Luck Be a Lady

  Everleigh offered a flinching attempt at a placating smile. “I do understand,” he whispered. “I promise, I won’t be any trouble to you.” He cleared his throat, then said in a meek tone, “Shall I ask the driver to drop you somewhere?”

  “No need.” Nick opened the door, then leapt neatly out into traffic. His last view of Everleigh was the man’s pallid, astonished face as he leaned out to pull the door shut.

  * * *

  En route to Everleigh’s through a sunny autumn morning, Catherine became aware of how her stomach churned. She fully anticipated a violent quarrel with her brother over the debacle of the Cranston auction. Worse yet, after his bizarre attempt to break into her bedchamber, her own anger felt secondary to nervousness. Peter had made her afraid to return to her own auction rooms! It was outrageous.

  As she emerged from O’Shea’s unmarked coach, one of his servants descended from the footman’s step to escort her inside. A mountain of a man, with a shining bald head and a bashful smile, he introduced himself as Mr. Johnson. “I’m to stick by you today,” he told her, “and make sure your brother behaves, miss.”

  This presumption on O’Shea’s part would ordinarily anger her. But today, it seemed like welcome news. “Very well,” she said stiffly, and on a deep breath, led the giant inside.

  But her brother was nowhere in evidence. In her office, she discovered an infuriated letter from Lord Cranston, the reply to which kept her busy for most of the morning. Cranston felt his pride had been injured by the interruption of the auction, and demanded assurances and recompense.

  By the time a knock came at her door, she had all but forgotten her former anxiety, so immersed was she in the tricky politics of soothing an offended peer. “Come,” she said absently.

  The door opened. Mr. Johnson stepped inside, her brother at his heels.

  Her throat tightened, her pulse tripping into a gallop. Peter looked thin-lipped, flushed, and livid. But with Johnson looming behind him, she felt well able to match him in a fight.

  She laid down her pen, and rose. “I hope you’ve come to apologize,” she said. “And to account for yourself! Last night—”

  Peter threw a stack of papers onto her desk. “There,” he said flatly. “That is all you will have from me. Tell him it is done.”

  “Tell whom?”

  Peter grimaced. “Your gutter rat. Who else?” Turning on his heel, he shoved past Johnson and stalked out.

  Mystified, she sat back down and broke open the seal on the papers. For a moment, looking them over, she lost her grip on English. The words made no sense.

  Peter had made her his legal proxy.

  Gaping, she flipped through the pages. Yes, she’d read rightly: she now controlled Everleigh’s financial operations. Effectively, she controlled everything.

  “Are you all right there, miss?”

  Had she made a noise? Mr. Johnson, still lingering in the doorway, looked concerned. “I’m . . . very well,” she said faintly. She carefully laid down the papers. “Would you mind stepping outside, Mr. Johnson? I require a moment of . . .”

  As the door shut, she exhaled—a shuddering, choked breath that brought the sudden pressure of tears to her eyes. She dropped her face into her hands, pressing tightly to stem the urge to weep.

  I control the company.

  Her mouth was trembling. She was not dreaming. This was real.

  She felt her lips curve into a wide, amazed smile.

  Saved! No more embezzling; no more thievery; no more threats of selling the business. She was the sole effective owner.

  Could it really be?

  She seized the documents again. The miracle remained unchanged. I do designate Catherine Everleigh my legal proxy in all matters pertaining to the governance of this company, its assets and properties . . .

  A laugh slipped from her. No wonder Peter looked so pale! He could not touch the principal now—nor any of the client accounts! He would need her permission to avail himself of so much as a penny.

  O’Shea had done this.

  She shook her head, wonder prickling over her. How had he done it? And why? Nobody, not even the family solicitor who had known her from birth, had taken her complaints about Peter so seriously. But O’Shea had listened to her. He had acted to save Everleigh’s, though he had no reason to concern himself with its welfare.

  No reason except . . . her.

  The thought triggered a curious rush of warmth through her chest. She rose, locking her hands together at her waist, and stared blindly out the window into the little park across the road. He had offered her friendship. Was this how he treated his friends? If so, how fortunate they were!

  She swallowed. He had no right to interfere with her business, of course.

  But how could she resent him for it?

  Turning back, she stroked one finger across the bold, plain print of this legal document, the greatest gift she had ever been given. A curious feeling fluttered through her stomach, soft and unbearably sweet. Surely he had some secret motive. She was a businesswoman; she knew that nothing ever came for free. He was trying to purchase her trust. But to what purpose?

  She could not trust a man who offered such extraordinary gifts without declaring his price for them first. But had he told her the cost beforehand . . . oh, whatever it might have been, she probably would have accepted the bargain.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Another bloody note from Pilcher. Callan handed it over, his lean face expressionless. But when he spoke, there was a warning in his voice. “Came himself, this time.”

  “Did he?” Nick glanced at the letter, snorting. Pilcher had first written on the very evening that the board had overthrown his petition to condemn Nick’s buildings. He’d proposed then to meet Nick at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park—under cover of darkness, he’d written, as though plotting a heist.

  Now he’d progressed to offering dinner at his club in St. James. Still didn’t say what he wanted, though. Perhaps he’d caught on to Everleigh’s quiet campaign to unseat him. Or maybe he was still stewing over the lots on Orton Street.

  Either way, Nick saw no profit in replying. He reached again for his cards. “You got downstairs in hand?” he asked as he cut the deck. He’d spent most of the evening at Neddie’s, settling business with his rent agents. When he’d come back, the crowd had been thick as porridge. Judging by the noise, it was thinning now.

  “Locked up tight,” said Callan. He rubbed his eyes. “A crowd at the roulette, a handful left at baccarat and poker.”

  Nick considered him. Lad was sporting fresh bruises on his face. They distorted the line of his jaw, made him look fuller cheeked, younger than his twenty-odd years. Put Nick in mind of the first night he’d shown up at the door, wet to the bone in a pouring rain, barely seventeen, claiming to be a long-lost cousin.

  Callan had the height for it, maybe, and the rawboned strength. But Nick didn’t know a single kinsman whose hair had that reddish cast, nor did he recognize the northern lilt of Callan’s speech. More likely, the lad had caught wind of the advantage in being related, and invented the kinship while he waited on Diamonds’s doorstep to beg for a job.

  As long as the fiction served them both, Nick would call him a cousin—and treat him so. “Who hit you?”

  “Nobody.” Callan had a moody, angular face, and a long mouth that telegraphed sullenness better than a girl’s. “He looks worse.”

  “Sure he does.” Boy had a taste for brawling, all right. Made him a fine patroller of the floor—he jumped at the chance to teach cheaters a lesson. “As long as he deserved it. No use in risking your bones for sport.”

  Callan’s jaw tightened. This was an old dispute between them. The lad had used to make a fine income on the side, fighting at Old Joe’s in the Nichol for a crowd of wagering swells. “I’ve not been to Old Joe’s in months,” he said bitterly. “Not to say I couldn’t use the cash.”

  Nick paid a handsome wage. But he knew that Callan kept little for himself. Sent
most of it direct to his siblings in Belfast.

  Still, he wouldn’t countenance cheek. “You think you can do better, you’re welcome to walk out the door,” he said as he shuffled the cards.

  Callan snapped straight. “No. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Good. Because as long as you work here, you’ll keep away from Old Joe’s.” Nick paused, fixing Callan in a square look. “You’re no dog, to risk your throat for toffs’ entertainment. No amount of money is worth your pride—or your life.”

  Callan’s mouth curved. “Right.”

  That smirk right there accounted for most of Callan’s bruises, Nick didn’t doubt. If he didn’t know the lad better, he’d be itching to slap it away himself. Instead, he cast a pointed glance toward the clock on the wall. “Turn ’em out at half three.” That was the deal he’d struck with the local precinct. Bobbies liked to know when they could start harassing loiterers in the court, and when to turn a blind eye.

  “Will do.”

  Nick idly riffled the cards as he watched Callan walk off. Distant relation, sure. The O’Sheas, for all their faults, had hearts that burned hot, and the boy was cold to the bone.

  A flicker of movement down the balcony caught his eye. Why, if it wasn’t his dear wife. He’d expected her to decamp to a hotel after her first night here. But it seemed she’d developed a taste for the place. Last they’d talked at any length, she’d thanked him with a pretty blush for ensuring her brother gave her the proxy, and then she’d announced that he was right—she’d be safer staying under his roof, at least for the time being.

  He would have liked a moment to savor that victory. “Right, was I?” he’d drawled, but she’d suddenly remembered some work waiting for her, and had taken herself off before he could properly gloat.

  She worked long hours, she did. Sometimes, when he got back at half ten, she was still at the office. Johnson, who had kept tailing her lest her brother cause trouble, complained that he was falling asleep on his feet, thanks to her schedule.

  It looked like she’d been interrupted from bed. She wore a pale pink nightdress and matching shawl, and she’d bound her hair back into a golden plait that swung down to the small of her back. She was prowling down the balcony like a thief on a rum catch.

  He let the cards fall, watching curiously as she drew up by a hip-high vase that stood against the wall. She bent down, running her palm along the curving lip, and he felt a brief, rueful envy for the cold porcelain. To be looked at with such avid interest, while rubbed like a cat . . . any man would take an interest in the prospect.

  He certainly did. He pushed out a long breath. This, right here, was why he’d taken to staying out late in the evenings. He hadn’t made it to the ripe old age of thirty-one in order to be ambushed by a constant parade of inconvenient cock-stands.

  Wasn’t her fault, though. Not by so much as a sigh or a flutter did she encourage him. Each time they had crossed paths on the balcony this week, she’d done her best to look right through him as she’d issued her prim little greeting. “That interest you?” he called now.

  She flinched, then wheeled toward him, the fringes of her shawl fluttering around her elbows. “You’re here!”

  “I own the place,” he said agreeably. “You realize we’re still open, aye?” For all that her nightdress covered her from chin to toes, she’d probably find some reason to feel shy about it.

  But after a visible hesitation, she surprised him by approaching. Pity that he’d had her wardrobe fetched from Bloomsbury. She’d clearly added several layers beneath the pink gown, for he couldn’t catch a hint of the roll of her hips. Only the tips of her stockings showed, quick flashes of white lace.

  She wore lace stockings to bed. Now, why should that be the best news he’d had all day?

  Should have slept at Neddie’s, after all.

  She drew up at the other side of the table, frowning. He kicked out the other chair in invitation. She glanced at it, but remained standing. “Where do you go each night? You’re never here in the evening.”

  So she’d noticed. Her lace stockings would probably keep him away for five more nights. It wasn’t his way to hire companionship—he’d known too many whores in his childhood; even the posh ones rarely enjoyed their work. But at this rate, he’d be wearing out his hand. “I’ve got business elsewhere,” he said. “Why?”

  “No reason. I was only curious.” She paused, chewing on her lip. That would not help him get to sleep later. “It seems a poor way to run the House of Diamonds, though. I’d imagined . . . when I first visited, you struck me as a more conscientious proprietor.”

  He grinned. “You’ve got a talent,” he said, “for insults wrapped in compliments.”

  She gave a curious little grimace. “I didn’t mean . . . I suppose your other businesses demand your attention as well.”

  An apology! Roundabout, to be sure, but surprising all the same. “Why are you prowling about so late?” Wasn’t errant lust, he’d wager. He was trying very hard not to let his pride be injured by that, but damned if he could work out how she didn’t feel an ounce of curiosity, after what they’d done together in his bed on the first try.

  Her eyes cut toward the vase, then back to his. Shifty look, there. In anybody else, he would have called it guilt, and looked for the reason. “I can’t sleep.”

  He nodded and resumed shuffling the cards.

  “What business were you attending to?” she asked after a moment.

  Judging by her stiff tone, she was making conversation against her better instincts. “Properties I rent,” he said.

  “Oh yes. Lilah—that is, your niece mentioned you owned several. She thinks you . . . quite a businessman.”

  He glanced up at her, amused by the incongruity of Lily befriending this girl. Two more different women he couldn’t imagine. Then again, Lily had changed, once she’d started her climb out of Whitechapel into the lap of a swell. A bloody viscount, no less. “You heard from her since she left on that honeymoon?”

  She nodded. “A few brief notes. They’re in New York now, I think.”

  “Imagine that.” Her gaze had dropped to his hands; he showed off for her a little, cutting the deck singlehandedly. “Seems a bit much, don’t it? Six months of travel?”

  “Lord Palmer asked her what she most wanted, and she said . . .” Her pale brows drew together as he riffled the cards. “She said she wished to see the world. Where did you learn to do that?”

  “What, this?” He made the cards explode from his fingertips, catching them as they fitted back together into a neat pile.

  Her lips formed a perfect O. Her amazement was so transparent and childlike, so utterly unlike her usual guarded mien, that he laughed.

  Recalling herself, she pulled a face and turned away. “Never mind.”

  “No, wait.” When she looked over her shoulder, he shrugged and said, “It’s like asking where you learned to put your hair in that braid. Pretty, aye? But probably comes as second nature to you.”

  She touched her hair. God’s glory, it was, a thick rope the width of a man’s wrist, gleaming like a freshly polished guinea. “Plaiting is quite simple, actually.”

  “And so is this.”

  She squinted, looking doubtful.

  “Honestly. Looks tricky, but it’s only a step up from a regular shuffle.”

  She put her hand on the back of the chair. She had slim fingers, small hands; they looked boneless, her skin opalescent in the low light. A lady’s hands, save for her nails, which were trimmed to the quick. Those gratified him, somehow. Calluses and stubbed nails, God love her. Did any other man in London know those details? He hoped not. It was becoming a curious new hobby, a deeply private pleasure, to collect these small secrets about her. He couldn’t touch her. But he could learn the quirks of her body, regardless.

  “I don’t know how to shuffle,” she admitted.

  “You said you played cards, right? That first night you came here.”

  Her hand tighten
ed. “I said that children play cards.”

  “I’m thinking you were one once. Or did you spring out fully grown?”

  A smile flitted over her mouth. “Like Athena?”

  “Don’t know her.”

  Her smile faded. “The goddess on your ceiling.” She waved toward the mural overhead.

  “Oh.” He shrugged. “Didn’t cover the classics in school.”

  “What did you study, then?”

  “I didn’t. School wasn’t compulsory back then.” And the mission schools had rarely spared a seat for a boy like him. Times had changed for the better, that way. Even the nobs admitted now that a grubber should learn to read.

  She looked shocked. “You have no education at all?”

  “I’m not illiterate,” he said. He’d taught himself, painfully, too late to learn any comfort with it. He worked down a page more slowly than Blushes could run.

  That look on her face bordered too closely on pity. “I know what I need to,” he added. “And if I find I don’t, then I put myself to learning it right quickly.”

  “I’m sure you do,” she murmured. “To have accomplished . . .” She glanced toward the railing, in the direction of the gaming floor. “Well. Many men with degrees have not managed as much.”

  He loosed a low whistle. “Now, that’s a proper compliment. You feeling all right?”

  She blushed and looked down at her hand, running her thumb along the back of the chair. “It is not a compliment,” she said stiltedly, “to remark the obvious. I cannot approve of illegal business operations, but I can certainly admire a profitable enterprise.”

  Poor Kitty, so desperate to reason herself out of kindness. “I bet you had a fancy education,” he said. “Latin, Greek, the whatnot.”

  Miracle of miracles, she pulled out the chair and sat. “Not really. My brother had a tutor, and then, of course, he was sent to school. But my governess was mostly concerned with teaching manners and deportment. Social charms.”

  He snorted. “She wasn’t so good, I take it.”

  There was a brief moment in which he could see her weighing whether to take offense or be amused. At last, her mouth curved slightly. “Perhaps not,” she said. “I very much doubt she references me when looking for work.”