Luck Be a Lady (29 page)

He didn't like the sound of those words. The resignation in them. He faced her. “Look. He threw you into a madhouse—”

“Yes.”

“And the fact he's still breathing is my gift to you, for it's God's own truth that I would slit his throat in a second if I didn't think you'd feel the guilt for it.”

She lifted her chin. Looked directly into his eyes. “That's true. He means nothing to me now. But I draw the line at murder.”

“Well, then.”

“He's suing for his proxy back.”

It took him a moment to follow. “Christ. He—”

“He has petitioned the court to give him sole custody of the auction rooms. He alleges me to be of unsound mind. Mr. Denbury, from the asylum, has written a letter in support of his bid. He further claims that he is being menaced and forced into hiding by thugs in my employ. Is that true?”

He gauged his reply carefully. “I've put some men to watch his comings and goings.”

“Have they threatened him?”

“I don't see how. He hasn't come back to Henton Court.”

“That's not an answer,” she said evenly.

“Catherine.” He hadn't intended to mention this, not until he felt certain it would work. “I may have found a way to get him out of your hair for good. But until I can be certain—”

“The contract,” she cut in, “laid out the terms by which you and I were to rub along. You have overstepped those bounds again and again.”

“Overstepped.” She was no solicitor, and he was no schoolboy to be lectured by her.

But words were her weapons. He wouldn't bother fighting on that ground. Instead he grasped her face, felt her flinch at the touch of skin to skin. He held
her in place, watching the color bloom in her cheeks, registering the way her breath hitched, waiting in silence until she found the spine to look into his eyes again.

“You want to pretend like that contract guided us for a
moment
?
If you were honest,” he said, “you would have ceased speaking of it right after you rose from my bed that day we were married. Because you knew then—I saw it in your face—you knew it wasn't going to be simple. You knew you were already in over your head.”

She licked her lips, then spoke very rapidly. “If I lose Everleigh's to him—”

“What?” Here was the main fear, which she kept circling back to, which she held before her like a flaming sword to keep him at bay. “What if you did lose it? God's name, Catherine—what if you stopped fighting for it? Imagine this: what if you simply let it go?”

Her jaw sagged. For a moment, she gaped at him, struck speechless. Then she twisted out of his grip, writhing like a snapping cat. “How
dare
you—”

“I asked you a question,” he said. “Answer it, for once. What would you lose? Apart from a company?”

“You—you can't imagine,” she whispered. “You . . . I thought you knew. It isn't simply a company. It's . . .
me
.”

At least she had said it now. Put it into words. He saw, by the way her gaze broke from his, darted to the side, that she heard the foolishness of her own words.

And that alone killed his temper, and stirred compassion in its place. “I do know you feel so,” he said. “It's how you made sense of the world, and your place in it.
And it's so deep a part of you that you're not sure you can lose it and still remain whole.”

She nodded once, then bit her knuckle and bowed her head. “Then . . . how can you ask?” she said raggedly.

“Because I'm telling you that you're wrong. You're stronger than you know.”

Her voice emerged muffled. “I know how strong I am.”

“Then you should know that you're bigger than the company. Everleigh's isn't you, Catherine.
You
are Everleigh's. And far more besides. If you can't keep hold of this version, then you'll make another. A new Everleigh's, grander and greater than the one that came before it.” He hesitated. “I could help you do it. I've got the funds.”

*    *   *

The offer caught her off guard. For a wild, staggered moment, Catherine dared to envision it. An auction house like none other, specializing in artwork that no other house would touch. A center of restoration and rare curation, for the most select and knowledgeable patrons.

But at the next moment, the very prospect made her feel dizzy and disoriented and exhausted, as though staring up an endless cliff that she must scale without a map. “I couldn't, though. It would never be the same. I couldn't make it the same.”

He loosed a long breath. “I never thought to see you doubt yourself.”

She flinched. “I don't.” It was the world she doubted. “Don't you see? Without Everleigh's behind me . . . I would be nobody.” Without the respectability of a
known institution as her calling card—a credential that evidenced, even to skeptics, her claims of professionalism—she would be nothing but an ordinary woman, subject to the typical condescension of the male-­governed world.

“You'd be somebody to me,” he said.

The tender note in his voice, the somberness in his thickly lashed gray eyes, struck her like an arrow to the heart. It made her chest feel full, and choked her breath. “As your wife, you mean.”

He stepped toward her. “Yes,” he said in a fierce voice. “Catherine O'Shea.”

She put her hand to the back of her chair, clawed into the silk fabric, searching for her will. “Your wife, whom you will overrule whenever you deem it fit. Your wife, whom you will lock away when her desires strike you as inconvenient.”

“To hell with that,” he snarled. “If I think you in danger,
yes.
That's what a man does—for his wife, for his friends, for anyone he loves. You think I give a damn if you're angry now, so long as you're safe tonight?”

She barely heard the rest of his words, after he'd spoken the one.
Loves.
She blinked at him, but it did not bring him into clearer focus. Her vision seemed to have clouded over. He'd not confessed anything just then. He'd said just enough to knock her off her balance, to unsettle her from the tight, swaddling layers of indignation . . .

“You promised,” she whispered. “You promised to respect me.”

He stared at her. “And you think I don't.”

“I . . .” Her gut, her instinct, had never been so at odds with her clamoring brain.
You showed you didn't,
her brain nattered, when all she wished to do was reach out and brush away that single black curl falling across his cheek. To trace the rough line of his nose. These battling influences held her motionless, mute and agonized with indecision.

Marriage, Catherine, is the most perilous risk a woman ever takes.

He gave a sharp tug of his mouth. Turned away, clawing his fingers through his hair as he stared at the mantel. “Maybe I'm the fool here,” he muttered. “Swallowing your nonsense, hook, line, and sinker.” He pivoted back, his face harder, his voice implacable. “Well, I won't bite. I'm done listening to you. Because what matters is what I see, and that's a coward, hiding behind lies.”

She sucked in a breath, stung beyond measure. “If you refer to
me
—”

“That's right. A businesswoman, you call yourself.” His voice drilled, cold as iron. “But a businesswoman wouldn't turn away from opportunities. She wouldn't shrink from risk. You can't trust me to respect you? You can't build a new company?
Bollocks.
Bloody excuses. You said it to me once—afraid to try and fail. Well, that's you. It's got nothing to do with me. You say you don't believe in me? You don't believe in
yourself.
That's what ails you, Catherine—in the end, it's
you
whom you lack faith in. Your own ability. Your judgment. What you actually
want
.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Fear. He was accusing her of fear. And God above, but . . . it could be no coincidence that her heart was pounding; that she felt unable to defend herself.

He made some noise. It sounded like contempt. He turned on his heel for the door.

Suddenly she was lunging for him, catching his elbow and dragging him around. “You want to talk of fear?” She glared up at him, at his stony face, that space of safe remove he'd created for himself. “Then tell me. Who sits on the Board of Works for Whitechapel? Is it you?”

He shrugged out of her hold. “You'll not duck this matter with accusations—”

“I'm not accusing you. I'm only speaking the facts. You spoke before that board—you brought them to heel, you made them hold that auction. What else could you do, if you made them listen to your voice every day? Perhaps you could get the sewers fixed. You once said that you would tell my brother to argue for it. But why should a man from Bloomsbury care for your streets? Why would you force others to fight your battles, when you've proved you could do it better? What's stopping
you
?
It's not lack of care. Would you call it fear? For if I'm afraid, so are you! And if I'm a coward—are you less of one?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked as he stared at her. “Fine,” he said at last. “Fine. A fine pair we make. I'll not argue it.”

His reply frustrated her. It provided her no inroad, no grounds on which to argue with him further.

And she saw, in the way he shifted his weight and glanced toward the door, that in a moment, he would leave anyway.

So she looked for her courage and gave him what she could. “I want to be able to trust you,” she said
roughly. “I want . . . to be the woman who would take that risk. And I want you to be the man who deserves it. Who deserves
me.
But I . . . I must know, in my head as well as my heart, that the risk is worth it. That it's wise.”

His mouth softened. Not quite a smile. “You idiot,” he said gently. “This . . . between us . . . it isn't supposed to feel
wise.
Even I know that. And nobody ever called me a romantic.”

He leaned down. His lips brushed hers softly—too softly; he didn't try to open her mouth, to clasp her against him or deepen the kiss, even when she caught his shoulders and squeezed in a silent petition.

And when he pulled away from her, she could not work out the grounds by which she might pull him back. She was the one, after all, who had left him.

He still stood before her, but the distance seemed unbridgeable, widening with each second that she wrestled for what to say. When she did speak, the words emerged unbearably stiff, all wrong. “You'll come to the auction, I hope.”

And by the shadow that passed over his face, she realized that she had proved, at last, that she had no feminine wiles in her. No tricks by which to keep him, no art that might make her face and body communicate a message contrary to her words.

Never had she regretted that deficiency so keenly.

“Do you want me there?” he said.

She floundered. “Yes, I . . . it's important that it go off well, for . . . Everleigh's sake.”

His smile was brief and humorless. “For yours, you mean.”

“Well—yes. It would go far to proving I'm in full possession of my faculties,” she said hesitantly. “If I am seen to coordinate a successful sale.”

He clapped his hat onto his head and said, “I'll come, then.”

She stood there watching as he walked out. Such cold words on which to part.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

W
as she afraid? Could it be that he was right? Catherine asked herself this as she stood before the little mirror in her office the morning of the auction. The thick door, hewn of Berkshire walnut—her father had been so proud of that; he'd always insisted that no place in the world could rival Berkshire for walnut—usually proved stalwart against the noises in the hall. Today, however, the tumult seeped through. Downstairs, the doors had been thrown open, and for the first time in the company's history, the footmen were not taking names to check against a list that had been pruned to an elite and exclusive number. She had already looked out the window once and felt at first sick, and then thrilled, and then sick again at the crush in the road.

The advertisements had worked. All of London, it seemed, had turned out to attend the auction. Whether any of them had money to spend was another question.

She looked at her face now, so pale and tight in the mirror. What had she done, inviting the public? If the auction failed, if the sales were meager, Peter would no
doubt use this as evidence against her. She had no doubt he was plotting in some hidey-hole. That they were locked in a battle now that would not end until one of them had won sole control of Everleigh's.

Let it go,
O'Shea had suggested.

And then, as though to show her how it was done, he had left her. Not a backward glance. Not a visit in the intervening days. Lilah, noting her wan mood, had offered to visit him, to inquire after his health.

But Catherine had refused the offer. She knew he was hale. She had no fear for his well-being. She had full faith in him to look after himself.

She thought of him every waking moment.

She also thought of her father. What would he have thought of Nicholas O'Shea? Too easily, she could imagine his horror. A man who put himself above the law. Who ran an illegal club, and boldly owned his crimes.

But . . . she could also imagine a different story, in which her father saw his ambitions. His accomplishments. Her father had made a wish for her, once, which she had never forgotten.
A man of discerning tastes, who knows brilliance when he sees it, and knows to treasure it, too.

A
man.
He had not said a
gentleman.

A knock came at the door. She opened it. Mr. Hastings stood before her, attired smartly in his formal blacks. “I believe we are ready, miss.”

She blew out a breath. “Have you taken a glimpse of the crowd?”

He shifted his weight, his leather shoes creaking. “A . . . mixed lot, miss. But I think I see some goers. Lord Hambly and Lord Monteford are among them. And Sir Wimple. Also, I believe, some new faces, very promising. Come, see for yourself.”

She followed him down the stairs, her heart drumming harder with each step. Her father seemed to be walking beside her. He had urged her never to forget the auction rooms. Would he have approved this innovation?
Art is our calling. You will be the soul of this place.

They entered the saleroom through a private door. She lost her breath at the crowd jammed inside it. The crush spilled out into the hall. The balcony, so rarely used, had been opened, the screens thrown back. People leaned over, some only to gawk, others to examine the first lot, the tambour-topped writing table, which two assistants were arranging on the dais beside the rostrum.

A seat had been kept for her, on the other side of the podium. But she found herself standing behind it, gripping the chair tightly as she scanned the crowd.

There.
At the back wall, standing beside Lilah and Lord Palmer. She met O'Shea's eyes.

He nodded to her.

“Good morning,” said Hastings from the lectern. “My thanks to you, ladies and gentlemen, for attending this historic occasion, the first public auction to be held in this establishment. The collection today is a rare and varied one, spanning centuries and continents in its excellence . . .”

His words faded as she stared at O'Shea. He did not look away from her. The crowd, the noise, might not have existed.

He smiled slightly. She smiled back, a trembling smile that seemed to dislodge some piece of her heart. It plummeted straight into her stomach as Hastings opened the bidding.

The reserve was met and instantly raised. A buzz rose—she recognized the edge of titillation; the excite
ment at such rich figures. It had no place in a saleroom, properly; some of the crowd had clearly come only to ogle the wealthy. For a moment, the bidding paused, and the buzz seemed to assume a sour, snide tone.

“Fifty going once,” Hastings intoned. “Fifty for this rare specimen, this eighteenth-century tambour-topped writing table, fine mahogany, the best workmanship you'll find, fifty going twice—”

It should go for eighty at least. She squeezed the back of the chair, anxious. If the first lot went low, the rest would be sure to follow that sad suit. It was no way to open; that was why she'd slotted the table first, hoping, counting, on it to start the auction briskly—

“Sixty,” came a coarse male voice—one suspiciously familiar to her. She frowned, hunting through the crowd, and barely mastered her reaction as she caught sight of Johnson, boldly lifting his hand.

“I have sixty,” said Hastings, “sixty, very good, sir. Do I hear—”

“Sixty-five.” And that was Malloy!

“Seventy,” Johnson barked, scowling.

She bowed her head and rubbed her brow, masking her expression lest it betray her. O'Shea was running a ring in her auction—a ring in reverse, to drive up the bidding!

It certainly wasn't ethical.

Her swelling heart did not care.

“Seventy-five.” That was Lilah's voice, cool, feminine. Another first: a former hostess, bidding in the saleroom!

“Eighty,” someone else called—a stranger, whom Catherine did not recognize. At last!

“Eighty-five,” Lilah shot back.

From there, the figure mounted with dizzying speed.
Amid the mounting clamor, the shifting of the throng, it was impossible to tell who was bidding, but none of the voices were familiar to her. Above, Hastings had a clear view, and was glancing about the room, pointing and nodding, beckoning with his hand.

“Hundred twenty-five going once,” he said. “Going twice—sold, to Lord Monteford in the corner!”

The crowd burst into applause, and Catherine's knees seemed to weaken. It had taken off now. The crowd was warmed up; bids were flowing.

The next lot was brought out—the Sheraton dresser, looking, thanks to Batten, far more elegant than when she'd first glimpsed it in O'Shea's storeroom. Hastings had barely finished describing it before the first bid was called—and the second and third followed in swift succession.

Only then did she feel able to take her seat. This time, when she bowed her head, it was to hide a smile.

*    *   *

“Success, was it?”

Startled, she turned. O'Shea stood in the doorway to her office, a parcel beneath his arm. He was not dressed to linger; he already wore his hat and gloves, and a gray muffler around his neck that made his eyes flash like silver.

She cleared her throat. “A smashing success. Beyond my wildest hope, even.” How stilted she sounded. She tried for humor. “Congratulations, sir. You've just made a great deal of money.”

He shook his head. “For once, I didn't make it. I came into it, like a proper gentleman.”

Her smile kept slipping away. “I'm not sure money
has anything to do with gentlemanliness,” she said quietly. “Either way, you fit the part.”

He gave her an odd look, as though unsure of what to make of the compliment. His reaction made her feel all the more miserable and tongue-tied.

I was afraid,
she wanted to say.
You were right.

But before she could shape the words, he had pulled the parcel from beneath his arm, offering it to her. “I brought this for you.”

She took it hesitantly. It felt like a book, a very heavy one. She could feel the ridge of the spine through the brown paper wrapping. “Should I . . . Do you wish me to open it?”

“No need. You've seen it before. Ours are the only signatures in it.”

It took a moment to understand. There was only one book they had signed together. “The register book?”

“One and the same, with the certificate tucked inside.” He held her gaze. “There's no other proof, mind you. I made sure of that.”

“But . . . why are you giving this to me?”

He took a deep breath and retreated a pace toward the door. “Here's the thing, Catherine. You asked me once if my nose had been broken. You remember?”

Jarred, she cast her mind back. She located the moment, found it embedded amid some of the most startling, heated minutes of her life.

Their wedding day. His bed.

The very first time she had dared to touch him.

Her gaze fell to the parcel in her hands, the edges so crisply folded, so neatly tucked. Somebody had taken great care with this. They had bound it in twine several more times than necessary. “Yes,” she said. “I remember.”

“I'd hope so.” There was a smile in his voice, but when she glanced up, hoping to see it, she found him looking at her with a curiously sober concentration. “I never told you how it happened,” he said. “The first time, I mean. No wonder there. I've never spoken of it to a soul. Nor have I thought on it, I'm glad to say, for a very long time—not until today, when I was wrapping up that book for you.”

She clutched the parcel tightly.
He
had wrapped this. He had taken care with it, had spent more time than required on creasing the folds, tying it up in twine.

Suddenly the book seemed to weigh fifty pounds. It came to her to lean against something—or to sit down; such was the silence settling between them, a brooding, heavy weight that foretold a blow to come.

Instead, she straightened her shoulders, braced herself against it. That strained look on his face was so unfamiliar. Whatever he meant to tell her obviously came at a cost to him. She could bear the hearing, if he could bear the telling.

“Tell me,” she whispered.

He brushed his fingers along the bridge of his nose, then lowered his hand to his side—trying, perhaps, to hide the fist it made. “It was a man who broke it.” He spoke evenly. “A landlord, though the title is too kind. A slumlord, let's say. He owned most of the buildings in Spitalfields back then—that's where my ma raised me. She'd never married, of course—but there was a fondness between her and my father. He dropped by every now and then. Spared coin when he had it, to make sure I was well kept. And my ma, she did her best, too. This room we'd landed in, the floorboards were rotting, the roof leaked in the rain, but it was a step up. The
rent, she said, was wondrous. She could afford it, barely. With the help from my da, she could pay for it. Sometimes we even ate meat on a Sunday.”

His speech had fallen into a different rhythm, chopped and coarse. She doubted he knew it. His gaze shifted away from hers, fixed somewhere in the middle distance as he went on.

“Now, when my da died, it got rougher to pay the rent. I guess she took up with Bell—that was the name of the man who owned the place. Traded what she could to him, in lieu of coin. Only then it happened again—she found herself belly full, I mean. I reckon she despaired when she found out—another mouth to feed, when she could barely fill mine.” He focused on her then, an unblinking stare. “I do understand, Kitty, why a woman might fear to be trapped. There are all sorts of traps in life. And women, they face more than their fair share.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. She had no idea what to say.

But he seemed not to require a reply. After a second, he shrugged and said, “So one day, Bell comes knocking, looking for his rent. Only this time, she doesn't have it—not enough, at any rate. So they have it out, while I'm on the other side of the curtain. I hear something that tips me off—realize she's breeding, and Bell is the dad. And being a proper young hothead, I decide to confront him.” An ugly smile twisted his mouth. “Defend her honor, I suppose. Stupid. So young.”

She did not like the contempt in his voice. That young boy he'd been did not deserve his scorn. “Don't say that. Of course you wished to defend her.”

He sighed. “See, that's a fine aim for lads raised in
your world. But in mine, it's sheer foolishness. Honor means nothing once you're starving. And my mother knew that. She knew I was ruining her chances. For it seemed Bell had made her an offer. He'd a hankering for another son, didn't matter whereby he got it. So they'd struck a deal; he'd support her until the babe came, and set her up nicely if it happened to be a boy. Only then I went at him like a cur gone rabid, and knocked him on his arse, and he threatened to leave Ma flat. Said the deal was off, until I kissed his boots and begged. Otherwise, he was done with her.”