Lastly he approached Greta’s cage. She hunkered low, lifted her lips, and growled at him. When he moved closer, the growl heightened to a snarl.
“You may have a problem there,” Tate opined.
“She’s still healing. Give her some time, eh, Tate?”
“I may have a mass exodus of employees soon.”
James went down on his heels at the door of Greta’s kennel and gazed at her unhappily. “Is there hope for you, girl?” he asked softly. “If so, you’re going to have to let me in.”
Greta flattened her ears and rolled her eyes.
“Speak to her again,” Tate urged. “I’m after thinking she likes the sound of your voice.”
“Sweet girl, pretty girl. I’ll not let anything bad happen to you again, so I promise.”
Tate clucked his tongue. “Careful, laddie, not to make promises you can’t keep.”
“I’ll keep it,” James vowed. “Just you wait and see.”
Chapter Six
Cat shuddered slightly as she gazed around the room. Boyd’s dinner party consisted of ten businessmen, all, from their appearance, high rollers. Cat knew the look of such company; her stepfather fancied himself one, but he was small-time compared with Boyd, and no mistake.
Many but not all of these men had arrived with women on their arms. Cat could not tell the women for wives or prostitutes, but all came clothed in great splendor and the latest fashion.
Which explained Cat’s attire. She looked down at herself again in wonder. The dressmaker had brought an unfinished gown which she had fitted to Cat in one afternoon.
Cat had never worn or imagined wearing such a dress. A creation of amber silk and gold lace, it fit as if molded to her body and revealed more cleavage than Cat actually possessed. This had been achieved via a contraption of whalebone and wire that thrust what bosom she did have upward into what she considered indecent view.
Not only most of her breasts but her shoulders lay revealed, her sleeves mere puffs of lace half way down her arms. Of course, she had to acknowledge as she looked around the parlor where she and the rest of the ladies had withdrawn, leaving the men to their brandy and cigars, the other women were similarly attired.
“You’re new,” said the woman in red, eyeing Cat frankly. Cat had no hope of remembering her name; the introductions had taken place en masse, and Cat, prey to nerves, had not been in a good position to keep anything straight in her mind.
The woman in red seemed bold and confident. She’d lit up a small cigar as soon as they reached the parlor and now sprawled in an armchair, her eyes gleaming.
“I recall the one Boyd had before her,” said the woman in aqua. “We met them in Montreal. You were there, Rose. Do you remember?”
Rose, appropriately, wore a shocking gown of rose-colored satin so lowcut it made Cat’s garment seem modest. She shook her head. “Must have been before my time. I’ve been with Jefferson only a year last November. Look at what he bought me.” She indicated a pendant displayed prominently on her generous bosom. “One-carat diamonds.” She smiled in satisfaction. “Only took five kisses down below to get that out of him.”
Cat’s eyes widened, though none of the other women so much as batted a lash.
“You have to give them what they want,” said the woman in purple, “no matter how bent their desires. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, Noreen—you being married.”
A woman in glittering black replied, “My dear, a wife in my position is nothing more than a whore with permanent status. Roger likes it doggie style—and often. How about you, sweetie?” She switched her gaze to Cat. “What’s Boyd’s pleasure? We heard he’s into bondage.”
Cat’s stomach roiled and a blush swept from her engineered cleavage upward.
“I heard,” said a woman in silver, again not affording Cat a chance to reply, “he doesn’t like it at all. That last girl—what was her name?—claimed he seldom came near her.”
Rose leaned forward eagerly. “But when he did—whips and chains all the way.” She cast Cat a look of mock sympathy. “But no whip marks where it shows, of course.”
They’re just trying to frighten you, Cat told herself. The bunch of nasty-minded crones. They want a reaction; don’t give it to them.
But what if it were true? What if he came to her room tonight? If he did, she supposed she would have to follow through on the commitment she’d made. Better her than Becky.
“I heard,” said a woman in blue, “Boyd can only get it up for young girls.” She ran interested eyes over Cat. “How old are you, dear?”
“Nineteen.”
“Yes, but,” Rose spoke up again, “she doesn’t look it. You look about sixteen, with that slim build,” she informed Cat.
“Even sixteen’s too old for him, from what I hear.” The lady in blue lowered her voice. “I was told he likes them under fourteen.”
Becky was just thirteen, Cat thought, her heart sinking. What if Cat didn’t succeed in pleasing him, for all her sacrifice? Becky was the one he’d originally wanted; what if he went back to that well again?
She turned her gaze on the woman in blue. “How do you know this?”
“Word gets around,” the woman in blue replied without spite. “They all have their little quirks. And men as powerful as Sebastian Boyd tend to get what they want.”
He’s a perverted monster, Cat thought, and suddenly feared she might vomit, losing the small portion of dinner she’d forced herself to consume.
The ladies began speaking then of another woman of their acquaintance, who’d had the poor judgment to get pregnant by the man who kept her, and all too soon they were joined by the gentlemen, who brought the brandy with them.
The conversation turned to business, dry and seemingly interminable. Balanced between boredom and repugnance, Cat feared the evening would never end.
Yet when it did—when the guests at last began making their departures—her fear flared brighter. She could not get past the conviction that this would be the night Boyd made the first of his demands.
By the time the last of the couples left, seen to the door by Boyd himself, she felt sick with apprehension. When he returned to the parlor and closed the door carefully behind him, she swayed on her feet.
“Well, Catherine, I have to say you make a damn poor hostess.”
Cat looked back at the evening just past and supposed it true. She lacked the confidence and sophistication of the other women and felt utterly unequal to the position wherein she had been placed.
Carefully she said, “I apologize.”
He approached her the way a cat might a mouse, his eyes glittering. “When your father sold you to me to cover his debts, I was assured you would be accommodating.”
“He is not my father.” Cat spoke through suddenly dry lips. Everett Kraus had married Cat’s mother when Cat was the age Becky was now and Becky only seven. Cat felt proud to say she didn’t carry that craven fool’s name.
“Ah, yes, stepfather.” Boyd’s eyes, pale gray in color, examined Cat slowly from head to toe and back again. “I hope you mean to perform better in the bedroom than you have in my dining room.”
Cat’s knees promptly threatened to fail her. She reached out and caught the back of the nearest chair, and Boyd’s mouth quirked in what, for him, might pass as a smile.
“How long have we been together, Catherine?”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks, more or less,” he confirmed. “During that time, I have asked little of you.”
He took another step closer. Cat’s heart began to pound like a piston in a steam engine.
“But I have provided for you,” he went on in that emotionless voice. “Food, drink, shelter, that fine room upstairs, and a splendid wardrobe on order. I hope you are grateful.”
Of all the feelings teeming in Cat’s breast, she could find no gratitude, save for the enduring fact that she and not her beloved little sister stood here.
She blinked at Boyd a
s he took still another step, near enough now to touch her if he wished. He reeked of cigar smoke and liquor. How much had he taken to drink? Dare she hope, if he accompanied her upstairs, he might succumb to sleep instead of lust?
“You truly are a lovely thing,” he said. “Quite tempting. Take your hair down for me.”
“What?” Cat faltered.
“You heard me. I will expect you, Catherine, to be completely obedient when we are together. Whatever I ask, you will do without question.”
Cat raised unsteady hands to the arrangement of her hair. A woman she’d never seen before had been sent in well before the guests arrived to dress it for her in a grand pile of upswept curls.
Now her fingers moved clumsily as she felt for the pins and let the curls fall beneath Boyd’s gaze. What did she see in his eyes? Something at once curiously detached, cold yet avid. Did he want her or just her humiliation?
Perhaps both.
“Ah,” he said, once her hair hung about her shoulders. “You look like a child.”
A chill chased its way up Cat’s spine as the words of her recent companions came rushing back at her.
Boyd raised a hand and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. In contrast with his cool gaze, his skin felt hot. Cat lifted her chin in defiance of her terror, and as if in response he trailed his hand lower to touch her bosom and slide all the way down to the edge of her dress, which rode just above her nipples. For one horrifying moment she thought he would thrust his hand inside her bodice.
He spoke in a low, threatening voice barely above a whisper. “What would you do, lovely Catherine, if I bade you strip off that dress? What if I told you to get down on your knees and service me?” Something dark blossomed in his eyes. “Do you understand of what I speak?”
Cat understood. Had her recent companions not spoken of just this? Diamonds, indeed.
But she felt the heat come to her skin. She couldn’t. She simply could not.
“Shall I tell you what you would do?” he went on. “You would obey. Because that is what you promised when I spared your family. Is it not?”
Calling upon all her courage, Cat nodded.
“Good. Good, because I can still go back and remake our deal, you know. Take what I want.”
Becky, Cat thought, and her heart clenched in her chest. “I mean to be accommodating,” she told him.
“Pleasing.”
“Pleasing. Just so long as you keep to the agreement.”
“I will, if you do. That is how I do business, and never forget this is business.” His gaze flicked over her again. “Trying you is a delight I will save for another evening. Go to your room now. It is late, and your guard will be back on duty soon.”
Cat drew a long, unsteady breath. Did that mean she was safe tonight?
“Go,” Boyd told her again, and she fled as if chased by seven devils.
Chapter Seven
“I feel like hitting something or someone,” James confessed to Tate ruefully. “Feel like beating him half senseless.”
Tate shot him a close look and then quirked an eyebrow. The two men sat in Tate’s office, Tate with his heels on his desk. The big Irishman enjoyed a beer. James, knowing he would shortly report back for work, had refused one.
“That’s not like you,” Tate said. “Sure, I’ve seen you pummel fellows a time or two, even seen you go off your head—”
“Off kilter?” James asked wryly.
“Aye, but there has to be a damn fine reason, and usually you don’t think about it beforehand.”
“Maybe there is a reason.”
“Well now, perhaps you should begin with telling me who you’d like to hit.”
James smiled darkly. “I wouldn’t mind beginning with Drappot, spending a while on that pisspot Charlie Crowter, and working my way up to my new employer.”
“Ah.” Tate contemplated that. James knew a razor-sharp mind dwelt behind that broad, seemingly innocuous countenance. “Crowter and Drappot aren’t worth your time. You should be used to Drappot by now.”
“I should.” Usually James would be able to shrug off Drappot’s words. He feared his current inability to do so signaled some other underlying disturbance.
“’Tis that last target troubles me, lad,” Tate went on. “Do I need to pull you off this job and put somebody else on?”
James thought about it. It might be a very good idea. Yet he remembered the way Miss Delaney’s fingers had anchored him to her in the dim room. It had nearly killed him to leave her today on Boyd’s orders. Was she all right? Did she need him?
“Kilter?” Tate prompted. “Should I be worried about this? You’re hired to serve the client, remember—not Miss Delaney. And if you lose your wick, it’ll reflect on me. A man like Boyd, sure, he could ruin me.”
James knew that, and he bore deep affection for this man who sat across from him. Tate had been one of the few to look past his appearance, the only one to give him a chance in spite of it.
Rather than answer Tate’s question, he said, “You know why he picked me.”
“I know.” Tate’s feet twitched on the desk. He didn’t like talking about James’ appearance.
But James stated it. “He wanted a big, ugly guard dog.”
“Aye. But, lad, the guard dog isn’t meant to turn on the one who feeds it.”
“You’re the one who feeds me, Tate.”
“And men like Boyd feed me in turn.” Tate contemplated the matter for a moment before he offered, “She’s a bonny wee thing.”
She was.
“You’ve never been prey to the many-fold perils of attraction by the opposite sex, have you?”
“I think she’s there against her will. He has some sort of hold on her.”
“No doubt. Men like Boyd go through their lives with holds on other people.”
“I haven’t figured out why, Tate, but she’s terrified.”
“Lad, you can’t change the world. Much as you might want to, you can’t rescue every stray. It happens.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“Agreed. But people do as they must in this life. Is that fair? No. Can you go down to the waterfront and offer a way out to every doxy who earns her living on her back?”
James raised his eyes to Tate. “She’s not like that.”
“Lad, you don’t know what she’s like. And we don’t want to get on the wrong side of that man. I think I need to pull you off this job.”
“No.”
“For your own peace of mind. I’ve seen evidence of your big, soft heart, laddie. Hell, it lies out there in that kennel.”
James thought about it. How easy it would be to walk away, let someone else take the post with Boyd, go on to another meaningless job. One thing he had learned: it was always easier to walk away. Something he’d learned about himself: He seldom did.
He rose to his feet. “Time I got back to my post.”
Tate tipped his face up and regarded James seriously. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
Tate’s boots came down off the desk. “If you find anything illegal going on there, James, if you catch even a whiff of something proving the girl’s being forced against her will, bring evidence to me. I’ll talk to Fagan.”
“And he’ll send in his goon squad?” The automaton division of the Buffalo Police force had become the talk of the City these two years past. Nearly twenty strong, they were the creations of a pair of mad geniuses called Mason and Charles, who had fused steam units with the flesh of human cadavers, mostly Irishmen murdered at the city jail. After it all came to light, the ethical question remained of what to do with them. Brendan Fagan, the Buffalo police officer who had helped uncover the plot, had formed an automaton league, virtually unstoppable.
“Perhaps.” Tate didn’t smile as James expected. “Just, come to me before you do anything daft like busting Boyd’s head in.”
“Will do, Boss.”
****
James went out into the
driving rain and drew a deep breath. The waning night smelled of all the things he considered endemic about Buffalo: coal smoke, the river, wet paving stones, and a faint, underlying pong of old garbage. He thought about hailing a steamcab and then decided to walk, letting his long legs eat up the distance.
When he arrived at Boyd’s, lights still lit the ground floor rooms despite the hour. The window he knew belonged to Miss Delaney’s room, though, was dark.
One of the human footmen let him in. The house might be illuminated, but the downstairs lay quiet. Where was Boyd? Upstairs in that dark room with Miss Delaney? Or did she lie there alone?
“Returning to my post,” James growled at the footman who, a mere lad, barely came to his ear. He could feel all the carefully constructed sense Tate had tried to instill during their conversation draining away. Something about this place raised all his protective instincts.
The footman gave him the kind of look he might afford the boogie man. Dripping water, James went off up the broad stairs and thence to the suite of rooms assigned to Miss Delaney.
A steam servant stood outside her door—a guard?—quiet as if switched off. It jerked to life when James approached, gave him a blank stare, and then trundled off, whirring softly.
Did that mean Boyd wasn’t inside? Surely he wouldn’t bother to assign a guard if he were there with Miss Delaney. Still, James hesitated with his hand on the knob. What if he went in only to find them together, engaged in some lewd act? What if Boyd crawled all over her, touching that delicate body and violating her perfect skin?
Better surely, he told himself sternly, than an abomination such as himself thinking about touching her. And he had been, ever since she laid her fingers on the back of his arm.
Did he forget what he was?
With an abrupt movement, he turned the knob on the door and entered the suite. It lay dark and silent, as if under a blanket made of night. Indeed, the only light came from the streetlamps outside the windows, trickling through the raindrops that coated the glass.
Did she sleep? Was she alone?
Tiptoeing even though the thick, rose-colored carpet cushioned his steps, he moved through the sitting room and paused at the door of the bower, which stood open. Silently he stood, almost afraid to see.
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