prying eyes. There was no theatre in its presentation, no opulent entrance, only a small sign—one side black, the other red—that swung gently as the breeze buffeted it back and forth on well-oiled hinges. It bore no writing, no instruction, and the black door before them bore no number.

Max knocked and it opened at once to reveal two large men, the kind one would not wish to meet unexpectedly on an unlit street.

“Monsieur Lemoine said we might be welcome here.” Max handed his card to one of the men, who gave it a cursory glance, nodded, and stepped back.

They were in.

At first, Phoebe was disappointed, having expected greater things than the dim corridor they moved through.

“The red door,” one of the men said in heavily accented English, nodding at one of two doors, one black, one red.

Phoebe glanced at the black door, intrigued, but the burly fellow just grinned and shook his head, wagging a finger at her.

“Red door,” he insisted.

Phoebe resisted the urge to laugh and stick out her tongue, and gave a regal nod of her head, sweeping on to the red door which Max held open for her.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” he murmured, his eyes alight with amusement as Phoebe realised he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

“That’s why they have nine lives,” she countered, raising her chin though she could not resist the smile that tugged at her lips. “Oh!”

All thought of what lay behind the black door vanished at the scene laid out before her. The wealthy, the famous, and the scandalous of Paris must all be here, the women in lavish silks and satins, jewels glittering beneath the light of five massive chandeliers. Men in their harsh black and white attire smoked and flirted with companions—not all of them respectable—and the concentration in some quarters of the room, as people gathered around card tables and roulette wheels, was tense and absolute. The room was enormous, far larger than anything she had considered possible from outside, and she realised the brothers must own far more than the one house that appeared to belong to Rouge et Noir from the outside.

Now she could see the houses had been altered to make one vast building. Serving staff moved through the crowds seamlessly, dressed all in black except for