Lions and Lace (35 page)

There was only one question left, one that haunted her with his every retreating movement. Would he ever find a way to love her?

She felt the cool air touch her body as he drew from her. The night had not seemed so cold before. Now it was frigid.

Trevor rolled to his back and stared up at the coffered ceiling. She didn't know what he was thinking, and it terrified her. He was not a man of pretty words; she didn't expect them now. They were never going to be a couple who cooed and billed at each other in their bliss.

But she wanted words. She wanted to know what was going through his mind, and in her desperation she spoke first. "Is it always like this?"

He turned his head and looked at her. "Like what?" he asked solemnly.

"So . . . unrestrained."
Her phrasing was inadequate. There were no words to express what had just happened. It had been savage and uncivilized . . . beautiful.

He didn't answer. His gaze flickered over her nudity, and she thought she saw guilt in his eyes. When he took the sheet and covered her breasts, she knew it.

Holding the sheet to her, her fingers turned to ice. She didn't want to cover herself. She wanted him to hold her, to keep her warm and caress her with all the tenderness of a lover until she fell asleep in his arms. But that wasn't to be. Something was wrong, and her foreboding spawned such a feeling of dread, it turned her heart to stone.

He closed his eyes as if he were fighting something inside him. When he spoke, his words were anguished. "I'm not a man who takes his bargains lightly. Nor do I like those bargains changed. I deal in numbers. But this is something else entirely."

"But was this so unexpected?" Her voice took on an edge of panic. "After all, I'm your wife."

"When I made this agreement with you, I never really believed this would happen. I certainly thought I could control myself. Avoid these entanglements."

"Is that what this is, an 'entanglement'?" she asked, unable to hide the hurt and accusation in her tone.
He was silent, as if he could think of no response.

"A vulgar word,
entanglement,"
she whispered, feeling him pull away. "I've never heard it called that before. It must be that the Irish do it differently." She knew he would take that as an attack, but the way she was beginning to hurt, she wasn't sure she cared.

He stared at the ceiling once more. She could see he was angry. Finally he said, "The words may be different, but trust me, the Irish do it just like the Knickerbockers."

She was silent, inexplicably wounded. He said nothing, just stared up at the ceiling. Soon she began to tremble, finding her hopes as crushed as the pillow beneath her head. They were in his bed together, but his words were so cold, so distant. He thought it all a mistake. Just as she feared, he'd acted from jealousy and competition with Eagan. He felt no emotion for her, none at all.
Except regret.
He'd broken their agreement, and now he feared for Mara's future. Perhaps he regretted that she was not his Daisy. Unlike his mistress, she'd been a virgin. She'd probably come off as awkward and inexperienced, and she'd displeased him. Despite all her wild, passionate feelings, she'd seemed cold. But then, maybe she
was
cold. She'd wrapped herself in that cocoon after her parents' death and perhaps never emerged.

She closed her eyes, holding back the tears that threatened to spill onto her cheeks.

He spoke again, not looking at her. "We can still get an annulment. I'll give you that if you still wish to fulfill your part of our agreement."

"How—" She swallowed, determined not to show him how destroyed she was. When she spoke again, her voice was cool and accusatory. "How can we have an annulment, after what we've done?"

"We won't be the first to lie about such things. Trust me."

She pushed the curtain of blond hair out of her face.

Searching for her peignoir, she stiffly rose from the bed,
then
pulled it to her.

"Did you hear me? Where are you going?" he asked, not bothering to hide his nakedness. He rose from the bed, a splendid example of angry manhood.

"No more lies. I can't take any more lies," she whispered.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I won't lie to get you out of this marriage."

His jaw tightened. "Then how do you propose we end this marriage? How do we fulfill our bargain?"

"We'll have to get a divorce."

His face was hard as marble. "The Catholic Church does not permit divorce. That's out of the question."

She glared at him. "We made this agreement on the basis that we would separate at the end of it."

"I never said we could divorce. I only mentioned annulment. Divorce is not an option. I cannot get one. You'll lie and have your annulment, or you'll have nothing."

"I won't lie anymore before God," she said. "This marriage began as a lie. It will end with the truth."

His eyes glittered with fury. "You're telling me—a woman of your station—that you'd prefer the ugliness of a divorce?"

Her defiant spirit saved her at last. "No," she answered coolly. "What I truly prefer, Trevor
Sheridan,
is a husband better than you."

He stared at her, too enraged to move. She walked from his room, and he started toward her, but she was too quick. She slammed the door, and his walking stick that leaned against the wall clattered to his feet. He snatched it up and began his slow pace back to the bed. But then whatever passion simmered in his soul suddenly came to a boil. He stared in self-loathing at the cane in his hand, and with unusual violence, he snapped it in two and threw it across the room, making a sound that seemed like a harsh, repressed sob.

The next morning Eagan found
himself
alone at the breakfast table. Mara was slow to rise, and Trevor and Alana were breakfasting in their rooms—in their separate rooms—he'd heard from the servants.

Disgusted with himself and the world, he shoved away his eggs and studied his coffee cup. Stepping to the sideboard, he took a decanter from a silver tray and laced the coffee with a drop or two of brandy.

He sure had a heavy case of the Irish melancholy. Nothing seemed to make him happy anymore. Last night he'd taken his usual sojourn down Broadway from Madison Square—Gentleman's Walk, it was called—after dark. The
nymphes
des paves
were out in force—beautiful, well-dressed, and well-spoken women, each a different kind of candy to tempt a bored and restless spirit. He'd made a "chance meeting" with one, a petite, glorious redhead, and followed her back to her house of assignation. There was nothing of note about the evening. For a man of his station to visit a temple of love was commonplace. The parlor houses were so out in the open, they were even listed in
The Gentleman's Directory
and that went so far as to include the number of female "boarders" and whether it was a first- or second-class establishment.

But the night had soured. After he'd done his duty by the lady, he leaned back in the bed and stared at her, for the first time completely at a loss. The realization seeped in that he had nothing to say to this girl, nothing to say, really, to any girl of his acquaintance. If he and the woman of the moment weren't in the process of satisfying their physical needs or building to that process, there was nothing between them. He couldn't think of a girl he could just hold in his arms, lie in the dark, and talk to.

He'd ended the evening early, giving the girl twice her rate, leaving her satisfied in more ways than one. Then he walked and drank until he found himself at the Battery. He'd watched the lights of Governor's Island, thinking, thinking, until his brain hurt. Trevor's wife came to mind more than once. She was definitely a girl to hold in the dark. But he knew she wasn't for him more than she did. He wasn't blind, and he knew Trevor was building a passion for her that was just about to overflow the dam of his withdrawn personality. And when that dam burst, neither of them would ever emerge.

But that was what he wanted. He wanted obsession.
Seduction.
He wanted a girl he could hold in the dark
For
the first time in his long debauched life, Eagan finally wanted something he couldn't have.

Drunk and depressed, he'd gone back to the mansion, hoping to ease his sorrows by sharing them with Alana. That had turned into a mess, and now, taking the last sweet drop of his morning coffee, letting it distance the woes of last evening, he decided that perhaps the best thing would be for him to lose himself for a few days. Trevor could cool his head, and in the meantime he could take up residence in Newport or find some sport down at the Jersey shore.

Eagan left the mansion and refused a carriage, thinking the walk to the Commodore Club would do him good. His mood didn't seem so dark in the thin light of the morning, and by the time he'd downed a couple of brandies at the club, he was actually feeling optimistic. After all, his life wasn't so terrible. And those girls, well, they were a mighty fine lot, so fine that by half-past four in the afternoon, he'd decided to go to Lord and Taylor's and buy Miss Evangeline de la Plume a little gift to apologize for being so brash the other night. That would baste that bird pretty well, he thought rather lecherously, knowing that Miss de la Plume was no different from the
nymphe
he had had last night, except that her price was a little higher and it took a little longer.

He rode a hack up Broadway to East Twentieth Street and the dazzling five-storied, cast-iron-front department store. Potted palms and French gilt mirrors met him on the first floor, hiding the fact that this
grande
dame of a store had started out as a harness shop. The paintings, frescoes, chandeliers, and particularly the endless miles of cold marble made him almost sentimental about home. If it weren't for the rainbow colors of hats and gloves stacked upon polished mahogany display counters, he'd be damned if he'd have known the difference.

Sauntering through the marble rotunda, he debated whether to splurge on an emerald brooch or just have one of the
shopgirls
wrap up a fur. Deciding on the fur—it would make a bigger impression, and Miss de la Plume might be so grateful she'd let them
both
lie on it—he paused by the ornate doors to the Otis vertical railway and rang for it to take him to the fifth floor.

The clock in the rotunda struck five, and shoppers streamed out the etched-glass doors. The store was closing, but he rang again for the lift with the confidence that the minute his face was recognized, they'd stay open all night if need be. Minutes passed, and he rang the bell again for the elevator. Impatiently, he tapped one polished black shoe, the sound echoing through the empty rotunda.

Bored and ready to sprint for the stairs, he noticed a figure out of the corner of his eye. Thinking it might be a store manager who could fetch the fur for him, he swung around to summon him, but he stopped in his tracks.

It wasn't a manager. It was a scrub girl, obviously, from the bucket and mop hanging in her hands. She stood at the foot of the curved marble staircase, close enough that he could make out the details. Her hair was blond, held in a neat bun at her nape. Her face was pretty despite the smudges of dirt that marred each cheek—proof of how long and hard she'd been working. She was small in stature, her clothes gray, worn, and patched yet
clean
, except for her hem where it had dragged in her scrub puddles.

He might not have looked at her twice—in his years in New York, he'd seen a thousand of her—but she paused at the bottom of that monstrously grand staircase, looking hesitantly up at those hundred steps, her hand resting on her swollen belly in a gesture of grave uncertainty. She was very, very pregnant.

The bell dinged as the elevator operator pushed aside the doors of the cage. Recognizing Eagan instantly, the tiny wiry young man straightened his bow tie and asked, "What floor, Mr. Sheridan? Are we buying jewels or furs today?"

Eagan snapped his head around to look at the attendant. "Furs, I think, Billy. Take me to five."

"Very good, sir."
The attendant stepped aside to let him enter.

Eagan didn't move. He watched the petite young woman rub the small of her back and stare at the intimidating stairs. Though she couldn't have been more than eighteen, her face was careworn. In a few years that look would be there permanently, eating away at whatever prettiness she once had. Her little figure moved him, and he gave way to impulse. "Madam," he said, the word echoing across the empty rotunda. "Madam," he repeated until she realized he was speaking to her.

She turned and faced him with the clearest blue eyes he'd ever seen. They were like the sky over
Ballinlough
from a forgotten childhood memory. They made the breath catch in his throat. "
Madam,
would you like to ride?" he said solemnly, holding out his hand to the elevator.

Those incredible eyes widened, and while it appeared that she very much wanted to, she shook her head and glanced around her as if she expected trouble.

"Come here." He waved her forward.

She did as he asked, her bucket and mop grasped fearfully in each hand.

"Don't you want to ride instead of walk?" He took her arm and led her into the elevator. She pulled back, but Eagan insisted, his strength easily settling the issue.

Billy coughed. "Ah, hem, if I may, sir. . . . This girl's the help," he pointed out, clearly disapproving of a scrub girl in his vertical railway.

"I see that," Eagan answered. "But surely Lord and Taylor would not want her to be taking the stairs in her condition, now would they?"

The customer was always right, but a man with Eagan Sheridan's pocketbook was God. Billy smiled his most cheerful smile and said, "Of course not, Mr. Sheridan. Let the lass ride to her floor. I'll drop her off just as soon as I get you to five."

"Thank you, Billy." Eagan shook his hand and discreetly lined his palm with a ten-dollar note. At that price, Billy would have carried them both on his back.

Going about his business, Billy closed the cage and pulled on the rope that ran through the ornate car. Eagan flashed the girl a wry grin, and those unforgettable eyes stared back at him with gratitude and something uncomfortably akin to distrust. They were on their way, but the ride to the fifth floor was not destined to be. After they passed three, a loud crack resounded through the shaft, and the vertical railway stopped dead between floors.

Billy, shaking his head and murmuring something about the damned thing not working right all day, tugged mercilessly on the rope for almost a minute, but nothing happened. Apologizing to Eagan, he cupped his hands and shouted upward, "Harper! Crank the shaft! Crank it!"

Nothing happened. Billy shouted again for his partner.

There was no answer but the resounding echo of his voice that rumbled through the shaft.

Mildly amused, Eagan took the cushioned bench that lined the perimeter of the small ornate car and prepared to wait. He offered the girl a seat, but she refused, looking frightened.

"It'll be all right," he told her with a smile.

She didn't appear to understand him, and he wondered if she had just come off the boat from some Scandinavian country.

Billy, meanwhile, fiddled with the rope and shouted again for Harper, who was obviously shirking his duties now that the store was closed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sheridan," Billy said anxiously, at a loss with no assistance from above. Frustrated, he glanced up at a door fixed in the elevator ceiling, and an idea came to him. "Mr. Sheridan, I won't be but a minute. I'll go up the shaft to four, and we'll get this thing moving again without wasting any more of your time."

"Fine.
I'll stay here and man the fort." Eagan gave a wry twist to his lips.

Billy laughed nervously, not sure what to make of that comment, then leapt to the bench. He was small and wiry, but even he had a difficult time squirming through the tight ceiling door. Eagan's broad shoulders would have never passed through it. While Billy
monkeyed
through the hole in the ceiling, Eagan almost laughed. This adventure was proving amusing after all. But then Billy disappeared, and he was alone. Except. . .

His gaze turned to the girl. She held on to the wall, trying to appear brave, but she was trembling in spite of herself. Eagan looked down at the girl's belly. For some irrational reason, it appeared twice the size it had been when she first stepped into the car. Suddenly his palms went clammy.

In reaction to his stare, the girl huddled back against the wall and put a protective hand on her belly. She was clearly wary of him. But in truth, she was the one scaring the hell out of him.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Eagan ground out, punching his hand into his palm. He looked up at the hole in the elevator ceiling and called, "Billy!
Goddammit
! Come back here!"

It had been over an hour since the attendant disappeared. The girl had finally sat down, and she rested her head against the etched glass, tracing the Greek key pattern with her finger.

"
Goddammit
, somebody answer me!" Eagan shouted at the dark endless hole that neither could fit through.

Still no answer.
He slumped to the tufted bench, tapping his shoe. The girl was frightened, but she was tired too, so tired that her fatigue seemed to numb her fear.

It didn't numb his. He thought of himself as a rather brave man. But every time his gaze slid to that girl's belly, he could feel the blood drain from his head. What if she needed something?
Water, for example.
How would he get that for her? Billy was the only one who could fit through that bloody hole. And where the hell was that puny little bastard anyway?

He ran his hand through his hair, unwilling to think of Billy never coming back. He'd come back, all right, or Lord and Taylor's store was going to have its butt kicked with the biggest lawsuit it'd ever seen. Eagan stole a glance at the girl. She was rubbing her belly in a strange, pensive way, as if she were comforting the baby within. He felt that he should do something for her, but the best thing he could do was get them out of there.

He stood to shout through the hole again. Suddenly a tinny voice came down through the hole, sounding far away. "Mr. Sheridan? Mr. Sheridan?"