The Heiress's Deception

by Christi Caldwell

  Report in hand, she swept past the flummoxed guard and marched down the hall. When she reached the middle of the corridor, she stopped, then tiptoed the remaining distance to the Observatory. With a triumphant grin, she adjusted her burden to one arm and raised a hand to knock.

  “Enter,” he boomed from the other side of the panel.

  She sighed and let herself in. He always did that . . . anticipated her moves and presence before she even revealed herself.

  “How do you always know when I’m coming, Calum?”

  “Come, closer.” Widening her eyes, Eve leaned closer. He tweaked her nose. “’Tis a secret.”

  ’Twas a secret he’d never explained, but one that a woman more aware of the injustices of the world would have realized came from the basic need to survive on the streets.

  “It was quieter this time,” he called from his position at the wide window out to the club. It, as in her approach.

  Maneuvering around her papers, she pulled the door shut behind her. “It’s my boots.” Eve stuck out the tip of one of her hideous work boots. “There’s nothing else for it.”

  From the glass panel, his grinning visage stared back. “Only partly.”

  The trace of that smile, so full of mirth and stripped of the cynicism he was by rights entitled to, sent butterflies dancing in her belly. For all the strife her family had wrought on his existence and the suffering he’d known as a hungry boy visiting her stables, he’d retained a gentle kindness. Theirs had become a game of sorts begun with their earliest meetings—a game she’d inadvertently started as a silent test to see if she could take him by surprise, and always to no avail. Calum had ears like a cat.

  He glanced back, and his gaze immediately went to her papers. “The report?”

  The report? Eve briefly glanced at the items in her possession. Calum’s sudden and abrupt shift from teasing, charming friend to brusque, no-nonsense employer brought her up short. It jerked her back from romantic musings far too dangerous to have for a man who’d hate her if he knew the truth of her identity. Eve joined him at the window. “I’ve just completed it.” She held them out, grateful when he relieved her of the sheets.

  As Calum skimmed the top page, she cleared her throat. “It is slightly damp, still. As such, I’ve placed it on top. The rest of the items are all in proper order.” Absently, she rubbed at the tender portion of her arm where her elbow met her forearm. She bit her lower lip at the strain there.

  Calum glanced over, his clever eyes lingering on her distracted massage. She swiftly let her arm fall, and as he returned his focus to her reports, she stared out. Other than the previous exchange when he’d shared his clever design contributions to the hell, this was the sole time she’d stepped inside this room . . . or observed the gaming floors. “It is quite impressive,” she murmured. The swell of guests was at odds with the increasing worries faced by the club and Calum.

  He grunted. Setting aside that damp page, he perused the first item in the report. “It used to be more so.”

  She flared her eyebrows and surveyed the hell. With the crush of bodies, the air was surely sparse on the floor. The raucous laughter and din of discussion carried up to the Observatory, those robust sounds at odds with the reserved, staid gentlemen who attended balls and soirees and formal affairs. “But it is filled to overflowing.”

  “There.” He touched a fingertip to the window, and she followed his point.

  Eve frowned. “There are two vacant places.”

  He moved his fingertip slightly to the left, to another table. Two more.

  Calum held the work she’d spent nearly an entire day completing aloft. “There was a time when there wasn’t a place to be had at these tables. Where guests would wait outside until space had opened up inside.”

  Yes, the three years she’d evaluated of his club’s business transactions stood as testament to that fact. And yet . . . “Your club is still healthy,” she said gently. Having watched creditors cart off her family’s finest possessions and heirlooms, Eve had lived in a rapid financial decline that would result in nothing but ruin.

  Unlike the last time she’d raised the topic of his hell’s difficulties, he didn’t attempt to redirect the discussion. “A business is only as healthy as its trends.” He sighed and carried that work over to the mahogany stand at the center of the room. Pulling out the drawer, he tucked the sheets inside.

  She frowned. “I can go over the details with you.” Attending his books and ledgers, and indicating areas where he might improve upon his profits, had not erased her guilt . . . but it had made her feel that even with her duplicity she was offering Calum something of value.

  “Join me, Mrs. Swindell.” He started for the door.

  Mrs. Swindell. How she hated that name and his use of it. It served as a reminder of the falsehoods she fed him. She’d also come to find it was how he referred to her when he doled out new responsibilities or assigned certain tasks. It was how she’d come to distinguish when they were employer and bookkeeper . . . and . . . whatever else they’d become in the short time they’d known one another.

  Calum paused in the doorway and glanced back questioningly. Springing to movement, she bustled over to the door. He guided them from the Observatory and down the opposite end of the hall back toward the main living suites. He brought them to a stop beside a doorway. Pressing the handle, he motioned her forward.

  Curious, Eve glanced up at him, then peered into the room. A handful of sconces cast a soft glow upon the otherwise darkened space. She took a step and froze as her gaze collided with the walls. Drawn forward, she entered the room and continued walking over to the floor-length shelving units. She stopped a pace away and, pressing her hands close to her heart, rocked on her heels. Only the wealthiest families were in possession of a library. There had been a time when the Pruitts had been one of those fortunate families. “I once had a library,” she whispered, her voice echoing off the soaring ceiling. She had vowed as a young girl to read every item contained within that grand space. Her father had laughed, patted her head, and promised to fill the room with twice the amount when she accomplished such a feat.

  It had been an impossibility—the idea that even with the whole of her life, she could have ever read all those volumes. In the end, she’d not even managed to read a quarter of them before life had intruded and responsibilities had erased frivolous pleasures . . . and then they’d all been sold off.

  Calum pushed the door closed behind him. “It used to be a storage room.” His deep baritone boomed about the space, and she looked over to him. “My sister-in-law insisted it be converted to a library. Saw to the undertaking herself.”

  This was the library she’d heard servants occasionally whispering of. Given the work that commanded her schedule both here and at the foundling hospital, this was the first time she’d ever found herself inside this precious space. She followed Calum’s long-legged, sleek steps as he approached the third shelving unit.

  “She carried around a journal and pencil, speaking to all the staff inside the hell. Compiled a list of everyone’s interests and what books they might enjoy.”

  “She sounds like a remarkable woman.”

  “She is.”

  A tendril of shameful, wicked jealousy fanned inside for the lady who’d earned his appreciation.

  Calum ran his fingertip back and forth searchingly, and Eve followed his every movement, intrigued. “And did you offer a suggestion for the lady?” she ventured.

  “I did.”

  Just that. Two words. And again, there it was: that green-eyed, ugly monster rearing itself that so much of whom Calum had been and become should remain a mystery to Eve while another woman knew his interests.

  “Ah”—he plucked a book from the shelf—“here.” He set the large leather book down on a rose-inlaid mahogany side table.

  Intrigue stirred, and she joined him. Her breath caught. Eve skimmed her fingertips over the gold leaf lettering on the black tome. A Celestial Atlas
by Alexander Jamieson. While she turned through the pages, he propped his hip on the edge of the table. “You . . . picked this.”

  Calum chuckled. “Surprised a boy from the streets would have a shared appreciation for your Greek stars, Eve?” he asked without reproach.

  Pfft, stars . . . a person can barely see them in London.

  “No,” she said softly, moving her palm over the constellation Lynx. Even when he’d scoffed at the books she’d carried each time into the stables, he’d stared on, riveted, while she’d quietly read. He’d always been a boy who’d enjoyed learning, but he would have sooner starved than admit as much. Her throat worked. “I just did not believe . . .” Those exchanges had mattered as much to him. After learning he’d named Tau after her treachery, she’d believed that was the extent of his remembrances of her.

  “I’d once heard a quote.” You’ll appreciate this one. Trust me, Calum . . . Oh, fine . . . read it.

  Ptolemy.

  As his deep baritone filled the quiet of the library, the words she’d memorized long ago blended with his recitation. “Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day, but when I follow the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth; I ascend to Zeus himself to feast me on ambrosia, the food of the gods.”

  Her heart swelled, straining at her chest. He remembered her . . . and not solely in hate.

  “This is why you called me here?” Her voice emerged thick and garbled with emotion. Picking her head up, she met his gaze. “To share this with me?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “You do nothing but work—”

  “Because that is my role here.”

  Closing the book, Eve wandered over to him.

  “When we at last put our life on the streets behind us and called this place home, I vowed to never go without again. I’d know the finest furnishings and attire. I’d never have an empty stomach.” He cupped her cheek in his large palm, and at the searing warmth, she leaned into that gentle caress. “And yet, three days earlier when we spoke in the stables, it occurred to me.”

  She shook her head.

  “That you still are living the life I once lived.”

  Eve made a sound of protest and stepped out of his arms. She held her hands up warningly. It was not a like comparison. “No,” she said vehemently. “You’ve endured far more, far worse than I ever have.” It would be the height of wrongness to let him believe that her struggles had ever been what his were. For even with her darkest days and with Gerald’s vile cruelties, Calum had known a lifetime of horrors.

  Dropping his palms on the table, he leaned back, eyeing her contemplatively. “Just because your suffering was different than mine, doesn’t make it any less important.”

  Her suffering. She bit the inside of her cheek. No doubt, if he’d the truth that a duke’s sister stood before him, he’d not be of such an opinion. The world tended to see ladies of the peerage as women unaffected by hardships—people who were cherished and pampered and venerated.

  Calum pushed away from the table, gathered Jamieson’s work, and handed it over. “I’ll not have you only live for your work. Not as long as you are here.”

  Three months. I’ve but three months. When Nurse Mattison had presented the terms and length of her tenure inside the Hell and Sin, that time had sounded fleeting. After just a fortnight with this man, she acknowledged that when she left, her heart would forever dwell inside this club with Calum as its keeper. Bereft, emotion clogged her. “Why would you do this?” she asked, voice hoarse. Why would he show this kindness and regard for a woman he’d but recently met?

  A ruddy flush stained his cheeks. The evidence of his discomfort with her praise was endearing and earned another sliver of her heart. “I’ve not done anything,” he said gruffly, yanking at his cravat.

  He had. He’d given her the gift of security and safety, even if he could not know as much.

  “I—”

  Eve went up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.

  Calum stiffened, and with a groan he caught her to him, claiming her mouth in a hard-taking. Moaning, Eve melted against him and, tangling her hands about his neck, drew herself up to know more of him.

  Later there would be an appropriate time for shame at having flung herself at him. For now there was only this, and when she left this place, she wanted every memory with him that she could take.

  She gasped as Calum caught her under her buttocks and lifted her up onto the table. Tilting her head back, she better received him in an embrace that turned her hot from the inside out. Nearly six and twenty, and referred to by the staff and society on the whole as the Ugly Heiress, Eve had long accepted that she was not, nor would ever be, a beauty of any sorts. There’d never been village boys attempting to steal a kiss or eager suitors in the one Season she’d known overcome with passion. Now, as she parted her lips and Calum slipped his tongue inside, she reveled in the thrill of her own femininity. For in this instance, Calum’s strong hands worked a path over her body as though she were a cherished treasure he sought to memorize.

  His fingers worked the ties free at the back of her gown, and then, reaching between them, he shoved the fabric down. Her chemise followed suit. The cool air slapped at her burning skin; the two warring sensations wrung a gasp from her lips. Never breaking contact with her mouth, he palmed her right breast, toying with the swollen tip. Moaning, she angled her head, fueled by his touch and kiss combined.

  “You have bewitched me,” he rasped, dragging his lips in a fiery trail from the corner of her mouth, lower, to where her pulse beat at the sensitive skin of her neck.

  He suckled and teased and nipped at that flesh. Eve whimpered, and her head fell back as she opened herself to his ministrations. Hot, wet nectar pooled at her aching center, and she bit her lip. Needing something. Needing more . . .

  Relentless in his passionate exploration, Calum shifted lower, ever lower.

  A hiss slipped forth on a noisy exhalation as he caressed her right breast in his hand, then closed his mouth over the until-now-neglected other swell. He suckled at the sensitive tip, worshipping that flesh, flicking his tongue back and forth.

  “Calum.” Her voice emerged a keening entreaty that only fueled his attention. She splayed her legs wide. Her muslin skirts crunched noisily, and the wanton sounds of that fabric mixed with his wild suckling intensified the dull throb between her thighs.

  Her hips took on a life of their own, and she undulated, needing something, needing him—only him. Calum drew back. She cried out at the loss of him and grabbed at his lapels, dragging him forward. No.

  “Tell me to stop,” he implored, his words breathless against her lips. “Call me a bastard. Tell me this is wrong.”

  “Why would I ever tell you that when I want this?” she panted.

  His eyes slid closed, and the beautifully scarred planes of his face tensed with the weight of his struggle. Gathering his hand, she gave it a hard squeeze. “I’m a woman capable of making my own decisions.” She guided his long fingers back to her right breast; the weight of his calloused palm against the soft flesh brought her eyes briefly closed. “I want you, Calum,” she whispered. The column of his throat moved. Eve came up and lightly brushed her mouth over his in a quick meeting.

  “I am going to hell,” he groaned.

  If he was going to hell, she would join him, and gladly burn to know this moment in his arms.

  He swept her up and carried her around the table. Against her ear, his heart pounded in a wild, unbridled pattern that matched her own. Gently laying her down on the leather button sofa, he stepped back.

  Eve shoved up onto her elbows and stared at him through heavy lashes. He was allowing her to change her mind. He wanted her to end this exchange. She stood, her limbs trembling with the force of her own desire. Not taking her gaze from his, she slid her gown past her hips, so she stood there in nothing but her chemise.

  Eyes revealing nothing, Calum stood motionless while the ma
ntel clock ticked away the passing seconds. And the longer she stood there exposed before him, reality intruded . . . and worse, his hesitancy. Cheeks ablaze, she struggled to right her chemise. “I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, humiliation making her words run together. “I . . .” Eve bit her lower lip. Had she repulsed him with her brazenness?

  Calum clasped her upper right arm, his grip firm and yet tender. For the first time relishing the height difference that saw her eyes fixed on his chest instead of his face, Eve studiously avoided him.

  “Look at me, Eve.”

  She hesitated, and then she reluctantly picked her gaze up.

  Desire—hot, real, and unapologetic—filled his hard eyes. “Never apologize. I want you,” he confessed hoarsely. “And I know it goes against everything I should want, but God help me for being the street bastard society takes me for . . . I want you anyway.” He covered her mouth with his, slanting his lips over hers again and again. And all her reservations melted away. Releasing the fabric of her chemise, she turned herself over to this man.

  Calum shoved the garment lower, lower, and in a whispery soft rustle of fabric, it fell away, exposing her to him now in every way.

  Yanking off his cravat, he tossed it aside. His jacket and fine lawn shirt followed, revealing the rippling, corded muscles of his olive-hued skin. Her mouth went dry. In her studies of those Greek sculptures, she’d appreciated the marble strength those great artists had captured of those chiseled gods. None of those figures immortalized in stone could compare to the unyielding power of the man before her. Entranced by the light matting of curls, she slid her fingers hesitantly through them. Testing their softness.

  Calum’s breath caught on a loud hiss, and she looked up. Immobile, with his eyes pressed tightly shut, he’d the look of one in pain. Tentatively, she continued her exploration, running her fingertips over the hard, flat plains of his belly, over—she stopped. Her hand trembled as she took in the jagged scar at his right side. “Oh, Calum,” she whispered, as all the terror of that long-ago day intruded. His suffering, his pleas, and her inability to help him. Kneeling on the sofa, she angled her head and caressed that puckered white mark with her lips.