Lady Be Good (36 page)

“You never let on,” Vinnie was saying to her. “How did it happen? How did he win her?”

And Maisy, too, was demanding details: “When did they fall in love? Did you guess it right away?”

“I . . .” She could not do this. No amount of thieving could have prepared her to put on this kind of performance, tell these kinds of lies. What filled her throat, her mind, was only the truth:
No, they did not fall in love at Buckley Hall
. We
fell in love. I fell in love with him. And I swear to you, until this moment, I was certain that he did as well
.

But that wasn’t right. He’d never spoken of love. And she had explicitly denied it. Was she in love? She had promised herself she wasn’t.

Oh, God. She had lied.

“Excuse me,” she said, and pushed through the women. Thank heavens the double doors had been left ajar; otherwise, heavy as they were, she might have been forced to throw herself at them, again and again, battering herself until they opened, or she fell apart . . .

She fled through the empty hall, down the slippery echoing staircase, past the deserted salons where she had laughed and flirted and traded quips with a hundred gentlemen whose names she no longer remembered.

The butcher! She burst out through the doors, emerging into a light rain, coming to a stop at the top of the stairs, barely cognizant of the marveling looks from passersby on the pavement.
Think of the butcher. Or your career
.

But this ache was swelling, an unbearable pressure in her chest. Once it cracked, she’d be done for.

He’d never spoken of love. He’d only warned her.
Become a stranger. It is safer
. He had all but told her he would be her downfall. But he’d imagined the danger
outward. How much easier, were that so! For neither he nor anybody in the world could save her from herself.

Stupid, stupid. She started to walk, blindly pushing past her fellow pedestrians. A vendor of hot oysters called out a warning; he ducked out of her path, grease splattering her wrist. She wasn’t wearing gloves. She’d left them inside.

Fiona, we made no plan for this
.

When she finally halted, she found herself at the bustling edge of the marketplace. A hundred carts, vegetables and fruit, livestock lowing, women bawling their wares. By dint of long habit, her hand closed over her pocket to protect her purse. She felt the hilt of her knife. The sensation gave her an odd jolt, a sick thudding sense of sinking back into herself.

The world looked unchanged. She dashed away her tears—when had
that
happened?—and became immediately unremarkable. The next lot of passersby didn’t even look at her. Even in her fine gown, she fit right in with a common crowd.

She took a long breath, then sidestepped out of the way of a slow-moving oxcart. By a cart selling hot pies, a bearded man was about to clip the strings of a housewife’s purse, for she had turned away for a moment, forgetful, to see to her fussing children.

The knife was still in Lilah’s hand. She lifted it and watched it go.

The thief squawked in surprise, his sleeve pinned against the cart. The housewife shrieked and grabbed back her purse; the vendor bellowed for the police.

Lilah stepped up and retrieved her blade. Thief, housewife, and baker gawped at her.

She was still good for something. Good for a lot
of things, in fact. She bobbed a brief curtsy and then turned away, quickening her pace when she spotted the approaching bobbies. Ladies did not throw knives.

Nick was right, after all. She would never be a lady in truth, but she did make a powerful woman.

At the corner, she made herself turn back toward Everleigh’s. The engagement changed nothing. It did not alter
her
. She remained the same: a woman who fought for the people she loved. She’d never been a coward.

She’d never been a figure of pity, either. Before the day’s end, she would write two notes of congratulation to the newly betrothed.

The fire in the hearth had caused the windows to fog. These cold rains had not ceased in a week, sparing no part of the home counties. They had soaked the ruined bones of what remained of Susseby, raising a strange reek that had permeated Christian’s skin. He’d walked through the property again three days ago. But he could smell the ash even now, battling with the stale, cologne-clogged air of Peter Everleigh’s office.

Catherine signed the last page of the contract, then handed it to her family’s lawyer, a rotund, balding man who treated her as though she were no older than ten. He flipped through the pages, checking each with officious care.

“I was thorough,” she said to him.

He gave her an indulgent smile. “Of course you were, dear.” He handed the contract across the desk to Christian’s lawyer. “Lord Palmer must cosign acknowledgment of each clause. I assume you’ll wish to review them first.”

“Thoroughly.” Dyson slipped the documents into his briefcase. “Shall we reconvene in a week?”

“So long?” Catherine sat forward, ignoring her brother’s restraining hand. “I’d hoped to have it settled before the engagement party.” She grimaced. “If we truly must have one.”

“We must,” her brother said tightly. “I will not have it said that this marriage was done in haste. Let them think we’ve been planning it for some time.”

Catherine wanted her independence posthaste. The contract, once signed, would guarantee it. It laid out the terms of a marriage that would function, as far as Christian could tell, in the same regimented fashion as any business partnership.

“A week is perfectly satisfactory,” said Catherine’s lawyer.

“Quite right,” Peter snapped when Catherine looked ripe to protest again. “You will give us all cause to wonder at your hurry.”

Her mouth thinned as she glanced toward Christian. The meeting had not gone smoothly; Peter had seemed surprised by a number of Catherine’s conditions—above all, the clause that required her future husband to allow her fifty hours a week to pursue her professional obligations.

“You can’t intend to stay on here,” Peter had spluttered. “Why—Palmer, do you mean to allow this? Your wife to
work
?”

Christian had felt curiously anesthetized since his last walk through the ruins of Susseby. But Peter Everleigh’s distress was mildly diverting. “We can review it tomorrow,” he said now to Dyson. “Will that suit you, Catherine?”

She shrugged off her brother’s grip as she rose. “Very well, thank you. Lord Palmer, will you escort me to my office?”

“Later,” said Peter. “I need a private word with his lordship.”

“Yes,” Christian told her. “I’d be glad to do so.”

They walked in silence through the bustling public hallway. Once they had mounted the stairs, Catherine gestured him inside her office and pulled shut the door. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For being so cold to my brother.” She waved him into a chair. “I hope you will always prove so cold to him.”

He smiled faintly. He was coming to understand her better now. A brother like that would have driven him to become a misanthrope, too. “You understand there are more private terms to discuss. Terms we cannot put into writing.”

“Yes. I hoped we might speak of them now.” She pulled open the drapes. The cloudy light fell across her, making her skin opalescent.

Her beauty was truly remarkable. He admired it as he might a sculpture in a museum: worthy of praise, but nothing to do with him. “Did you ask Peter about the discrepancies in the accounts?”

“He claims ignorance. Accused me of misunderstanding the finances.” She sat down, clasping her hands tightly atop her neatly cleared desktop. For a moment, she frowned, clearly wrestling with some private emotion. “Perhaps the accountant was wrong. I believe Peter would embezzle from the company profits—he never loved this place as I do. His dream is a career in politics,
not art. But to falsify our clients’ accounts . . . it’s plain thievery. He doesn’t just put our company at risk by stealing from them; he risks his friendships in society, and those mean everything to him.”

“You say no one else has access to the client accounts. No trustees of any kind.”

“No,” she said softly. “Everleigh’s has always been a family affair. No shareholders. And by the terms of our father’s will, Peter retains sole directorship until I marry.”

“Then no one else could be responsible,” Christian said. “And the evidence is plain. He’s been at this game for two years at least.”

She blew out a breath. Then a bitter smile twisted her mouth. “He lies so freely.” She ripped apart her hands, clenching the edge of the desktop. “The moment we wed, Palmer—I am suing for control of the finances.”

He nodded. “And I will support you in every way.” That was their bargain. “Just as soon as this other matter is resolved. It won’t be long now.”

She sat back, studying him gravely. “Are you certain? Demidov—or Bolkhov; whatever his real name is—declined the invitation to the party.” She opened a drawer, handed him the note.

Christian recognized the handwriting. That illiterate scrawl. He’d seen it only once before, on the note that had sent him rushing to York, too late to save his brother.

“I don’t understand such men,” she said. “Revenge is such a waste of energy. Has he nothing else to occupy him?”

Christian gave her a measuring look. She knew the danger now. He had explained it very clearly, the night
they had agreed to marry. But her composure seemed genuine. No fear. None of the anger she rightfully should have felt upon discovering herself at the center of a web designed to snare a lunatic.

But perhaps she felt trapped in that web herself. She needed help if she meant to protect the auction rooms from her brother.

He wished he were a different man. Able to reassure her. Able to apologize, or feel regret for the position in which he’d placed her. Instead, he said, “He mentions a gift in this note.”

“Yes.” She offered a thin smile. “It is the custom among Russians to felicitate the newly engaged with a present.” She reached into her drawer again, handing over a small object, gleaming. A ring.

His jaw clenched. The gold was as bright as the day it had been forged. The bastard had polished it.

“You recognize it.”

Go with my blessing. Never forget that I am proud of you
. “Yes,” he said. Bolkhov had stripped it from his hand four years ago, in that cave in the Hindu Kush.

The graveyard at Susseby currently overlooked a set of chimneys rising from rubble. After he rebuilt the house, he would bury this ring with his father, to whom it had belonged.

“He proposed it as a wedding ring, did you see? Had you not told me the whole of it already, I would have found that quite odd.” She cleared her throat. “Better than chocolates, though, I suppose.”

There was the regret he’d been searching for. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I have put you into a fine mess here.”

“But you will get me out of another one.” She
straightened a pen lying next to the inkwell. “I would eat a dozen more of those chocolates, if that’s what it took to save this company from ruin.”

He didn’t doubt it. At odd moments, she reminded him a little of Lilah. Both women had steel at their core, and the grit to endure any number of vicissitudes, as long as it guaranteed their aims.

It seems quite pleasant, never to be expected to endure
. Lilah had told him that once. And he had wanted nothing more in that moment than to guarantee she never endured another injustice in her life.

Lilah’s secrets were not his to share. Catherine, ignorant, had decided to keep her on as an assistant, which was . . . inconvenient.
Infuriating
. It held Lilah too close to the eye of this storm.

But Christian had bitten his tongue bloody against the urge to suggest that Catherine reconsider, demote her back to a hostess. If he could not offer Lilah a future, then he would not sabotage her chance at something better than the butcher.

The smell of Susseby was back in the air now. He pushed it out of his lungs as he rose.

Catherine stood as well. “Do you know, it’s a pity Demidov—Bolkhov—turned out to be rotten. His wares will fetch a very handsome profit for us. That candelabrum alone will go for a hundred pounds.”

“All the better for you,” he said flatly. “He won’t be alive to take his share.” He slipped the ring into his pocket. “Your hand is too fine for such a heavy band. What is your taste? Diamonds? Emeralds?”

“Either.”

He angled a black smile at her. Never had a betrothed couple been so well matched in their transparent lack of
enthusiasm. “Perhaps you should choose the ring yourself. I expect you know jewels better than I do.”

A light knock came at the door. “Come,” called Catherine. “No,” she said to him, as light footsteps halted behind him. “My brother handles all the gemstones. But I hardly want his advice on the matter. Miss Marshall, you seemed to have a fine eye for jewels. Have you any suggestions?”

He held himself very still.

“Diamonds,” came her low, husky reply, “would be the usual choice. But amethyst would complement your eyes quite well, Miss Everleigh. Lord Palmer, allow me to congratulate you now in person.”

He rose and turned, offering a slight bow. She looked fatigued. Deeper shadows under her eyes than he’d ever seen, though she was back in town now, where there was light even in the small hours of the morning.