Wicked, My Love (14 page)

“For heaven's sake, I'm not crying,” she said. “Why would I cry?” She rose, slipped from Harker's hold, and set herself away from the men. Head slightly bowed and hands clasped behind her back, she began to pace. “Do you know anything else?”

“I spoke to some jobbers—discreetly, as you requested,” Harker answered. “No one had received such a report as the one you had sent me. The only thing I can tell you is that Mr. Merckler, the company founder and majority shareholder, had passed several months shortly after modernizing his factory. His wife inherited his share of the stock and a new manager
was appointed.”

She shook her head. “I knew about Mr. Merckler's death. I researched the company behind my new bank partner's back. I shouldn't admit that, but I would never have allowed my bank to make such a large purchase had I not.” She gazed at a small spot on the far wall. “Merckler had been around for years giving staid, steady payouts. With the recent modernization, it seemed like a wonderful opportunity. I should have seen something amiss, some tiny detail. My father would have caught it.”

“Miss Isabella, you're just a woman,” Harker said soothingly. “Don't distress yourself.”

“Yes, I'm just a woman—a spinster. I was blinded by my affections for this bank partner. And now, having saddled my father's bank with false stock, he has fled the village.” She covered her face with her hands.

“Some rascal hurt you!” The stockbroker rushed to her side. “I shall not stand for it.” He wrapped her in his embrace.

Randall swiped his poker, knocking off the clock on the mantel, sending it shattering to the floor. “Oh, Mary, mother of God, look what a mess I made with this hot, hard poker.”

“Just put it down, stand in the corner, and don't touch anything,” Harker thundered.

“Don't be so harsh.” Isabella escaped the man's grasp, leaping in front of Randall. “He's-he's rather dull-witted.”

“You should not stand for such incompetence,” the stockbroker said, now using his commanding tone on her. “You let him go immediately.”

Her jaw dropped. “He is my affair, not yours!”

“That's right, sir,” Randall affirmed. “I'm
her affair.”

She paused for a moment, then slapped her forehead. “I didn't mean an
affaire
like he's my…my French love pet.”

Harker blinked. “French love pet?”

“I personally prefer
footman
d'amour
,” Randall said.

“I told you to be quiet!” She jammed her index finger at him. “You'll be lucky to be footman d'rubbish heap if there is a run on the bank.” She closed her eyes and breathed in and out several times before turning back to Harker. “I understand that my bank partner was in debt. He had lost heavily in cards at a place called the Golden Tyger. Do you know of this club?”

“That is a den of serious, high-stakes gamblers. In fact, several former jobbers haunt the tables. It's a deadly place for a novice player.”

“I'll wager there are more people involved than just our bank partner,” she said. “There had to be a printing press, a fabricated report. After all, why would any metalwork factory need to sell false stocks when people are building railroads all over the world?” She paused. “Something larger is at work here.”

Perhaps
a
towering, bald railroad baron with a vendetta?

“What fine mess have I gotten my father's ba
nk in?”

“What you need is a man to guide you,” Harker assured her. The look in his eye, if translated, would be, “I am that man, just let me guide you to my bedchamber.” Harker wrapped his paws around her again. Randall reached for his trusty poker. A bloody, one-sided altercation was about to commence when the door swung open and a kindly faced lady with a headful of upswept gray hair popped in.

She waved a Wollstonecraft Society pendant. “Miss St. Vincent, you'll never guess! I've bought tickets to your speech.”

“Mama!” The stockbroker leaped away from Isabella.

“My, you have changed,” the woman told Isabella. “Very elegant. I simply love what you're doing with your coiffure.” She leaned in to whisper behind her hand. “You must tell me who you are using.” Before Isabella could answer, the woman continued. “May I steal you away for just a few minutes? I have a dozen copies of your book, and I would adore if you could sign them. You know, I'm the envy of my friends because I know you.”

“Of course.” Isabella's lips lifted into a pained, stiff smile. Randall had never known a woman who shied away from attention as much as she did. As she followed Mrs. Harker out, she flashed Randall a pointed glare that said “If you say one word, I will kill you in a most torturous and barbaric manner. Don't think I won't.”

So he and that scoundrel stockbroker were left alone. Randall hung about the corner, trying to be the proper servant and not act on his urge to taunt Harker. He would hate for Isabella to return and find her trusted stockbroker sporting a poker up his broadside.

But Harker started it. “Footman
d'amour
.” He gave a patronizing chuckle.

“I'm very skilled at my job, sir.”

“No, you're a pathetic, empty-headed, pretty chap. I find your jealousy of me amusing.” Harker sat behind his desk, leaned back in his chair, and rested his hands on his soft belly. “Do you know what I am?”

A
foolish
cove
who
is
about
to
eat
his
own
bollocks for dinner?

“A successful gentleman. You're just a toy. When she's done playing with you, she'll push you aside. She is not like other ladies. You know nothing of
her mind.”

“Aye, you certainly do, sir. I'll wager you can finance this fine office because Miss St. Vincent tips you off about the market.”

The man's teeth glinted below his tight upper lip. “Don't get too comfortable, O'Randy. A certain future event is going to change your employment.”

“Love her, do you?”

The man gazed out the window in a romantic, yearning fashion. “Yes,” he said quietly.

“Odd, that, seeing how you had all these years to ask her for her hand.” Randall shrugged. “Maybe it was because she came waltzing in today in a low-cut gown. Now you love her for more than her money but her body as well. I'm rather romantic. I love her for her brilliant mind and kind heart.” His words were meant to be a nasty joke, something to belittle Harker's shallow marital ambitions. But when “love” and “heart” and “mind” flowed from his mouth, their sound echoing back in his ears, his fears put into words, a deep, a knowing peace washed over his o
wn heart.

Oh
God!

Randall turned stark silent as Harker rambled on with his insults. The man's jabs didn't make a dent in Randall's anxious thoughts. Had he really done it? Had he fallen in love with Isabella? No, no, it was because of their tense situation. That was all. He could never truly love Isabella. He just wanted her luscious body in the most obsessive, desperate way. It was only lust, simply lust that he would never act upon. It was against all that was right. She was like a sister—one that he never liked. It felt incestuous or just very, very wrong, like mating exotic zebras and dull stock horses—possible but horrible.

At that moment, the object of his obsessive lust reentered. The air crackled with tension, and even typically oblivious Isabella perceived it. She looked from Randall to Harker and back to Randall. “What have you done?”

“Nothing,” Harker answered for him. “I'm just teaching O'Randy how to behave around his betters.”

Then she did something that warmed Randall's heart and jeopardized his entire it-was-only-lust theory: she giggled.

Thirty minutes later, Isabella struggled to disentangle herself from Harker. She just wanted to be alone to digest all that she had learned, but the stockbroker kept her hand captured, asking her opinion about different funds. Meanwhile, Randall continued his stupid act, stomping about the room with a poker, ignoring her injunction not to speak and uttering embarrassing things such as “Isn't it time for your afternoon tea and foot rub?” She pretended to ignore him, keeping her lips curled in some semblance of a smile, patiently answering Harker's numerous questions, all the while stifling her desire to grab Randall's poker and beat him with it, screaming, “For God's sake, can you behave for once!” Making him her footman was to have been such sweet revenge for the pregnancy episode and saying she only looked “well enough,” but that slippery snake had turned it against her. No telling what her stockbroker was thinking.

Finally, when she managed to free herself, she stomped from the office, leaving her “footman” behind. Despite her desire for him just hours before and the night she had passed cuddled in his embrace, at that moment she wouldn't have cared if he fell off the earth. She was too agitated to hail a hackney, so she chose to walk and think about this Merckler Metalworks problem. She didn't get too far before Randall caught up with her like an unwanted, noisy fly that eluded a swatter.

“Footman
d'amour
!” she thundered. “I'm trying to determine why we are being ruined and you're the footman
d'amour.
How very helpful of you. You know what? I'll save the bank, and you can just continue diddling about as you usually do.”

“I had to do something or else Harker would have devoured you.”

“Devoured me? No doubt he is angry that I've gotten him involved in our problems.”

“Angry? You think that was anger?”

She stopped. Randall was giving her a look. What did it mean? Was he making fun of her or being serious? “I guess,” she ventured.

“Love, Harker was ready to get on his knee, propose, and then go straight to the honeymoon right there on the desk without the necessary paperwork.”

“You think Mr. Harker was attracted to—to
me
?” A respectable man liked her! What was she doing wasting time arguing with Randall the footman? She spun on her heel, ready to beeline across the muddy street back to her stockbroker's office.

Randal seized her wrist. “Where are you going?”

“A man who possesses his wits, is somewhat attractive, and under the age of forty likes me. Me!”

He held tight, letting her dangle off the edge of the walk. “Are you that desperate?”

“Yes, Randall, I am.” She writhed in his grasp, trying to free herself. “I figure if you can marry for money to get out of this little financial mess, then so can I!”

He tugged her arm, sending her careening into him. Despite the people passing, he held her shoulders, peering into her face. “He doesn't want you for you. He spent the entire time sneaking peeks at your brea—bosom and stealing all your good investment ideas.”

“I perceive no problem if there is a wedding ring in the offering.”

“Please don't bite my head off if I dare point out that you really don't make the best decisions with regard to men. For example, your last light o' love may just land you and your customers in the poorhouse. All the while, he's playing Who's Papa's Naughty Pussycat on some beach in France.”

Touché.
She blew out her breath and hung her head. “You're right.”

“I'm glad that you can finally admit it so freely.”

Oh, he has to get in every last little jab.
She was about to fire back a nasty retort when she saw two small girls, no more than four and six, huddled together in a torn gray blanket under a tea shop window. Their eyes were large in their bony, dirt-smeared faces. Her heart hurt for them. Suddenly, her problems came into focus. Soon her situation wouldn't be about banter and besting Randall, but about true poverty and desperation. She reached into her reticule and fished out two sovereigns. Randall squatted on the pavement, talking kindly to the children.

“Do you have any parents?” he asked.

The older one shook her head.

“There is a kindly orphanage on Tottenham Court Road,” he said. “It's beside a shop with large yellow-and-red parasols open in the window. You can eat there, get medicine, and learn a trade.” He drew a card from his pocket. “Give them this and tell them to take you in. I'm a patron.”

The older girl took the card, turning it over and over, clearly unable to read the gold writing. “Thank you, sir,” she said in a thick Irish accent, and then nodded to Isabella, accepting her offered coins. “Thank you, miss. God bless you.” The older girl helped the younger one up and they hurried down the street, their shoes splitting from where they had outgrown them. Isabella said a small, silent prayer
for them.

She studied the viscount. His jaw was set, all the light gone from his beautiful eyes. She regretted every mean thought of wanting to beat him with a poker and then having him drop off the earth. All she could think was that this Cecelia lady was touched in the head. “I—I didn't know you were a patron of an orphanage.” She was learning about so many hidden aspects to a man she thought she knew.

He shrugged. “Too many poor Irish orphans. Innocent children shouldn't suffer. It's heartbreaking.”

Her throat burned. She didn't know what to say. As embarrassing as it was, she'd felt more comfortable having him walk into her bath than she did at this moment, with his compassionate heart exposed. He remained still, staring after the children. She could see the muscles around his Adam's apple contract as he swallowed. What was he thinking? She wished she knew his mind…his heart.

Then he jammed his hands into his pockets and started walking again.

She hurried to catch up. She wanted to say something comforting, but she didn't know the right words. In the end, all that popped out was the stupidly mundane “I'm going to check into my hotel, and then we can go to the Golden Tyger tonight.”

He whistled and shook his head. “Oh, no, no,
me
. You're not going near the Golden Tyger. It's full of high-flying gamblers and cardsharps.”

“But—but you said that we were in this together, that I couldn't leave you. Well, you can't leave me either. I have more at stake than you anyway. And I'm great at cards.”

“It's not a place for ladies…just courtesans and mistresses.”

“Then I can be your mistress,” she said wit
hout thinking.

He halted and stared at her, one disbelieving brow raised. Did she really just offer to be his mistress?

“I m-meant for an evening. J-just pretend. As
Izzy May.”

“I don't think so,” he said quietly. “I have to be Lord Randall tonight.”

Her heart felt as if he had kicked it. He didn't want her? He had rejected her? Then slowly, the painful truth dawned. “Oh, I see,” she began slowly. “I can be your odd pregnant sister, your haggard wife, and your promiscuous employer, but I can't be your mistress. When you're Lord Randall, you're embarrassed to be seen with me. That's it, isn't it?”

“What! Of course not.”

“You're worried that I'll humiliate you because I'm clumsy and homely and old, and I'll say somethin
g odd.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“I'm too ugly to be your mistress. Admit it!”

“Goddammit, woman.” He seized her arm and yanked her down a narrow walking path leading to a stone churchyard. An elderly vicar, dressed in black, was stooped over, watering puny shrubs that appeared to be growing from the pavement.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Randall demanded of her, shaking his hands before his face. “Why do you want to drive me insane?”

Because you don't want me
, she almost blurted. Never mind that
she
didn't want
him
…or did she? “You know I play cards better than you,” she stammered. “Harker said the Golden Tyger was a den of serious, high-stakes gamblers. And remember when we were children? You always gambled away your Christmas money to me.”

The vicar's head shot up.

“I'll just be a random courtesan,” she concluded. “My father's bank is on the line. I can't let you go alone. You'll get fleeced. You can pretend not to know me. We won't even look at each other.”

“No! I want you to be my mistress but…” He growled. “I want you… Dammit!” He released a deep, guttural groan that echoed off the brick buildings. “But it's not safe. Will you listen to me? For once in your stubborn life?”

“But you will be there. I may be confused in these matters but…” She paused, eyeing the curious vicar. She leaned in and lowered her voice. “As your mistress, aren't I under your protection? Or maybe you can't protect me?”

“Oh, that's it!” he shouted. “Enough. You want to be my mistress? Just capital! You're my mistress.” He turned to the clergyman. “Do you see this addled, hardheaded, beautiful woman?” he said, pointing to her. “Well, she's my mistress.” The shocked vicar cradled his watering pot to this chest and hu
rried inside.

“Are you happy?” Randall asked her. The well-shaped finger that he had used to point now wagged before her nose. “And as my mistress, I expect you to do what I say. Now I'll take you to your hotel room.”

She gasped. “I—I said it was for pretend! I'm not really your mistress in that way!” But she couldn't deny the tingle the thought elicited.

He stepped closer, putting his chest a hairsbreadth from her breasts. Her rebellious nipples hardened and strained against her corset, wanting to feel his touch again. With the backs of his fingers, he caressed her jaw. “Come,” he said in a low voice that was rough around the edges. “Don't you think we ought to practice for realism?”

She swallowed, lost in the power of his vivid, piercing eyes. In her mind, she returned to the bathing episode, his thumb flicking across her nipple, his dangly part hard and pressing against her bare thighs. She wondered what he looked like beneath his clothes. Was his body as handsome and mesmerizing as his face? It wasn't fair that he should get to see her au naturel and not give her a tiny peek at what was beneath that bulge in his trousers. “Well, p-perhaps a little…you know, like last night m-maybe.”

“Oh, Isabella, Isabella, Isabella.” He leaned his head on her shoulder. “You can't comprehend when I'm joking, can you, love? I'm sorry. I was just going to escort you to your hotel. But if you want
me to—”

“You were joking!” She jumped. “You…you trapped me into saying that.” She pressed her hand to her mouth, feeling like she would burn to death from the inside out. “I'm so embarrassed.”

She sprinted through the narrow lane and into the jostling street. As much as she adored the gown Mrs. Perdita had lent her, it was not ideal for running. Her breasts threatened to bounce out of the top at the same time her lungs were being squeezed. Randall caught up in a matter of seconds and grabbed her arm.

“Just leave me alone,” she yelled, yanking free.

“Where are you going?”

“Away from you!”

She frantically waved her hand at an empty hackney, but it just drove by. “I'm right here!” she shouted after the driver. “How could you not see me? Ugh! Never mind.”

She gazed up at the rooftops to determine her location from the skyline. She was just a few blocks from the hotel she used when she came to London. “I'm going to the Copenhagen,” she told Randall. “Without your escort. I'll meet you at the Golden Tyger tonight.”

“The Copenhagen is too far from me. We might need to exchange information. There is a pleasant,
respectable
inn near my flat. Then I can come and escort you to the Golden Tyger. After all, you are my pretend mistress. It would look odd if I let you
arrive alone.”

She considered. He had valid points. She hated when he had valid points. “This had better not be some horrible hotel of ill repute where you put your extra mistresses,” she finally conceded.

“Extra mistresses? Oh no, I keep them at
the Copenhagen.”

***

Isabella watched Randall stand on the edge of the walk, casually flick his hand, and a hackney came to a dead halt in the middle of the street. Once in the carriage, they sat beside each other, quiet. Despite her self-admonishment of the seriousness of their desperate situation and the lingering embarrassment of agreeing to practice being his mistress, her body tingled away and her mind lit up with enticing images of what being Randall's real paramour might have entailed. And just exactly what was a “proper wiggle”?
Do
you
think
this
might
be
why
your
bank
could
fail? You're in the struggle of your life and all you can think about is naked men and wiggles.

The inn was around the corner and down the block from Randall's flat. She asked him to wait outside while she registered as Izzy May for fear of her real name being recognized, and requested that a maid be sent to her room in fifteen minutes to help her out of her clothes. Then she walked outside to meet Randall. He was leaning against the black railing, hat low, arms crossed, his muscles bulging through the sleeves of his ugly brown coat. He appeared to be lost in thought, gazing, unfocused, at a spot on the pavement. She paused and just observed him. What was he thinking about? Who occupied his thoughts? How did he spend his days? Who was this man she had known most of her life?

He cocked his head. “Well, was it a sordid den of deprivation?” he asked her.