The Heiress's Deception

by Christi Caldwell

Giving up on all hope of rest, Eve swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood. The hardwood floor cool under her feet, Eve rushed over to the deep, carved Normandy armoire. She shed her nightshift, shivering as gooseflesh dotted her skin. Eve grabbed a chemise and hurriedly yanked it on. Then she collected another drab muslin gown. She pulled it overhead until it settled noisily at her ankles. She made to close the door but stopped suddenly as her gaze snagged on the inlaid mirror, the reflection that stared back more a stranger than the figure who’d fled Mayfair. The odor of her hair had faded slightly, but the strands remained as black as midnight. Her skirts revealed their age and wear.

  It was no wonder Calum had not gleaned her identity. Not only had she been a child when last they’d met, but she’d also been an elegantly attired one, clad in only the finest silks and satins. Eve gathered her plaited strands and stared at that unfamiliar shade of hair against her white palm. How far a person fell. Yet, Calum stood as proof of how one who struggled might also rise up. And Calum, unlike the pompous nobles who wagered away their money on the floors below, had made his own fortune. Eve pulled on her slippers and, quitting her rooms, made her way to the offices Calum had set up for her—directly alongside his.

  Nor did she believe that placement a mere coincidence. The fact that he’d followed her through the streets of Lambeth and his earlier admissions at the foundling hospital were proof that he’d misgivings about her as a person and her being here. He was right in those reservations, just not in the way he believed. She wished no ill upon his club—even if he and his fellow proprietors owned a large portion of her family’s fortune. Gerald was to blame for those losses. Her only secrets were meant to preserve her own safety and security.

  As she padded by Calum’s office, the rumble of Calum’s and his brother’s voices from within carried out to the hall, bringing her to a slow stop.

  “Attendance is still down . . .”

  What Calum discussed with his brother did not involve her. She’d no place standing here listening at keyholes. So why could she not make her feet move? Eve strained to make out the remainder of Mr. Thorne’s words.

  “. . . Profits are also d . . .”

  Whatever Calum’s reply was, however, was lost to the heavy wood panel. His club is . . . suffering? She furrowed her brow, contemplating those books she’d attended during her time here. The club’s earnings from the month alone were enough to feed a small village for that period. Those facts stood in direct contradiction to the somber, rapid-fire discussion between Calum and his brother. Tiptoeing past his office to the next door, she quietly pressed the handle. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the dimly lit space. She collected an unlit candle from a silver candelabra and carried it to the hall.

  Borrowing the flame from a lit sconce, she returned to her office. Eve went about the room, touching the tip of her candle to the candelabra. Replacing the white wax to its previous position, she picked up the fine silver piece and carried it closer to her desk, to where Calum’s books now rested.

  Eve snapped open the first book and set to work. Periodically, the loud rumble of Calum’s baritone as he spoke with Mr. Thorne penetrated the wall.

  “. . . it is becoming increasingly clear we have a problem . . .” Mr. Thorne shouted, and Eve jumped.

  She picked her head up briefly from her task, and when the voices on the other side of that wall dissolved to hushed, muted murmurs, she resumed working. Where certain people were born with an effortless skill, and tabulating columns and comparing monthly and annual reports came effortlessly, anything mathematical had always been a chore to Eve. It had been something she’d despised in the schoolroom. Her proficiency had been born of necessity. When her late father had taken ill and the Pruitts’ accounting had shifted to her, Eve’s entire life had become those records and books. Alone in the country when most women were making their Come Outs, she’d instead spent the hours she wasn’t attending her father focused on the ledgers. They’d given her purpose and proved a distraction from the agony of watching her father deteriorating from his wasting illness.

  However, just as they’d provided a diversion, she’d also detested those books. From the moment Gerald had thrust those responsibilities onto her shoulders, every other pleasure and joy she’d taken in life had become nothing more than an afterthought. Her love of literature. Those great Greek works. Astronomy. All of it had become nothing more than a frivolity not permitted for a woman on the cusp of financial ruin. For even with her brother’s evil, and as much as Gerald deserved nothing but misery, just as men and women relied upon Calum and his club, so too did they depend upon the Pruitts.

  “. . . You need to send word to Ryker . . . explain we are in troub—”

  Mr. Thorne’s sharp tone brought her head back up.

  We are in trouble . . .

  She peered at the open pages, running her gaze back and forth over the columns. Surely things were not so dire . . .

  “Focus,” she muttered under her breath. It’s not your place to listen in on their exchange. What Calum intends for you to know about the financial details surrounding the club are for him to decide. Except . . . Chewing at her lower lip, she stole a little peek at the wall dividing her and Calum’s offices—it was hardly her fault that she’d picked up pieces of their discussion. The same curiosity her nursemaids had lamented would bring her trouble propelled Eve to her feet. Setting her pen down, she picked her way carefully over to the adjoining wall. She fiddled with the latch at the window and pushed it open. The hinges, in desperate need of oiling, creaked loudly in the silent room, and she abruptly stopped.

  With the window hanging partially agape, Eve stood motionless, breath held. Distant shouts and the clatter of horses’ hooves echoed outside. She focused on counting the beats of the clock atop her mantel, and when there were no fiery accusations from the room next door, Eve leaned her head out.

  We are in trouble.

  There it was. At last stated aloud by one of the proprietors of the Hell and Sin. It was a fact Calum had first feared and then known for too long. Now, with Adair having given those words life, it made them true in a way that sent terror knocking around Calum’s chest.

  We are in trouble. Acknowledging that they’d gone from all-powerful to even slightly vulnerable brought Calum back more than five and twenty years to the darkest moments in his life. Back to a time when he’d been a hungry boy in the streets, sleeping in back alleys and willing to trade his soul for shelter from the snow. How quickly he’d gone from being the beloved, well-cared-for son of a merchant to a street urchin, begging on the streets and eventually picking pockets. He’d learned firsthand how very fickle fate was, as evidenced by his rapid fall and then rise. The gentlemen who’d lost their fortunes and properties at this very club demonstrated that fact daily.

  “You don’t deny it,” Adair accurately pointed out, pouring himself a brandy. He paused, then filled his glass to the rim.

  “Why would I deny it?” Calum’s gaze slid over to last year’s ledgers stacked on his desk. “Not acknowledging the changes that have occurred will not make them go away. The Devil’s Den has been bleeding our membership—”

  “This is not all Broderick Killoran,” Adair cut in.

  Calum went silent. No, Adair was correct on that. While the other man seated across from him sipped his brandy, Calum contemplated that statement. They had been in trouble for a long time now. It had only begun with Broderick Killoran taking ownership of the Devil’s Den and slowly building up that club into an empire to challenge, then rival, and now surpass, the Hell and Sin. But even then, the Hell and Sin might have remained largely unscathed. There were enough wastrel lords for the two clubs to share.

  “It might get better,” he lied.

  Adair paused, glass midway to his mouth. “It’s gotten worse.”

  Yes, the nobility might freely visit a gaming hell run by former street ruffians. There were many crimes and sins those reprobates could forgive. What they’d not tolerate no
r accept were the proprietors of the hell bedding and then wedding members of their noble ranks. Oh, when Ryker had inadvertently ruined and been forced to wed Lady Penelope, that had been a crime the lords had overlooked. Having been born the bastard of a duke, and then titled for an act of bravery, Ryker had—whether he liked it or not—ascended to their ranks.

  To the ton, men such as Calum, Niall, and Adair were altogether different. It wouldn’t matter to the peerage that Calum’s parents had been married and his father a failed merchant. The world would forever see them in a like light: bastards risen from the darkest streets of London. Baseborn thugs and thieves turned club owners would never be welcomed within their midst. Niall’s recent marriage to the Duke of Wilkinson’s daughter was proof of that. Many of their once loyal patrons turned faster than the swiftest pickpocket making off with a fat purse. For with that union, the Hell and Sin proprietors had crossed an egregious line that could not be uncrossed—one of theirs had believed himself an equal and dared touch one of theirs.

  And the worst of it was . . . Calum had no idea how to set this to rights. Calling Ryker back when his wife was due with their first child wouldn’t solve their dire circumstances. Societal disapproval was not something that could simply be overcome. They’d worked countless years to establish their reputation and set themselves apart from the Whites, Brookes, and even the Devil’s Dens of the world.

  “Reinstating prostitution might—”

  “Employing whores will not solve the problems we are having,” Calum snapped out. At best, it would bring in one revenue and cost them another. “If anything, it will only hurt our numbers.” After all, with Ryker’s wife, a viscountess, living inside a gaming hell, and Niall’s wife, when they’d returned from their travels, also calling this club home, the Hell and Sin would only earn society’s further censure.

  Grabbing a cheroot from his pocket, Calum stood and touched it to the sconce. He took a long pull, letting the smoke flood his lungs. Only, this time it failed to calm him.

  Adair hooked his ankle across his knee and leaned back. “Given the increasingly dire situation facing us, you’ve allowed the bookkeeper an inordinate amount of time free of her responsibilities.” A sharp rebuke hung on the end of that statement.

  Calum’s neck went hot, and he took another draw. He let the air slowly out, forming perfectly rounded circles. “Is that a question?”

  His brother shook his head. “It’s an observation. You were placed in charge—”

  “Because I’m the second greatest shareholder,” he reminded him. They’d all been skilled pickpockets, but Calum’s speed and deftness had surpassed all his siblings. Had the purses he’d filched been fatter, he’d have found himself head of the club. As it was, that had never mattered to Calum. It had only mattered that they had their security.

  “You’re still answerable to all.” Abandoning his negligent pose, Adair set his glass down hard on the corner of Calum’s desk. “Ryker’s gone, Niall’s gone, and you”—he slashed a hand over in his direction—“are now sneaking about with Mrs. Swindell, the bookkeeper.”

  A muscle pulsed at the corner of his mouth. “I’m not sneaking about,” he bit out.

  “Fine, then visiting a foundling hospital with the woman.” Adair spoke that as an indictment more than anything.

  So, his brother had been monitoring his actions. But then, was that truly unexpected? Each proprietor, as Adair rightly pointed out, was accountable to one another. One’s actions had direct consequences on not only the siblings who’d found each other all those years ago but also the employees who relied upon them. Calum tipped his ashes into the crystal tray and, bringing his cheroot to his lips, sucked in a long puff. He exhaled through the side of his mouth. “Given our own origins, I hardly took you as one who’d disapprove of our club helping children suffering a like fate.”

  “Pfft, this isn’t about approving or disapproving.” Adair swiped his drink off the desk. “And you know it isn’t,” he said, jabbing a finger at him. “There’s just two of us here, now.” He held out a second digit. “And everything, until they return, falls to us. Everything.” Adair held his gaze. “Who you spend your time with”—Eve—“and how you spend it is your business.” His mouth hardened. “Except when that goes on during our business. Tell the bookkeeper her Sundays are her own, but until our numbers are righted and our reputation restored, then her obligations are to us.” As are yours. The glint in Adair’s eyes lent voice to those unspoken words. Then, some of the fight drained out of his usually affable brother’s frame. “We should send word to Ryker.”

  “He knows.” No good could come in calling Ryker away from the country where he and Penelope awaited the birth of their child. “Him returning will right nothing.”

  “Then send word to Somerset.” Their sister and her duke of a husband were newly returned from the country. “Our reputation is being smeared about town by the ton. We need their influence to quell those whispers.”

  “Is that what you want? For our brother-in-law, the duke, to drum up business?”

  Adair flinched.

  Frenetic energy hummed in Calum’s veins. Coming to his feet, he stalked over to the window and stared out at the cloud-filled night sky. He scraped his gaze over the cobbles below, to the pair of dandies now stumbling up their steps. This is what their life had become. They’d gone from the most powerful hell in the kingdom . . . to this: proprietors dependent upon fancy lords to vouch for them. He steeled his jaw. “I’m not . . .” Creeeak. The unoiled hinges squealed loudly and then abruptly stopped. When they’d taken over ownership of the former bordello, and architects and servants had come in to see to the transformation, at Calum’s insistence, with the exception of their offices, the doors and windows were to go unoiled. It had been a calculated barrier thrown up between them and the men, women, and former children wishing them harm. “We’re not contacting Ryker, and we are not begging Somerset to come speak on our behalf. Are we clear?”

  From the crystal windowpane, Adair’s visage reflected back. But for the ticking vein at the corner of his left eye, he gave no outward indication that he heard. Without another word, his brother stalked out of the room and closed the door quietly behind him.

  By God, this was a bloody disaster. He took another long pull from his cheroot. Who could have figured that the greatest peril and danger to visit their club came not from any of the street toughs and gang leaders in St. Giles . . . but because of their growing connection to the nobility? Ryker’s rule inside the club had been at a time when there’d been no connections to the nobility complicating their circumstances. Calum and Adair, however, had been left with the mess of setting it all to rights.

  Creeeak.

  He sighed. Well, it was certain that the woman next door wrestling with a too-loud window was not one of the nefarious sorts sent as the eyes and ears for Killoran or anyone else.

  With his spare hand, Calum unlatched the hook and pushed his oiled window open. Dropping his elbows on the slate windowsill, he leaned out. “Mrs. Swindell,” he drawled.

  The young woman cried out. Swiftly jerking herself back, she disappeared behind her smaller, narrower window. Given the ominous discussion he’d had moments ago with his brother, there called for solemnity and careful thought. One more misstep and their club was on the cusp of ruin.

  Yet, at Eve Swindell’s rather poor attempt at furtiveness, his lips twitched. He took another pull from his cheroot. He slowly exhaled a small plume. “If you’re determined to listen in, you’d be better served putting your ear to the plastered wall than hoping to hear over the noises of St. Giles.” Silence met his reply. And here he’d taken Eve for being far more courageous than that. “Mayhap listening out windows in Mayfair and Grosvenor is more conducive, but you’re in St. Giles now,” he said drily, deliberately baiting.

  From the room next door, a flurry of unladylike curses and ramblings met his ears. He grinned as she damned one of the Devil’s body parts. Then . . . the bookish m
iss ducked her head out. “Mr. Dabney,” she greeted with such feigned surprise, his grin widened. “Good evening.”

  “Morning,” he pointed out. At nearly thirty minutes past one o’clock, the club was bustling and the respectable sorts were sleeping. Except, it would seem, for his new bookkeeper.

  She glanced out to the half-moon buried behind thick gray clouds that muted all hint and hope of a glow. “Yes, I suppose it is morning,” her voice rang loudly in the courtyards below.

  Dixon, the guard on duty, strode into the middle of the courtyard. The younger man with steel in his eyes that had earned him the post two years earlier, raised his pistol. Eve gasped and retreated behind her window.

  “It’s all right, Dixon,” he called out.

  “You’re certain, sir?” Dixon looked pointedly at Eve’s window.

  “I’m certain.” The clever miss now silent next door couldn’t manage duplicity if her life were dependent upon it.

  Tucking his gun back inside his waistband, Dixon nodded and took himself back to his post.

  Calum took a final draw from his dwindling cheroot, then stamped it out on the windowsill. “Never had a gun trained on you?”

  “Indeed, not.” Eve’s voice emerged muffled and muted from where she now hid. She dipped her head out once more. “I’ll have you know—”

  “You’ll also have young Dixon know, too, if you speak in that volume.”

  The clouds shifted overhead, exposing the moon, and the glow splashed light upon her face. It revealed a becoming blush. “I’ll have you know,” she started, then dropped her voice to a barely there whisper. “I’ll have you know,” she repeated a third time, “I was not spying. I simply required fresh air—”

  “It smells like rotten fish in St. Giles.”

  “And prefer gazing at the stars,” she continued over his interruption.

  “Are there so many stars visible?”

  Eve glanced out to the cloud-shrouded sky. “Oh, yes,” she said with a solemn nod. They shared a grin, and he dropped his smoked cheroot to the grounds below. Eve’s smile dipped. “Is everything”—she glanced briefly to the mews—“all right?” And just like that, she quashed the too-brief interlude of pretend he’d allowed himself.