A quick rap on the door and Pike walked in, presenting a note on a silver salver. Ah . . . the word he’d been waiting for. At last they had Longmere by the balls.
Or not. Nick unfolded the note and read: Longmere canceled the meeting. Any idea why? DW
Hell and the Devil! Had he guessed? Impossible. They’d laid the trap well, Nick knew they had. God knows they’d laid down enough of their own blunt to grease the wheels.
Coincidence? Or was Longmere, a proper aristocrat, so disinterested in profit that he was off draping diamonds over some fille de joie rather than investing in the means of acquiring them?
Nick shook his head. Not even Longmere was that frivolous.
Longmere knew. Someone had betrayed their plan.
Nick sat, head in his hands, lips thinned to a straight line as he ran down the possibilities. He’d like to think it was one of Wolfe’s people, but . . .
Cecilia’s wan face leaped to mind.
She couldn’t . . . she wouldn’t . . . Never.
But he hadn’t told anyone else, not Charles or Guy, not even Fetch. The diamond mine was Wolfe’s plan. Besides Lady Rivenhall and himself, only one other person knew about it.
Anger surged. Nick bounded to his feet, jerked the bell rope, and ordered Pike to send for Burt Higgins, the older of Cecilia’s two guards.
Nick could tell the moment the man shuffled in that he was hiding a secret. He fixed Higgins with the look that had caused more than a few strong men to wet themselves, and waited.
“I know I shoulda told y’, Mr. Nick, but I like her, y’know. I didn’ want to get her in no trouble.”
Nick’s deadly glance never wavered. “Tell me.”
“Miss stopped at the Duck and Drake fer tea.” Burt worked his jaw, shifted his feet. “The markis—Longmere—was waiting fer ’er in a private room. I c’d ’ear ’em talkin’ but not what they wuz sayin’.”
“How do you know it was Longmere?”
“Caught a look, now didn’t I, when t’door opened. And oi saw ’is coach, plain as day.”
“Thank you, Higgins. Ask Pike to send for Miss Lilly.”
“Aye, Guv.” The big man turned and lumbered out as fast as his legs would take him, obviously anxious to get clear before Nick changed his mind and produced a whip, or something more lethal. He had his hand on the latch when Nick called out, “Stop!” When he turned, fear blossoming on usually stoic face, Nick added, “Say nothing to Pike. Just go, get out of my sight!”
Cecy endured dinner that night in uneasy misery, ready to swear Nick’s glances were more like stabs from his sword-stick. While the men were still indulging in port and business talk, she slipped into his study and hastily snatched up a novel by Monk Lewis, which likely had been chosen by the female who once was mistress here.
Wishing to avoid any private moment with Nick, Cecy wandered into the drawing room, where she paused before the harp. Was it the owner of the Monk Lewis novel who had played this instrument? She stepped forward, idly plucking the strings, trying to convince herself they formed a tune.
Out of tune was more like it as a string that should have been taut went thud, offering a sound that even the best imagination could never call music.
Perhaps she could take lessons . . . the men would like a change from the songs she sometimes sang, accompanying herself on the pianoforte.
As if there were any possibility of her staying. She would likely be on the street before morning.
Why had she done it? Why? Just looking at Longmere made her ill, and yet she had saved him from financial ruin.
Because she was female and women were weak?
No! . . . Because she was strong. Strong enough to turn her back on the past and move forward. Strong enough to learn from her mistakes and leave vengeance to God. Strong enough to know the best thing she could do for Nick Black was keep him from harming his brother.
Cecy plucked one of the harp’s shortest strings, and a high note of surprising purity reverberated through the room. Too pure, too sweet. Cecilia Lilly was more the lax string with no musicality than the string that had somehow retained its pristine pitch. She palmed the string, the high sweet reverberations ceased. Cecy made a face, and sighed. Sometimes, when she and Nick were alone, indulging in bouts of repartee, she fancied him as a man alone on a mountain peak, a man much in need of a companion. A man who warmed when he spoke to her, becoming almost human . . .
Cecy dropped onto the harpist’s stool as reality rushed in. She was a plaything, a distraction; occasionally useful but primarily an amusement. Until something better came along.
Until her debt was repaid in full.
She shivered, staring blindly into the abyss. She was wrong about Nick. She had mistaken her own feelings of isolation for his. Oh yes, time to face the truth. Cecilia Lilly was alone, as Chastity Singletary had been alone. Once a colorful butterfly in a swarm of gray Methody moths, she had climbed to the pinnacle, a shooting star among the most high-ranking males in the ton, only to fade into a wraith of her former self, bobbing about, attempting to keep afloat in a sea of criminals.
Another grimace. Papa would not have approved her mixed metaphors.
But Nick? Nick was not alone. Nick had Mr. Stark, his secretary, Mr. Fallon, his man of business, Ned and Ben, his bodyguards who stuck as close as a second skin. And then there was Fetch. She might have mistaken the purpose of the boy’s relationship with Nick, but not the depth of the underlying emotions. For all Nick was brusque with Fetch, they were more like father and son than master and apprentice.
While she . . .? She had once claimed Lady R as mentor and friend, , but after her betrayal . . .
Holly? Perhaps they could run away together . . .
And surely Belle would never turn her back. Cecy’s head came up, speculation lighting her eyes. And fading just as quickly. Lord Ashford was an exceptionally tolerant gentleman, but taking Nick Black’s presumed mistress into his house . . .?
Boone Farm? She could claim to be enceinte—she’d have several months before anyone questioned her. Time enough to find a way out of the maze that had her trapped.
Cecy jumped to her feet, her thoughts interrupted by the sound of the men’s voices as they approached the drawing room. Grabbing up the leatherbound book she had laid on a nearby table, she scurried for the servants’ stairs and headed for her room. A poor place to hide, but compared to the dangers to a woman alone at night on the streets of London, her bedchamber was her only place of refuge.
With grim determination Cecy attempted to read the novel that must have seemed lurid to its original owner but completely failed to capture her attention. She had allowed Emerson to dress her in one of the tantalizing bits of nightwear Lady R had chosen for her graduation ensemble, quickly wrapping her in a matching nightrobe, whose flimsy fabric, flounces, and embroidery did little to shut out the chill. Armor. Just in case. Or should she have wrapped herself in the ugliest nightwear she could find? Cecy shivered, her ears on the prick for some hullaballoo downstairs, something to indicate Nick had discovered her meeting with Longmere. Her betrayal.
Silence, only silence. Too nervous to sleep, particularly at the early hour of eleven, she went back to her book, but the words on the page made no sense. How long before Nick and Mr. Wolfe discovered their fat fish had wiggled off the hook?
Perhaps she had days yet before the axe fell . . .
She didn’t hear him come up the stairs, had no notion he paused a moment, head bowed, just outside her door. And then he was there, one hand on the latch, face implacable, eyes like the frozen ice of mid-winter. His gaze never leaving her face, he shut the door behind him, snicking it on the latch. “Did you like it—the beating?” he asked softly. “Is that why you went back for more? Surely, if that was your desire, you knew you could find it here. I assure you, I am very good with my fists. A family trait perhaps?”
Cecy shuddered. Her usually agile mind a blank, she dropped the book and pulled the coverlet up to her chin.
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Chapter 15
Darius Wolfe burst through the secret door into Juliana’s apartments with all the fury of an avenging angel. He’d had the full length of the journey up the Thames for his suspicions to build into towering rage. “You didn’t!” he roared. “Tell me you and that foolish girl didn’t turn all dewy-eyed and female over bloody Longmere!”
Amber eyes open wide, she stared at him, hand on her heart. “I beg your pardon?”
“Longmere,” Darius snapped. “We were to sign the papers tonight, and he bloody well cried off. Sent me a bloody six-word note saying he’d decided not to invest. Someone told him, Jewel. And the only ones who knew our plans were you and I, Black and the girl. And it bloody well wasn’t Black nor I.”
Even though he towered above her, Juliana managed to look down her nose at her one-time lover. “The secretary who drew up the papers?” she suggested.
“Not bloody likely. He’d never be so foolish. I pay him too well.”
“Perhaps you were overly enthusiastic, my dear wolf, and Longmere simply realized the investment was a bit too good to be true. He’s no one’s fool, as much as we might wish it.”
Darius slumped onto the blue and green brocade sofa, pounding a fist against its well-upholstered arm. “All that time wasted . . .”
“All that money.” Juliana heaved a sigh. “I can’t believe she’d be so foolish,” she added softly.
“Some of Black’s people might have caught wind of it,” Darius offered, suddenly switching to devil’s advocate. “And thought to sell such a juicy tidbit to Longmere.”
“Everyone knows Black’s men stand firm as a wall of iron, but Cecilia . . .” Juliana frowned, shook her head. “It doesn’t seem possible. She hates him. Fears him. Told me even the thought of him made her ill.”
Darius shot her a glance just short of lethal. “The ways of women are not to be fathomed.”
His Jewel huffed and turned her back.
“So you think it was the girl?” he ventured.
“No! Yes. There’s no way of telling. As you say, a woman’s heart is a great mystery. Sometimes even to ourselves.”
Darius went very still, staring at her stiff back as if he could bore a window into her soul. “Jewel?”
“I will repay your losses,” she returned coolly, still not looking at him. “Or was it my money you played with?”
“That doesn’t even deserve an answer.” The atmosphere in the room dropped from early spring to bitter winter. Silence lengthened as his latest burst of anger seethed, blossoming into the urge to conquer, the certainty that if he only seized her in his arms, claimed her for his own, she would remember, melt . . .
Juliana Rivenhall, the Dragon Lady? He might as well attempt to woo a lightning bolt.
Darius stifled a sigh and said: “One of these days, my Jewel, you’ll try me too far. Kindly remember I am not only physically stronger than you, I also control all your money.” He sketched an elaborate, if mocking and unseen, bow to her back and stalked out. It was going to be a long, chill journey back to town.
Nick strode forward, hands balled into fists, until he loomed over Cecilia, close enough to touch. To shake, strangle—
He flinched, coming to an abrupt halt as she pushed back into her pillows, terror filling her eyes, distorting her beauty. Fuckit! Why shouldn’t she be frightened? He might know he wouldn’t actually hit her . . . would he? The thought sickened him. Nick Black had risen to power by challenging the strong, not by stomping on the weak. But how could she know that?
He crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his hands out of sight beneath his armpits. He took a deep breath. “It was you warned Longmere off, wasn’t it? For God’s sake, why?”
Huge green eyes stared up at him from a body tensed to spring away from him at the first sign of movement. He supposed he’d hoped for a puzzled frown or a hot denial, but all he could see was Cecilia Lilly clutching the coverlet, struggling to find the courage to face him squarely. Hell and damnation, she’d really done it.
Fear, pain, rage, sorrow, disappointment chased across her face. He looked in vain for memories of the good moments between them. There had been more than a few, at least he’d thought so.
But now . . . he saw only cool, resigned defiance as she lifted her chin and said, “My injury, my decision. It is not that I’m not grateful,” she added hastily. “I can never repay you for all you’ve done—but I thought of future generations of Sommertons attempting to run a great estate with not enough capital. And of you, who would have to live with ruining blood kin. It wasn’t worth it, Nick.”
“Wolfe’s plot, not mine.”
“You embraced it.”
Nick rocked back on his heels. Cecy thought she heard a small snort of disgust. “I did,” he agreed. “I considered it a lesser evil than tearing Longmere limb from limb, which is what I wanted to do.”
“I would not have liked to see you hang.”
“No?” Nick eyed her askance. “I’ve sometimes wondered. It hasn’t been smooth sailing between us.”
“How could I not be grateful for all—”
“Cut line!” Nick snapped, his tone knife-sharp. “Gratitude is never what I wanted from you.”
This time her face showed but one emotion: horror. Three strides to the washstand. Nick hurled the pitcher full of water into the fireplace, where it crashed against the brick and disintegrated. The fire hissed in protest, its warmth faded. Rivulets of sooty water crossed the hearth, trickling onto the highly polished wood floor.
Another loud noise. The sound of the door slamming as Nick Black left.
Cecy clutched a pillow tight to her bosom, gulping for air as waves of terror alternated with stabbing sorrow. She’d saved Longmere and lost what she’d come to value most.
How many mistakes could one woman make in twenty-two years?
Nick didn’t pause his stride down two flights of stairs, through the hall and out the front door. He never felt the chill as he strode the short distance to Cavendish Square and banged the knocker at Longmere House. On being informed that the marquess was out, he simply stepped past the haughty butler. “Show me to the drawing room. I’ll wait.” Since the butler was an exemplary representative of men of his station, knowing all there was to know about his master and his activities, as well being cognizant of the reputation of such a notorious neighbor as Nick Black, he did as he was told without demur. When the Marquess of Longmere returned home some ninety minutes later, his butler informed him—though with a slight sniff of disapproval— that a visitor awaited him.
Jason, Marquess of Longmere, paused in the doorway, unsurprised to see the man who was unfolding from a chair by the fire. “If you’ve hurt her, I swear—”
“Don’t be any more of an ass than you already are. Sit,” Nick barked, waving his hand toward a chair. “Brandy? Or have you had enough?” he asked, lifting a bottle of the marquess’s best.
“I have, and from the looks of it, so have you.”
Nick thumped the bottle onto the table, lowered himself back into the chair that faced Longmere’s. “I suppose we’ll never really know if we’re kin,” he mused. “Except perhaps the truth of ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ We’re both capable of violence as, I’m told, was your—possibly our—illustrious father.” Nick raised his eyebrows.
Slowly, Jason nodded. “He beat me so many times I swore I’d never lift a hand to any human being for the rest of my life. And then I was sent off to school . . . and had to defend myself. Yet even then I swore that was the end of it. And it was . . . until that night when I ran mad and you saved me from killing a woman I was truly fond of. Ironic, don’t you think, that it should be you?”
“Nearly as ironic as her saving you from retribution.” Nick glowered, swirling the brandy he’d poured but had not drunk.
“A surprise, I admit. But it gave me an opportunity to apologize. And if you’ve punished her for it—”
Nick threw his head against the back
of the chair, scrubbed his hand over his face. “I came here to punish you, as I should have in the first place, instead of letting Wolfe talk me into scheming. But I’ve been a long time sitting here tonight, and I’ve begun to realize we have more in common than I’d thought. That perhaps Cecilia is correct. I would not care to be responsible for generations of the Sommerton family reduced to poverty while they cope with your mistakes. God knows I’ve made enough of my own.”
“What will you do with her? I’d take her back,” Longmere added hastily, “but she’d never have me.”
A flash of rueful amusement almost broke through Nick’s façade. If their taste in women counted, they truly were brothers. “That will be up to her,” he said. And to himself. The truth was, if he wasn’t discussing business with Cecilia, he was inclined to make a mull of it. “She’ll come to no harm, I promise you.” Nick stood.
Longmere followed him to his feet. “Perhaps we can talk again sometime?” he ventured. “Under better circumstances.”
Nick’s customary scowl settled into place, the gray eyes flashed. Warily, he offered his hand. “Perhaps.” His brother shook his hand, wished him goodnight. And then Nick was out the door, walking back to Princes Street, his thoughts as dark as the dimly lit street.
Would the house on Princes Street still feel like home if Cecy was no longer there? She’d likely fled the moment he left and was now safely tucked up with Juliana Rivenhall, who would defend her to the death. The Dragon Lady of The Aphrodite Academy was known for never allowing a man onto the grounds of Thornhill Manor. If Cecy was gone, he might have to stage a major invasion to get her back.
Yet Darius Wolfe made it inside the Rivenhall fortress, Nick was certain of it. And he’d wager a thousand pounds it was by water. Yes, that’s how he’d do it. He’d lead a charge of his bully boys straight up from the river . . .
Hell and damnation! Nick burst into the house, ready to call out his troops, and there they were, the lot of them, coats on, armed to the teeth. Anxious, frazzled, and dangerous. Even Fetch carried a pistol and a knife.
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