The Heiress's Deception

by Christi Caldwell

  “You are late,” he said, immediately quashing her racing thoughts.

  “Forgive me.” She cringed at the breathless quality to her words, praying Calum had not heard it. Praying that he’d continue in his offish way as head proprietor of his club and—

  Calum turned around. Of course, the Lord had proved inordinately busy where Eve’s favors were concerned, of late.

  Now praying the dim lighting concealed her burning cheeks, she reached trembling fingers inside her apron and fished out her spectacles. “I broke my glasses,” she explained lamely.

  His gaze went to her extended fingers, and he narrowed his eyes. “You’re hurt,” he reproached, ripping out a white kerchief. Calum was across the room in three long strides. He snapped the fabric open. “Here,” he murmured, gathering her injured hand. Since the day he’d been dragged off by her brother, Eve had been unable to look at a hint of blood without thinking of Calum. Those crimson drops had been reminders of his suffering and her complicity in what she’d believed had been his death. In this instance, there was none of the usual horror. There was simply . . . him. Tending her wound as she’d tended his years earlier. Little tingles radiated from where his larger hand encompassed hers. His grip strong, and yet surprisingly gentle in its tenderness, belied by the nicks and scars on his own.

  Her heart turned over as she caught and fixed not on the now crimson-stained fabric he held to her thumb . . . but on one single mark marring his own skin. That faded scar, from a wound he’d received long ago. One she’d tended, in the same way he now returned the favor.

  “Who did this to you, Calum?”

  “And what will you do? Fight them for me, Duchess?”

  As he pressed the embroidered fabric to the slight gash on the pad of her thumb, she stared at his bent head. The deep chestnut hue of his hair was a glorious shade, one she’d secretly envied him for as a girl of nine. Now a woman of nearly six and twenty, nearly seventeen years older, she was filled with a different longing. A longing to slip her fingers through those strands and explore whether they were as silken as they appeared.

  He looked up, and their gazes collided.

  She braced for him to step away and put a respectable distance between them.

  Calum, however, remained rooted to the spot before her, unrepentant in his regard. A man in control of any moment he wished to command.

  I should step away. I should remove my hand from his grasp and be the proper duke’s daughter I was raised to be. She was wholly incapable where Calum Dabney was concerned. The sandalwood scent that lingered on his skin, wholly masculine, held her spellbound. How very different he was even in that regard from Lord Flynn and Gerald, who doused themselves in floral-scented fragrances.

  Calum leaned closer. Eve’s lashes fluttered, and she tilted back to receive his kiss. And there was no fear as there’d been with Lord Flynn. Only an aching, pressing need to know Calum in this way—

  “There,” he said with a matter-of-factness that had the same effect as cold water being tossed upon her head. “I believe it is stopped.”

  Skin burning at her girlish mooning, she swiftly directed her gaze to the hand still clasped in his.

  And then reality intruded in, in a whole new way.

  Nausea churned in her belly, and bile climbed her throat at those vivid crimson stains. Do not be a weak fool . . . he is alive . . .

  Except, her mind cared not for the truth before her. It was grounded instead in thoughts of betrayal and treachery ruthlessly committed by her brother, and unwittingly conducted because of her.

  “Eve?

  Calum’s gruff baritone came as if down a long hall as she blinked, fighting back the dull humming in her ears. “You’re afraid of blood,” he said, as though he’d discovered another wonder of the world.

  “I’m not afraid of blood, Calum,” she managed to get out, past a heavy tongue. For she wasn’t. She was horrified by the memories attached to the sticky, warm substance. Altogether different than simply being afraid with groundless reasons. Her fingers searched about for something with which to steady her legs, and she found purchase from the carved oak writing table.

  “Sit,” Calum spoke in tones suited to a military general. The scrape of wood upon wood indicated he’d dragged the chair closer.

  Incapable of words, fighting to still her panic, Eve sank onto the edge. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the rasp of her breath, inordinately loud in her ears . . . until it calmed, and stilled—and order was restored.

  “Drink.” Calum set a glass down on the tilted red velvet surface of his desk.

  She gave her head a shake. Having witnessed her brother’s cruelty after he’d imbibed, Eve despised even looking at a decanter. “I don’t . . .”

  “I said drink,” he said firmly, and with slightly unsteady fingers, this time, Eve complied.

  She took a small, experimental sip, grimacing as the aromatic bitterness burned her throat. What rotted stuff. What man in his right mind would ever willingly consume such a potent brew?

  “Take another,” Calum urged.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him.

  “Take another sip,” he ordered.

  Eve complied, and this time the acrid taste was slightly lessened, so much that she took another. A soothing warmth suffused her chest, blotting out the earlier nightmares and replacing them with a pleasant calm. In control of her thoughts once more, Eve set aside the unfinished drink.

  He eyed her with more concern than she deserved from this man, and she braced for questions and worrying that she didn’t want. “You summoned me, Mr. Dabney,” she reminded, deliberately using his surname in a bid to throw up a wall between them and drive him away from questions she couldn’t answer . . . couldn’t answer without revealing dangerously too much information.

  Having protected himself since he was an orphaned boy of five, living first in a ruthless foundling house and then on the streets, Calum had become a master of diversionary maneuvers.

  From picking pockets, to avoiding punishment at the hands of his brutal gang leader, to missing payments on the first hovel he and his siblings called home, Calum had perfected the art of evasion.

  It was why he knew from Eve’s use of his formal name and choice of language that she sought to deflect questions.

  That attempt on her part also spoke to the lady’s naïveté in matters of diversion. For with that curt, out-of-character reply, she’d only further stirred his wondering about her . . . and what brought her inside his hell.

  I’m not afraid of blood, Calum.

  Yet it was that weak pronouncement she’d uttered that whispered around his mind, calling forth memories of long ago, those same words, uttered with that same resolve. God, he’d not thought of the little girl who’d nearly sealed his fate in more years than he could remember. With time, he’d accepted that a child born of the peerage had first allegiance to her family . . . just as Calum did to his kin of the streets. And he’d buried away thoughts of Little Lena.

  So, what was it about her that made him want to know more about Eve Swindell . . . for reasons that didn’t have to do solely with suspicion? Because she had more pride than most men he knew, and he’d wager she’d sooner pick up a knife and make herself bleed once more before admitting that she’d been so affected by the gash on her finger.

  Taking in the slowly restored color to her previously wan cheeks, he backed away from the questions he had for her and brought them around to the reason for their meeting. “Tomorrow, you’ll meet with our brandy distributor. I’ll accompany you, perform introductions, and allow you to discuss next month’s shipment.”

  She wet her lips. “I—I’m to leave the club, then.”

  Was she eager to be free of this place? “That’s generally how meetings occur,” he said in droll tones.

  The young woman glanced distractedly about, briefly dropping her stare to the copy of the Times resting on his desk, before returning her gaze to his. “And are these respectable stree
ts?” she asked hesitantly.

  He narrowed his eyes. Eve demonstrated the same reservations as the previous two women to hold the post before her. “Lambeth. If that is a problem, you’re free to find another post,” he said bluntly. He’d not waste either of their time with an assignment that wouldn’t work for either of them.

  Eve gave her head a dizzying shake. “No. No,” she said quickly. “That is fine. Lambeth Street, you said?” Drawing forth her little journal and a charcoal pencil, Eve made a note in her book. Her fingers faintly trembled; however, when she spoke, her tones were even, and he gave a silent nod to that bid for strength on her part. “What time am I to meet him?” she asked, picking her gaze up.

  I. Not we or you. There was a total ownership of the responsibility laid out, and Eve rose all the more in his estimation. When the former bookkeeper had discovered the less-than-savory location, she’d refused to go, pleading with Ryker to send someone else in her stead. For his earliest reservations in hiring her, it was hard to not acknowledge that she was a woman of strength. “Tomorrow at eleven o’clock. Immediately after, I’ll coordinate a meeting between you and our wheat supplier.”

  Eve merely nodded and scribbled several more notes in her book. Businesslike. Professional. And damned seductive for it.

  “Yesterday you mentioned I’d be responsible for visiting the floors.” Whereas she’d initially demonstrated unease at the prospect, now she spoke with a calm pragmatism.

  Regretting that he’d deliberately set her at unease the day before, he motioned to the windows. “This is the Observatory,” he explained. He strode over to the clever glass panels that had been installed at his request and insistence at the inception of the club. “In here, you’ll have free opportunity to assess the crowds, as well as the habits and behaviors of our clients.” From within the window, he saw her climb reluctantly to her feet and make her way over. She hovered at the edge of his shoulder, that tentativeness at odds with whom she’d proved herself to be. What made Eve Swindell go from fearless challenger one instant to hesitant, silent miss the next? She was a conundrum that he had a dangerous yearning to unravel.

  Eve lingered behind him, peeking out at the floors below.

  Ah, so that was it. Not unlike the two previous women to come before her, she’d reservations about having any form of dealings with the men who tossed aside their fortunes inside these walls. “In here, you’ll be able to observe them; however, those on the floors will be unable to see you,” he expanded. “The windows were specially designed so that one side presents as a window and the other a mirror.”

  An appreciative murmur left her lips. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Eve drifted closer and pressed her uninjured hand to the glass, almost experimentally. Then, glancing about, she touched her forehead to the surface.

  Her eyes formed round pools of wonder as the patrons, guards, and dealers below all carried on with their tasks. None sparing any notice to the two people now watching them.

  “How?” she breathed, with the same reverent awe as Calum when the mirror-maker he’d commissioned had managed the feat.

  Calum ran his palm over the pane, the surface warm under his touch. “The gaming rooms are brightly lit, and the Observatory is kept largely dark. Those lit rooms mask the reflection.”

  “Brilliant,” she said, stroking her fingers beside his.

  He followed the path they traced—the distracted but appreciative stroking that conjured wicked images of her graceful hands moving a like path over him. Desire humming in his veins, Calum forced himself to look out to the patrons mingling below.

  “Whoever thought of such a thing?” she asked, angling her head up.

  “I had the idea for them and interviewed numerous mirror-makers, many who couldn’t understand what I was requesting, many others who said it could never be done, and one who asked for a time frame to have the project completed by.”

  She eyed him with some surprise. “You are an inventor, then.”

  He scoffed. “Hardly that.”

  “You’re modest, Calum. Do you know how many items I’m responsible for creating?” With her thumb and forefinger, she formed a round circle. “So, do not diminish your accomplishments merely to circumvent any praise.”

  His neck heated, and he tugged at his collar. “They’re but a handful of ideas, and all for the betterment of the club.”

  Brow creased, Eve peered out, searchingly. “What are the others?” she pressed, fixing on that first part of his statement.

  “The pillars,” he clarified, indicating the wide columns throughout the establishment. “There is a hidden handle, and in the event of emergencies on the floor, a person can open the latch and slip down a narrow stairwell.”

  Eve eyed those unused emergency escapes—his brothers had fought him on constructing them for the cost—with new interest. She wet her lips. “And have you . . . had need for one of those emergency exits?” she ventured.

  She’d no place probing, and he had no place sharing with this woman, who was a suspicious stranger come to him just two nights earlier. Calum stuffed his hands inside his jacket pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet. “Not here,” he confessed, the admission dragged slowly from him. What accounted for his sharing details with her, details she’d no place knowing?

  “But somewhere?” She whispered the words more to herself.

  She was astute enough to be dangerous. Her question brought Calum back to another night . . . to the man who’d indelibly marked Calum for his carelessness—the Duke of Bedford. Fiery hatred stung his veins as it always did when he saw or thought of or heard mention of one of their best patrons at the Hell and Sin. Even the satisfaction in earning his coin was insignificant when compared with the fears that powerful peer had left him with.

  Eve settled her hand on his sleeve. The warmth of her touch, through the fabric of his garments, penetrated his dark musings. “Somewhere,” he said at last, and in a bid to drive away the temptingly dangerous tenderness gleaming in her eyes, he gave her the darkest part of himself. “Newgate.”

  Her fingers curled reflexively on his arm, and all the color leached from her cheeks. She said nothing. And then it reached him, faint and hoarse with regret. “I am so very sorry.”

  Only this time, the mere mention of that hellish prison, which usually brought him to a cold sweat, only ushered in a need to assure this almost stranger before him. “I survived and I learned,” he said reasonably, not elucidating.

  At her silence, he glanced down. A lone tear streaked a path along her cheek, and the unspoken sign of her sadness gutted him. With the pad of his thumb, he automatically caught that drop at the corner of her mouth. “I thought you said you didn’t cry,” he whispered, lingering his finger near those bow-shaped lips.

  “I don’t. I haven’t. In two years,” she clarified, and that telling statement spoke to a period of suffering in her own life.

  But God help him, as she spoke, his gaze remained fixed on her unconventional mouth—that thinner upper lip and plump bottom one—

  I am lost . . .

  With a groan, he covered her mouth with his. For a moment, Eve went tense in his arms, bringing her fists up against his chest, and that penetrated the incomprehensible lust he had for this woman. But then Eve twisted her fingers in his jacket and retained her hold on him. Angling her head, she opened herself up to his kiss.

  Emboldened by the breathless rasps spilling past her lips, he explored the fascinating textures of her with first a tenderness and then, increasingly emboldened with a groan, he was set free.

  Calum claimed her mouth in a ritual devoid of innocence, one meant to taste, brand, and forever remember. She panted against him, one word—his name—driving his lust to a blinding level. Gathering her buttocks in his hand, he guided Eve against the mirror and thrust his tongue inside to learn the taste of her.

  She kissed with the same spirit she’d showed at their first meeting. Tentatively at first, and then she tangled her hands i
n his hair and angled her head, meeting his tongue in a primal dance.

  Their breaths rose and fell in a rapid cadence as he searched his hand over her body, exploring her through the fabric of her wool gown. Wanting to strip it away and feel only her satin-soft skin against his. Calum shifted his attentions from her mouth, and she cried out in protest.

  But he only trailed his lips lower, to the corner of her mouth, then over to the delicate lobe of her right ear. He captured the flesh and gently suckled, ringing a gasp from her kiss-swollen lips. Thrilling at the way her hips began to undulate against him, his shaft sprang even harder to life, and he continued his exploration by touching his lips to her neck, to that place where her pulse pounded.

  “Calum.” His name emerged as a keening plea, heavy with desire, and fueled his ardor.

  “Who are you, Eve Swindell?” he whispered, his breath coming in a deep, panting rasp as he shifted his focus to her modest décolletage. Who was she that she’d make him forget his every principle on trusting his instincts, letting her in his club and his life?

  Her only reply was a whimpering moan as she thrashed her head noisily against the window, clasping his head and holding him against the swell of her breasts.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall, cutting across this stolen moment of madness.

  He wrenched away from Eve. She immediately slumped against the wall. Legs slightly splayed, her gown disheveled, and her limp curls mussed, there could be no disputing just what they’d been doing. “What . . . ?” she rasped, befuddlement in her desire-hazed eyes.

  Quickly guiding her about to face the hell, he hurriedly moved himself into position at the writing desk, presenting his back to the front of the room.

  An instant later, the door opened.

  He stole a glance at the window just as Adair stepped in. “A note’s arrived from . . .” His brother’s words immediately trailed off. And Calum didn’t even have to glance back, or look in the mirror, to note his brother’s clever eyes assessing a still slightly slumped and flushed Eve Swindell. “Helena,” Adair finished, stalking over. He placed the page down on the damningly empty surface of Calum’s desk.