So it was. It blinded everyone else in this ballroom, Lilah prayed, to the long look she shared with Palmer now. His expression revealed nothing. But the force and directness of his gaze, as it moved slowly down her, made her suddenly hot, and far too miserable to remain here.
She turned away—and smacked directly into her uncle, who steadied her with a hand at the small of her back.
“Just what he expects,” Nick said gently. “You think he’ll thank you for helping him? We’re servants to his kind, whether or not we draw a wage.”
She sidestepped to be free of his touch. “It doesn’t matter. You offered a bargain. I’ve kept my end of it.”
“Of course you did. We don’t welsh,” he said. “You can’t say the same for them.”
She had heard this speech already. Her naïveté was a sore disappointment to him. He’d not raised her to be the kind of girl to lose her head. “Did you find your men?”
“Aimsley isn’t here.”
“I slipped his name into the invitations. He intended to come.” She forced herself to resume her survey of the ballroom, forbidding herself to look in Palmer’s direction. But of course, Aimsley made that impossible. “There—top of the room, by the . . . couple.” Catherine Everleigh was glowing.
“Where?”
“By the orchestra screen.” Mr. Aimsley, a member of the Municipal Board of Works, had a shock of gray hair, and a reputation among young girls. “He’s got a debutante on his arm.”
Nick’s slow smile looked very satisfied. “Amy’s got him around her little finger, doesn’t she?”
“Amy?” Lilah studied the young woman, a pretty redhead. “You know her?”
“Very well,” he said.
Amy wore the white muslin and the bashful, head-ducking smile of a girl raised in Mayfair. “She’s good.”
Nick cast her an odd look. “I don’t waste my time on anything less.” He touched her elbow lightly. “You remember that, Lily.”
Why, he was trying to encourage her. She managed a faint smile. Better than wallowing in misery. “What do you want of Aimsley, anyway?”
“Oh, this and that.” He returned his attention to his prey, the slight smile on his lips a fine facsimile of well-bred boredom. “It’s a wonder, Lily, what laws these fools cook up. Put a cramp in an honest man’s plans, I tell you.”
She snorted. “Then I can’t imagine they trouble you at all.”
He offered her a wry grin. “Aye, well.” He tossed back his champagne as though it were plain ale. “I might surprise you yet.”
“There you are!” Susie Snow pushed squarely into their conversation, her color high as she sketched Nick a pretty curtsy—canting low enough to show her décolletage to full advantage. As she rose, she offered him a flirtatious smile. “Introduce us, Miss Marshall.”
Susie never had been able to resist a handsome face. “Mr. Nicholas Shay, of Manchester. Mr. Shay is in textiles. Mr. Shay, may I present one of our hostesses—”
“Miss Sue-Ellen Snow,” said Susie, simpering. “But I promise, I’m not frosty in the least.”
“What a pity,” Nick said, sliding effortlessly into an upper-crust drawl. He’d required no tutor to learn it; he had a natural ear for accents, which Lilah had always envied. “I rather like getting nipped.”
Susie’s eyes widened in delight. Lilah spoke into Nick’s ear. “Don’t approach Aimsley until he’s away from Palmer.” Then she walked away, leaving him to amuse himself with Susie. Blood and feathers, indeed.
Throngs gathered around the dance floor, chatting idly. “Tremendous match for her,” Lilah heard a woman remark. “Palmer, of all men!”
A gentleman replied, his envy plain. “Oh, I would say the bargain is fair. I’ve never seen the Ice Queen smile before. Quite fetching.”
“Yes, you’ve already pointed that out. But why the rush? You don’t think—”
“Bother that. I only want to know, how the devil did he manage it? Even the Prince of Wales couldn’t—”
“It is called charm, Stanley. Pity you don’t have an ounce of it.”
Miss Everleigh had warned her once against eavesdropping. Lilah would have been glad to retire to some quiet room to wait out the party, but with Nick on the loose, it felt too risky. Fear thrummed quietly through her, a low, unsettling fever. He could still undo her, if he wished. It would only take a few words—to Susie, perhaps.
“Beautiful couple,” someone else said in passing.
“Isn’t she lovely? I never thought—”
Lilah was standing by one of the small salons. The door stood closed, for the Russian wares had been removed in preparation for auction, and the curators had yet to arrange the exhibition to follow.
“Just look at them, I imagine they’ll be the toast of the—”
She opened the door and stepped inside. Shut the door soundly and exhaled. “Burned toast,” she muttered.
The empty room amplified the sound of her voice. She allowed herself a slight smile. A pity, indeed—Stanley had no charm, and she had no wit.
Take hold of yourself. Nick was right; she’d been raised to do better than this. To have more pride than this. She crossed her arms, pacing a small circle in the echoing room. Why should she be the only one to suffer? She would go outside, find a man to flirt with. She would show Christian that his fiancée was not the only woman in the room who—
The door opened. She wheeled. Christian stepped inside. “What the hell is he doing here?”
She stared at him. His impassivity had fractured in recent minutes. He looked furious, flint-jawed, vibrating with rage. He looked beautiful. That evening suit fit him like a glove. “Who do you mean?”
“Do not play the idiot. Your fence.”
“Keep your voice down,” she said quickly. “That door doesn’t lock.”
He cast a glowering glance around the room, then took her by the arm and dragged her into the same curtained alcove where she had once, so long ago, lectured an incompetent pickpocket. “Why is he here? You were done with that business!”
She laid her hand over his, her intention to push him away. But the shock of his skin, the warmth of his hand, riveted her. “Is that any of your concern?”
His glance fell to where she touched him. His nostrils flared. “You have a talent for trouble, don’t you? I should have packed you off. Let you stew with my mother.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Had he truly entertained that possibility? “But why? I’m a stranger to you.” She stroked her thumb over his knuckles, and was rewarded by the way his mouth tightened as he looked down into her eyes.
“Get him out of here,” he said very softly.
“You no longer command me.”
He grabbed her chin. “Will you gamble on that?”
Delight coursed through her. Yes, this was what she’d needed—his attention, his undivided focus.
She shrugged, letting him see how immune she was to intimidation. “Call for the guards, then. Have him thrown out yourself.”
“Yes.” He released her and pushed aside the curtain. “I think I will.”
“But—” She waited for him to turn back. “That’s my uncle.”
“Your . . .” He stared at her as though weighing whether or not to believe her. Nobody ever expected Saint Nick to be so young.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “My uncle. And if you called the guards down on him, he might be forced to say how he got inside. That would be very inconvenient, since I was the one who admitted him.”
His eyes narrowed. Such a dangerous look. “What are you about, Lily?”
“Lilah,” she corrected. “Better yet, Miss Marshall. We are strangers, are we not? Indeed, what do you care for my convenience? Go ahead; summon the guards.”
He let the curtain drop shut. “I told you,” he said. “I told you I did not want him involved. I told you to keep yourself out of this!”
“And I am.” She shrugged. “I will not tell you that Nick has already turned up th
ree solid leads in Bethnal Green. Is your Russian graying? Built like Napoleon?”
He swore, then pressed his hands together against his mouth. Diamonds as small as pinpricks glittered in his crisply starched cuffs. “You have a taste for death,” he said. “Is that it?”
“I have a taste for you.”
He stepped toward her, crowding her against the wall. She lifted her chin, drinking in every detail of him—the glimmer of his oncoming stubble. The shadow in the bow of his upper lip, where it joined his sharp philtrum. The amber striations in his honey-colored eyes.
“I expected better of you,” he said very softly. “You are wiser than this.”
She was disappointing men left and right, it seemed. “Yes, I’m quite a dolt. I would like to help you stay alive.” She offered him a half smile. “Very indecent of me, really, taking such an interest in another woman’s betrothed.”
“You think this is a game?”
“No.” She looked him over. “Were it a game, you would look far less imposed upon. Or is it indifferent?”
He stepped into her. The full pressure and weight of his body crushed her into the wall; she was forced to turn her head aside.
“Do you feel that?” he asked softly in her ear.
She did. Through the layers of cotton and silk, wool and cashmere, he was hardening.
“That is not indifference,” he growled.
The success of her ploy thrilled her on some primal level. Her body wanted to loosen, to part, to yield—here, behind a curtain, in an unlocked room adjoining the crowd. “That’s lust,” she managed. “Hardly rarer than indifference. Why, errant fiancés are the lifeblood of this place. Why else do all the men buy jewelry, but to apologize?”
His mouth touched her ear. “Is that what you want? For me to fuck you, right here?”
The thought swam through her like the finest vintage Château Lafite Gilet had ever produced. “Would you?”
“Yes.” He pulled her face around to his. “And then, Lily, I might as well put a half-emptied gun to your head, and spin the chamber before I fired. It would be one and the same.”
“I know that game,” she said. “Funny enough, I believe it’s Russian.”
He cursed and shoved away from her. “You are worth more than this. Whatever it took to persuade your uncle—” He paused, spearing her with a blazing look. “What was it? What was his price?”
“Not so much.”
He took her face in his hands, gripping hard. “Whatever it was, you are worth more. More than his sorry hide, and certainly worth more than—”
“You?” She laid her hands over his, holding them there. “Maybe so. Maybe you’re the fool here. Where I come from, we know better than to scorn a friend’s help.”
“You are not my goddamned friend.”
“Then what am I?”
His kiss was savage. Deep, furious, a claiming that she welcomed with lips and tongue and teeth. He slammed her against the wall, and she hooked her arms around his shoulders to hold him there, kissing him back, the beading on her gown digging into her flesh, silk rustling between them. He cursed and ripped free of her.
“This is done,” he bit out. “Done, do you hear me? If you won’t see reason, then that bastard will.” He turned on his heel and stalked out.
God in heaven. Did he mean to confront Nick? She loosed a shaking breath, then knocked her skirts into place and hurried after him.
Christian’s long legs outpaced hers. Heads turned as she flew past, trying to catch up with him. From the corner of her eye, she saw Miss Everleigh take notice, but she could not afford to slow. She must catch him before he found her uncle.
In the hall, she cast off all regard for witnesses and lunged to grab his elbow. “Please, you—”
He shrugged her off. He had spotted Nick ahead, turning away from one of the men on the list. That man, Mr. Morris, looked pale and distressed, and made a quick exit down the grand staircase for the lobby.
That left Nick alone in the hall. He saw them coming. He faced Christian squarely, and smiled.
“Why, if it isn’t Lord Palmer! Fancy meeting you here.” His glance flicked to Lilah, who frantically shook her head and waved for him to follow Morris down the stairs.
He ignored her. Of course he did. He had never backed away from anybody.
“You do not belong here,” Christian bit out.
“Not in public!” She wrested a pin from her hair and picked the lock on the nearest door—a small room stocked with odds and ends, chairs and crates of candles. “If you must—”
Nick waved toward the door with a mocking flourish. “If the good Lord Palmer wishes it.” He walked through the door. Christian stalked after him.
She followed, pulling the door shut. “This isn’t necessary,” she said. “Christian, I tell you, he means only to help!”
“Go, Lilah.” Christian kept his eyes locked on her uncle, who hooked his thumbs in his pockets and fell into a slouching posture, his half smile speaking a taunt. “You needn’t be here.”
“Such concern for her.” Nick tsked. “One would almost imagine you cared.”
“I’ll be damned if you manipulate her again.”
“Pot preaching to the kettle, I think.” Nick tilted his head toward Lilah. “Remind me, Lily, how you earned back my letters?”
“I told you—”
“The letters you blackmailed her to steal?” Christian spoke very coldly. “Great care you take with your kin, O’Shea.”
Nick laughed. “Aye, and you lot talk a fine game, no doubt about it. Much lip service to high ideals. Meanwhile you’re rolling in it. Easy to judge, from on high.”
Christian made a noise of disgust. He pulled open the door. “Get out, or I’ll have you thrown out.”
She braced herself, for she knew that reckless look on Nick’s face. He was done suffering disrespect. “Now, that you won’t do,” he said in a soft, controlled voice. “That is . . . unless you want me to take Lily along.”
“I’ll go,” Lilah said quickly. “If that’s what it takes—”
“I would sooner send her to hell.”
Nick’s brows lifted. “This is the bloke you want me to help, Lily? Quite grateful he seems.”
“Nick.” Had these men been dogs, their hackles would have been raised. “Please. You have a cooler head than this.” She turned to Christian, whose murderous gaze still fixed on Nick. “Someone will hear. Is that what you want? For us to be discovered here, together? Nick—” She swallowed. “Just go. Please.”
“Not yet.” Nick sidestepped around her, his eyes locked on Christian. “I’ve still got a few people to see in that ballroom. In an hour, maybe.”
Christian shut the door with ominous care. “You have no friends here.”
“Oh, I’ve got one or two. But I’m not sure what to make of my niece right now. She’s clearly got some poor taste, lifting her skirts for the likes of you—”
Christian backhanded him. The cracking blow sent Nick sprawling into the crates. Lilah cried out and scrambled forward to help her uncle up. “Please,” she said, though she knew it was useless; he would not listen now. “Think—”
He stepped around her and drove his fist into Christian’s face.
They went down in a brawling heap. As they rolled, she leapt clear, her hands at her mouth to trap a hysterical sound.
They were well matched. Too much so. Grappling, they staggered together to their feet, neither gaining purchase. They would kill each other before this was over. Nick drew back his fist—
The door flew open. It slammed into Nick and sent him staggering sideways.
Miss Everleigh gasped, then stepped inside and closed the door. “What is going on here?”
Panting, Nick wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. The sight of blood on his cuff seemed to amuse him. He shoved himself slowly up the wall to his full height, a showy, provocative move that made Miss Everleigh take one startled step away from him.
He mad
e a low, amused noise. A click of his tongue. “Easy, darling. I won’t bite you.”
She shot an alarmed look at Lilah. “I am calling the guards.” She turned for the door, but Nick slammed his palm against it.
“Your assistant won’t like that,” he said.
Christian growled. Lilah caught his elbow. “Stop it,” she hissed. “Both of you.”
“Well, Miss Marshall?” Nick was smiling at her employer. “Won’t you introduce us? I’ve long wanted to meet this pretty thing.”
Miss Everleigh drew herself to her full height. “Who is this man?”
“Nobody,” Lilah said miserably. “He’s leaving.”
Nick cast her a sharp glance. “I’m not done here yet.”
“You’re bloody.” She touched her mouth to show him where. “You can’t go back into the ballroom.”
“You have five seconds,” Christian said coolly.
Nick turned to face him, looking amused. “Says who?”
“No,” Lilah snapped into the gathering weight of their silence. “Yes, Nick, you must go—or I will call the guards!”
He glanced toward her. “Breaking the bargain, then?”
She took a deep, miserable breath. “Yes.”
“Oh ho,” he said. “Very well. Gives me the chance I’d been wanting.” He turned for the door—but instead seized Miss Everleigh’s hand. With a flourish he bowed over it, kissing her knuckles as she gaped at him. “Nicholas O’Shea at your service, miss. Admirer of your fine good looks, and uncle to your deeply confused assistant, Lily Monroe, who once assisted me. Despite her current bafflement, she’s a girl of great wit, I think you’ll agree. For certain, I can’t think of another impostor clever enough to worm into your service.” He chucked her chin to close her slack jaw, then offered her a wink. “God knows many will have tried.”
Lilah sagged back against a crate. A hand closed over her arm, a steadying grip. Christian’s. She could not look into his face. She could not look at Miss Everleigh, either.
“The devil take you,” she said to her uncle.
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