Luck Be a Lady (23 page)

She seemed to catch his mood. She reached down his body, her palm sliding over his chest, his belly. He caught her hand before she could find his cock; he had no faith in his restraint; he refused to spill himself before he'd been inside her. He placed her hand beside her head, holding it firmly there, and then felt her teeth: she had turned her head, caught hold of his thumb. He groaned as she sucked his finger into her mouth; their eyes met, hers heavy lidded, frank and unashamed.

He stared at her, riveted. Here, this, her face now—that look would be his aim, God willing, every night henceforth.

Until five years is up.

He pushed the thought away too late; it made him snarl. He pulled his hand free, stroking her nipple as he slid down her body. Took hold of her thighs and pushed them open. Blond curls, soft to the touch; he brushed them with his hand and felt her hips shudder.

He lowered his head, kissing the plumpness of her inner thigh. She smelled like the ocean; she whimpered once as he splayed her wider, ignoring the token resistance of her thighs.

Here, the other beating heart of her. He laid his tongue against her, and felt her jerk. Slid his hands up her belly, the gently rounded satin-soft flesh, this miraculous work of God that was her womanly flesh, and with a choked noise, she subsided, her thighs relaxing for him.

It was a gift. He felt, for the briefest moment, overwhelmed by it—the feel of her, the smell, the taste of the heart of her, the surrender, laying herself open for him, vulnerable and trusting.

And then he licked into her, and the sound she made, the way her thighs clutched around him, made him groan deep in his throat. He tongued her again and again, listening hard, waiting for the stroke that made her body jerk most sharply—
there,
that was what she wanted.

He gave it to her, ignoring the clutch of her hands in his hair, the broken murmur she made. It wasn't too much. He'd see to that. He'd see her through it, and when she was broken, when she could not shudder again, he would fit himself into her softness, hard as a bloody rock he would sink himself into her so deeply that she'd cry out anew—

She gasped and keened, her hips shuddering beneath his. He felt through her folds, pushed a finger inside her as he blew on her, a violent satisfaction at the feel of her contractions. He could give her that. He would give it to her again.

He rose over her, aching and swollen, sucking in his breath as the head of his cock brushed her slippery quim. She was flushed, frantic, as she scattered kisses over his face. “Please,” she whispered.

He pressed into her, filled her to the hilt. She pushed her tongue into his mouth, gripped him against her as he began to move. It was ancient. It felt ancient, with her. It felt like something begun in a dream, long ago, and resumed now by the force of inevitable fate, that he should strain now against the fierceness of his own need, that he should kiss her deeply, and stroke her cheek, and focus on the shape of her ear beneath his hand, the tender flex of her lobe beneath his thumb, as he fought against his own climax. He rotated his hips, and she gasped. She liked it. He did it again, and she clutched onto his shoulders, nails digging hard.

A laugh ghosted from him, hoarse soundless triumphant delight. He reached between them, finding her spot as he twisted his hips again.

“Oh—” She gaped up at him, then her lashes fluttered shut as she arched to meet him. “Oh . . . I think . . .”

Not yet.
He slammed his palm into the headboard, sharp carved edge digging into his skin, focusing on that, on giving her what she needed, stroking her steadily, deeply. God but she was the most beautiful sight on this earth as she writhed beneath him, struggling to find it—

“Ah . . .” The breath burst from her as he felt her
clutching, deep inside, around him. And as simply as that—he was done for.

Ripping free of her then was the hardest, the sweetest bloody punishment he'd ever taken. With one hard stroke of his hand, he brought himself to completion. Then he turned back to kiss her.

Her lips felt lazy on his. Her hand brushed over his face, her thumb stroking his cheekbone. For a long minute they lay together. And then, with a rueful smile, he rose to find his discarded shirt.

When he'd cleaned himself off, he turned back to her—and saw the remoteness that had gathered in her face like a shadow as she watched him.

He took a hard breath, preparing himself for what came next—her withdrawal. A resumption of the quarrel.

But when she spoke, she sounded thoughtful. “I know how you must do it.”

He didn't follow. “Do what?”

“How to get those lands from Pilcher.” She sat up, her hair a shimmering fall down her back. “My brother means to argue that your bid came too late. You must go before the board, insist that the tender period was not adequately advertised. That the board should put the lots to public auction, in order to ensure the process is fair. Make an argument about the politics of it. How the board will made to appear in the press, if they deny you the chance to bid.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, a bit rattled by how quickly she had moved on to business. “That gives him a chance to outbid me,” he said slowly.

“He may try, but we won't allow it.” She swallowed, then reached out and laid her hand over his.

Such a small thing, such an ordinary sight, to seem so . . . important. When he looked up, he caught her own gaze lifting from the same spot. “If you truly want those lands,” she said, “we'll run a ring. We'll ensure nobody can outbid you.”

He turned his hand in hers, threading their fingers together. “A ring.” But there was a more surprising word yet, in that sentence she'd just spoken. “
We.
”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I'll show you how. I'll help. But first, you must persuade the board to hold the auction.”

He smiled. But she did not smile back. Her expression looked very sober now. Very pale.

Ah. It might have been a victory, this offer of aid. But he sensed suddenly that it was the opposite. A woman so fierce—unique in all his experience—in her commitment to honorable business, would not make this offer lightly.

But she would do it for him. Her gift, to make up for everything she felt she lacked the ability to give.

He considered her. Lovely, proud, stubborn, infuriatingly deluded woman. He was too much the businessman to turn down the opportunity she offered. But he was also a crook. He knew how to steal what wasn't on offer. He wouldn't lose those lands. But between those lots and her, he knew the better investment. The one more likely to yield a lifetime of riches.

“All right,” he said. “Whatever it takes, I mean to do it.”

She gave him a relieved smile. He smiled back at her, no effort required.

Her naïveté was his best advantage.
You're one of my own,
he'd told her. And he didn't let go of what was his.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

N
ick squinted at the page. “In closing, then, I tender my petition—” He broke off, irritated as somebody in the far corner, old Burke maybe, yowled for another pint. “I can't do this here. Too many distractions.”

Catherine sat in front of him, her own pint of ale untouched, looking serenely oblivious to the squawking, boozy men at the tables around her. “Neddie's is the perfect setting in which to practice. If you can remain unshaken by all the noise here, you can certainly—”

“That boardroom won't be full of men three sheets to the wind, will it?”

“Of course not. Instead your audience will be full of quarrelsome
swells
who think you're wasting their time.”

He smiled. “Swells, is it?”

“That is the word you use, I believe.” He saw her catch herself smiling at him; she sat straighter and fixed a serious look on her face, every inch the schoolmistress now. “Perhaps we should take you to Speakers' Corner. Nothing like the threat of a shower of rotten fruit to focus one's mind.”

“God forbid.” He sat down, sheepishly aware of the disappointed hoots that went up.

“Was just getting good!” called Nate Hooley.

“Couldn't understand the half of it, but sounded very fancy,” Nate's cousin Kip Hooley agreed.

“Bugger yourself,” Nick muttered as the arses toasted each other and cackled.

“Mr. O'Shea,” his wife said coolly. “Such language—”

“One day you'll call me Nick.”

“One day I might call you Beelzebub. What of it? The Municipal Board of Works does not allow ladies into its meetings. Take heart, then: I won't be there to harass you.”

“Or to prompt me,” he muttered. He looked over the speech, three pages written in her finely flowing script. It might as well have been gibberish, though her hand was clear. “I'll need to memorize this.”

“You don't have time for that.”

She didn't understand. He took a breath to school his frustration, but the words still came out sharp: “Don't got a choice, do I? If I don't mean to make an ass of myself—”

Her hand closed on his, startling him. When he looked up into her face, he realized that she'd seen more than he intended to show. Sympathy softened her features.

“The marriage contract,” she said. “Twenty-eight pages. You seemed to know it well enough.”

“Aye.” His pulse was drumming, a sick feeling in his stomach. Curious. He wasn't ashamed of anything. Had vowed as a boy to carry his head high, and until now, he'd always succeeded. “I don't sign a contract without knowing what's in it.”

“Someone read it to you?”

No judgment in her voice. Only that steady, unwavering pressure of her grip around his hand.

He loosed a breath. The admission came out easier than he'd feared. “Had Callan read most of it. Otherwise it would have taken me days.”

She nodded. “Then reading this speech will not work,” she said brusquely. “We must find another way.” She withdrew her hand, but it didn't feel like a rejection; he knew her well enough now to understand that frown on her face betokened the spinning of wheels in her brain.

She turned her frown on the various oglers around them. “Have you nothing better to do?” she said in a raised voice. “Talk among yourselves.” And then, as a hubbub of chatter hastily broke out, she glanced back to him, her frown deepening. “What are
you
laughing at?”

“You,” he said. “Queen o' Neddie's. Tell 'em to doff their hats and take their boots off the benches, while you're at it. Neddie'll thank you; he's been trying for years.”

She folded her lips together, her typical trick for hiding a smile. But her eyes gave her away, turning into half-moons over the crests of her rosy cheeks. She had more laughter in her than she knew how to manage. The real sin was that she'd been taught to trammel it. And wasn't it a wonder, he thought, that they could sit across the table from one another, easy and friendly as you please, as though he hadn't had her naked and moaning beneath him just this morning, with plans to do so again tonight?

For she wasn't a coward. Once she admitted her desires, she didn't disown them—not even when he'd
shown up with the breakfast tray and found her only in her shift.

She'd dropped her robe as she'd stood to receive him. “As long as we're clear,” she'd said unsteadily, “that it doesn't mean . . . anything more.”

Tonight seemed awfully far away. Why wait? He folded the speech and slipped it into his jacket. “Let's go back to Diamonds,” he said. “Clear our . . . heads.”

Her eyes narrowed; she averted her face a fraction of an inch, the better to give him one of those skeptical, sidelong glances. But the rising color on her face showed that she'd followed his thoughts well enough. “Not just yet. You don't require any practice at
that
.”

He grinned, delighted. “Nice to have it confirmed,” he said. “But if you don't mean to drink, or to take these hooligans to task, then—”

“That's it!” She slapped the table. “Why, we've gone about this all wrong. I'm not the one whom these hooligans will listen to. But you've ages of experience in bringing them to heel. Forget a scripted speech; you don't need one. You shall fly impromptu, relying on the powers of your oratory.”

“The powers of . . . No,” he said flatly. “I need a script. I'm not going into that meeting with nothing.”

“But you won't,” she said. “Your wit, the talents of your brain, are all you require. You've a magnificent way with words, Mr. O'Shea. You will simply speak to the board as though they're the men here at Neddie's, in need of a lesson in fairness and decency.”

He snorted. “Look around you. You think I've ever lectured these lads on decency?”

As she took a survey of the shabby, noisome groups around them, her smile briefly faltered. But it bright
ened again as she met his eyes, and God save him, he wasn't cold enough to resist it, all that confidence and glee directed solely at him. “You'll prove it for me,” she said. “Stand, and discourse to them on the need to doff their hats and remove their boots from the table.”

“I will not.”

“Do it!” She rose, coming to his side of the table to tug on his arm, so after a second, he was forced to get to his feet, lest the crowd get a fine show for free.

But once standing, he realized that the crowd had already punched its tickets anyway. For the noise dimmed immediately, and every eye in the place fixed on him.

“Go ahead,” she urged him quietly. “You've the gift of—of blarney, sir. Use it! Or your Irish forebears will no doubt disown you from their graves.”

He cut her a wry look. “And you've the English gift for scheming.”

With a serene smile, she retook her seat—leaving him alone, beneath the press of a hundred expectant eyes.

He took a deep breath, feeling foolish. What did it matter if Neddie's benches got a heel-scuffing? But she was watching him expectantly now, her pointed little chin cupped in one hand, her eyes bright and wide.

Very well. He'd ordered men to far more dangerous pursuits than this.

“Lads,” he began—then paused at her slight frown. “Gentlemen,” he amended, and a chorus of hoots went up from the far corner.

“Gen'lman, are we? Y'hear that, boys?”

He paused, scowling.

“Don't permit that,” Catherine whispered. “Pilcher's men will try to mock you, too.”

He fixed his glare on the Hooleys, who knew on
which side their bread was buttered. They quieted abruptly.

Aye, he'd given speeches before, and they'd concerned uglier things by far. He'd persuaded men to risk their throats for him, fighting by his side against the McGowans after that crew had slain Lily's dad. And he'd put the fear of God into men with flapping lips—men who would go to their graves now without breathing a single word of what he'd asked of them.

Beside that, boots and land parcels were small fry.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “it has come to my attention that we live in grim times. This fine, fair city, which you'll know from the newspapers has got more wealth than any other place in the world—which you'll have seen, with your own two eyes, has got more swells, more toffs, more nobs living in high-flying style than any kingdom from the books of history—in these same streets, where nabobs and silver suits rent an inch of space to your loved ones for half their weekly pay, people are dying for want. They're dying for want of bread. They're dying for want of space and air. Dying for a drop of milk to give to an infant who cries for his mother's breast, when she perished five days ago on the factory floor.”

Silence now. From the corner of his eye, he could see Catherine's pallor. Aye, he'd take her on a few twists before he got to the straightaway.

“You step outside this pub,” he said, “you walk south toward Clerkenwell. You walk farther, till Southwark. Or you walk west, to St. Giles. And what do you see? Darkness, gen'lmen. Beggars dead in the lane. Rubbish and foulness and water too brackish to drink—but they drink it, don't they?”

“Poor souls,” someone muttered, to a muted round of agreement.

“They drink it 'cause they've got no choice,” Nick said fiercely. “'Cause the water pipes don't work. A dying man, dying of thirst, he lifts that pump and what comes out but flakes of rust. While in Mayfair, they're too good for water. It's all champagne and fancy French wines, and the water collects in their bathtubs larger than six men around.”

Catherine shifted uneasily. He caught a whisper from her: “Don't start a revolution, please.”

He bit his cheek and pressed onward. “Aye, lads, there's darkness all around. Misery and suffering. Grievous injustice, children born only to pass in their cradles. Thirst and hunger, endless want. Dying like animals—like the animals the toffs call us, as they walk down gold-paved lanes.”

Scowls, angry grumbles. George Flaherty wiped his eyes.

“But not here,” Nick said. “Not here in White­chapel. Not here.”

“Not here,” someone called.

Nick lifted his voice. “Not here in Whitechapel!”

“Not bloody here,” came another voice.

“Here in Whitechapel,” Nick thundered, “we look after our own!”

Somebody slammed a table. Stamping of boots, a thunderous wave of applause. Nick paused to let it draw out. In such a world as this, men looked for reasons to celebrate.

When the applause began to fade, Nick continued. “Here,” he said in a speaking voice, “here the streets are swept clean. Here, when the water stops running, we
raise our shouts, and neighbors come running with a pitcher to spare! Here, when our children clutch their stomachs and call for bread, we tell them, ‘Get to school, and find out how many rolls you can eat!' Here, when women fall in the street, men stop to help.”

“Praise God.”

“Damned right.”

“And here,” he said, his voice falling to a hush, “when we come to Neddie's after a hard day of work, we know we've
earned
the right to sit back, to let the sweat of honest labor cool, to lift our pints and look our fellow men in the eye—for we ain't animals, no matter what they say!”

“Fuck them!”

“Fuck the lot of them!”

“And as we ain't animals,” Nick shouted, “as we know what decency is, as we understand it far better than any of them ever will, so I ask you, lads—why the bloody hell are you all still wearing your hats?”

In the sudden silence, he could hear Catherine's slow, shaking breath.

“No, you heard me right,” he said to George Flaherty, who was scratching his ear and looking puzzled. “We've got a precious place of peace and decency here, lads. So take your goddamned boots off the benches and put your hats aside. Do it!”

Across the room, hands slowly lifted to heads. Boots hesitantly lifted from benches, hitting the floorboards with dull thuds.

“'Cause we didn't come by this decency by accident,” Nick said. “And you don't get respect for free. So prize what you've got here, lads. Nod to your neighbor, and hold his eye like the proud man you are. Don't show
him less respect than you'd show a bloody toff. When you come into Neddie's to drink with your neighbors—sit straight, and take off your goddamned hats.”

That did it. All the hats came flying off now. Nick cast another narrow look around the room, nodded to a few men here and there, before retaking his seat.

“Well,” said his wife, looking very pale indeed. “That was . . . a bit too much foul language, but . . .”

Maybe he'd have made a fine schoolboy after all. His bloody heart was in his goddamned throat as he waited for the conclusion of her judgment.

“All the same, it was very effective.” She smiled at him, and his spirit burst loose, soared straight up into the rafters. “I almost pity the Board of Works.”