“But—”
“If you return, I’ll assume it’s because you want to finish what we started here,” he interrupted. “I won’t stop at kisses next time, milady. I won’t stop until your legs are around my waist and I’m deep inside you, giving you the thorough fucking you’ve been begging for ever since you first came to The Sinner’s Palace. Understand?”
Her eyes were wide. Her countenance shocked. He had been crude. But it had been necessary. Giving her a mocking bow, he stalked from the room, before bellowing for Hugh to take her home.
“Lord grant me patience for females,” he muttered under his breath as he went in search of the cheating viscount and the hazard tables.
They had recently blown into his life like an unforgiving storm.
“Where have you been?”
The familiar voice of her sister had Octavia jumping and emitting an undignified squeak as she attempted to steal back into her chamber. Pressing a hand to her heart, she whirled about to find Mirabel watching her with an assessing, narrow-eyed gaze.
“Nowhere,” she said brightly. “Why should you think I have been anywhere?”
“Because you came in from the mews and your gown is damp,” her sister said.
So she had been seen.
Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “I went for a walk. I was unable to sleep.”
“Do not dare lie to me, Octavia. I know you have been going to The Sinner’s Palace these last few weeks.”
Her sister knew?
She sighed. She had supposed Mirabel had been too distracted by her new marriage to take note of Octavia’s secretive comings and goings. She had been paying the tiger who accompanied her quite handsomely for his silence.
“Will you allow me to explain?” she asked softly, knowing she had abused her sister’s trust.
It was one thing for Mirabel to allow her to consume scandalous caricatures from London’s print shops, but it was quite another for Octavia to venture to the edge of the dangerous rookeries where The Sinner’s Palace dwelled. She knew this, and she had intentionally kept the secret from her sister. Even for a self-avowed spinster, the mere action of going about unchaperoned in the evening—let alone in the East End and with a man such as Jasper Sutton—was well beyond the bounds of propriety. If anyone else knew her secret, she would be ruined.
Utterly.
And her shame would reflect poorly upon not only herself but Mirabel and her children, the eldest of whom was the young Duke of Stanhope.
“Come,” Mirabel said, unsmiling, taking Octavia’s arm in hand and propelling her into her bedchamber. “This is a discussion better had in private, I should think.”
“Yes,” Octavia agreed, the swelling tide of guilt threatening to choke her.
Going to The Sinner’s Palace and seeking out Jasper Sutton had been foolish.
Reckless.
Dangerous.
The door closed behind them more loudly than necessary, as if a remonstration itself. She turned to face her sister.
“Do you have any notion of how much peril you place yourself in, each time you venture to that part of town?” Mirabel asked.
“You went there, if you will recall,” she countered, thinking of the romance her sister had kindled with Mr. Damian Winter, who had been running a gaming establishment for ladies not far from The Sinner’s Palace. “If it was safe for you, should it not also be safe for me?”
“Octavia, your sneaking about the East End alone is different, and you know it. First, I was a widow where you are unmarried, and second, Lady Fortune is in a far better area, surrounded with guards to ensure the safety of its patrons.”
“The Sinner’s Palace has guards as well,” she defended weakly. “Hugh has been following me home each time I pay a call there.”
“Each time?” Twin patches of color appeared on her ordinarily calm sister’s cheeks, an indication of her ire. “How many times have you gone there, Octavia?”
“Three,” she admitted.