He reached the top of the darkened staircase and looked first toward his office, then down the opposite end of the hall where MacTavish stood on guard.
Each step that brought him closer, strengthened his resolve to cast her out. As he’d told her, she could not remain here.
He attempted to rape me . . . He . . .
His stomach muscles contracted as her words whispered around his mind, bringing forth unwanted imaginings as his mind finished the story she’d not fully tell. Of some nameless stranger scrabbling with her skirts, bringing his weight down over her, exploring her—
She was not his responsibility, this new grown-up Little Lena Duchess he’d known but a fortnight. His brothers and sister and servants and dealers and guards . . . those were the people he was beholden to.
Yet, he could not let her leave. Not unless he was content with the knowledge that he’d be complicit in sealing her fate.
You bloody, weak fool. What was it about Evelina Pruitt that had always managed to shatter his guard? As a girl, reading to him in the stalls, to the woman who didn’t give a damn about the station divides between them.
“Bloody hell.”
MacTavish jerked his stare over, and Calum’s neck went hot over that violent outburst. Striding the remaining distance to her room, he stopped outside and looked questioningly to the guard.
The other man shook his head. “Nothing suspicious, Mr. Dabney. Nary a sound from the woman.”
“You’re dismissed for the evening.”
Dropping a quick bow, MacTavish rushed off down the hall. Calum waited until he’d gone, then directed his attention forward.
He stared contemplatively at Eve’s door panel.
Ryker and Niall had forever been the most coldhearted of their lot. When their sister, Helena, had been haunted by Diggory’s evil, they’d been incapable of so much as offering a word of comfort. It had been Calum who’d held her through those nightmares. Yet, for the solace he’d given, he’d also never considered himself weak. Particularly not where the overall security of their family was concerned.
Until now.
If Eve were the mercenary lady who didn’t give a bloody damn about anyone except herself, she certainly wouldn’t have risked discovery as she did with all their trips to the foundling hospital. And therein lay the reason for his tumult. For what she’d confessed about Bedford and his crony’s vile goals for her, she still hadn’t lived solely for herself. She cared enough about those children she visited and the women who ran the Salvation Foundling Hospital that she gambled with her own safety.
And then there had been him. A man who’d risen from the streets to find a fortune, and he hadn’t given a thought about the suffering of those orphans like him. Oh, he’d hired some of the most desperate people on the streets, but even that had not been purely altruistic. Rather, it had largely been a product of club profits and necessity.
How I wish she were someone else, though. But if she were, then would she be so wonderful as this woman who’d held him enthralled? He balled his hands into tight fists. How he wished that she’d not been a lady tied to the peerage, with noble roots that could never be joined with his, not without destroying the Hell and Sin and all those dependent upon it.
He knocked his head silently against the door.
What in blazes am I going to do with her?
Chapter 18
With her valise packed, her gown changed, and her hair neatly brushed and plaited, Eve sat staring at her reflection in the dresser mirror. She cocked her head.
She’d always hated her hair. Most English girls were born and blessed with golden curls. Eve, on the other hand, had been saddled with limp, dull-brown strands that couldn’t manage a curl if the Lord set himself to the task of it.
Yet, since she’d blended that noxious recipe and painted her hair, she’d mourned the loss of her natural coloring . . . and not simply because of the odor that clung to her. She’d donned a disguise and lost so many parts of herself. Her name. Her existence. Even those once lamentable tresses.
She touched a reverent hand briefly to the crown of her head. It was an odd thing to sit here contemplating in the time since Calum had stormed out of her rooms. Particularly given that he’d stationed a guard outside her door. “A guard,” she whispered into the quiet. Like she was a thief who could not be trusted. Then, what did she expect? Eve let her hand fall back to her lap.
Calum believed it had all been a lie, and the rub of it was, with the exception of her name and the details she’d omitted about their shared past, it had all been real. She’d come here seeking security and instead found him.
I love him.
He’d quelled that admission earlier, and yet that, too, had been the truth. She loved him for being a man of strength who’d risen from his circumstances to become a thriving business owner. She loved him for being honorable and caring about those dependent upon him. And she loved him for entrusting the role of bookkeeper to her, despite her gender. In the end, she’d repaid that gift with a lie.
The door opened, and stiffening, she looked up.
Calum closed that wood panel behind him, shutting them in alone. Silent and stoic, he bore no traces of the affable, grinning man who’d asked her to share her interests with him. He dropped his gaze, and following his stare to her packed valise, terror replaced her earlier numbness. She would return home. To Gerald.
Please, no . . . I didn’t . . . What are you going to do to . . .
From the past, she heard the muffled sounds of her own cries, lost to the freezing-cold tub of water as he’d dunked Eve’s head under the surface. Her pulse raced as the sting of cold and water burning her nostrils flooded her memory, and she was transported back to that day. A man who’d hurt a child for helping a poor boy from the streets . . . What would he do to a woman who’d thwarted his efforts to secure her fortune?
“Eve.” Calum’s low murmur slashed across those horrors. Despite the precariousness of her situation, that deep timbre soothed her. It calmed.
Clasping her hands in the model of primness imposed by her nursemaids, she stood.
When he spoke, his words came unexpected, freezing her. “My brother Ryker was caught in a compromising position with a lady, a stranger to him.”
He stared pointedly at her. Did he think because Eve was a lady of the peerage she should know that tale? Where most lords and ladies existed for societal gossip, Eve’s world had been far too tenuous to worry after the whisperings of the ton or the words splashed on scandal sheets. At her silence, he continued. “Ryker was a duke’s bastard, recently titled for saving the Duke of Somerset’s life. When he was discovered in a compromising position with the lady, our profits suffered and the number of our daily patrons fell. Ryker and that young lady were forced to wed . . . to save our club.”
How these men had given everything for their hell . . . and I put it all at risk. “How very sad for them,” she said softly, imagining being forced into a union with one she did not know.
Calum wandered over to the window and stared out. “Oh, they fell in love. Theirs is a happy marriage.”
Her heart quickened to hear him so matter-of-factly speak of that grand emotion, when most any other man would have scoffed or yanked at his cravat in discomfort.
“Then they are very fortunate,” she said wistfully.
He paused in his telling, casting a glance back. “And were you one of those ladies dreaming of love?”
“Me?” Startled, she touched a hand to her breast. She chuckled. “No. I was far too practical to ever become one of those sorts.” When she was nine, she’d overheard two maids talking about Eve’s fortune being the only thing that could see an ugly girl such as her married. Calum, however, had made her feel beautiful . . . in every way.
His stare lingered on her face.
Eve’s cheeks warmed, and she cleared her throat. “You were speaking of your family.” And their marriage to inspire envy in the heart of every spinster lady.
&nb
sp; His expression darkened. “My other brother, Niall, fell in love with a duke’s daughter.”
Another duke’s daughter. Eve searched his implacable features. What accounted for this grimness when he’d previously spoken optimistically of Mr. Black’s marriage? “Did she . . . betray him?” she asked, trying to make sense of this different telling.
Calum’s lips quirked up in one corner. “No.” He paused. “She married him.”
Given everything she’d withheld about her own existence, it was the height of wrongness to ask Calum for details of his own. Yet, she needed to know anyway. “And you disapproved of the lady?” she ventured tentatively.
“Quite the opposite. She destroyed her own reputation attempting to save my sister from a street thug. The lady is a woman of honor.”
A woman of honor. Unlike me. That hung in the air, unspoken between them. Was that opinion shared, or was it her guilt that was responsible for that whispered thought?
Eve forced herself to speak. “I don’t understand.” She shook her head, at a loss. Had she merely imagined his earlier severity? “You did not disapprove of their marriage, then?”
“Me?” He scoffed. “Hardly.” His mouth hardened. “Society disapproved. The ton,” he amended. “Polite Society.”
She tried to make sense of that. “And yet they approved of Mr. Black’s marriage?”
“In terms of membership and profit, our club recovered.” From across the room, their gazes locked. “Ryker might have been born a bastard, but he was a duke’s son, and titled. Niall is a bastard born to a London street whore. He wasn’t some fancy lord’s by-blow. He was, and to Polite Society will always be, a guttersnipe.”
“Polite Society,” she spat. “I’d always found it laughable that the word polite should be affixed to the peerage.” When those pompous lords and ladies reveled in the struggles of men and women of all stations.
Calum gave her a long look. Did he think she’d commiserate with the ton’s archaic thoughts on station? That he might even have such an ill opinion of her, ached like a physical wound.
“To the peers . . . your peers”—Eve flinched—“birthright matters. With Niall’s marriage, he crossed an unforgivable line. He dared touch what men such as he, and Adair, and I have no place touching. Gentlemen will happily give their coins and fortunes to bastards born of the streets, but they will not”—he gave a hard, negating shake of his head—“ever permit or pardon those same bastards wedding or bedding a lady.”
His vitriolic reaction had stemmed not solely from the harm she’d brought him all those years ago but also from her station. He came here and offered her, the woman who’d twice wronged him, explanations? Her heart filled anew with love for him.
“You cannot stay here,” he said quietly, echoing some of the last words he’d given when he’d stormed out. Only, where there had been fury before, now there was a somberness devoid of that seething hatred.
Her throat muscles worked, and she nodded. “I know.” Now she knew even more so. To stay here put his club in jeopardy in ways she’d not considered. Because, as he’d accurately pointed out, she’d thought of no one except herself. It surely spoke to the depths of her selfishness now that knowing that as she did, she’d no regrets. She had missed him so very much, and for a brief time she’d a glimpse of who he was now. How I will miss him . . . “I would have you know, when I came here, I didn’t know you were the owner of this club.” Her life for so long had been her father and her family’s estates and crumbling finances that she’d known nothing else.
He brushed his knuckles along her jaw, bringing her head back so she might meet his gaze. When had he moved? “Would it have mattered? Would you have not come to fill the post?”
“I . . .” Lie to him. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “If I were more honorable I would tell you that I would not have. I would lie and say that after what my family did to you . . .” He flinched, dropping his hand to his side, and she mourned the loss of the first real warmth she’d known that day. “I could not betray you again as I did,” she forced herself to finish. A sad, empty chuckle escaped her. “I am more like my brother than I ever credited because I cannot say any of that.” Because she’d always loved Calum Dabney. First as a girl, enamored of the one person who’d seen her and been there, and now knowing him as she did, she loved him with a woman’s heart.
He rubbed his hand over his forehead. “What am I going to do with you, Little Lena Duchess?”
That endearment of long ago riddled her heart with warmth . . . and then she registered the resignation there. A cold swept over her. It would be fitting if he repaid her actions all those years ago, in kind. Could a lady be turned over to the constable for invading a man’s business and lying to him? No theft had occurred. “I’ll leave,” she said on a rush. She gestured uselessly at the bag resting at their feet. “If you hire a hackney.” She spoke quickly, her words jumbling together. “Well, I can hire the hackney. I’ve the funds. I’ll provide the coin, and I will not mention anything of my time here. You have my assurance.”
He eyed her with an inscrutable expression. “You would do that?”
“Hire a hackney?” She frantically nodded. Riding in one of those miserable carriages was the least dangerous of endeavors she’d undertaken in her life . . . particularly when one considered life with Gerald. “You needn’t escort me.” That way he needn’t risk being seen with her in any capacity. She grimaced. Not that he’d given any indication that he would. Particularly not with the peril being seen with her presented.
“How long until you attain your funds?”
At that sudden question, she opened and closed her mouth several times. “When I reach my six and twentieth year. T—”
“Two and a half months, then,” he finished for her.
“Look at this, look at this, Calum. The Greeks put candles on cakes to celebrate their birthdays! Candles! We shall put them on yours because yours comes first.”
“Don’t want any. Seems like a waste of good candles—”
“Oh, fine. Then we shall wait until the end of the month when mine comes.”
He recalled her birthday. Another frisson of warmth stirred in her chest. And then it receded, leaving in its place stark coldness. In the end, neither of them had celebrated together. Calum had been carted off to Newgate, and when her birthday arrived, she was alone once more.
“No one knows you’re here besides Nurse Mattison.” He spoke quietly, his words coming out as a kind of reminder to himself.
Had she not known the gentleness this man was capable of, those cryptic words would have roused terror in her breast. She shook her head.
He released a long sigh. “I must be a fool.”
She shook her head.
“You can remain.”
She could . . . remain?
Surely with her own hopes, she’d merely imagined that gracious offering?
Calum spoke, and the orders flew fast from his lips as only a man responsible for this gaming kingdom could manage. “Your visits to the foundling hospital are done. I’ll hire someone to help them in the interim.”
She fluttered her hands about her throat. He would do that?
He leveled her with a look. “Are the women who work there aware of your presence here? Besides the one nurse?”
“No,” she said frantically, shaking her head. “I didn’t reveal that . . .” Except by his accompanying her, she’d inadvertently put Calum at risk with all those visits to the hospital.
“I don’t want you anywhere near the gaming hell floors.” Yes, her brother spent more time at his clubs than God did in heaven. “I don’t even want you leaving the hell by way of the back door or front door or any other door.”
In short, she was to be a prisoner of sorts . . . but one by choice.
“If you require air, I don’t even want you ducking your head out the window.” She flinched. Which she had done days earlier, putting Calum in even greater peril. “You’re permitted to visi
t the mews, and that is the extent to which you have freedom of movement—until your birthday. And from there, you will leave, and mention nothing of your time here. Are we clear?”
Eve drifted closer to him. “Why would you do this? Why would you help me in this way, even knowing who I am?” What I did?
He tugged at his lapels once, the only telltale marker that she’d unsettled him with her direct questioning. “Because you helped me for almost a year and provided food when my family most needed it. I pay my debts, Eve. After this, consider that debt paid.”
So that was what this offer was about . . . his misbegotten sense of honor? Bitterness stung like vinegar on an open gash. Then, what did you expect? That he cares for you as much as you care for him? “Thank you,” she said softly. For his offer might not be driven by what she wished it to be . . . feelings . . . a regard for her. But it was still an undeserving gift he extended.
The muscles of his face spasmed. “Why do I feel like I am making the absolute worst mistake where you are concerned, again, Eve?” he asked, his voice hoarsened with emotion.
“You aren’t,” she vowed, darting over to him. Eve stopped a handbreadth away, hovering, uncertain. She ached to take his hands in her own, to twine their fingers together in a warm joining. He doesn’t want your touch. Not anymore. “I promise you,” she said, imploring him with her eyes to see the truth of that. “I’ll not betray you or your trust.” Not again.
He let his breath slip out through tense lips. “See that you don’t, my lady.”
With nothing more than that, for a second time that day, he took his leave of her. The quiet click of the door closing thundered in the silence of her chambers.
The Heiress's Deception Page 23
