Lady Be Good

by Meredith Duran

  The door opened, giving her a bad start. “Make a noise!”

  Palmer exhaled, a rough sharp sound. “Forgive me,” he said curtly.

  He laid a small bottle onto the nightstand, a water pitcher beside it. From his pocket he took a roll of gauze, unwinding it in short, violent jerks. “I booked you passage. I gave you the letters.” The words drilled like bullets. “What else do you require to be gone?”

  She’d fluttered and sighed, anticipating their reunion. But he looked at her now with fury. Nothing made sense. She groped for words, and found instead the first prickle of anger, sharpening on her tongue like needles. “I answer to Miss Everleigh now. Not you.”

  A humorless smile curved his mouth. “Of course.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and sat down on the edge of the bed. Wetted the cloth in the pitcher. “Give me your arm.”

  In his cold voice, that sounded like a threat. “No.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I am trying,” he said, “not to throttle you.”

  “Why? What did I do?”

  His hand closed into a fist. Veins springing up, knuckles whitening. “What in God’s name were you thinking? Running downstairs?”

  She scowled. “You should be grateful. He was coming for you.”

  “What of it?” he snapped. “Do I strike you as weak?”

  She bit her lip. That was the very last word she would have chosen. The crack of her assailant’s neck would haunt her. “You were distracted,” she said very softly.

  “Yes.” His mouth twisted. “It’s a problem, isn’t it?” He did not wait for her to puzzle that out before seizing her wrist. His fingers felt very warm. He laid the cloth to her arm.

  His hand was trembling.

  “Palmer?” His blond head bowed, concealing her view of his face. “Are you—”

  “I should have driven you to the station myself.” He spoke very low. “Tied you onto that train. You were not meant to be here.”

  She understood nothing. Or . . . perhaps she did. “You expected him? You knew he was coming?”

  He looked up, his mouth twisting. “Of course not.”

  Bewilderment swam through her. A thousand baffled questions, none of which seemed to fit neatly into words. Something horrible in his face, as he stared at her—something she had never wanted to see. Fear. For her?

  She tried to pull back. He did not let her. Scowling, she focused on his grip. She preferred him colder. Furious. What made him so afraid? She wanted to take a knife to it—a large one. A machete.

  “You are leaving on the first train.” He reached over and took up the vial. Splashed its contents onto the handkerchief, which he laid back against her arm.

  She sucked in a breath. “That stings.”

  “Yes.” He watched his own work, the gentle pressure he exerted against the cut. “The bleeding has stopped.”

  “I can’t go. Miss Everleigh won’t let me.”

  “She goes with you. Her brother has called her back to town.”

  “But . . .” She shook her head. “The estate?”

  “Peter will manage it.”

  “How convenient,” she whispered.

  “No.” He looked sharply into her eyes. “It was my doing. I met him in town, on my way back from Sussex.” His mouth flattened. “I did wonder why he hadn’t mentioned your return.”

  A chill wracked her. Understanding, at last. This wasn’t over. “You expect more trouble.”

  “I expect nothing else.”

  She hesitated. “Not a burglar, then?”

  He shook his head.

  “But he . . .” For an assassin, the man had been clumsy. “He didn’t even attack you. Here, when he found you.”

  “He went to the wrong room. He was looking for someone else.”

  “Who?” Not her. Why would anyone come after her? “Catherine?”

  “Anyone,” he said. “Anyone close to me.”

  She felt cold again, a violent shivering wave. With her free hand, she tried to draw the robe tighter, but it was a flimsy affair, not meant to provide warmth.

  His gaze sharpened. “What is it? Something else? Did your head—”

  “No, I’m fine.” She took a steadying breath. She was no sheltered lady, to be overcome by vapors. But . . . “I’m out of practice with . . . that.”

  He whispered something too low for her to make out. Then he leaned forward, pressing his mouth to her forehead, breathing deeply. It was not a kiss. It was more basic. Skin to skin. “May you always be out of practice,” he said. “Always.”

  Her eyes closed. Now, she was warm. With his lips pressed against her, his strong hand bracing her shoulder, she would not shake.

  She felt him sigh. He eased away and retrieved the gauze. Thrice he wrapped her wrist, then knotted it soundly. “Too tight?”

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

  He laid her hand back in her lap, the movement oddly formal. “It is not nothing.” He nudged her chin up, so their eyes met. “You will not mention my name in London. Do you understand?”

  His knuckles felt rough. His cheek was bruising. These small observations seemed important: the lock of blond hair curling over his ear. The length of his lashes, the way they curled. She wanted to touch him; to stroke the grimness from his face. He was about to explain things. She could feel the truth gathering between them like darkness. In another moment, she would make herself ask for it. But not yet.

  “Why did you leave for so long?” she asked.

  A brief, fraught pause. She realized that question wasn’t safe, either. “I was at Susseby.” He sat back, letting go of a long breath. “It . . . The house is gone.”

  “Gone?” She shook her head once. “What do you mean?”

  “Burned to the foundations. There’s nothing . . .” His gaze wandered the room before returning to her. He, too, seemed to be struggling with his focus. “There’s nothing left but ashes.”

  God above! What a run of ill luck! She reached for his hand where it lay on the counterpane. His skin felt cold to the touch now. She gripped his fingers, rubbed them to bring back the warmth. “Is your family all right?”

  “Yes. I’ve sent them . . . elsewhere.”

  “But what happened?”

  His gaze locked on hers, square and unblinking, and she knew the answer before he spoke. “It’s all of one piece,” he said. “Tonight, and Susseby.”

  She went still. Arson, then? “The man you killed?”

  “Some hireling.” He looked down at their joined hands. Turned his palm into hers, threading their fingers together. “He was sent by a man named Bolkhov. The man who gave me this.” With his free hand, he touched the scar that ran so closely to his eye. “A general in the Russian army. Deposed, absconded from his post. His troops ransacked the Afghan countryside after the war. I was tasked to hunt him down. He held me responsible for those we killed. Among them, he claimed, were his wives and children. And so he vowed to take revenge. Susseby,” he said. “And tonight. And . . . all the rest.”

  The gunshot. The assayers with their weapons. The wrong room, he’d said. “He wants to hurt Miss Everleigh?”

  “He knows her.” He pulled his hand free, laid it on the coverlet, stretched his fingers. His knuckles were swollen from the brawl. “Under a different name, he contributed several pieces to the auction she’s curating. He enjoys his taunts,” he said quietly. “One of the pieces, he knew I would recognize. Until I saw it, I had no notion of how to find him.”

  Comprehension swept through her. “You’re using her to hunt him.”

  “That was the idea.” His smile looked black. “Instead, I gave him new prey.”

  “She has no idea of the danger,” Lilah whispered.

  “She does now. We spoke earlier. But other dangers concern her more greatly.” He shrugged. “Her brother is looting the auction house—fixing the books, embezzling from the accounts. By the terms of her father’s will, she has no authority to interfere until she is marri
ed. She proposed a trade: my help in containing Peter, for hers with luring out Bolkhov. It’s hardly fair, to my mind. But she was insistent.”

  Lilah’s thoughts had turned to more selfish concerns. “You’re not really courting her, then?” God forgive her for her relief.

  But he saw it, his face darkening. “Lilah. This is no game. If it took a marriage to trap him, I would do it. Bolkhov means to kill everyone close to me. He has already managed it once.”

  God above. “Your . . . surely not your brother?”

  He looked away. “A telegram arrived last week. Geoff’s grave had been disturbed. That was what drew me to Susseby. By the time I arrived . . .” He knocked a piece of lint from the bed, then stared at his hand, the fist it made. “It’s a wonder no one was killed. The fire spread quickly. Strong wind, that night. The ashes carried all the way to the village.”

  She did not know what to say. It was an unspeakably maniacal thing, to persecute a man by targeting his loved ones. Even her uncle would have recoiled at such evil.

  “It was only a house, of course.” He spoke flatly. “But that is the last loss I will incur.” He glanced back at her, his face remote. “You are leaving Buckley Hall. And in London, you will not know me. We are strangers, from here forward. For your sake.”

  “Strangers.” The idea seemed impossible. Foul and offensive. But for weeks, she had felt out of her depths here. Only now did she realize that there might be a greater price to pay than the loss of her position, her dignity . . . and her heart.

  Agonized, she studied him. Strangers. Her father and uncle had never agreed on anything but a single principle: no matter the cost, survival came first. Becoming a stranger would be wise, sensible, safe. His face was impenetrable to her now, beautiful and severe, as though she were indeed a stranger, her feelings immaterial.

  But his eyes spoke differently. He watched her as closely as she watched him. She saw the mirror of her own feelings in his eyes.

  He was trying to protect her. How dare he imagine that she would not do the same for him?

  “Once, in your study, I saw a map.” She spoke softly, choosing her words with care. “My uncle, whom I told you about—he knows those areas you circled. He knows them very well. Do you think this Bolkhov might be hiding in one of them? If so, my uncle could help you.”

  “Lilah. My God.” He rose to his feet. “Have you heard a single word I’ve said? I want you out of this.”

  She scrambled to her feet. “But I am in it! There is no getting out. I work for Miss Everleigh, don’t you see? And my uncle is no ordinary—”

  “Forget your uncle,” he snarled. “Forget Catherine. She knows a bargain when she sees one: she means to use me as I use her. She is useful. But you, Lilah . . . you’re a goddamned weakness. And if you care so little for your own life that you would risk it on me, you’re a fool.”

  She caught her breath. Those fierce words burned away the last vestige of her numbness. He cared for her. He could not hide it. She would not let him. “Then I’m a fool.” But not a coward. “I can help you, though. I can.” Nick could. She would find a way to make him do it.

  He dug his hands through his hair, then spun and stalked to the door. “We will not have this conversation.” Yanking the door open, he said, “Get out.”

  “Don’t you want to know my name, before I go?”

  That caught him. He turned on her, furious. “No. I wish to know nothing about you. Are you deaf? Listen once more: I have put everyone I love in danger. Everyone.” He stepped toward her, a violent movement, arrested abruptly. “I have buried my brother’s body. His death—my doing. Susseby—my doing. I have robbed my sister and mother of their home. I have exiled them. And tonight, I killed a man, and then I wiped away your blood. You have no care for yourself. Fine. But I care. I care and I will not risk you. I will be dead before I take your help. Is that clear to you?”

  Everything was clear. This snarling speech, his terror—for her—was the most dreadful, beautiful ode she’d ever heard.

  “My name is Lily Monroe,” she said. “Niece to Nicholas O’Shea. That is the man you need now.”

  He sneered. “Fine.” He seized the doorknob again, pulling so hard that the wood cracked as the door lurched open. “You’ve said it. Now go.”

  He wasn’t hearing her. “You know my uncle. They call him Saint Nick. King of Diamonds, the Lord of the East End.” Was he listening? “He controls half the city. The darker half.” She watched his profile, the stony set of his jaw, the rigid line of his shoulders. His silent, physical rejection. “All those areas you circled on the map—they are his. He owns the people there. With the letters, I can propose a new trade—”

  He turned, his expression black. “And does he own you? He’s the one whom you fear, isn’t he? The bastard who blackmailed you.” An ugly smile twisted his mouth. “The other bastard, that is.”

  What irrelevant nonsense was this? “It makes no difference.” In the face of this danger, it didn’t matter. “He could help. I could make him help.”

  “It matters.” He stared at her. “I will not give him cause to blackmail you again.”

  “But there would be no need! I have the—”

  “You’re right. There’s no need.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “The Russian auction will be held in a fortnight. I’ve made arrangements to lure out Bolkhov. This travesty ends then . . . if not beforehand.”

  “But what if it doesn’t? Why not use all the weapons at your—”

  “I had hoped you esteemed me better,” he cut in. “Foolish, I know. What cause have I given you for esteem? But if you think I’ll send you back to the bastard who put you into this mess—to beg for his favors, by God—then you think me some species far lower than a coward.”

  Her lips shaped the words several times before she got them out. In that brief pause, anger sparked. “I think you a bastard,” she said. “An arrogant ass! For it takes a bastard to turn up his nose at a friend! If I’m willing to do it, then why can’t—”

  “We are not friends.”

  He spoke so coldly that it took the breath from her lungs. “You’re a liar,” she whispered.

  “And now you bore me.” He bent to strip the knife from his boot. Laid it solidly on the table before turning back to her. “Still here?” The derisive curl of his mouth smashed into her like a fist. “I used you, Lilah. You were useful, for a time. But now you’re not. I do see why you were so cool under pressure—the niece of Saint Nick; why, you’re the aristocracy of the underbelly. But I don’t mix with filth on regular occasions. I do thank you for the offer, though.”

  The pain twisted, making her reckless. She knew he meant not a word of his speech. He was trying to drive her off. But he certainly knew the proper way to do it. His words laid open her chest and bowed an ugly song across her heartstrings. “You’ll take filth into your bed, but friendship is a step too far, is it? Friendship is for women like Miss Everleigh. You’ll take her help, but not mine.”

  He shrugged and leaned back against the wall, the lounging posture of an idle masher, bored of low entertainments. “She sells her help for a price. You have nothing left that I wish to purchase.”

  She ignored the sting. “You told her to call you Christian. Was that necessary? Was your Russian lunatic listening then?”

  A strange look came over him. “God above. Is that all it requires? Go ahead, then. Call me Christian. What does it matter?”

  It mattered. He tried to pretend otherwise, but she knew the truth. “Christian.” She stepped toward him. “Let me help you. Please. I—”

  He caught her hand before she could touch him. Forced it back to her side. “I am done with this argument,” he said very slowly, as though she were a child in a tantrum.

  “But I’m not.” She glared at him as his fingers tightened. “Hurting me won’t end it, either.”

  He dropped her hand as though it burned. Setting his fist to his mouth, he stared at her, his expression bleak.

&nb
sp; The silence felt brittle and sharp, as though the wrong word might fracture it into cutting shards. She did not know what to say next. The heaviness of defeat stole over her.

  “Christian,” she whispered. “Please. Don’t be a fool.”

  Something fraught tightened the skin around his eyes. When it passed, his gaze had softened. He lowered his fist and breathed out. “Do you care for me, Lily?”

  Her throat felt so full. A thousand words would not encompass the proper response. All she could manage was a nod.

  “Then you’ll trust me,” he said. “You’ll trust my plan. If the auction doesn’t bear out . . . then, perhaps, we will speak of your uncle.”

  It was a compromise. Unsatisfactory, horribly insufficient. She wrapped her arms around herself, miserable.

  “Lily,” he said softly. “What a lovely name for you. Lily, you should go.”

  Was that all she would have from him? A compliment to her name. A flimsy bargain to talk again, in two weeks’ time. At which point he might be dead already, when she might have saved him.

  She deserved more than that.

  She dropped her arms and squared her shoulders. “I will go in the morning,” she said quietly. “But not tonight. I’ll have something else before I leave.”

  Lily. The name fit her perfectly. She should not have told it to him. In this darkness his life had become, she remained the sole piece of light. But each secret she shared pulled her closer to him, to this stain he had become on the lives of those he loved.

  Her bastard uncle could not have helped. Not when the full force of British intelligence had failed to locate Bolkhov. But she would have gambled herself on the chance. Endangering herself for his sake.

  Surviving a war had taught him to recognize true mettle. An ally whom he could trust with his life. She was that, and far more. He would not risk her. This war was different from the other. His survival now was not worth the cost, if it meant losing her.

  He touched her face. Standing before him, an exquisite vulnerability in the defiant tilt of her chin, she was his punishment. What he most wanted: what he could not have.

  “You will not interfere,” he said quietly, stroking her satin-smooth cheek. “I’ll have your word before you go.” Otherwise he would make the decision for her. There was room for another woman in that remote cottage where his sister and mother now waited.