Lady Be Good (35 page)

“Sweet music of the dice,” Nick said. But he pushed himself off the railing, leading her with springing steps down the balcony to an unmarked door.

He had redecorated his office since her last visit. Dark, striped paper covered the walls. The tasteful Smyrna carpet would have won Miss Everleigh’s approval.

She took a seat in the wing chair that faced the desk. The grain of the leather slid like butter beneath her fingers. “You’re doing very well.” Nick disliked being instructed, but he wasn’t immune to flattery.

He dropped into the seat opposite, grinning as he shoved aside a ledger. “Can’t complain. You see the archbishop down there, at the poker table?” He snorted. “Calls himself Thomas Duckle at the door, as if we’ve never seen a bloody newspaper.”

That door—the famous red door, which admitted wealthy ne’er-do-wells at all hours—stood open thanks to Nick’s generous bribes. Gambling had been declared illegal, but he had the police in his pocket, and several politicians, too. The only group he did not bother to placate were the moralists, whose furious editorials had offered the House of Diamonds a great deal of free advertising over the past few years.

“Congratulations,” she murmured. “Perhaps Mr. Duckle will sell you a place in heaven.”

“Oh, I’ve got better uses for my coin than that,” he said with a wink. He folded his hands together atop the desk, flexing his wrists so his rings rapped the wood. “You bring those letters? Or is Palmer still lording them over you?”

“He gave them to me for nothing.”

He frowned. “Right he did.”

That cynical tone made her sit straighter. “It’s true,” she said fiercely. “He asked nothing for them. He gave them to me from kindness.”
To get me free of you
, she did not add.

He sat back, smiling faintly. The gambling house had a strict dress code, which Nick always followed when resident. In his formal black suit and crisply starched cravat, he looked almost lordly. “Sounds about right, then. It’s a fool who’ll give away what he could name a price for.”

She would not be drawn into pointless argument. “He’s looking for someone. A Russian. A very dangerous character. The man probably hides among his own people. There are several Russian communities in your territory, aren’t there?”

“They make no trouble,” Nick said evenly. “So it’s none of my concern.”

“It concerns
me
.”

“No, Lily. It doesn’t.”

“This Russian, he’s after Palmer’s family—”

“The Strattons, is that right?”

His thoughtful tone confused her. Then it gave her a fledging flutter of hope. “Yes. His mother and sister—”

“Seventh viscount in his line,” Nick went on. He pulled apart his hands, took hold of one of his rings and turned it idly around his finger. A ruby cabochon the size of a marble. “Second cousin to a couple of dukes. Hell, he’s even related to the Queen. Ancestors came over with old Willy the Conqueror, don’t you know.”

“You’ve been reading up on him.”

“Thought it wise.” He tipped his head, dark hair falling across one eye. Fine suit, yes. But the shaggy hair of a ruffian. “How much Irish you reckon you’ll find in a family like that?”

“His mother,” she said triumphantly. “She hails from Tipperary.”

He burst into a laugh. “Is that what he told you? Aye, no doubt they ventured beyond the Pale once or twice. Seized some land from law-abiding Catholics. Don’t make them Irish, though.”

She bit her tongue. She must stay focused on her aim. “I don’t have any interest in defending his ancestors. It’s him that I . . .”

“You what?” Nick leaned forward. “What is it, exactly, that brings you to my doorstep to do his begging for him?”

“I’m not doing it for him. He doesn’t even know I’m here.”

“Sure he doesn’t,” he said smoothly.

“It’s true.” The next words came out clumsily, for they effectively bared her throat to Nick. “I care for him.”

He surprised her by sighing. “Oh, Lily.” He sat back, raked a hand through his black hair, then shook his head. “Well, it’s an old story. But I thought I taught you better. Fiona, now—she was softhearted. Took after her da. But you? I thought you were smarter.”

She was foolish, to be sure. No use in disputing it. “You don’t know him,” she said softly. “I can’t hope to persuade you that he’s far better, far kinder, far worthier than you think. Not like the rest of them. Of course you won’t believe that. But if you have any faith in me—then
I
will beg you. I beg you to trust my judgment, for once.”

His gaze dropped, his long dark lashes veiling his eyes. He nudged the ledger book straight, squared its edges with the corner of the desk. “All right, then let’s hear it. What are your hopes from him?”

“My hopes?” She frowned. “What do you mean? My hope is to find this Russian—”

“Your hopes for
you
.” He looked up sharply. “I don’t give a damn for Palmer. Let’s speak of what does matter. You want me to help this toff. Find the Russian who would hurt him. What’s in it for you? Think he’ll marry you for it?”

She flinched. “Of course not.”

He studied her a long moment, in which his steady gaze made her feel increasingly exposed, awkward and flushed and miserable.

“Oh, but you do hope, don’t you?” He spoke very gently, which somehow made it worse. “And why not? You walk around that auction house dressed like a lady, talking like a lady. And the swells bow to you, just as they
would to a lady—but you’ll never be one of them, Lily. It’s not that you don’t deserve it—God knows you’ve done a tip-top job, remaking yourself. Had I known you had the talent for it, I never would have wasted you on thieving. You’d have made the finest swindler London ever saw.”

She could not hold his gaze. “But?”

“But the swindle ends, darling, when they ask who your father was. And your grandfather, and his father before him. Old William the Conqueror, he’s not in our line. His son killed our kind for sport, back in the day.”

“I know it.” She spat the words. “You needn’t tell me this.”

“I didn’t think I did. But then you came here to beg for one of them. And unless you give me a solid reason why, I’ll be thinking you—with love, Lily; always with love—the greatest damned fool in the city.”

“Here’s a reason.” She raised her head and glared at him. “You won’t have those letters unless you help me find the Russian.”

“Ah.” He steepled his fingertips against his mouth as he considered her. “Threats, is it?” he asked softly. “That wise, Lily?”

“No.” The syllable was threadbare. She cleared her throat and found her voice again. “But if your life were on the line, I would make threats to save it. And I’ll do it for him, too. Punish me as you like.”

“As I
like
.” He whipped his hands down against the desktop, the crack making her jump. “What I
like
has nothing to do with it. You’ll never make a lady—but you could’ve been a fine, powerful woman. Stayed here, run an empire with me. But no.” He stood with violent
force, and she leapt to her feet, scrambling around the chair to bolt through the door.

But he didn’t come after her. He stared at her, scowling, and her hand, after a moment, slipped off the doorknob. She gathered herself to her full height. “The letters,” she said. “For the Russian’s location. That is the offer.”

“No,” he said flatly.

With the collapse of her hopes, fear seemed to leave her, too. She felt, above all, exhausted. “Very well.” She pulled open the door.

“I’ve a different bargain,” he said. “Nonnegotiable.”

She wheeled back.

“You’re family,” he said evenly. “But this is the last time I’ll do anything to serve Palmer. Understood?”

“Yes.
Yes
. Thank you—”

“Not yet,” he bit out. “God’s sake, Lily, have you forgotten everything? Hear the price first. Sit back down.”

Something was afoot at Everleigh’s. Lilah knew it the moment she alighted from the cab. The footmen were not at their posts on the front steps. Concern overrode the anxiety still lingering from her conversation with her uncle. She paid the driver and hurried around to the back entry.

The hall was empty. The counting room was locked. Even Mr. Chisholm, that permanent fixture in the contracts office, had deserted his desk. Rattled, Lilah pushed through the green baize doors into the public corridor. Lavender Ames and Maisy Lowell were hurrying up the grand staircase.

“Vinnie!” she called. “What’s going on?”

Lavender looked back but didn’t slow. “Quickly,” she said. “There’s a meeting called in the auction room.”

Lifting her skirts, Lilah took the stairs by twos. As she reached Vinnie’s side, she found herself at the edge of a crowd. The entire staff of Everleigh’s was funneling through the double doors into the oak-paneled hall where auctions were conducted.

Young Pete stood at the rostrum, his sister at his side. Just below them, the senior employees had assembled: the company solicitors; Young Pete’s secretary; and Mr. Hastings, who officially was Peter’s assistant, but in practice led most of the lesser auctions in Peter’s place. They were clustered in a tight, obsequious circle around a tall man, exquisitely dressed in dove gray, whose back was to the crowd.

She recognized the breadth of his shoulders, the way his blond hair curled against his collar. His military-straight posture.

As though he sensed her attention, he turned. Their eyes met across the crowd. He did not smile.

An elbow prodded her, making her flinch. “Hey now,” Vinnie said. “Isn’t that Lord Palmer?”

Her heart gave a queer thump. Like a thousand pricks from a needle, this wave of foreboding. She nodded.

“Why do you suppose he’s here?”

“I’ve no idea.” She cleared her throat. “Perhaps . . . to announce the date of the auction of Buckley Hall?”

But even as she spoke, she knew the idea was absurd. Vinnie confirmed it: “I can’t imagine they’d assemble us for such an announcement. Perhaps for a royal estate, but you said Buckley Hall was not so very rich.”

“It was rich.” Richer than any estate she could imagine. “But not grand enough for this.”

Vinnie gave her a sharp look. “Are you all right?”

“Quiet now,” Young Pete called. He rapped the gavel against the rostrum, causing the assistant auctioneer below to give a proprietary wince.

Maisy Lowell snorted. “Look at how Hastings fondles the thing!” For he had reached out to pat the rostrum as one might soothe an addled horse.

“He’s in love,” Vinnie cracked.

Lilah felt her lips curl in an automatic smile. But she barely registered the joke. Palmer had looked away from her almost instantly, and from this distance—which suddenly felt so much larger than the width of the room, with him surrounded by fawning lackeys—he seemed every inch the stranger he had asked her to make him. Not the man she had lain with until dawn six nights ago. Not the man who had feared for her, and then called her his weakness.

No, the man across the room looked incapable of weakness. He wore a look of bored amusement that she remembered from the first days at Buckley Hall. The look, she had thought back then, of an arrogant, bullying ass.

“All right now,
quiet
,” Young Pete called, far more loudly than needed; the room had been designed to carry voices as clearly as an opera house, and everybody had already hushed anyway. Into the tense and excited silence, he continued: “Over five years ago, now, we mourned my father’s passing. I know we mourned together, for my father always considered you all to be as dear to him as family, and your grief was a testament to your fellow feeling. At every moment, since then, I have striven to do his legacy justice.”

“You’d imagine his sister had done nothing,” Vinnie
muttered in Lilah’s left ear, while in her right, Maisy whispered, “She looks as sour as vinegar, doesn’t she?”

“It is in honor of that legacy,” Young Pete went on, “that I have called you here today. For as family, you deserve to share in our joys as much as our sorrows.” He lifted his hand, beckoning his sister nearer to him.

And then he motioned also to Palmer.

Vinnie gasped. “Do you think—”

“No,” Lilah said.
No
. She crossed her arms and gripped them very tightly. She must be mistaken. They had not been in London a week. She had met with Miss Everleigh every afternoon, for lessons in typing that also served to organize their notes on Buckley Hall. By no sign or odd mood had Miss Everleigh indicated that she had news of a private and unusual nature.

Yet Peter was still speaking. “It is my great good fortune to announce the betrothal of my sister to Viscount Palmer. Lord Palmer, as you may know—”

Her ears shut out the words. They buzzed senselessly around her: Pete’s speech, Palmer’s words of thanks, Vinnie’s excited babbling. The roar in her ears made it all unintelligible. She could not remove her eyes from Palmer.
Christian
. Could not look away, though it seemed to burn her very vision when he lifted Catherine Everleigh’s hand and kissed it.

Miss Everleigh smiled.

The astonished applause threw her back into herself. She would be sick, surely. She felt cold and jittery, as though she had drunk too much coffee, and then gone on a whirligig after.