What kind of a gaming hell didn’t have women available for pleasure? She’d assumed all the women she could see in the main gaming room from high in Talen’s office were for hire.
Maybe they were just for looks. Men did like women fawning over them. Genuine or not, men didn’t seem to much care.
The door opened and a head poked into the room. Declan.
“Verity, I was looking for you. We need you in the fleur-de-lis room to ready the bed, if you would, please?”
Verity’s head immediately bowed and she nodded toward the floor, stepping out past Declan into the hallway.
Confusion still etched Ness’s brow. “Declan?” She blurted out before he closed the door and disappeared.
He half stepped into the room, the rest of his body staying behind the heavy wooden door. “Yes?”
She hadn’t spoken much to Declan, but from what she had, she guessed that she might get answers from him that Talen had been vague about. “I was curious—I assumed this was a whorehouse as well as a gaming house, but then I guess I was wrong. Or am I right?”
The right side of his face pulled back into almost a cringe. “That would be a better question for Tal, Ness.”
“But I’m asking you.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Fine, then let me ask you a different question since you’re here.”
To her surprise, Declan didn’t scamper from the chamber like he did every time she was in a room with Talen. In this bedroom, in Talen’s office. Instead, he moved into the chamber, closing the door, and then sat on the arm of the plush chair by the doorway, his hands landing on his thighs. Not committing to staying for more than a moment, but at least giving her the courtesy of his attention.
That he did so reaffirmed her like of him. He was easier than Talen. Lighter.
His right hand on his thigh flipped up. “Hit me.”
“You have known Talen for a long time?”
“Yes, since our time on the Royal Navy ship together.”
“Were you there when he first appeared on the ship?”
Declan paused, his eyes slightly narrowing at her, instantly cautious. “Yes.”
She ignored his guarded voice. “Where did he come from?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Where do any of us come from? The streets. Parents that drop us off at the docks then never come back. Or stolen from a field and stuffed in a sack. We come from everywhere. We come from nowhere.”
“How did you end up on the ship?”
His mouth closed, his stare went blank on her—not answering that question.
The exact same blank stare Talen gave her when she asked questions he wasn’t going to answer. The two of them must have practiced the look at each other when they were young to have perfected it so.
She nodded to herself, turning half around to set the book on her chair, then spun back to him. “So Talen appeared and you became friends?”
An easy smile came to Declan’s face. “I had to. No one can fight like him. I knew early on it’d be better to have him as my best friend than my enemy.”
“You’re scared of him?”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “No. Not now. Maybe once upon a time I was. But that was before I knew him. What he can destroy with his fists didn’t much matter to me a long time ago. To me, he’s just Tal and he’s earned my loyalty a thousand times over in the years I’ve known him.”
Her chest suddenly felt lighter.
For all she was trying to navigate just who exactly Talen was now, that he had at least one loyal friend made her breathe a bit easier.