by Laurel McKee
Damn, he thought as his fist tightened on his reins. Why couldn’t he make her that way? Make her smile that way?
But he knew very well why he couldn’t. Because nothing was ever easy between them. Not even sex.
“That is one of those St. Claire actors your friends are always giggling over,” he said. “Dominic St. Claire.”
“Is it indeed? The sketches of him in the papers don’t do him justice,” Sophia said quietly.
Before Aidan knew what she was doing, she urged her horse in the direction of Dominic St. Claire. He hurried to follow her, suddenly wary of what Sophia might do. She was his cousin, after all, and too much like him for her own—or his—good.
Lily turned to say something to the older lady beside her and caught sight of him. Her smile faded, and she went very still. The other woman turned to see what Lily looked at, and he recognized Katherine St. Claire from her appearances on the stage. She went pale, and her lips tightened.
Dominic St. Claire only looked furious. Until he caught sight of Sophia. Men usually melted for her, but Dominic’s eyes narrowed. The white-hot anger almost radiated off his body.
Interesting, Aidan thought. The St. Claires did seem to know him—and they did not like him. Did they know of what had happened with him and Lily? Would Dominic St. Claire’s seconds be calling on him in the morning, challenging him to a duel?
Aidan raised his hat and gave them a bland smile as he rode by their carriage. Dominic glared, and Lily gave him a small nod. He could read nothing in her eyes.
Sophia glanced back over her shoulder once they were well past. Her gaze lingered on Dominic. “My heavens, Aidan,” she said. “I thought you said you didn’t know the St. Claires.”
“I don’t.” Except for one of them. Her he knew too well—and yet not as well as he wished.
“Well, they seem to know you. Whatever have you done to them? That angelic-looking Dominic looked as if he could kill you.”
Aidan shrugged. He had no idea what he had done that they knew about. But he intended to find out. Soon.
Lily had run from him long enough.
“The nerve of that blasted Huntington,” Lily heard Dominic say.
She rubbed at her suddenly throbbing head. “Oh, Dom. All he did was raise his hat to us.”
“He shouldn’t have even looked at you,” Dominic said.
“There is no need to be rude, dear,” their mother admonished. “We’re in a public park. Just smile now.”
Dominic fell silent, and Lily forced a smile to her lips that felt more like a grimace. She hadn’t expected to see Aidan today, and the sight of him had driven every thought out of her mind but what happened the last time she had seen him. But she couldn’t talk to him or even let any emotion show on her face at all, since her family was there.
And Aidan wasn’t alone either. She twisted around to glare over her shoulder at him. He was slowly riding away, the lady he was with leaning toward him as she said something. He laughed, his head thrown back.
The woman was very beautiful indeed, with glossy dark hair pinned in coils under her stylish veiled hat, and very white skin showed through her black dotted lace veil. She wasn’t the blond, quiet Lady Henrietta. Was she another lady he was meant to be courting? Or perhaps an expensive courtesan?
I don’t care, she thought fiercely. She had no claim on Aidan, just as he had none on her. He could certainly see whoever he liked. No matter what they did to each other in the bedchamber.
But she feared deep down inside that she did care. At least a little bit.
She half listened to her mother’s chatter as they rode back to the house. But as Katherine and Isabel went ahead to the drawing room, Dominic caught her hand.
“What is that man to you, Lily?” he asked darkly.
Lily wrenched her hand away and turned to the mirror to take off her bonnet. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“You know very well I’m talking about Lord Aidan Huntington. You were talking to him that night at the Devil’s Fancy, and then he showed up at the theater.”
“I talked to many people at the club. And he was just being polite at the park.” Lily glared at him in the mirror. “Don’t tell me you weren’t ogling the lady he was with either, Dominic St. Claire.”
“I didn’t even notice who he was with. I don’t want to notice a Huntington at all.” His voice turned gentle. “Lily, you’re my sister, and I love you. I couldn’t stand to see a blighter like Aidan Huntington hurt you.”
Lily gave him a small, grudging smile. “I know, Dom, and I love you for it. But the last time I looked, I was a grown woman. A widow, even. I can look after myself well enough.”
“I don’t want to see you unhappy again, like you were with Nichols.”
“I won’t be.” Aidan was nothing at all like Nichols had been, in any way. And she hardly thought he would marry her. “We should go and have some tea with Mama before she starts to fret.”
“Yes,” Dominic said. A footman was passing through the foyer, and Dominic stopped him to ask, “Is James with Mrs. St. Claire now?”
“No, Mr. St. Claire,” the footman said with a bow. “He went out some time ago. He’s not expected back this evening.”
“Where the devil could he be this time? He’s always gone these days,” Dominic muttered. He strode toward the drawing room doors.
As Lily laid her gloves aside with her bonnet, the footman held out a folded note to her.
“This came for you while you were out, Mrs. Nichols,” he said.
“Thank you.” Lily turned the paper over in her hand, studying it curiously. It was torn and stained, a cheap scrap with her name printed in penciled letters. It couldn’t be from Aidan, and she felt an unwelcome flash of disappointment at the thought. Quickly followed by a flash of fear.
She ripped it open and read quickly, the ache in her throat growing with every word. Meet me at the Lambeth market tonight if you want to see your brother. Your old friend, TB.
Chapter Fourteen
It had been a long time since Lily had been there. Not just a matter of years, but something much deeper, something unseen. She had become a different person since the last time she went to the Lambeth night market. She had tried to forget it.
But now, as she made her way through the winding, narrow streets, she knew she had never really forgotten. That old Lily, the one who had once come here to try and steal a piece of bread or beg a shilling, had never left her. That Lily came out and shoved back hard when someone jostled her now.
She tugged her old knitted shawl tighter over her shoulders and caught a glimpse of herself in a dusty shop window. A cap covered her hair, and she wore a faded brown skirt and bodice she had bought from one of the maids. She looked pale against the muddy color, her face thin and strained. But she didn’t look as on edge as she felt. She felt like she was about to shatter into a hundred pieces.
Tom Beaumont was really back. Her past had dropped down onto her with the crushing force of a cannon shot. And it was threatening to destroy her family.
Lily would never let that happen. She remembered what it was to fight, to scrabble in the dirt to protect what was hers. She could do it again. Beaumont would be sorry he ever saw her.
But she couldn’t help the cold, icy knot of fear deep inside. It had taken hold the minute she saw Tom in the barroom brawl and remembered every painful thing he had ever done to her, and it was lodged there now, so hard, so overwhelming. She had never felt so very alone before, not even when her mother died and she ran away from Madame Josephine’s.
But back then she didn’t have so much to lose.
Beaumont had James, her beloved baby brother, but what he wanted was Lily. So she would go to him.
She tugged her shawl closer, even though she knew it wouldn’t keep away the cold. Nothing could, not until James was safe and Tom Beaumont was gone. She pushed her way past a quarreling couple and into the market, scanning every face, every shadow, in search of T
om.
The Saturday night markets in Lambeth had come about as a chance for harried wives to buy a bit of food before their husbands drank up all the wages in dockside taverns. Sunday morning was too late. Now it had grown into dozens of stalls, rickety, open-sided structures lit with lamps and candles against the night. Cries of “Chestnuts all ’ot, a penny a score” and “Three a penny Yarmouth bloaters” rang out above the shouts of arguments and shrill haggling, the shrieks of children and the laughter of the rouge-cheeked prostitutes who strolled between the stalls.
The smells of the roasted chestnuts, buttered potatoes, cheap gin, and unwashed bodies hung heavy in the smoky air, caught above the close-packed crowd.
It wasn’t the worst place Lily had ever been by any means, and the crowd of streetwalkers and dock laborers were far from the most desperate. But the lit-up stalls cast an ominous red glow over the faces.
Suddenly, Lily felt a tug at her skirt. She whirled around to see a grubby-faced little girl in a patched gray dress. She stared up at Lily with such old eyes, and Lily recognized her as the girl from the park.
“You Lily, then?” the girl said.
“Yes, I am.”
“Come with me.”
The girl turned and slipped into the crowd without looking back to see if Lily followed. She led her beyond the lights of the market into a narrower warren of alleyways, hemmed in by blank, dirty walls with lines of damp laundry hanging listlessly overhead. A few ghostly faces peered down from the windows, and Lily could hear the slurred sound of drunken arguments, the yowl of a cat, the slap of flesh on flesh.
She pressed her hand to the concealed pocket tied at her waist and felt the weight of her pistol there.
The girl stopped at a half-open doorway. “In there,” she said, and held out her dirty hand. Lily dropped a coin into her grasp and then the girl was gone.
Lily peered into the building. It appeared to be a gin joint, a single large room with a rough plank bar and a few tables lit by one smoking lamp. Men and women lounged around, soft murmurs broken by barked demands for payment from the barkeep and whined pleas for one more glass.
As Lily stepped inside, the smell of unwashed bodies and the tang of spilled gin grew thicker, almost choking her. And underneath was something sweeter, headier, and more insidious—opium. It made her head swim, and she swallowed hard against the nausea.
“So you made it, did you, Lily?” she heard Tom say, and she turned to see him sitting by the wall, his chair tipped back so he could prop his scarred boots on the table. “I was startin’ to worry.”
Holding her hand over the gun, Lily slowly moved closer to him. She pushed away the old fear and reminded herself she was not a child now. This man had no power over her, not really.
But the sight of those burning dark eyes, so animalistic beneath heavy black brows, and the skull-topped stick that rested next to his boots on the table, made that ice inside of her tighten. And for some reason, she thought of Aidan, longed for Aidan. She wanted his quiet, deceptively powerful assurance at her side.
Pushing away that foolish desire, she stood in front of Tom. Aidan could never know about this, nor could her family. This was her battle to fight if she had any hope of beating Tom at his own game.
“Where is James?” she demanded.
“Now, Lily, is that any way to greet an old friend?” Tom said. He took a knife from his jacket pocket and slowly pared his nails as he smiled up at her. “It’s been so long since we saw each other; we should catch up. And don’t you worry about the St. Claire cub—he’s upstairs now with one of my best girls.”
“What do you want? Money?”
“I’m hurt, Lily m’love. We was so close once. Don’t you remember?”
“Is that what you call it?” Lily said tightly, remembering this man beating her. Locking her in a dark cupboard when she didn’t bring him enough coin at the end of the day.
Once, before he was caught and transported, Tom had had one of the largest crime networks in the stews of London. Thievery, blackmail, prostitution, running dodges. Dozens of people like Lily under his power. Even now, with Tom marked by his years under the harsh Australian sun, Lily sensed that cruel power. She took a step back, and he slowly planted his boots on the floor. The skull grinned up at her.
“You was one of my best girls, Lily,” he said. “Clever and quick-like. And look at you now. You landed on your feet right enough, without a thought for me after I took you in after your mum died. That’s not very friendly, is it?”
“You kidnapped me off the streets when I ran away from Madame Josephine’s.”
“And gave you a place to live! You would’ve been a common street whore in no time. But I ain’t here to quarrel about the past. I’m interested in the here and now. I hear you’re friendly with a duke’s fancy son, and I thought it was time you and me renewed our old acquaintance.”
Lily stared at him, her whole body gone tense and watchful, like a forest animal about to attack or be attacked. “What do you want?” she said again.
“Just for you to be friendly-like to me, Lily, now that you’ve had such good fortune.” Tom suddenly smiled, revealing cracked and broken teeth and the gleam of one gold incisor. “Your brother’s friendly enough. He likes my girls, y’see. They give him what he needs.”
“You stay away from him,” Lily cried. “This is between you and me.”
“That’s just what I hoped you’d say. You’ve turned into a pretty one, like your mum. You have her special skills now too?”
Lily shuddered at the tone of his voice, like a slimy slide over her skin. She wanted more than anything to pull out her gun and shoot him right here, right in his smirking, hideous face. But being seized in a cheap gin joint and going to prison for murder, hauled away to serve hard labor, would do no one any good. She had to stay calm.
And she remembered very well that she did still have a deft hand with a whip.
“Why don’t you let me show you?” she said quietly. Right where she could snap his dick off with one flick…
Tom laughed. “I did miss you, Lily girl. We could do so much together. I’m going to rebuild my old network, find some new jobs here in London. You’re just the one to help me.”
“So it is money you want. How much?”
“What’s money between friends? And I don’t just want money.”
“Then quit playing games. Tell me what it is you want exactly and let me take James home,” she snapped.
A group of loud, laughing people suddenly fell through the door from the street, filling the cramped space with their noise. The gin-soaked stupor was broken.
One of the men, a large, burly monster smelling of pipe smoke, seized Lily by the waist and swung her around in the air. Startled, she kicked out at him, but he just laughed and pressed a wet kiss to her neck.
Lily yanked his hair hard and struggled to get free. Every old instinct she had suppressed for so long rushed to the surface, and she fought like a cornered alley cat. She twisted around and sank her teeth into his hand.
“Bloody bitch!” the man shouted. He dropped her hard to the floor and slapped her across the face. Her head snapped back, and she tasted the bitter tang of blood. It only made her more furious.
Above the roaring in her head, she vaguely heard shouts and screams and the shattering of glass. And she wondered how, after years of trying to live quietly and respectably, she had been in two bar fights in less than a month. But there was no time for thinking; she had to move on instinct now, and she had to move fast. She needed to find James and get out of there.
The enraged man lunged for her, but she was much smaller and quicker. She ducked down under a table, away from the tumbling bodies and crashing feet. She caught a bottle as it rolled off the table and smashed the end off to make a dagger of sorts.
The smell of stale, spilled liquor and rotten garbage was stronger there, tinged with blood. Lily swiped the back of her hand over her lip, and it came away smeared with red, but she
knew she wasn’t the worst off here. Already men were slumped against the walls, battered by the fight. She quickly scanned their slack faces, yet none belonged to Tom Beaumont.
He seemed to have vanished from the fray. She knew he wouldn’t stay gone for long.
Suddenly she felt a fist close on her ankle and drag her from her meager shelter. She rolled over and brought up her other knee to try and ram her new captor in the groin, but he twisted away from her.
“What’s a pretty morsel like you doin’ here?” he said, and she felt a rough hand grope up her leg. She slung her bottle down on his greasy head, and when he collapsed to the floor, she kicked him out of the way and leaped to her feet. It was definitely time to get out of there.
She ran through the crowd, weaving her way past flying fists and falling bodies, until she found the narrow, dark staircase at the back of the room. She hurried up it, drawing out her pistol as she went.
It was much quieter there, the sound of the fight a muffled roar as she turned at the top landing and found herself facing a short corridor lined with closed doorways and filled with the scent of cheap perfume and opium smoke. Lily knew those were cramped cribs rented out to whores by the night or hour, a place where they could bring their customers—and possibly drug and rob them. No one here would want the trouble of a fight.
And James was here somewhere.
Lily hurried to the first door. The room was empty, as were the second and third. The fourth held two women and a naked man flung facedown across a small bed. The women looked at her from their kohl-rimmed eyes with no hint of surprise or interest, and the man was far too portly to be James, so she beat a hasty retreat.
James was in the fifth room, almost the last one along the corridor. As Lily pushed open the door, she glimpsed him sprawled out in a chair, his head arched back and his shirt open. A woman’s dyed-red head bobbed energetically between his spread legs.
“Oh, I did not need to see that,” Lily muttered, and spun away from the sight.
