Luck Be a Lady (27 page)

He sighed. “I don't.” He came toward her, kneeling down to look into her face. “I don't,” he said very softly. “It was my own damned carelessness. That's what angers me, Kitty. Not you.”

She let him gather her hands, confused by her own reaction. It would indeed be ruinous to conceive a child in this situation. She should be horrified. She should be angry, even—not only at him, but at herself. Such inexcusable recklessness, to continue to take this risk again and again.

But the horror that should have assailed her was curiously difficult to locate. Instead, as she looked at his broad hands enfolding hers, curiosity wisped through her, stealing her breath.

He was not her kind. Born in the gutter, raised with a knife between his teeth. When angered or amazed, he lost hold of his grammar, and spoke like a common thug. A criminal—reformed, mostly, but while he still
owned this gambling den, he could never be counted on the right side of the law. He was no fit match for a woman.

And yet . . . he was keenly intelligent. Honorable, in his own peculiar style. Wise in ways she wasn't. Ambitious, disciplined—save when it came to her.

A flush warmed her face. She bowed her head to hide it, amazed that she should feel such gratification at this revelation: she alone had the power to undo him.

For what good could come of that? This marriage had been forged as a dark secret, to wield like a weapon. She must be mad to entertain, even for a second, what a child of theirs would look like—act like—what talents it might inherit, in the curious combination of her reserve and restraint and savvy, and his more daring, roguish cunning.

“What's got you so pink?” he asked softly. “You know, if it came to that, we'd make do, Catherine. And God save the world from any child of ours. God save the Queen, for no doubt the tyke would have ambitions for a crown, ere long.”

Her smile startled her. It felt so easy to hold. She felt peculiarly vulnerable; she folded her lips together, made herself stand. “We should go.”

“You're not going.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I said it, Catherine. I won't have you there. Especially not now,” he added in a mutter as he turned away to fasten his fly.

She stared at his broad back, struck dumb by that statement. “Not now? Now, you mean, that you might have . . .”

“Yes,” he snapped over his shoulder.

Her teeth clamped together. Now that he might have seeded a child in her, he would bully her for it? “No,” she said, her voice ragged. “That does not give you rights over me. If I wish to go, I am going.”

He faced her, looked down at her from his great height, his face impassive. Remote and cold. She felt, as he stared at her, the difference between their sizes—and, in a horrible prickle of awareness, the fact that he stood between her and the door.

“I'd rather bear your anger than the risk to you,” he said.

“That isn't your choice to make!” She started for the door, and he stepped sideways, blocking her.

“Don't make me do this,” he said. “Wait here. I'll—”

“Make you do
what
?
Keep me locked here against my will?” A wild laugh ripped from her. “Don't you see? This is exactly what I told you I wouldn't allow. I am not your ward, your property, to boss as you see fit—I am not your
wife,
O'Shea!”

“Today you are,” he said grimly, and reached for the doorknob.

“No!” She lunged for the door, but it was too late—he had already stepped out.

The lock turned.

He had taken the key with him.

*    *   *

She should have raged. He had rescued her from a prison yesterday, only to make another for her. Instead, after shock had subsided, she felt only a weird, numb grief, too deep for tears.

Did he know what he had done? She felt as though some light inside her, briefly flickering, had been
crushed by a careless boot heel. He had used her desires to trick her. He had shown he did not respect her judgment. Or, even worse, he had shown that his judgments would trump hers, regardless of his esteem for her.

By trapping her here, he had all but admitted that he wanted doilies after all. A woman who waited by the fire like a lapdog, eager for the sound of her master's footsteps after a day spent tending the hearth.

By the time footsteps came at the door two hours later, she had packed up her things. She was waiting, primly erect, in the wing chair, her hands locked tightly in her lap. She would not weep. She would not raise her voice. She would simply go. The moment he opened the door, she would walk through it—and if he stopped her this time, she would make him pay for it.

The knob rattled. But it did not immediately turn. She frowned. Now came a scratching at the keyhole.

She rose, uneasy. “Who's there?”

“God in heaven,” a familiar, feminine voice said. “Catherine?”

That voice! She gasped, then hurried over to the door, tugging angrily at the knob. “Lilah?” She sank to her knees, peering through the keyhole. “Can that really be you? I thought . . .”

Darkness filled the keyhole—Lilah kneeling, too. “So Callan wasn't lying,” she said in marveling tones. “Let me in, then!”

“He took the key.”

“He
what
?”
A brief pause. “All right, stand back, then. I'll pick it open.”

*    *   *

“And then we visited Boston, which was the coldest place this side of the North Pole, and if you thought
London
was bad for snobbery—”

“Oh, I can't imagine anybody was rude to you,” Catherine murmured. They sat in the Palmers' drawing room, chairs drawn together by the fire, knees nearly brushing, a discarded tea tray shoved off to one side. The room was very grand, a vaulted ceiling painted in rococo style, cherubs gamboling in the heavens; the furniture was powder blue and white, the carpet pale as a newborn's cheek, not a stain upon it. That shade spoke of extravagant wealth, no care whatsoever for the cost of replacement, once mud was tracked in, or soot, or the mere dust of everyday life. Yet Lilah looked perfectly at home amid the splendor, dressed in a bronze silk gown tailored expertly to her curving body. French, Catherine guessed. Pingat, the very newest style; she herself had never worn anything so fashionable or rare.

“You're a proper lady now,” Catherine said. Nobody would mistake Lilah for anything else. She wore a necklace of emeralds at her throat, French lace at her cuffs and collar. The bronze gown flattered her rosy complexion, and contrasted with the deep, inky shine of her hair, coiled so elegantly at the crown of her head. “Surely the Bostonians bowed.”

“Well, of course they did.” When Lilah smiled, her full cheeks turned her azure eyes into laughing half-moons. “Doesn't mean I felt like bowing back. Sourpusses, the lot of them. At any rate, we were meant to go on to Philadelphia, but when somebody mentioned they expected snow, that did it for me. I said to Christian that summer was a fine time to travel, but in the autumn, I liked nothing better than a proper scone. He went look
ing for one, and came back with some wretched biscuit that a baker had conned him into buying. We took one bite and booked our passage back home.”

Catherine smiled. Marriage had not diminished Lilah in the least; if anything, it seemed to have amplified her cheeky, laughing charm. She seemed . . . easier in her skin, more relaxed. That slight wariness which Catherine remembered in her was nowhere in evidence now.

Perhaps love did that. It made one feel at home, at last—even with oneself.

The velvet nap of her armchair was very fine. She drew a pattern into it, a chain of diamonds. The auction would be concluded by now. O'Shea would have discovered her absence. She should have left a note. What if he imagined that Peter had found her again? But no, Callan would tell him of Lilah's visit, surely.

She scowled. Why should she trouble herself for
his
feelings, when he had shown his complete disregard for hers?

Silence intruded into her thoughts. She looked up and discovered herself the object of intense scrutiny.

“I'm not the only one here with a tale to tell,” Lilah said.

She cleared her throat. “But first, you must finish yours. How was the voyage back? Smooth, I hope?”

Lilah pulled a face. “Lovely, I ate myself sick, we made record time. Enough with the honeymoon. Explain why I had to spring you out of my uncle's gaming den.” She arched one dark brow. “Callan said you'd been staying there. Wouldn't tell me why.”

“Oh, I . . .” Catherine blew out a breath, then locked her hands together in her lap, hunting for a neat sum
mary. But the challenge overwhelmed her. Had Lilah appeared a day ago, how much simpler the tale would have been! She felt a pang of loss for the possibility she had glimpsed—the sweetness of a simpler conclusion. A . . . happy ever after, even.

The opiates must have accounted for that wild hope. They had invested her with a foreign optimism, spinning a fledgling dream that now seemed bizarre and embarrassingly foolish. But yesterday, she might have said . . .

She might have said that for the first time in her life, she had done something wild, and she had no regrets. None.

“I married your uncle to save Everleigh's.” That was a fine place to start.

“Married him!” Lilah pressed herself back in her chair, as though to physically distance herself from these tidings. “You
married
him?”

“Yes, that's what I said.” Asperity seemed to open a road for her, show her how to advance. “Peter, you see, was planning to sell the auction rooms. And unless I was married, I had no authority to oppose him.”

“And you thought Nick was the best choice?” Lilah covered her mouth with one slim hand, a diamond band glinting on her wedding finger. But her snort sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

Catherine scowled. “It seemed a very fine choice. He promised not to interfere with me. He signed the very contract that—” She hesitated, suddenly conscious of the delicacy of this tangent.

With her usual bluntness, Lilah pushed right through the pause. “The same contract my husband signed for you. It's all right, Catherine; that was a strange time, back in the spring.”

“So it was.” She offered a grateful smile. “And I rather thought the arrangement was . . . perfect, after all. Peter, you see, had everything to lose from such a marriage. We told him we'd keep it a secret from the public, provided he . . . behaved himself.”

“Blackmail!” As Lilah arched her dark brows, she looked, briefly and powerfully, like her uncle, and the resemblance raised such a strong wave of feeling that Catherine turned away from it, fumbling for her teacup.

It would be lukewarm by now. She blew on it anyway. “I hope . . .” She took a sip and winced. Oolong did not profit by cooling. “I hope we can remain friends.”

“What?” Lilah leaned over to touch her arm. “What's this? Why wouldn't we be friends?”

She turned the cup in her hands. No handle, floral motif in cobalt blue against white. Deep saucers, too. Dresden, eighteenth century. Five pounds at auction for this cup alone.

Lilah was waiting. Catherine returned the cup to its saucer. “I know your uncle has not always been a friend to you.” Indeed, he had demanded certain favors of Lilah during her employment at Everleigh's that might well have cost her position. Catherine swallowed, surprised by herself. How had she forgotten that? O'Shea had cast a spell on her, maybe, but now that she was free of the enchanted atmosphere of Diamonds, she ­remembered again. She clung to the facts. “He forced you to thieve for him. Had anyone discovered it—why, I would have sacked you.” The thought amazed her. “Had I learned of it before I knew you, you would have been thrown onto the street. You never would have met Lord Palmer, and . . .”

Lilah's face had darkened. “I don't like to think on
it,” she said slowly. “Of course, Nick's the reason I made it to Everleigh's in the first place. He funded my education. He took me in after my dad died. So . . . I've made my peace with him. He's the only family I've got.” She blinked, then brought her hands together in a clap. “Why, but that's not true, now. If you're married to him—
we're
family.”

Catherine smiled. “Aunt to a viscountess? How I've come up in the world,” she said dryly, with a wave around the grand chamber.

Lilah followed her gesture, and burst into a laugh. “Isn't it ridiculous? A cream carpet! I can't imagine where Christian found it.”

But after a moment of shared laughter, Catherine sobered again. “You remember the betrothal contract, I think. There was a provision in it. You and I shan't stay family forever. I only wish . . . your uncle remembered the terms.”

“All right, then.” Lilah looked grim suddenly. “What's he done?” Chair legs thumped as she dragged her seat closer. “Why were you locked in that room?”

Catherine hesitated. “He has never abused me—”

“No, of course not. It's not in him to abuse a woman,” Lilah said readily. “But it isn't like him to lock her up, either.”

Catherine sighed. “I think I must tell you the whole story.”

And so she did—omitting nothing, not even the fact they had been intimate, though she mentioned this in a delicate euphemism, which Lilah showed she understood only by the slight widening of her eyes. By the time Catherine finished, the light had faded from the long windows overlooking the park across the street,
and Lilah sat in slack-jawed silence, her astonishment so clear that it almost embarrassed Catherine to look on her.

“I've made a hash of things,” she admitted softly. “Our . . . entanglement was never meant to be so . . . profound.”

“Catherine.” Lilah shook her head. “I've never . . . the way you speak of him. You sure it's just about a contract now?”