One Dangerous Desire (Accidental Heirs) (16 page)

Chapter Seventeen

G
EORGE
C
ROSS WAS
much smaller than Rex imagined he’d be. As a child he’d envisioned his father as a giant, a behemoth casting a long shadow over his and his mother’s lives—the originator of all their woes. Not that his mother had ever acknowledged as much. In fuzzy childhood memories, he recalled her saying “when your father comes” or “when you meet your father,” always in that soft gentling voice of hers.

One day, not long before she died, he’d snapped at her, demanding that she stop believing. Hope hurt too much. He hadn’t wanted to hope anymore. Hope had become pain, and the only way a nine-year-old knew to stop it was to scream at his mother, force her to acknowledge that George Cross was never going to come. Never going to save them. Never going to love them.

She’d cried with such wrenching sobs, setting off one of her coughing fits. After a round of wet hacking coughs had rattled her thin frame, she’d stained her prettiest handkerchief with blood. One she’d embroidered by the fire. The reality of her sickness hit him in that moment. Consumption was going to kill his mother, and he’d done nothing to improve her life. He was a rotten, heartless child, stealing every last scrap of hope from his dying mother.

The saddest part of looking into the face of the man before him was realizing he’d never been their hope. Even if he’d come to New York, Rex suspected George Cross wouldn’t have made their lives any better.

“How did you find me?” Rex positioned himself in front of his desk, forcing the smaller man to take a spot farther away. Unsurprisingly, he chose a position near the door, as if preparing himself for a quick escape.

“Were you hiding, boy?”

Rex didn’t know which was worse—the sickening sneer that caught the man’s upper lip at a right angle, like a fish snagged on a hook, or the irritating glint of confidence in his bulging, brown-speckled blue eyes.

“I saw an article in a newspaper. And don’t look so bleedin’ surprised.” George Cross sniffed as if offended and then clenched a hand around each of his grimy lapels, puffing out his barrel chest. “I can read. Mostly check to see me own name is kept out of ’em. Saw her surname, didn’t I? Suspected it was you.”

Her name.
The man was lucky he didn’t speak it. Rex couldn’t bear to hear the man who’d ruined his mother, abandoned her, speak of her as if he had any claim at all.

“Why use your mother’s name? We were married, you know.”

“Yes, just before you sent her across an ocean alone.” His shouted words ricocheted in the room like the report of the gun when he’d shot the wall.

“Never told you the tale, did she?” Cross smirked. He seemed to enjoy every reaction he stoked in Rex. He watched him like a predator, with half downturned eyes. “Took a bracelet, you see, when we left her father’s estate. Got what money I could for the thing. Paid for a trip to Gretna Green, train tickets to Liverpool, and one passage to New York Harbor. Planned to follow—”

“But you didn’t.” Rex knew the rest of the story. He’d lived it. Cross could offer him nothing.

The man shrugged, confirming Rex’s thought.

“Headed back to London, didn’t I? Had family there. Made a life for me self.”

“London was preferable to the pregnant wife waiting for you in America?” Rex didn’t bother pointing out that his father would have had family in New York too.

“London was what I knew, boy.” Cross took a heavy step forward that he seemed to intend as menacing. “A place I could make my way. Obviously you feel the same. Look at what you’ve made of yourself in London. New York City didn’t do that for you, did it?”

Rex couldn’t deny it, but the notion that he and his father had anything in common sparked a wave of nausea.

“What do you want, Cross?” He wasn’t inclined to give the man anything, except a swift escort out his house.

A knock against the paneled wood of his office door cut through the tension in the room. A moment later, Mrs. Hark entered. “Mr. Leighton, sir, I thought you might like a spot of tea for you and your guest.” As she swept into the room to place the tray on his desk, she whispered as she passed by, “I’ve sent for Mr. Sullivan.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hark,” Rex said sternly. “We’re not to be disturbed again.” He didn’t want his housekeeper associated with George Cross any more than he wanted the man near May.

The older woman cast him a defiant gaze, sniffed, not unlike his father had a moment before, and lifted her chin as she sailed from the room, slamming the door harder than necessary in her wake. She did hate when her attempts at assistance were met with less than enthusiastic gratitude.

Rex didn’t offer his father tea. He didn’t move toward the steaming pot at all, just held his ground, arms crossed, and asked again, “What is it you want?”

“Why not serve me a bit of tea? That would be the polite thing to do.”

“I’ll have mine when you go.” Rex took one step toward his father, and Cross flinched back, despite the distance between them. “Which will be right after you tell me why you’re here.”

“Won’t be welcoming your father back into your life, then, will you, boy?” The man turned his eyes down to the ground as he muttered, “Won’t make a difference to you now, but I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“That she had you in her belly when she sailed for America. If she knew, she never told me.”

“Would it have made a difference?” Rex hated the tightness in his chest, the bile in his throat, and that he cared what George Cross’s answer would be.

Cross actually took a moment to consider it, scuffing his foot against the floor and picking at a stray thread on his garish plaid waistcoat. “You want the truth?”

“If you can manage it.”

“Casting me mind back, I have to say it probably wouldn’t have done. In fact, it would have kept me away just the same.”

“So you’re a coward.” Rex heard himself speak the words, and he was shocked at the lack of malice in his tone and the lack of judgment. Declaring George Cross a coward wasn’t a revelation, just a confirmation. Still, accusing the man chilled him to the bone. Less of that had to do with Cross than what Rex had always feared about himself. Was he a coward? Hadn’t he proved it every time he’d cowered or failed to come to the aid of another child at the orphanage? Hadn’t he confirmed it when he’d given up on May, the only chance at happiness he’d ever been presented with in his life?

“Perhaps I am, boy.” Cross spread his arms and skimmed his gaze from one corner of the room to the opposite. “But maybe it was a blessing. Look what you’ve made of yourself, and all on your own. You were better off without me. Made you stronger. Knowing your mother, she would have coddled you a bit. She always was tenderhearted.”

“There was nothing weak about my mother.” Except her lungs, and that had been the fault of tuberculosis and its insidious ways.

“No, indeed. You won’t hear me say she was. ’Specially seeing past her illness and wanting to run off with the likes of me. The lady definitely had some brass.”

“You knew she was sick?”

“All the ladies in the Leighton family were. Your mum, her sister, her mother. Consumptives, each and every one of ’em.”

“And you still sent her off to America by herself?” That made it worse. Rex never dreamed he could loathe the man more, but now he did.

“Can’t have it both ways, boy. Either your mother was an adventuress, or she was a poor little thing I sent off on her own.” He smiled with long snake-like teeth on either edge of his mouth. His accent changed, sharpening with a crisp, almost refined enunciation. “Which way will you have it?”

Rex’s skin chilled and heated at the same time, and the reaction was sickeningly familiar. As a boy, when he’d frozen in fear or panic, uncertain how to react, his body would turn to fire and ice. He’d be left to shiver and sweat in a corner of the orphanage, alone.

When he didn’t answer, Cross started prowling the confines of the room. “My, my, don’t you have a fine life here. Maids at your beck and call. Food when you ring for it. Not to mention that pretty black-haired creature you sent away. She had the kind of face a man would die for, or maybe kill for.”

With a single burst of movement, Rex was across the room. He pushed George Cross into the wall, an arm shoved into the man’s chest. He thrust his hand inside Cross’s coat and yanked his letter opener out, pressing the blunt metal blade to the man’s throat. “Speak and make it quick. What the hell do you want from me?”

His father’s clothes smelled of smoke and oil. His breath reeked of beer. Grunting, gasping for air, Cross’s eyes darkened with anger and defiance. Rex pressed harder. Finally, when his father’s eyes widened with fear, Rex released him.

Cross immediately rushed to the other side of the room. As far away as he could get without departing. He coughed and reached up to straighten his checked waistcoat and black necktie. “I’d hoped to do this nice. You’ve made that impossible, boy.” He transformed again, shedding his menacing skin and straightening up, lifting his chin, smiling so convincingly that an observer might think he was a proper gentleman without guile. “Money, Mr.
Leighton
. Where I come from, families share what’s theirs—food, money, lodgings. It’s long past time you shared with your father.”

Rex rumbled out a low chuckle. The man possessed “brass,” as he’d said of Rex’s mother, but Cross was mad if he thought siring a child he never bothered parenting entitled him to a farthing of the wealth that long days, hungry nights, and unimaginable risks had earned. As for sharing, Rex already did that—with charities and worthy causes in London and back in America. He’d even worked to have his corrupt New York orphanage shut down and a hygienic, well-managed new facility constructed in its place.

“I don’t have a father, Mr. Cross. If I’d had one, they wouldn’t have packed me off to an orphanage when my mother died. I never would’ve slept a single night on the streets, stolen bread to eat, or fought for my dirty little corner and a place to sleep.”

“We all have our sad tales to tell, me boy.” His father sneered again, that ugly fish-on-a-hook expression. “Don’t change none of the facts. You’ve made a nice life for yourself, and I mean to have me share of it.”

“Why?” Rex was no stranger to how extortion worked or blackmail, but Cross had missed a crucial piece. He had nothing with which to bargain.

“What?” When he crinkled his face in confusion, little bits of grime lined up in gray streaks under his eyes.

“Why would I give you a penny? Out of a sense of obligation? Mine is precisely equivalent to what you felt for me and my mother twenty-eight years ago.”

“Let me paint you a picture, boy.” Cross repositioned himself near the door, mashing his hands together eagerly. “What if I was to tell the newspapers that the great Mr. Leighton is named Cross and comes from the likes o’ me? A thief. A criminal sort. Who would trust you then?”

Ashworth might pull his funding. Business associates might turn him away. But he suspected curiosity would bring even more custom to the Pinnacle. The public lapped up rags-to-riches tales as gleefully as a royal wedding.

“My business and achievements matter more than my name. No would care in a week or a month.”

His father pursed his lips and hooked a finger into each of his waistcoat pockets. “Might well be. But what of your pretty lady? Would she love you just the same? What if I brought her ’round to my little patch of Spitalfields?”

Rex moved toward him, eager to introduce the man’s face to his fist. He saw a glint of metal and the flash of yellowed teeth as the man smiled.

“Not so fast this time, boy.” Cross pressed a knife against Rex’s waistcoat.

The office door swung open, cracking against the wall. “Drop the weapon, Mr. Cross. Now.” Jack Sullivan took two steps inside the room, pointing a small revolver at George Cross’s back.

“Doubling on me, I see.” His father raised one hand and replaced his knife inside his coat with the other. He glanced over his shoulder at Sullivan. “And who might you be?”

Sullivan made no reply and stared past Cross, only lowering his gun when Rex nodded.

“He’s the man who isn’t going to shoot you. This time. Now, get out.” Rex put a few paces between his father and himself. Being near the man only increased Rex’s urge to hoist him out the nearest window. “Forget about me, and I’ll forget about you. That’s the greatest favor we can do each other, Mr. Cross.”

For a moment, George Cross looked shaken. He pulled in upon himself, hunching his shoulders. Then he took a few steps toward the door, sparing one wary glance at Sullivan.

Rex expected his father to leave without another word.

But after stepping into the hall, Cross turned back. “You haven’t seen the last of me, my boy.”

Chapter Eighteen

T
HE NEXT DAY
, London greeted spring like a groom embraces his new bride. In a nearly cloudless sky, birds fluttered and sang, and bees buzzed around the blooms of yellow tulips and pink hyacinths in Grosvenor Square’s flower beds. May imagined capturing the colors and movement on canvas, but that would have to wait. The day ahead promised to be a busy one. Rex planned to show her the site he’d chosen for his hotel before they attended a press event her father and Mr. Graves had arranged regarding the new London branch of Sedgwick’s. It would be Rex’s chance to speak to her father, and on neutral ground.

Papa could either relent or refuse to give his blessing. Either way, she’d made her choice.

Waiting for Rex at the edge of the square, she found it difficult to keep still. Giddiness quickened her pulse, and anticipation had her pacing the pavement. When she spotted his carriage rounding the corner, she hurried toward it, eager to start their day, their life, together.

The moment he stepped down from the cab, freshly shaved and smelling of bergamot, she wanted to kiss him.

“Show me your hotel,” she said instead.

“There isn’t much to see yet.” The tentative catch in his voice made her grin. He cared about the project so much, and she wanted to share it with him. When they were courting back in New York, he’d patiently endured her rambling at the galleries they visited, or listened as she marveled at the shape of a leaf during one of their jaunts in Central Park. May wanted to hear him enthuse about something he felt passionately about too.

He reached for her, and May was acutely aware of the press of his hands. He left a trail of warmth behind every place he touched her as he assisted her into the hired cab’s snug interior.

“Someone might see me getting into this cab with you and consider it scandalous,” she teased. Each kiss and embrace they’d shared in recent weeks had been beyond the bounds of propriety, and she didn’t regret a moment of it.

“Really?” He looked around as if to assess whether they were being observed, then offered her a wicked grin. Bending near, he brushed his lips against her face before whispering in her ear, “Scandalous, love, is what I’m going to do you once I have you alone in this carriage.”

H
E COULD GET
used to the feel of her body melting against his when he placed an arm around her or rested a hand possessively at her back. May was more than capable of getting herself up into a hansom cab, but Rex gave in to the need to touch her. To shape his hands around her waist, and remind himself that however much her father grumbled and blustered, she would be his. No one, not even Sedgwick, could frighten him off this time.

Still, George Cross’s sneer was hard to forget, and his mention of May, his veiled threats, gnawed at Rex’s peace of mind. He didn’t want Cross in his own life, let alone hers.

When they were seated inside the carriage and the cab man headed off toward Mayfair, she turned to him, eyes wide. Not with fear, but with eagerness. Desire as potent as his own darkened the blue of her eyes. She flicked her tongue out to wet her lips, and that was all it took to snap his meager grasp on self-control.

He dipped his head to kiss her. Taste her. He couldn’t wait, couldn’t be gentle as he’d planned. Couldn’t make himself go slow.

Need for her pulsed through his body like a drumbeat, demanding he take her, deafening the logical voice reminding him that they were in a very cramped, very open carriage. He shifted his hips so that he could slide an arm around her shoulders, his knee knocking against the wooden cab doors that closed over their legs.

“There’s not much room,” she whispered.

“No, love.” He kissed her again, dancing his tongue along her lower lip until she opened to him. Then he pulled back to watch her eyes. “Just enough for this.” He reached down as he spoke, finding the curve of her warm stockinged leg under piles of petticoat hems and the decorated flounce of her skirt. He slid his hand higher as her mouth opened on a gasp of surprise. Higher, under the lacy edge of her drawers. She spread her legs just enough to allow him to explore, and he pressed into the damp heat and curls at the juncture of her thighs.

The agony was touching what he couldn’t see. He wanted to look and taste and love every inch of her, to know her body so well that nothing escaped his notice. To be closer to May than he’d ever been to anyone. Not just with his scarred body but with every imperfect part of his being.

“Mercy,” May said in a half gasp, half whisper.

Rex nuzzled her neck as he sank his finger deeper into her slick, warm folds. “Are you begging me to stop or urging me to continue?”

“Don’t stop.” She grasped his forearm, gripping tight as she moved her hips to buck against his hand. “Whatever you do, don’t stop.”

“I’ll never stop loving you, May.” Whatever it took to keep her safe. Whatever it took to keep her in his life, he’d do it. Whatever cowardice had caused him to walk away from her once, he would never be that foolish again. Never risk losing the second chance he’d been given.

She tensed, and her eyes went round as she wrapped her other hand around his arm. “It’s too much.”

“Let go, love. Just let go. I’m here to catch you.”

Her eyelids slid shut, and she bit her lower lip as she moaned. Rex pressed his lips to hers, and she opened to him eagerly, hungrily, letting him swallow her sounds of pleasure. He kissed her as she shuddered against him, held her until the carriage rattled to a stop.

He’d asked the cab man to take the scenic route, to extend the short journey as long as he could, and he’d specified no particular time when they would arrive. Still, his foreman and chief architect stood waiting for them in front of the hotel site.

When Rex lifted the cab doors open, May stopped him with a tug on his arm. “Wait. Do you think they’ll know? I mean, do I look any different?”

“You look . . . ” She looked delicious. Her eyes were glowing, her cheeks were delectably pinked, and her lips were plump from his kisses. The frothy mauve confection she wore was covered in lace and beading that sparkled in the sunlight, but Rex could think only of getting her out of the gown. His gaze locked on the creamy expanse of flesh and the hint of tantalizing cleavage between her pearl choker and the velvet-edged neckline of her bodice. “You look wonderful.”

“Not too disheveled, then? Rex?”

She shook his arm to get his attention. He was still staring, still aching too.

He tried to assess her objectively and shook his head. The workmen could not possibly look at both of them and mistake the flush in May’s cheeks or the bee-stung swell of her lips. “They’ll know I kissed you, but soon everyone will also know I mean to marry you.”

“Soon?”

He loved the question. Adored it so much so that he wanted to kiss her again. But first he wanted to show her the hotel.

Like a child taking in one of Sedgwick’s elaborate holiday window displays, May darted her gaze around eagerly as Rex led her into the Thorndike property, soon to be the home of the Pinnacle Hotel. Workmen were busy conducting a symphony of bangs, thuds, and curt shouts while they attended to everything from restoring brickwork in the walls, to cutting and sanding wood to create an elaborate entry arch, to laying tiles in an intricate pattern in the lobby’s waiting area.

When his foreman spotted them, the man tipped his hat and nudged a young workman to clear a path through to the stairwell.

“Watch your step as we proceed,” Rex warned May. “This is very much a work in progress, and you’ll find dust and debris on every level.” He still didn’t trust the overhead beams the men were working on. Even the bricklayers were occasionally lackadaisical about where they left the tools of their trade. Exposing May to the dangers of the site didn’t sit well with him, but he intended for a very brief tour. More than anything, he wanted to show her one special room.

“The stairs are beautiful,” May said as she bent at the waist to inspect the glint of color in the granite. “Shouldn’t they be covered so that they aren’t damaged during construction?”

“The men know when to take care.” The fact that she was concerned about the stairs, or any part of the hotel, caused a jolt of pleasure in the center of his chest.

“Are they made of marble?”

“Granite imported from Italy.”

His architect unfurled several sheets of blueprints and floorplans, and they stood side by side as the gentleman gesticulated and explained how they would lay in the electricity. She was especially fascinated with a sketch of the massive dynamo generators that would power the hotel. Rex pointed skyward, and her eyes followed the gesture up to where a soon-to-be electrified chandelier base had already been installed.

After she thoroughly perused each drawing, Rex led May up one more level.

“Where are you taking me?”

“You’re an impatient woman,” he teased.

“We both are.” She grinned up at him. “Do you think it will make for a terrible marriage?”

“I think it’ll make for a very active one. At least I hope it will.”

May thumped him on the arm and laughed, a light, sweet sound that echoed in the empty high-ceilinged stairwell.

“Here we are.” Rex pushed aside two long tarps draped over the entryway.

“Oh my goodness! It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Rex couldn’t have held back his grin if he’d tried. It was an unrivaled compliment from an American heiress, who’d dined in Newport mansions and socialized with the wealthiest families in New York, to say that she’d never seen anything like the unfinished ballroom he’d envisioned with her in mind. Perhaps the best compliment he’d ever received.

She moved into the room, picked a spot near the center, and spun around. “Is it just my imagination or are the walls glittering?”

The space wasn’t half of what he hoped it would be when finished. The floor had been laid but not yet fully lacquered and polished, and the walls had yet to receive finishing touches. Only the first layer of paint had been applied. Several more would be needed to achieve a true Tiffany glaze.

“The designer used a special paint for the first coat on the walls. It contains flecks of mica that catch the light.”

“It’s magnificent.”

“Eventually, he’ll add layers of blue, green, and gold to achieve the final color.”

“Just like your eyes.”

Rex had never been bashful. Sheepishness didn’t serve in the orphanage, so he’d pushed past fear and forced himself to be strong. But May spoke of the color of his eyes with the same tone of admiration she’d used for a great work of art. It chipped at his defenses. If there was a bit of humility left in him, this woman would find it.

“I actually thought the blue would match
your
eyes.” That seemed to thrill her, and he liked being the reason for her smile and the wash of pink in her cheeks.

“I want to meet your designer.” She met his gaze boldly, as if challenging him. “If you don’t mind.”

“Why would I? The Pinnacle will be ours. Your input, especially considering your skill in art, will be invaluable.”

“And if you loathe my ideas?”

He wouldn’t. Not only did he want to indulge her, but he also trusted her instincts.

“Then I’ll look forward to you convincing me.”

May stepped toward him, all confident, seductive woman. In that moment, he could see that she was right. She had changed. Not in the essential ways. The lady still lit up a room like no one he’d ever met, and her ability to look at the world around her with a sense of wonder hadn’t waned, but she exuded self-assurance now, a mettle he’d suspected she possessed but now saw on full display. May had only offered to defy her father years before. Now she was determined to act. To marry him—an orphan turned businessman—rather than a duke or an earl.

“Will you require a great deal of convincing, Mr. Leighton?”

She approached until her chest snugged against his, warming him from head to toe. Her floral scent sweetened his every breath.

“I just might, Miss Sedgwick.”

Rex was in the very pleasant process of bowing his head to take her lips when men’s voices echoed in the ballroom.

“We’ll put the scaffolding over here. Ah, excuse us, Mr. Leighton.”

May laughed but didn’t pull away.

“We’ll leave you to it, gentlemen.” Rex took May’s hand, unable to stop touching her despite the amused glances of his workmen. He’d shown her the ballroom. Now it was time to face her father.

“Wait.” May pulled him to a stop. “Would you show me the dynamos that will power the hotel?”

“They’re in a yard behind the building.” Rex wasn’t certain May would be interested in trudging out to the crowded lot, and he glanced down at her questioningly. But she was already tugging him down the stairs.

“I want to see them.” She clasped her hands as if he was about to show her a precious medieval triptych or an enormous diamond. Which reminded him that he needed to buy her a ring. A large one, as grand as anything an earl or duke could have given her.

They proceeded down the stairs and out a rear door of the building. London had turned gray. Sunlight hid behind the clouds, and the piles of bricks, tiles, slabs of granite, and sacks of plaster made for quite a dingy mess. Among the clutter of building materials, two dynamo machines towered up like hunchbacked monsters under wide tarps. He lifted the covering on one.

May gasped. “It’s so intricate—and gigantic. Where will you put them?”

“They’ll go in a sub-basement of the hotel and be maintained by a team of engineers.” He approached to expose more of the machine for her inspection. “Two more are on the way. We don’t need four to electrify the hotel, but I decided secondary generators should be on hand in case they’re required. They’ll generate enough electricity to sell to other businesses in Mayfair.”

May cast him an approving look. Generating income from a new enterprise was a skill she would have learned to appreciate from her father. Business, and their concern for May’s happiness, might be the only things on which Rex and Sedgwick would ever agree.

“And it’s safe?” she asked, echoing a question Rex had heard half a dozen times before.