Luck Be a Lady (19 page)

He seized her hand and delivered it a smacking kiss. “Don't lie,” he said.

She snatched back her hand, but before she could argue, the door opened, and Callan was bowing them inside.

*    *   *

Was the candlelight more diffuse tonight than usual? Were the lights turned lower? As O'Shea busied himself at the sideboard, filling Catherine's plate from a variety of dishes sent up from the kitchens, she took her accustomed seat by the fire and looked for the cause of her uneasiness. His sitting room felt . . . smaller. Or he seemed larger. She could not take her eyes off him.

Like a solvent applied to varnish, these dinners had begun to erode her defenses. His casual touches, his genuine, disarming interest . . .

She made a fist in her lap
. Ladies hold their hands in elegant postures. You must have a care with your hands, Catherine: they look so mannish and ragged!

Odd that her mother's voice was so strong in her memory tonight. She had spent long minutes in her bath, scrubbing at her palms with a pumice stone. But the calluses were all but permanent now.

The maid had added sprigs of lavender to her bathwater. The scent still clung to her skin. If O'Shea noticed it, he might think she had perfumed herself for him.

The notion left her unsettled as he carried over two heaping plates. “Outdone himself again,” he said as he placed hers on the table before the fire. “One of these days, we'll get snails, I'll lay a wager on it.”

She managed a smile. They had developed a small joke about his chef, whose name was Thomas but who preferred to be called “Pierre.” Thomas, it seemed, felt himself sorely mistreated by fate; he was convinced that he'd been designed a Frenchman. “Have you ever had escargot?”

“God be praised,” O'Shea said fervently as he sat. “I've been spared thus far.”

“They're actually quite tasty.”

“That's what old Wilson at the cookshop once told me of squirrel,” he said with a grimace. “But I found a new source of mince pies the next day, I promise you.” As she laughed, he came to his feet again. “Forgot the wine.”

This, too, was becoming a tradition of sorts. “I won't drink it,” she said serenely as she picked up her fork. Thomas had indeed outdone himself. Lobster salad, roasted lamb, plover eggs, and butter-drenched artichoke hearts crowded her plate. She glanced to the sideboard to weigh her strategy: dessert looked to be a platter of chocolate profiteroles, cream custards, and a variety of hothouse fruit. She would go lightly on the lamb, then. In heaven, every course would include profiteroles.

O'Shea returned, carrying a bottle in one hand and
two glasses in the other. “You'll only need one,” she said, per the usual routine.

He lifted the bottle to display the label. She squinted: Painted Pipe Madeira, 1790.

1790
?
She choked on a mouthful of lobster. “You can't mean to open that!”

He gave her a cat-in-the-cream smile as he pulled a jack-knife from his pocket. In a showy, one-handed move, he flipped open the knife. She rolled her eyes. She would not encourage his penchant for thuggish talents. “Why not?” he asked.

She sighed. “Do you remember the Sheraton dresser in the storeroom?”

“French vices,” he said, a purr in his voice. “How could I forget?”

She bit hard on her cheek, a punishment for blushing. He made everything sound so . . . suggestive. “At auction, that bottle would go for more than the dresser.”

“Oh?” He turned the bottle in his hand, examining it with new interest. “Seems a sight less useful than a sturdy chest of drawers. You're running quite a con at that auction house.”

“A con? I beg your . . .” But he was grinning, so she abandoned her dudgeon. “It's not a con,” she said mildly. “That madeira is very rare. I should be surprised if ten bottles still existed.”

“It's a con,” he said. “For one madeira's much like another. Only you say it isn't, and somehow you cozen the sheep into believing you and spending a small fortune on a single bottle.”

It was impossible to take offense at his words—not when he spoke them so amiably, with that teasing hitch to his mouth. “Those sheep are men of good taste,” she
said dryly. “I can understand how you might mistake them as a foreign species.”

He laughed. “So, tell me, then: what would be the reserve for this bottle at auction?”

“I'd have to consult previous sales. But at a guess? Fifty pounds.”

He loosed a low whistle. “And then what?”

“What do you mean? And then it would sell for seventy, perhaps, and you'd be”—she quickly calculated their agreed percentage—“fifty-six pounds the richer.”

“Highway robbery, that split.” He flashed her a wolfish grin. “You're a thief as well as a swindler, with a pretty face to cover for it. And the man who won the bottle—what do you think he'd do with it?”

“Add it to his collection. A great many men”—she narrowed her eyes—“men of taste, that is—collect madeira.”

“Wouldn't drink it, then?”

“Of course not! A bottle so rare? Why, I expect one would open it only for a—a state dinner, an evening with the royal family—”

“Well, then.” He stabbed his knife into the cork, then yanked it out with a loud pop. “No sense leaving all the good stuff to those who take it for granted.”

Her fork clattered to the plate. She sat back in her chair, aghast as he splashed the straw-colored wine into a glass.

He held it out to her. “Feel like making an exception tonight?”

Temptation battled against caution. It was a
very
rare wine. And perhaps, to broaden her professional knowledge, it would be wise to sample it . . .

He took her hand and wrapped it around the glass,
then guided it to her lips. His gray gaze caught hers over the rim of the glass, his long black lashes a dramatic frame for the devilish light glinting in his eyes. “Tell me if it's any good,” he murmured, then dropped his glance to her mouth.

Awareness fluttered through her, soft and ticklish as moths' wings. If he was the devil, then she was his willing victim. She breathed deeply of the sweet fumes, then opened her mouth as he tilted the cup, pouring a small bit into her mouth.

Heaven.
She pushed the glass away and closed her eyes, rolling the liquid over her tongue. A mild, nutty sweetness, almonds and maple, yielded to the faint, surprising tang of citrus peel. When she swallowed, a creamy, lingering note of toffee spread across her tongue, a hook that demanded another sip for certainty.

“Oh yes,” she said. “It's . . .” The words fell away as she opened her eyes. He was watching her, a tense cast to his face, his eyes narrowed and his mouth hard.

He recovered himself instantly, offering her a quick, curious smile before sitting down and slinging back a mouthful from his own cup. His broad, tanned throat rippled as he swallowed. The way he sat, with his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, drew his trousers into tight definition across his brawny thighs.

She had seen those thighs naked. She knew the shape of the muscle that gripped his bones; the way that muscle narrowed, so dramatically and elegantly, into his neat, square knees. Awareness, full-bodied and almost painful, surged through her. She felt breathless.

“Not as bold as I expected,” he said.

She made herself look away from him, into the
depths of her cup. “They call it a rainwater madeira. It's generally milder than the other types.”

“Ah. Didn't know.”

She tried for a smile. He was sitting four feet away, behaving with perfect courtesy. She should encourage such behavior. “Let me guess. This came from the cellars of another hapless gambler?”

“Had it from a client, aye, but he wasn't in debt. Needed some quick cash, he said.” He was silent for a moment. “I favor ale, myself. But every year, I open a bottle of madeira. This is my sister's birthday today. And she favored it.” He lifted his glass. “To Oona.”

She lifted her glass as well. “Will she join us?”

He looked briefly startled. “Oona was Lily's mother. Lilah's,” he corrected, with a wry tug of his mouth. “Guess she prefers that name, and now she's a proper lady, I suppose she can have it. She never told you about her ma? It's been years since Oona passed. Cholera took her.”

“No.” Catherine paused, troubled that she hadn't known. “She told me of you, of course, but . . . not much about her childhood.”
And I never thought to ask.
It spoke ill of her, didn't it? It was one thing to be professional, another to be callous to those she counted as friends. How selfish she'd become, wrapped up in her concerns about the company. “Was Lilah very young when her mother died?”

“Eight,” he said. “Or—no, nine.” He frowned. “I was . . . sixteen, just. Had been living with them for five years by then. Raising hell.” His smile was faint and fleeting. “It's a wonder Oona put up with me. I'm sure I did no favors to her marriage. Lily's da called me the devil's spawn, said I must have worn out my welcome with Lucifer.”

He sounded amused, but it didn't seem safe to smile. “That couldn't have been comfortable, to be so judged by your brother-in-law.”

“Oh, he meant nothing by it. Simply joshing me. He was a good man, Lily's dad.” He turned his wineglass in his hand, his gaze distant. “Ruled these parts before me—not with any discipline, mind you. Ran a ragtag band of thieves and swindlers, and had no plan for the future, no interest in investing his coin. But he was a good man, and a kind one. Much loved. Much . . . missed, afterward.”

Something dark had roughened his voice, there. She sensed an unhappy history. She could pass by it, turn the conversation to lighter topics—the Sheraton dresser; the tambour-topped writing desk she'd found. But with her ignorance of Lilah's past still fresh in her mind, she took a deep breath and surrendered to her curiosity. Her desire, God help her, to know more about this man. “How did he die, then?”

“Killed.” The syllable was curt. “Rival gang decided to sink its claws into Whitechapel. Jonathan tried to stop them. Got ambushed one night, by cowards who knifed him from behind.”

“Goodness.” This was the history Lilah had overcome? Catherine felt dizzied. Lilah looked, moved, and spoke like a genteel lady. She had remade herself entirely, and showed no signs of having survived such tragedy. “What happened to his killers? Did the police catch them?”

He lifted his glass, took a long swallow. “I caught them.”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

His smile looked cold. “Police weren't lifting a finger.
They'd got better things to do, they said, than interfere in a street brawl between a pack of rabid dogs.”

He sounded as if he were quoting them. “How unjust,” she whispered.

He gave a single sharp shake of his head. “Justice was done, all right.” He met her eyes. “I told you once: violence is clumsy. But sometimes it's called for. And when me and mine are at stake, I'll do what I must. Show no weakness, accept no insult, allow no advantage: that's the law of the street.”

She stared at him. He looked brutal in this moment, his face dark and lean, stripped of all softness. As though the smiling charm he more often showed was simply a mask, which he had momentarily set aside to allow her to see him clearly.

Perhaps there was a secret blackness in her soul, for as she stared back at him, she felt no repulsion. No distaste. She could respect a man who fought for his own. Who allowed nobody to cross him or his.

Why,
respect
was the lie here. She
envied
his own. How differently her life would have developed, had she been able to rely on Peter's loyalty and aid, rather than always needing to guard against him.

“Good,” she said roughly. She raised her glass again, another toast, before draining it. “I am glad you got justice, whatever it took.”

He blinked, a curious expression on his face. She had surprised him, maybe. As he refilled their glasses, he cut her a look through his lashes, a speculative glance that she did not know how to answer.

Now that she had decided to indulge her curiosity, her brain buzzed with a dozen questions for him. “What's your aim, then?” she asked as she reclaimed her glass.

“What do you mean?”

“You say Lilah's father had no plan. But you do, I take it?”

“Ah.” He leaned back, kicking one leg over the other, his ankle atop one thigh. At some point he had unbuttoned his jacket; where it gaped open, she caught a glimpse of his waistcoat, stretched tightly across his lean, flat belly. “Well, I'm a rich man now—so a poor man would say. But I've been studying up on your kind. The creamy lot. And I know that what a poor man calls rich, a wealthy man calls middling. What I aim for is wealth that grows itself, without any tending from me.”

“Investments,” she said. “Do you have a man in the City?”

“Acquired a broker a year or two ago.” He shrugged. “I'm on my way now. I'll give it another couple years. And in the meantime, I'll keep building the walls.”

“The walls? Are you in property development as well?”

He smiled. “Not real walls. Walls to keep the world out, is what I mean—should I decide that I'm better off apart from it. At present, I've got—let's see.” He held up one finger, sapphire and garnet sparking in the firelight. “Whitechapel.” Another two fingers, the diamond and ruby. “Bethnal Green, St. George's-in-the-East.” A fourth finger, emerald. “Mile End.” He snapped his fingers into a fist. “Limehouse, soon enough. Docks are mine, but the vestry there's a bit touchy, I fear.”

She realized what he meant. “You control
four vestries
?”

He laughed. “Just said so, didn't I?”