↫Mischief in Mayfair↬

Did you hear that our queen also graced the ballroom floor last evening? Her Majesty arrived on the arm of her handsome prince charming. It was noticed that the consort did not leave her side for the entirety of the evening except for when he allowed Queen Adelaide to share a dance with a select few gentlemen. Oh, wait. How silly me, readers. Of course that is not true to say. A queen simply does not require permission from her husband as the rest of us might. It would seem that Her Majesty herself must have decided to stay along the frays of the dance floor.

-Madame Mischief

As soon as Leo had left the parlor, Scarlett stared down Damien, Lord Eades. Her friend picked the wrong time to pay an unexpected visit.

Damien shot a glance toward the doorway. When it appeared that the coast was cleared, he said lowly, "The bet is back."

"What?"

"Last night after the ball, Lord Symons was feeling overly confident and revived the bet. Five hundred pounds that you would be his mistress next."

Scarlett dropped her head into her hands. She wasn't ready for this right now, not with the way her health had been in the past week. Besides her attacks, she'd also been feeling...overwhelmed. It always felt as though an elephant was sitting upon her chest. Not that Scarlett had ever seen an elephant, but she heard they were quite large. And the one thing she knew about what was on her chest was that it was enormous.

"I know, Lettie," Damien said, putting a hand on her arm.

She sat back up. "No wonder you acted like the cat had your tongue when you came in here."

He at least had the decency to look sheepishly around. "Sorry. I simply was not expecting to see bloody Farrington in here."

"What do you mean, bloody Farrington."

Damien appeared taken aback by her forceful reaction.

"You know very well that the man has a certain reputation," Damien said lowly.

"So do I," Scarlett pointed out. "And you know very well that it isn't true."

Damien rolled his eyes and threw off his coat in irritation. He was wearing a simple woven waistcoat beneath it. "I can imagine why you'd want Farrington to be different than the others, Lettie. But he's not."

Scarlett bristled at that. "You aren't acquainted with him as I am, Damien." She busied herself with pouring another cup of tea and stirring in two cubes of sugar. "He was here this morning to check on me after he saw me have an asthma attack last night at the ball."

Damien frowned and paused his movements as he'd been adjusting his cravat. "You had an episode at the ball? How do you fare now?"

She nodded. "Dr. Abbott came over this morning as well. He wants me to double my daily dosage of laudanum."

"That's a lot of laudanum," Damien said in a near whisper.

"I know," Scarlet replied quietly. "I am not sure what to do."

"Isn't Dr. Abbott worried that you'll become dependent on the drug?"

"He did not mention that as a concern."

Damien looked skeptical. "I know it is a concern," she added, "I am purely saying that Abbott did not bring it up."

He frowned, hesitated, and then said, "Lettie..."

It was very clearly a warning of some kind. But Scarlett wished he wouldn't use her childhood nickname; she was not even close to the girl she used to be.

Scarlett's country home growing up was right next to Damien's family estate. Scarlett's father was a wealthy baron who had very little time for his daughter, and so she'd ended up running around with Damien instead. But things that happened in the country didn't often reach the ears of London gossipers, and no one seemed to realize their connection from the past.

"What, Damien?" Scarlett asked, drawing out her words.

"I do not think Farrington was here only due to his concern." He flashed her an apologetic look.

"What do you—" And then it dawned on her, washed through her with a sort of sorrow. Leo knew about the bet. He'd only come to see her this morning because he, too, was interested in winning five hundred pounds. Or winning her. Leo did not care about how she was feeling at all.

She sucked in a breath. "Did you see his name in the betting book?"

Damien grimaced. "I cannot be sure. I did not look that closely. But do you remember the last time?"

Of course, she remembered. It had been the perfect plan. Scarlett had needed something that would explain why she was still able to afford to live on her own, and becoming Damien's fake mistress seemed like the perfect solution. People would assume he was paying her bills.

She'd reckoned with herself that men constantly propositioned her for that very thing anyway, and that was when she realized she could turn their cover-up into something even more beneficial. Something where she and Damien could make some extra money from their affair.

The bet.

Several months before it actually began, Scarlet started to write about herself in Mischief in Mayfair, alluding to potential escapades with mysterious men that naturally no one could confirm or deny. She shrouded herself in gossip that enhanced her reputation as enigmatic, ambiguous, and, most of all, covetable.

It had blown up, naturally. Damien had goaded some other fool into actually making the bet and writing it in the book at White's. One thousand pounds that he'd be the next man to win the elusive Lady Humphries' affections.

And then the game had begun. For months, men followed Scarlett around like lovesick puppies, though she wasn't sure exactly what they were after. The money or her. It didn't really matter.

Leo was one of those men. In fact, he had tried harder than all the rest.

Scarlett still didn't really understand why he'd done it. Unlike the other idiots that had bet on her, Leo had plenty of other options when it came to women. And from what she'd heard, he didn't need the money, even though the amount to be won continued to increase as the bet went on.

But regardless, Damien was right. Leo was only here because he wanted to win that ridiculous bet again. He did not care about her wellbeing; he only wanted...Well, Scarlett wasn't sure precisely what Leo wanted. In her bed, perhaps. Or maybe it was only the winnings from the bet. But more than likely, he merely wanted to win.

Competition made men into fools.

Just thinking about it filled her with a sinking feeling. She'd thought Leo was different now. No wonder he'd been annoyed when Damien had shown up. He'd seen her friend as competition in some game he was playing. And now there was something inside her that was breaking apart piece by piece at that idea.

"What do you wish to do, Lettie? I wasn't sure, so I put my name down in the book. But I can always concede."

Scarlett sighed before making an instant decision. She nodded, mostly to herself. "No, that's good. Since the opportunity has presented itself, we might as well play it like last time. I could use the extra money. Dr. Abbott mentioned a new drug that would help subdue my asthma attacks, but he wasn't sure how much it would cost. I am afraid it will be expensive."

"I can lend you money, dear." Damien flashed her a pitiful look that she despised.

"You know I won't take it."

"I don't understand why," he pleaded. "You are friends with the wealthiest members of the ton. I know they would help you, too."

"I can't do that. They can't know how much of a fraud I am. And I cannot rely on you, either. You need to save your money for when you marry and have children."

Damien came from an old title that had once been very wealthy, but unfortunately, his father spent a great deal of it in various gambling escapades. Luckily not very many people knew of that, however. Damien generally didn't wager because of what his father did...unless he knew he was going to win, of course.

"You're not a fraud, Lettie. You've just created a...carefully crafted persona. And you did it to protect yourself."

Yes, she supposed that was true. When Scarlett was told she could stay in Humphries House since the new earl wasn't interested in moving to London, she knew she'd still need to maintain the home. It was what led her to try her hand at the gossip columns. Then she started to sell mass copies of Mischief in Mayfair and knew that people would start wondering how she managed Humphries House with supposedly no income. It was an endless cycle of deceit.

And thus, a new Lady Humphries had been born.

"This will be fine," Scarlett said, coming to a resolution. "The men can clamber for a bit, but ultimately we shall spread the news that we are once again in a relationship, and we shall collect the winnings."

"Do you think people will become curious that I have won, for lack of a better word, twice?"

Scarlett shrugged. "Likely, yes. But they'll still have to pay up regardless."

"Fine." Damien seemed unsure, but if the bet was already going, she didn't know why they shouldn't profit off of it. "As long as you are certain," he said.

Scarlett gave a succinct nod. "The players of the ton deserve to be played every now and again. And that includes bloody Farrington."

Damien smiled. "Indeed they do, my dear."