Luck Be a Lady (20 page)

“But that's . . .” It was a very large swath of eastern London. “If you control so much of the local
­government . . .” Why, he was more powerful than some London MPs. And he answered to no sponsors, no patrons—which made him more powerful by far. “To what end? Do you mean to go into politics?”

He snorted. “Rich man's game. No time for that.”

“Then why bother with the vestries?”

“They're my walls,” he said coolly. “Not a law nor a lawman can operate in four parishes without my approval. You try to put the police on me, you'd best hope they come from the City, because no bobby east of the square mile will cross me. You want to open a shop, a public house, even a church, you'd best hope you ran it by me, or you'll find no joy from the local authorities.”

“That sounds like a kingship,” she said softly.

“No. I'm no tyrant. I stopped taking graft years ago. I don't demand a protection fee. All I ask for is respect.”

It sounded very seductive. She resisted the urge to approve. Law had its place; civilization had not been built by men who defied a central authority. “What you ask sounds less like respect than allegiance.”

“Well . . . maybe. I prefer to call it . . . a sense of being at home.” He hesitated, his gaze oddly thoughtful as he looked at her. “A stretch of territory where I don't need to be looking over my shoulder when I walk down the streets at night. Where nobody needs look, so long as they're one of mine. That's a . . . fine thing, for folks raised in these streets.” He gave a tug of his mouth. “For a lad who slept in 'em, when the coin was short.” He reached out, running a finger around the rim of his glass. “Whose ma worked in them,” he said quietly. “Sometimes. When the coin was short. To feed me, she did what she must, I think.”

Her breath caught. She pressed her lips together, terrified of having to loose that breath, for fear that he might interpret the sigh as disgust or contempt.

But . . . to her mild amazement, she felt only sorrow for him. After what she had seen at the B Meeting, the raggedness and the tales of piteous want, she could imagine that many women in these parts sometimes lacked the coin to feed their children. Of course a mother in dire straits would do anything to prevent her child from starving. Even if it meant selling her body or soul.

“So you want to be . . . immune,” she said hesitantly. “Immune from uncertainty. From danger and risk.”

His gaze lifted to hers. “No,” he said after a moment. “That comes when you're dead, Kitty.”

“Then . . . what do you want?”

He laid down his glass, a soft click of glass against wood. “I want the freedom to live as I please,” he said quietly. “By my own rules, nobody else's. How does that sound to you?”

He had not moved off the chair. But the intensity of his look suddenly made her flush, as though he had crossed to stand before her, close enough to touch. Her own reaction confused her, made her stammer. “I think it—it sounds very grand. But surely most people have that privilege. I do.”

“Do you?” He hadn't looked away. Hadn't even blinked. “Seems like you could have it. If you paid attention to what you really wanted.”

A frown pulled at her brow. “I don't know what you mean.” But her mouth felt dry, and her pulse was suddenly thrumming, as though part of her did understand. “I've gotten what I want. Thanks—thanks to you. Everleigh's, safe. The accounts in my hands—”

He did rise off the chair then. Her heart skipped as he prowled toward her. He went down on his knees in front of her, so their eyes were level; he took the wineglass out of her slack hand, then lifted her palm to his mouth, pressing his lips against her racing pulse.

“I'm not talking of your company,” he said. “I'm talking of you. Look at me.”

She had averted her face. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, glaring at him. “I came in here to tell you of what I found in the storeroom, not to be—”

“Business,” he said. “You hide behind it. You hide from yourself. What were you thinking earlier, when you were staring at me? Wasn't business that made you blush. Be honest with yourself now. I'll wait. No need to speak it aloud.”

She took a sharp breath through her nose. Was she so transparent? The possibility mortified her. She tried to pull her hand free. His grip tightened.

“What keeps you so afraid?” His words were low, hoarse. “That you'll like it too much? For if so, you're right. I'll make sure of that.”

Her voice wasn't good for more than a whisper now. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Liar,” he said. “Who are you lying to? The door's closed. Not a soul in the world to hear you. Nobody to know what happens here. Nobody to judge.”

“There's you,” she said shakily.

He cupped her face, his thumb soothing the corner of her mouth. “And what of it? You imagine I'll think less of you, for wanting the same thing I do?”

She bit her lip hard. This wasn't fair of him. “It's not you who would stand to pay for it!”

“And if I promised to make sure you didn't pay,” he
said. “If I had that power. What then? What would you do?”

She closed her eyes. That was not a question she dared ask herself. She believed he had the skill to prevent a child. But if she went forward with touching him . . .

She might pay anyway. Suddenly the truth was plain to her: already she was drawn to him. She craved his company. She longed to make him laugh. She felt grateful to him. And she believed him, despite his history and his sins, a good and decent soul.

There was more at risk here than the possibility of a child. At risk was something she could not afford to lose. She could not afford to love him. She could not be a wife.

He spoke, again with that uncanny way of reading her mind. “You've got an ironclad ticket to freedom,” he murmured. “I signed that contract. You'll have your divorce, one day. But what of the meantime? We could enjoy each other.
Live,
Kitty. I could cut this gown off you. Lick my way from your mouth to your breasts, put my tongue between your legs and kiss you until you screamed. But not unless you admit you want it. What you'll permit me to do, how far you'll let me go—it's up to you, Catherine. Only you.”

With her eyes closed, those torrid images were too vivid. She opened her eyes, and the sight of his dark, wicked face was no easier to bear, no less of an aching temptation.

“You ever really felt free?” he whispered. “Because here it is: here, you're free. My territory. And yours, if you want it.”

The breath exploded from her in a gasp. He took note. A dangerous smile curved his lips. “I'll take that
as a yes,” he said, and rose on his knees, coming over her as soundlessly as a thief. His fingers speared through her hair, causing a pinching pain as her pins stabbed her scalp.

She braced herself against the brutality of his grip—and was undone by the gentle touch of his mouth. Small, fleeting touches. His lips on her earlobe. Her cheek, her neck. Light as a whisper, he scattered his kisses, while his hand at her hair plucked out pins, soothing now, his fingers skilled, clever. Her hair came tumbling down, a heavy cool mass, and he smoothed it away from her shoulders as his mouth closed on hers.

The kiss felt familiar. Wildly startling, but also . . . not surprising. She had kissed him too many times now for shock to blind her mind to the details: the slight roughness of his lips. The hot lick of his tongue as he chased hers into her mouth. The firm, steady grip of his hand around her throat—a gesture that might have menaced her, had it not been for the gentle brush of his thumb across her skin, settling at last over the spot where her pulse hammered, pressing there as though to remind her:
you want this.

He tilted his head, angling for a deeper intrusion; his mouth searched hers, ravishing. She was being devoured . . . but she was devouring him, too; she did want this. She
did.

An odd sob escaped her. He fell still, then started to ease away. She caught his upper arms to hold him to her; to feel for the solid strapping breadth of his shoulders, to prove to herself that she had not embroidered the memory by a single degree. He felt forged of something tougher, finer, and hotter than mere flesh. He was a long, lethal blade of a man, a weapon that she could
touch, that she could stroke now without any fear of being injured. Nobody to see; nobody to judge. Freedom, indeed.

He coaxed her to lean back against the chair. His expression was rapt, almost reverent, as he molded his hands down her body, feeling the shape of her breasts through the thick impediments of silk and cotton and corseted canvas. She arched upward, and his hands slid around to her back, disarming with impossible economy all the devices by which a woman was bound up in herself: buttons and hooks, laces and clasps, detestable obstacles, falling away beneath his fingers like vanquished enemies.

He slid her sleeves from her shoulders, then ripped her chemise apart. He parted the layers like the petals of a flower, baring her to the waist before taking her breast in his mouth. The door closed. Nobody to see. Only this man, whose judgments didn't matter; whose judgments would be sweet, regardless.

She clasped his head and held him to her breast, desire like greed, not satisfied by his suckling, wanting ever more. She fumbled blindly for his hand, gripped it firmly, strongly enough to grind his bones. She wanted this hand employed elsewhere.

He met her eyes, his mouth glistening, his gaze adamant. “Put it where you want it,” he said.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She could not do it. She would die of embarrassment.

He closed his teeth around her nipple very lightly, then blew.

She gasped, then shoved his hand into the depths of her skirts. “There.” The syllable was threadbare. She could not bear to look.

But oh, the sweet sensation of his palm on her ankle—she held her breath, seeing in the darkness behind her lids the path his hand traveled. The tender curve of her calf. The damp cove behind her knee. She choked back a noise as he hooked his fingers beneath her drawers, as he flexed his grip on the soft flesh of her inner thigh. And then . . .

“Here,” he whispered, as he found her quim. The delicate touch of his fingers, the unbearable nudging exploration, made her squirm—and then he found where she'd wanted him, after all.

His thumb toyed with the seat of her desire, while his fingers—she gasped. His fingers slowly penetrated her, a slow, stretching pressure that made her feel fuller and heavier and ripe for him. She forgot to keep her eyes shut.

He watched her as he petted her, his gaze slumberous, heavy-lidded, his mouth full and loose. She stared at his mouth, remembering his promise. He would put it there, below. All she need do was ask . . .

The thought magnified her pleasure. She put her fist to her mouth to stop a sound as his fingers quickened their rhythm. He seized her hand, pulling it to his own mouth, running his tongue between her tightly knotted fingers, sucking her fingertips, making low murmurs now, shameless words. “Tell me,” he said. “After you come, what next? How will I make you come, the second time?”

The words shot through her like an electric current. They laid the truth bare: the first time wouldn't be enough. Perhaps the second wouldn't be, either.

Women were not meant to enjoy such things—her mother had warned her of the pain of the marriage
bed. But it was possible that her desire was like her ambition—limitless, unnatural for a woman. In which case . . . indulging it would only be a torment, once she lost the means to satisfy herself.

Once she lost
him.

The pleasure was coming now, like a torrent building, building toward the lip of a dam. It would break—overflow—and she tensed against it. Her lips formed the syllable once—twice. The third time, she managed to say, “
Stop.
”

He did not pretend to mishear her. His hand stilled. Some low sound came from him—a curse she did not know. She braced herself, still shaking, for his anger. But after a moment, he sank his forehead against her bosom, breathing raggedly against her as his hand slipped away, down her leg. His breath sent a hot whispering pleasure along the tops of her breasts, raising a shiver she could not repress.

She felt empty, nothing but an unsatisfied ache. Had she saved herself? Or was this punishment wasted?

His soft, broken laugh tattooed her skin. “Christ,” he said. “You've got some restraint.”

Her hands seized the opportunity to thread through his hair, holding him against her as he breathed her in. They made a silent apology to him, stroking the curve of his skull.

At last, he eased back by slow degrees, then fell onto his heels with the ease of a cat, with that loose limber grace that no gentleman possessed.

“You want it,” he said, the words ragged. “And God knows I will give it to you. But for God's sake, Kitty. Make up your mind.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
t was William Pilcher's habit every Saturday at half three to attend the washhouse. By rumor, he came to clear his head and dwell on great matters of local government in the silence and restorative heat.

No doubt he spared a few thoughts, too, for women he'd like to harass.

As Nick took a seat on the bench beside the man, his fists fairly itched with the urge to meet Pilcher's face. “Fine situation you've got here,” he said.

Pilcher frowned and shifted away, evidently displeased by the interruption of his peace. “Do you know me, sir?”

Man had a well-fed look to him. Wasn't just the hairy roll of gut hanging over his towel. Certain folks, generally those who had been born into comfort but had persuaded themselves that they'd earned it, carried this gloating, well-satisfied air, as though the entire world existed to give them opportunities to sneer.

Pilcher was sneering now. “Oh,” Nick said, “I should imagine everybody knows Mr. William Pilcher.” But
not for the crime of bigamy, thank God. Then again, had Peter Everleigh managed to talk Pilcher into forcing Catherine to the altar, the man would no longer look so satisfied. He'd be rotting at the bottom of the Thames. “Vice-chairman of St. Luke's Vestry, aren't you?”

Pilcher's glance passed over Nick's shoulder toward the door, which stood shut to keep in the steam. “I do not talk business here. Make an appointment with my secretary, should you desire a word.”

The closed door also blocked the sight of Pilcher's brawny guard, otherwise known as St. Luke's chief sanitary inspector. Little inspection, much bribery. The vestry of St. Luke's was rotted through.

“I've got no interest in your vestry,” Nick said. His ambitions did sharpen, though, as he eyed the man's skull. Looked ripe for crushing. “You've been leaving notes at my doorstep, begging for a word.” It had started to annoy him that the bloke had the presumption to call himself to Nick's attention. “We'll speak here.”

Pilcher stared hard. His lizard's brain at last provided the answer; he sat up a little. “You—you're Nicholas O'Shea?” He slid an incredulous glance down Nick's form. God knew what he'd expected. Somebody toothless, with the devil's brand on his cheek.

Nick settled more comfortably on the bench, as the crowd on the other side of the room gawked. “That's me,” he said. Those other men knew their places better than they should. They squeezed ten to a bench, so their vestryman might spread his bulk in comfort, alone. “Fine windows in this washhouse.” The gray light lit the audience's astonished faces with sharp clarity. This was the only washhouse in St. Luke's, and for all that it was funded by parish taxes, Nick had needed to
bribe the man outside to win entry. “My compliments to the vestry.”

Frowning, Pilcher scrubbed his brown head. “I had hoped to have this conversation in privacy. It concerns a matter of some delicacy—”

“Orton Street, I suppose.” Pilcher had sent his first note right after the board meeting in which his inspector's petition had been overturned. Nick offered a slight smile. “You should give your men a map. Those parish borders prove tricky.”

“Indeed.” Pilcher hadn't blinked. “On behalf of the St. Luke's vestry, I do apologize for the confusion. One of the oddities of our fair London, I'm sure you'll agree, that areas of such . . . different character can abut each other.”

In short, the good people of St. Luke's fancied themselves too fine to be neighbors to Whitechapel. Nick shrugged.

Pilcher cast another glance over the witnesses on the opposite bench before taking a deep breath and hitching his towel higher. “Those vacant lots on either side of your properties—they must make a terrible eyesore for your tenants.”

Nick snorted. Wasn't the view that his tenants cared about. Reasonable rents and a solid roof were what they asked. “What of them?”

“Naturally . . . as a representative of this parish, that is . . . I can't like them, either.” Pilcher mustered a thoughtful look. “How familiar are you with the Torrens Act, sir?”

Nick had certainly gotten an education recently. “Passing familiar, I'd say.”

“The law has created a terrible tangle for St. Luke's.
When a property is condemned, as were the three lots neighboring yours on Orton Street, the Board of Works seizes ownership, and hires an appraiser to value the property. The man who valuated the lots on Orton Street . . .” Pilcher grimaced. “Idiot. He assigned a price far higher than the market will fetch. In consequence, nobody has offered to buy them from the board.”

“Pity,” Nick said. “I've yet to see how the problem concerns me.”

Pilcher's mouth tightened. “Well, I am coming to it. The law requires the parish to compensate the former owner for the full sum named in the appraisal. The promise, of course, is that the land will eventually sell, and thereby will the parish be recompensed. But no one will pay such a ridiculous sum for those vacant lots. In consequence, St. Luke's is teetering on bankruptcy.” He cleared his throat. “Those properties
must
be sold—quickly, and for not a penny less than the previous owner was compensated. That would be far easier if we could offer the entire street for sale—all five lots at once.”

Including Nick's own lots. He saw the way of it now. “Shame, then, that half that street belongs to me.”

“Indeed.” Pilcher leaned in, lowering his voice. “Mr. O'Shea, I am interested in purchasing those two buildings from you.”

“They're not for sale.”

Pilcher's smile looked strained now. “I will pay you a very fair price. More than fair—I will match the valuation of the adjoining properties.”

“Now, why would you do that? You just said the appraiser named an ungodly sum.”

Pilcher's smile faded. He sat back, eyeing Nick—­
reevaluating his approach, no doubt, now that his mark had proved less easy than he'd anticipated. “I will take the loss. For the welfare of my parish, I am willing to suffer.”

Rare day that one got a front-row seat to such a self-righteous performance. Nick bared his teeth in a nice, friendly smile. “And to think you're only vice-chairman. What does the chairman do? Give St. Luke's poor the bread from his own kids' mouths?”

Pilcher's palm slammed onto the bench. Against the opposite wall, several men flinched. “I will not be mocked by you,” he said.

“That's what you call mockery? I'll spare you my next thought, then.”

“I am sure it would be vulgar in the extreme,” Pilcher snapped. “Much like the crowds teeming in those buildings of yours. Keeping chickens in their flats—stabling donkeys and pigs in the yard! They are an affront to every decent person in this parish, and I will not allow their likes to fester among us. For the sake of the women and children of St. Luke's—”

“But a music hall will elevate the tone. That right?”

Pilcher's jaw sagged. “I have no idea—”

“Liquor loosens lips,” Nick said flatly. “And your nephew's a drinker. Seems he favors a pub in Spitalfields, where he was boasting of an uncle who means to set him up handsomely, in a new development planned for Orton Street. Sounds flash, all right—public house, theater, couple of dining rooms. Little Joe says the builders have been throwing money at you for the chance to develop those lots. Pity you don't own them yet. You want to talk about chickens? Never count them before they're hatched.”

Pilcher lurched to his feet. The slip of his towel raised
a single startled snicker from the other side of the room, quickly quashed. No doubt that man had expected more from his local crook.

Pilcher yanked the towel up, doing himself no favors. His scrawny legs couldn't have kicked a chicken from the road. “Lies,” he hissed. “Base slander, which nobody will credit from
you—
”

“Doesn't matter if they do. For you'll have to tell the builders yourself, soon enough: you're lacking the plots. I'm not selling.”

Pilcher's eyes bulged. “If you know what's good for you—”

Nick made a chiding click of his tongue as he stood. “Now, here I thought you wanted to speak to
me.
But you must have me confused for somebody else, if you think I'm a man you can threaten.”

Pilcher's throat bobbed in a swallow. He shot a glance toward the door, then began to inch backward toward it, Nick matching him step for hobbling step. “Do you—do you truly imagine you have any power, outside that squalid pit where you live? You think you're the only one who knows secrets? I know all about your plot to force me off the Board of Works!”

Bloody Peter Everleigh. Nick shrugged. “One way or another, you're going.”

Spittle flew as Pilcher laughed. “Never say you're banking on
Everleigh.
He knows which side his bread is buttered.” As he slammed squarely into the door, he transferred his grip from the towel to wrestle desperately with the handle. The steam had made it slippery. Nick reached to assist.

Pilcher shrank into himself, cringing like a dog from a boot.

“Aye, you're a proper man, all right,” Nick said softly. “So worried for your parish. Say what: I'll save it for you. Buy those lots to either side of mine. See what the builders offer
me.
”

Pilcher glared up at him. “Try it. See if the board will sell them to you. I
own
that board. And no gutter rat will—”

Nick yanked open the door, knocking Pilcher onto his knees. The towel fell to the ground. Pilcher scrambled to retrieve it, then shot a livid look toward the onlookers. “If any of you
dare
speak of what you saw here—”

Nick snorted. “Not much to speak of, is it? Get out.”

Flushing a violent purple, Pilcher left.

Nick shut the door, then turned to the audience gawping from their bench like a bunch of brainless sheep. “What say you, lads? Has your vestry served your interests as handsomely as they have Mr. Pilcher's?”

The first man to shake his head showed courage that quickly infected the others. But Nick was not interested in the followers. It was the first man to whom he looked as he spoke.

“Then do something about it,” he said. “Be a man. Stand up for yourself. In this world, nobody else is going to do it.”

No reply. He shrugged and let himself out.

*    *   *

Catherine put down the crowbar and brushed splinters from her palms before seizing the corner of the canvas. Her stomach was jumping from excitement; she had anticipated this moment for days now. “Hold your nose. It's still a bit dusty.”

Batten turned back from his inspection of the French-polished Sheraton dresser, a mournful crimp to his mouth. “Whatever it is, I pray it hasn't been
restored
.”

She yanked the canvas off the writing cabinet. “Voilà!” Over three hundred years old, the cedar still perfumed the air. “Look at the initials.
Look
at them!”

Batten squinted through the bars of light that fell through the receiving-room windows. “Praises be,” he whispered. His knobby hand shook as he brushed the scratch-carved initials. “E.R. 1590.” His fingertips trailed up the drawers to the central cupboard, where a cunning image of a palace was worked in marquetry. “Is this . . .”

“Yes!” She pressed her hands to her cheeks; smiling, she'd discovered, could cause a delightful ache. “I spent yesterday combing through illustrations at the British Museum. This is Nonsuch Palace.” One of Queen Elizabeth's favorite abodes. “I've booked an appointment in the archives.
Batten.
”
She dropped her voice to a whisper; the words were too wondrous to speak casually. “If we can document that Elizabeth was there in 1590 . . .”

“Goodness.” He traced one wrought-iron handle. “The furor this will cause!”

“I know. And added to the rest . . .” She cast her gaze again over the spread of treasures; they had spent all morning unpacking the contents of O'Shea's storeroom. Queen Anne cabinetry, china plate, Sheffield candelabra, Lambeth pottery . . . That warehouse had proved richer than a palace. And now it was all at Everleigh's. “What do you say? Shall we invite the Prince of Wales?”

He grinned. “With the cabinet as our centerpiece, I'd say we should invite the Queen.”

She laughed just as a door slammed nearby. Her
brother's curse followed; a crate rocked precariously as he came into view. “What is all this rubbish?” He yanked down his jacket. “If this is the Mandeley estate, we're not slated—”

“A new estate,” Catherine said. “The last sale of the autumn. I mean to announce it in the
Times
, with a full page of illustrations.”

“For an autumn sale?” He gave an impatient pull of his mouth. “What nonsense.”

“Look around you,” she said serenely.