lifted her glass in a mock toast and took a long drink.
Arthur glanced around, trying to get his bearings since he’d be spending a lot of time here in the next few weeks.
“Welcome to the penthouse of The Pearl Hotel,” Regan said. “Like it?”
“It’s impressive,” Arthur said. This was more than luxury. He’d grown up in luxury. This place was pure decadence.
“When the hotel opened in 1909, this suite was reserved for the most special clients with the most exacting needs.”
“So…rich men who needed pretty girls.”
“Or boys. If they could pay, they were provided whatever they wanted. Your great-grandfather even lived here in his day.”
“Looks like the sort of a place a rake like my great-grandfather would live.”
“I suppose that makes me a rake then. And the penthouse is once more being used for its intended purpose—to debauch young lords, my Lord Arthur.”
Arthur ignored that comment and her smile. Something had caught his eye. She’d changed the painting.
Over the fireplace, so enormous he could have burned a whole coven of witches inside it, hung a painting of a pretty young woman and her ugly old husband. Arthur could tell the young wife wanted out because she was practically banging on the window with her hands while a parade passed outside the house. The old man’s face wore an expression of Well, go on, why don’t you? Nobody’s stopping you, so it was clear they’d had this argument before.
“The Gilded Cage,” Regan said, pointing with her highball glass, “by Evelyn de Morgan. What do you think?”
“I think…if that painting is what you hang in your sitting room, I’m not sure I want to know what you hang in your bedroom.”
She laughed. “It’s a lovely painting.”
“It’s not very happy,” he said.
“Marriage isn’t very happy,” she said. “Trust me. I speak from nearly ten years’ experience. You know why I changed the painting?”
“Needed to cover a hole in the wall?”
“I was married to Sir Jack for over nine years, and I wasn’t allowed to move so much as one book to another shelf. Everything always had to be in its place, and ‘its’ place was where Sir Jack wanted it and nowhere else. Now I change my paintings as often as I change my outfits.”
She had changed her outfit, too. Gone was the black trench coat and black boots. Now she wore a black silk kimono with a red sash. No more tasteful pearl choker around her neck. Now she wore pearls dangling from her earlobes. They glinted in the firelight as she crossed the rug to bring him his drink. He took it but didn’t taste it.
“Evelyn de Morgan,” Arthur said. “Wasn’t she a Pre-Raphaelite painter? Something like that?”
She applauded by lightly slapping her free hand against the wrist that held her highball glass. “You do know a little something about art, don’t you?”
“Yes, well, the Godwicks own over a dozen art galleries. I grew up in a house with a billion pounds of art hanging on the walls, and my name is literally Art.”
“Such a brat,” she said. “I think that’s what I’ll call you. My Brat.”
She laughed that low throaty laugh that had affected him so profoundly earlier. The laugh of a woman playing a game who already knew the outcome, but he couldn’t quite tell if she knew she’d already won or already lost.
“Some trophy wives buy clothes, handbags, shoes. I bought artwork. Great art always goes up in value and you can sell a painting for quick cash if you ever have to make a dash for it. Luckily, Sir Jack died on me before I had to do that.”
“Why did you marry him if he was so awful?”
“You sold yourself to me to protect your brother. I sold myself to protect me. Everyone has their price, yes?”
That morning Arthur would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that he couldn’t be forced, strong-armed, coerced, or blackmailed into doing anything that went against his own will, his own conscience. Example: having sex with a total stranger. Apparently, she was right. Everyone did have their price and she’d found his. He consoled himself that he could be bought for love while she’d sold herself for Jack Ferry’s money.
“I suppose so,” Arthur admitted. “Maybe you got a bad deal.”
“I got what I wanted, to never be caught short. Whenever it got bad, I’d repeat these three words to myself—I chose this.” She looked at him. “And so did you.”
She pointed at the decadent luxury that surrounded them and then finally