“What a coincidence. I pictured it fair teeming with drunk young bloods eager to lose their fortunes. Which is very nearly the same thing as a place teeming with children.”
“The upper three suites areperfectfor lodging families,” she added, as though he hadn’t said a thing.
“I thought those suites would be perfect for accommodating gentlemen to stay after a long, hard evening of gambling. I’d call the suites... Drunk, Drunker, and Drunkest.”
She fought and lost a battle to a smile. “You are indeed a man of vision.”
He smiled at her. It seemed improbable that she could say so many things in a row that made him look forward to the next thing she might say. But there it was.
“Thetonwould be shocked if they truly understood the degree of my ambition.”
“If only you were to apply it to something more worthy, Lord Bolt.”
“What could be more worthy than my gaming hell? Staff would tenderly care for all of those young men while they recovered from their evening. It would all be very safe and genteel and no one would be robbed or murdered.”
“Well. That is everything a young man could possibly hope for.”
He laughed.
“Lord Bolt, I have a question for you. Given that you’re currently a merchant, shall we say, what on earth do you know, if anything, about running a gaming hell, apart from how it’s a wonderful place to lose money?”
“A good deal, as it so happens. Gambling was how I supported myself and my mother between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three, the latter being the age I was thrown into the Thames,” he said shortly. “No one wanted to hire me as a dancing master or Latin tutor.”
“Did youreallytry to be a dancing master or a tutor?” She was startled.
He merely grinned at that and dodged the question. “Gaming hell owners liked my notoriety, you see. It was good advertising for them, so they were indulgent when I exercised my idle curiosity and asked questions about how to run a gaming hell. I am nothing if not thorough, Mrs. Breedlove.”
Her expression—some hybrid of sympathy and censure and admiration, all of them warring a little—was a window into her thoughts. But she didn’t reply.
“All right then, I have a question for you. Why buy a buildingnow,Mrs. Breedlove? When you have only lately set up in business? I ask that as a businessman accustomed to assessing risk.”
Oddly she hesitated. As if she were trying to find precisely the right words, or uncertain she wanted to tell him. “Well, Mrs. Hardy came into the property here at Number 11 Lovell Street, The Grand Palace on the Thames. And we are now doing more than just surviving. Ambition seemed a luxury at one time, and I didn’t dare harbor any. Ambition means we arethriving, and can hope for more.”
“And you want to hope for more.” He was, for an instant, unaccountably a little moved.
“I suppose so.” But she sounded abstracted. Then she gave herself a little shake, as if she’d revealed more than she’d intended. “And the nearby livery is so useful—”
“Oh, yes. I thought so, too.”
“—because if a family should wish to hire a carriage, or shelter their own horses, it’s merely a short walk away.”
“I thought I’d keep a carriage there to convey gentlemen home again if they’re too foxed to give their direction to a hack driver or to get there under their own perambulation. Provided of course they haven’tgambledaway the family home.”
He thoroughly enjoyed the appalled amusement in her expression.
“But... the chief attraction is the ballroom,” he prompted with a flourish. As if they shared a script.
“I agree. That is Delilah—Mrs. Hardy’s—dream to have cozy musicales where everyone who can form words will be invited to sing them instead.” She sounded resigned.
His own face must have registered horror then. “And doyouhave other ideas?”
“But I thought... given the proximity to the livery... and to comfortable accommodations... we might charge now and again for quality musical evenings. A fine soprano, perhaps. Excellent musicians.”
“Hmm. Enterprising of you. Sound idea.”
“I thought so.”
“I’ve known a few fine sopranos in my day.”