The Heiress's Deception

by Christi Caldwell

  His skin pricked under Adair’s piercing scrutiny. “That will be all, Mrs. Swindell,” Calum said. Eyes averted, the lady tripped over herself in her haste to leave.

  When she’d closed the door behind her, Calum’s neck went hot, and that embarrassed heat climbed to his cheeks. By God, who’d have imagined he, Calum Dabney, guttersnipe turned pickpocket and gaming hell owner, was still capable of blushing? “What?” he groused, as with Eve’s departure and Adair’s recriminating stare, guilt settled hard like a stone in his belly.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Adair pointed out, holding his palms up.

  “You didn’t have to,” he muttered, grabbing the note from his sister, grateful for the diversion. Calum had kissed a woman in his employ. Not just any woman . . . a respectable lady whose kiss spoke to her innocence. And he’d backed her against the wall and wanted to drag her skirts to her waist, lose himself inside her. Breaking the seal, he skimmed the missive from Helena. All the while Adair’s accusatory eyes remained fixed on him. As they should be. Calum wasn’t a man given to forcing his attentions on an employee, and he certainly wasn’t one to forget all logic and reason with a stranger he’d known but a handful of days.

  Focusing all his energies on Helena’s letter, Calum refolded it. “I’ll need you to escort Mrs. Swindell to Lambeth. Coordinate her introductions with Carter and Bowen.”

  The window reflected Adair’s casual stance as he tapped his index fingers together, studying Calum over the top. “And does this abrupt change of plans in your escorting the lady have anything to do with Mrs. Swindell’s wrinkled dress and blushing cheeks?”

  I’ll be damned if I answer that.

  When Calum said nothing, he smirked. “I thought so.”

  Ignoring his brother’s attempt to needle, Calum held out Helena’s missive. “Write Helena. Let her know I’ll be ’round to visit Sunday morn.” Notoriously the quietest times at the club, after gentlemen slept off a night of their depravity and maintained at least an artificial sense of civility and decency.

  Adair stuffed the page inside his jacket. “Seems stronger than the two prior bookkeepers,” he ventured searchingly.

  He grunted, refusing to feed his brother’s encouragement or curiosity. “She’s a stranger.” One he’d had against the glass windows, kissing senseless, moments ago.

  “We were once strangers, too. Eventually we became family.”

  Calum didn’t need him to point out tales of the bonds strangers could form. Having found his street family at a young age, he himself knew the strength that could be found in those connections . . . but also the peril. And there could be no doubting that with her inextricable pull, Eve Swindell was more dangerous than walking with one’s pockets turned out through the streets of St. Giles. For his brother’s seeming ability to make light of Calum’s inexplicable draw toward the clever-witted lady, the fact remained there was nothing amusing about the entire situation involving Eve.

  “See to the letter,” he said, steeling that order with a finality meant to tamp out any probing. “Oh, and Adair,” he called when Adair turned to take his leave, “let me know if the lady gives you any leave for suspicion.”

  Because even desiring her as he did, he’d be a fool to not be wary of a person new to their midst.

  Calum dragged a hand through his hair. In the handful of days he’d known her, Eve had shown mettle that no other woman had ever demonstrated in his presence. Yes, she’d wavered and shown deserved fear at moments, as any sensible lady would . . . and yet she’d not backed down. She’d not been reduced to a blubbering mess of tears, as the last two bookkeepers had. Even the prostitutes, turned servants and serving girls, demonstrated a propensity for histrionics. Of course, it was natural that a woman of Eve Swindell’s strength would have this maddening hold on his senses.

  The truth still remained—lusting after a lady in his employ went against his every moral fiber. Acting on that hungering marked him the worst sort of scoundrel.

  Regardless of this inexplicable awareness of Eve Swindell, she was a worker on his staff, and outside of that there could be nothing else with the lady. He steeled his jaw. He’d do well to remember that.

  Chapter 9

  Indiscreet servants could less than discreetly destroy a lady. It was a foolish adage her stiffly proper governess had ingrained into Eve’s head early on . . . a reminder to always be cautious and on guard.

  Now Eve saw that old saying in an altogether different light. One that reminded her a lady could learn much by simply listening to the men and women who knew the inner workings of a household. Or in her would-be case now—a gaming hell.

  It was how Eve knew Calum had a meeting planned with his sister, the Duchess of Somerset, and when and where that meeting would take place. She’d even gleaned some of the speculation of what brother and sister would discuss.

  Eve, however, had been far less interested in the personal discourse shared by a brother and sister than in the duration of said meeting.

  From the elegant chambers she now called home, Eve stared out her small, lone window into the streets below. Just as she’d been staring for the better part of an hour. Calum was to visit his sister in Mayfair, which in and of itself was remarkable. One of her brothers, though loving and devoted when he was around, had spent the majority of his life traveling for the Home Office. Her other sibling hadn’t had a use for her over the years, until their father had died and he’d seen the value in a match she might make. Calum, however, paid visits to his own sibling, and by the whispers of the servants, did so to discuss the overall health and business of the club. Her own father had never allowed her to touch a ledger or so much as discuss their estates or holdings . . . until he’d fallen ill, and Gerald had only turned the task over to her because he was too indolent to waste his time with anything that wasn’t liquor, wagering, or whoring. Calum not only entrusted those meaningful tasks to a woman but also, by his servants’ whisperings, valued and appreciated his sister’s business acumen.

  Then, that fit so very perfectly with the boy she’d known long ago. He’d not cared that she was years younger or an underfoot girl—as Gerald used to complain. Rather, he’d spoken freely the way he might speak to any boy or peer, and as a little girl she’d been hopelessly in love with him for it.

  It was no less heady for her as a woman grown, still invisible in society because she’d been born a female. Her heart did a little somersault inside her chest, and she briefly closed her eyes. This appreciation and awareness for the man Calum had become was perilous. For nothing could ever come of them—not any relationship. Not even a true friendship. Nothing but lies had brought her here, and every day she remained in his hell, she perpetuated further falsehoods. A man who valued honor and respectability as he did could never—nay, would never—forgive those transgressions. Particularly not from the woman whose family had nearly seen him hanged.

  No, had he gleaned her identity, he’d have more than likely tossed her out on her buttocks than kiss her as he had.

  A kiss that had been the height of magic, wonder, and beauty. One that she’d secretly dreamed of one day knowing, while all the while giving up on hopes for that passion. Men were not attracted to a barely five-foot lady with a freckled nose and crooked teeth.

  Calum had disproved something she’d taken as fact. He’d made her feel—for the first time in the whole of her life—beautiful. And he welcomed her opinions on his business and ledgers. She groaned and knocked her forehead against the windowpane. “You are a fool,” she muttered as a litany, over and over. She’d not come here to lust and long after the proprietor of a gaming hell. Even a towering, broad, perfect specimen of masculinity like Calum Dabney. She’d come for shelter and safety, and she’d do well to remember that. Eve gave her head a hard shake and, thrusting thoughts of him back, opened her eyes.

  And froze.

  Calum collected the reins of his mount from a waiting servant.

  Gasping, she jumped back and let the cu
rtain fall promptly into place. She stood frozen, heart hammering wildly. Had he seen her? As soon as the thought slid in, she groaned. I am rot at this subterfuge business. It hardly mattered whether he’d seen her staring out into the streets. Why should he assume she was waiting on him to leave? Edging over to the window once more, she pulled the curtain back and glanced down.

  Calum stood, his back to her perusal, and surveyed the streets. Periodically the liveried servant nodded. A moment later, Calum pulled himself astride and guided his mount onward down the street. She followed him until he’d disappeared from vision. He is gone.

  It was what she’d been waiting nearly an hour for—the proprietor to take himself off for his visit so she might leave. Her stomach lurched, and she stared blankly out at the streets of St. Giles. “Go,” she whispered, willing herself to move. And yet, for all her resolve to get to the foundling hospital and see Nurse Mattison, she could not bring her legs around to form a single, simple step. Instead, words splashed upon the front page of one of the Times swirled around her head.

  . . . the brokenhearted Duke of Bedford vowed he will not rest until she is returned to him . . .

  Eve pressed quaking palms to her face. Do not let him control you in this . . . He’d too much power over her. In the end, thoughts of that beloved nurse and the children at that hospital propelled her into movement.

  Before her courage deserted her, she rushed to retrieve her cloak.

  Shrugging into the garment, she drew her hood up and grabbed her reticule. With purposeful steps, she hurried to the door and let herself out. Taking care to use the servants’ entrance, she made her way into the belly of the house. Every step taken sent her pulse racing and frayed her nerves. She held her breath, all but waiting for someone to jump out and demand to know where she was slinking off to.

  Except, as she reached the lowest level of the club, passing servants engrossed in their tasks didn’t even bother with a spared look. Clutching her reticule close, she used the side entrance. The guard, MacTavish, spared her a brief look, and she favored him with a forced smile. Wordlessly, he pulled the door open and stepped aside.

  All the while, he eyed her with a flinty stare. Her cheeks warmed. Did she truly expect any other reaction from the guard she’d also deceived into showing her rooms and borrowing the club’s books? “MacTavish,” she said with a jaunty wave, feeling his eyes follow her as she picked her way outside.

  Ignoring her greeting, he shut the door behind her.

  She grimaced, imagining that her wave had probably been nothing close to jaunty. She’d never been one of those casual, demure ladies. Such skill, as her governess had called it, always eluded Eve.

  Once she reached the end of the alley, she paused. The peril in being out here gripped her with a staggering hold. The hunted . . . that was what Gerald had made her, for in those copies of the Times she’d taken to reading, he’d the whole of London looking for the poor, cherished sister. Her gaze caught on a smartly dressed dandy strolling to the entrance of the Hell and Sin, and unwittingly, she drew her hood closer and huddled inside the worn wool fabric. Anytime she stepped outside the club, she risked being discovered by her brother. If she was discovered . . .

  Her palms moistened, and drawing in a steadying breath, Eve borrowed support from the stucco wall. A brother who sent a friend to rape his sister, who buried that sister’s head in a bucket of freezing water, was capable of evil and ruthlessness that her mind could never understand or anticipate. The terror and helplessness as water flooded her nostrils, choking off airflow.

  And not for the first time since she’d talked herself into leaving the club and visiting the foundling hospital, fear, ushered in by her own cowardice, held her immobile. For having credited Gerald with being brainless in all ways that mattered, the truth remained that he was clever in the ways that could destroy a person. It was dangerous to visit the foundling hospital. Given everything her brother knew about her devotion to that place, and the likelihood that he’d think to search for her there, it was the last place she should go. Go back inside . . . Nurse Mattison will understand when you return . . .

  Eve cast a long look over her shoulder, logic warring with her sense of right. If you do not do this, you are as shameful and weak and wrong as you were all those years ago to Calum . . . That taunting, niggling, and bloody accurate whispering in her mind slammed into her. Silently cursing, she whipped her head forward and scanned the streets for a sign of a hackney. Finding one stopped on the opposite side of the road, nearly twenty paces from where she now hid, Eve abandoned the safety of her hiding place and marched determinedly toward that conveyance.

  She didn’t know what she expected as she made an endless-feeling walk. For cries to go up at a sighting of the missing heiress? Instead, she reached the carriage without incident. From atop his perch, the balding driver flicked a dismissive glance over her brown cloak.

  Reaching inside her reticule, Eve fished out a coin. “The Salvation Foundling Hospital on Lambeth,” she said in regal tones that immediately sent the man scrambling to the ground.

  “Aye, miss,” he said, quickly stuffing the coin inside his jacket. He pulled the door open and helped her inside.

  Moments later the door closed, the conveyance dipped, and they were rumbling on, and only then did Eve allow herself to sink back on the uncomfortable squabs. She dropped her head against the wall. Yes, it was folly visiting Nurse Mattison. Eve, however, was remarkably without choice. Eve’s visits to that institution had been as regular as a ticking clock, and the monetary contributions she’d been able to make were vital. It was not just the nurse who relied on Eve’s assistance with the record keeping and overall running of the fast-crumbling institution, but all the children who were unfortunate enough to find themselves alone in the world.

  Just as Calum had been.

  Her throat pulsed as she considered the snarling, starving boy he’d been. Taking scraps from her and shelter in her family’s stables, he could have so easily died in the streets. Instead, he’d risen up and created an empire that provided work to men, women, and children. She absently rubbed her fingertips over her reticule where the two hundred-pound notes rested. How was it possible for a place to provide security and stability for some, but then destitution and hopelessness as it had for women such as Eve? Women who, by a chance of fate, found themselves dependent upon husbands, fathers, and sons for security and stability. And when those same gentlemen cared not for preserving those gifts, all that remained was fear and uncertainty.

  This is what Calum’s life had been like . . . As a girl, she’d witnessed his suffering and ached for his sorry state. As a woman, who’d been marred by her brother’s failings and evil, she now understood just what Calum’s existence had been like. The tangible fear. The helplessness. The sense of shame and regret in needing the gracious help of others in order to survive.

  The carriage rolled to a slow stop, and she looked out the window. She’d arrived.

  “We’re ’ere, miss,” the driver said, pulling the door open.

  Before her courage deserted her, and reason won out, she accepted a hand down. “Please, see that you wait. There will be more,” she promised, handing over another precious coin. She took a step and then froze. Her skin pricked with the feeling of being . . . watched. Huddling inside her cloak, she stole a look around, grateful for even the slim concealment of the garment. Do not be silly . . . it is your fear causing you to see monsters in the shadows . . . And with a courage she did not feel, Eve hastened across the street, climbed the steps of the foundling hospital, and slipped inside.

  “Well?”

  It took nothing more than his sister Helena’s single-syllable greeting to determine that Calum’s company had been motivated more by business than any polite, familial social visit.

  Smiling wryly, Calum settled his large frame into the chair opposite her spool-turned desk. “Generally, visits usually begin with a hello or good morning,” he drawled, stretching his legs
out and hooking them at the ankles.

  His sister removed her spectacles and set them down. “You’ve hired a bookkeeper.”

  “Unless you’re you,” he said drily. “Then, that is how a morning visit begins.”

  Rolling her eyes, Helena scooted forward. “Well?” she demanded again.

  The former bookkeeper, she’d overseen the ledgers with a skill no one else had proved capable of and a meticulousness that was nearly unmatched. Having grown up in the streets, she’d had a sharp mathematical mind that had helped their family rise from the rubble and establish greatness.

  “Well . . . I’ve hired a bookkeeper.” He paused. “Again,” he added for good measure, because it really did bear mentioning that since she’d gone and married the Duke of Somerset two years earlier, they’d been wholly incapable of replacing her.

  Eve, as she’d been jabbing a finger in challenge at one of those erroneous columns, flashed to his mind. Or they had been unable to find a suitable replacement.

  The scrape of Helena’s chair as she dragged it forward slashed into his musings. She peered at him with a stoic intensity she’d always been in possession of. What would she think and say should she discover that you had the new bookkeeper in your employ against a wall, and your mouth on hers? Calum forced himself to go absolutely still.

  After an interminable stretch, his sister reclined in her chair. “Who?”

  He provided a brief detailing of the previous bookkeeper’s flight and theft, and the subsequent hiring of Eve. Calum took specific care to dance around the details. When he’d finished, Helena drummed her fingertips along the immaculate surface of the desk.

  “You were fleeced.”

  He sighed. Of course, she’d focus on that. As she should.

  “We were fleeced,” he pointed out. All their siblings were shareholders of the hell and in equal ways affected.