“I’m here to see the duchess.” How peculiar to go from a girl like the one who now held Calum’s reins to a step below royalty and for some . . . like him the stain of the street mattered still.
“If you’ll follow me?” The butler turned on his heel and started down the halls of Somerset’s elegant townhouse. The servant’s unhurried steps and calm stirred Calum’s frustration. He yanked out his watch fob, consulting the time. Four hours and approximately thirty minutes.
And I still don’t have a goddamned idea as to how to make this right for everyone.
“Mr. Dabney,” the butler announced.
Spectacles perched on her nose, Helena glanced up from her desk. Surprise lit her eyes, and she instantly came to her feet. “When I indicated I expected a meeting immediately, I did not . . .” Her words faded to silence. “What is it?” she asked as the servant closed the door behind them.
“There is trouble.”
The color leached from her cheeks, and she rushed around the desk. “Killoran’s men?”
“No,” he silently cursed. He was making a bloody mess of this. “It’s—”
“Diggory’s henchmen?”
Now three years dead, those loyal to that old gang leader continued to wreak havoc on those who’d betrayed him.
“Everyone is . . .” Except there were different forms of harm, and the existential threat now posed by Bedford was as dangerous as a blade or knife wound. “No one is hurt,” he settled for.
Helena slid her eyes closed and mouthed a silent prayer. Then she opened them, the earlier worry back in place. “What is it?” she asked again, motioning to a seat.
Restless, he rejected the offer. Calum clasped his hands behind him and strode over to the window. Peeling back the edge of the gold satin curtain, he stared out.
The little girl holding his horse shifted back and forth on her feet. Occasionally she stole a furtive glance about, and then reaching up, she scratched Tau on the shoulders. She instantly dropped her arm to her side. How many times he’d had to remind himself to present a wholly hardened image to the world. There hadn’t been room for weakness or shows of it . . . not even with his siblings. Only in those mews of the Duke of Bedford’s townhouse with the young Eve had he been free to ask questions and talk and dream without fear of judgment.
Helena moved behind him, hovering at his shoulder.
“We are in trouble,” he repeated again, for himself, needing to hear that and fully accept what Eve’s presence in the hell meant. He let the curtain go, and it fluttered back into place. “The bookkeeper . . .”
Helena jerked erect. “Mrs. Swindell?”
He nodded. “She is not who she said she was.”
His sister thinned her eyes. “Who—”
“Her name is Evelina Pruitt. She is sister to the Duke of Bedford.”
Helena’s eyebrows went shooting up, nearly reaching her hairline. “Bedford’s sister?” Her expression darkened. “Bedford’s sister,” she repeated, shaking her head.
His family would only hear the lady’s connection to the duke. They didn’t know that Eve had provided them food when their bellies had been emptiest or that she’d been a friend to him. They couldn’t know, because Calum had kept that part of himself from his siblings. “She came seeking the post because she herself is in danger.” Calum proceeded to explain everything from his first meeting the Little Lena Duchess to Eve’s interview to her commandeering his books and rooms, to Bedford’s arrival. When he’d finished, Helena stared contemplatively back.
“So, in order for Bedford to remain silent, he is demanding the return of his sister,” she said quietly.
He gave a brusque nod. “If I do not comply, he’ll destroy our club, which has been suffering—”
“Since Niall,” she supplied.
Calum started.
With a little chuckle, Helena slapped him hard between the shoulder blades. “For all your intent to keep me safe as a girl and then woman, you never credited me with seeing enough. You still don’t.” Her smile dipped, and she gave his arm a light squeeze. “It’s how I know you’ve feelings for Lady Evelina.”
His throat bobbed up and down. “Love,” he said hoarsely. “I love her.” It was the second time he’d uttered that profession and the second person he’d given it to, and still Eve had never heard those three words from his lips. Calum dragged his hands over his face. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispered. “I love her.” Calum let his arms fall to his sides. “There is no one I want to be with more, but how do I choose her when everyone else will lose?” he begged, needing an answer that would make all of this right.
“Oh, Calum,” Helena said collecting his hands. “Sometimes you cannot make everything right for everybody.”
He stared blankly down at her head. No. He could not.
“No matter how much you, just like Ryker and Niall and Adair, tried to make my existence into what you thought it should be . . . you still have not learned that you cannot control life. You cannot ensure the club will always be thriving and successful. You cannot control the decisions of others. Or force Bedford to remain silent even after this. So much is beyond our grasp.” She gave his hands a squeeze, forcing his gaze to hers. At just three inches shy of six feet, she was taller than most men he knew. “We cannot even control who we love. Our hearts decide that.”
And Calum’s heart had belonged to Eve Pruitt long before she’d ever reentered his life. Of all the mews in London where he might have sought shelter, it had been hers because fate had known they were to be joined. “So, what do I do?” he asked gruffly.
“You let love win,” she said simply. “For that is the only power you truly have in any of this. You keep her at your side, and face what you will, knowing you have her, me and Robert, Ryker and Penny, Niall and Diana, and so many others now as friends and family.”
He briefly closed his eyes.
I want that. I want to be selfish and take that gift she offers.
Adair’s furious countenance flashed to his mind’s eye. “Adair was not so forgiving.”
Helena snorted. “That’s because Adair hasn’t been in love. He might not understand your decision now, but in time, when some woman knocks him totally on his arse, where he belongs, then he will know.” She winked.
“Thank you,” he said hoarsely.
“Pfft.” She swatted at him. “You already knew the answer when you came to me.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall. A moment later, the door opened. Calum and Helena looked as one. Her husband, Robert, the Duke of Somerset, stepped into the room, a toddler cradled in his arms. “Someone is here to see you, love . . . Oh, Calum.”
Helena motioned him forward. “We were discussing matters of the club.”
“Is everything all right?” the duke asked, coming over.
The duchess instantly tickled her son under his chin, earning an incoherent babbling laugh for her efforts.
Calum stared on, and a wave of envy went through him. So long he’d thought the Hell and Sin was all he needed . . . but this is what he wanted. A family. Children. Love. And he’d found that latter part with Eve. Now he wanted it all with her. “I’ll leave Helena to explain. Thank you, both,” he added.
He turned to go, but Helena rushed over, blocking his path. “What?”
Helena leaned up and placed a kiss on his scarred cheek. “When the nightmares came, you were the brother who was always there. Let others be there for you now. I trust you’ll find the same peace I have in accepting that.”
And for the first time since Bedford had stormed his club and put his threats to him, Calum smiled.
Chapter 22
Eve hadn’t slept, but oddly, as she’d gone through her morning ablutions and started from her rooms, her entire body stirred with a panicky wakefulness.
It was time.
Or rather, it soon would be. Gerald would return, and somewhere between his departure last evening and this moment, she’d accepted the truth—she co
uld not let Calum make this decision. Because knowing him as she did, the boy in the mews who’d become an honorable man worried after those on his staff would never bow to Gerald’s threats.
She stared blankly at the wood-paneled door. Before her courage deserted her, she jerked the door open. Calum’s brother stood there waiting.
Eve shrieked and slapped a hand to her breast. “Oh, you startled me.”
A gentleman of the ton would have replied with his apologies; Adair, however, met her with only seriousness. “My lady? May we speak?” he asked somberly. Gone was the frosty anger he’d directed her way last evening.
She eyed him a long moment, then nodded. Adair spun on his heel, and she followed after him, winding her way down another corridor. He reached a stark, white-paneled door, and opening it, he motioned for her to enter.
Eve stepped inside and took in the unfamiliar room. Not unlike Calum’s office, a sketch of tasteful elegance, Adair Thorne’s space exuded that same sophistication. His mahogany desk was positioned off center, in the far left of the room, with two Egyptian Revival–style armchairs neatly positioned at the foot of it. “Won’t you sit?” he urged, and she claimed one of those ivory upholstered seats. Unnerved by the intensity in his stare, she forced herself to remain still under his silent scrutiny.
In a surprising move, Adair didn’t take a seat at his desk, but rather claimed the chair beside hers. Curving his hands along the edge, he turned it so he might face her. “The night your brother had my brother thrown in Newgate, we only discovered Calum’s whereabouts by chance,” he said without preamble.
Her stomach lurched at the unexpectedness of both that admission and the imagery painted of Calum in that vile place.
“A boy from our gang saw him being taken away from your townhouse and immediately came for us. It took some nosing around, putting questions to your servants, and ultimately paying coin to find out what had become of him.”
Eve’s mouth parted in soft shock. “They took your coin to answer those questions?”
He nodded, and disappointment filled her. Those loyal servants, many she’d considered closer than family, had taken from children struggling in the street.
“We found him. Cost us more than half the fortune we’d amassed to earn him his freedom. He was weak from blood loss. He couldn’t even manage to stagger out on his own feet. I carried him through the cold corridors of that hell.” His telling brought her eyes closed. What Adair had undertaken would have been no small feat for even a fully grown man. As a boy, Calum had towered over even her papa and most of the footmen. And how weak he’d been. Because my brother thrust a blade into his side, and I turned Calum over to his evil hands . . .
It wasn’t your fault . . .
Despite Calum’s gruff reassurances, it had been her fault. A tear seeped from her lashes and tumbled slowly down her cheek. She hated to reveal that weakness in the face of Adair Thorne’s strength through his telling and what he’d actually done that day. Feeling Adair’s stare, she forced herself to reply. “He was fortunate to have you,” she said, her voice hoarse. Whereas Eve had only brought suffering to him.
“We were fortunate to have one another,” he said gravely. “Calum saved my life more times than I deserved. As he did Ryker and Niall and Helena. Because that is who he’s always been, my lady. He’s been a man who saves people.” And now he’d attempt to save Eve.
Eve dropped her gaze away from his penetrating stare. “I neither need nor expect him to save me.” Was that a whole truth? Do you truly believe yourself capable of outmaneuvering Gerald once he carts you back home? No doubt, Lord Flynn would be lying in wait. She steeled her jaw. What neither of those men could know is that she would never allow herself to be maneuvered into marriage. Even if raped and ruined by the earl.
My half-mad sister . . .
Only Gerald had grown more and more desperate. There was another way he could attain those funds. Her stomach muscles clenched.
Adair leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his flat stomach. “The day you entered this club, hiding from Bedford, you immediately earned my brother’s protection. Calum is loyal. Honorable. He would never turn you out.” He looked at her pointedly.
Eve blinked slowly as his meaning became clear. He wanted her to leave. Of her own volition. Of course, that should come as no surprise. What reason did she have to believe he or anyone else inside the club would put all the people here in jeopardy for her? She was an interloper who’d deceived them, whose brother now threatened them. As such, she’d never be deserving of any of their fealty—and most especially not Calum’s.
“What do you want?” she asked bluntly, angling her chair to face his so she could look him square in the eyes, making him say it.
His expression grew instantly shuttered, and he put his hands up. “I would not presume to tell you what to do. Calum would not . . .” Would not forgive him for that interference. He coughed into his hand. “This club sustained each of us through darkness and evil you could never understand.”
Had he been vile and hurling epithets and accusations, it would be easier than this subtle pleading. Pleading when she suspected Adair Thorne revealed not a hint of himself to anybody. Eve leaned over and placed her hand on his. “I love your brother,” she said quietly. Color exploded on Adair’s sharp cheeks. “And I never, ever would have asked him to make that sacrifice for me.”
A commotion sounded in the hall. Adair whipped his head sideways toward the shouts going up, and calls for the proprietors.
He is here . . .
And for all her earlier bravado, terror clutched at her throat and made it impossible to swallow, to speak. With a slow sense of foreboding, Eve stood.
“Oi said get out. No one gets through these halls without . . .” That gravelly Cockney was met with a loud cry, a thump, and silence.
“Get behind my desk,” Adair ordered, surging to his feet as the heavy slam of doors echoed in the hallway. Followed by further commands, shouts, and the loud thump of bodies, met with inevitable silence. “Stay down.” Withdrawing a pistol from his waistband, he raced to the front of the room.
A sad smile pulled at Eve’s lips. For all of Adair’s desire to have her gone, he proved how very much like Calum was. The inherent need to protect and defend was part of who they were.
From his position at the side of the door, he glowered at her. “Behind the desk,” he mouthed.
It is time . . . She gave her head a shake and moved to the center of the room, just as the door was thrown open. It bounced back with such force it struck the back wall, and then her brother’s hand shot out, catching it.
Eve’s breath caught on a shallow gasp, and she stared as her brother pointed a pistol at Adair.
“Put it down,” he whispered.
Her brother.
Adair hesitated, then slowly lowered his gun to the floor.
She stared unblinkingly.
And yet—a peculiar humming filled her ears—not the brother she had spent all night in terror over, but rather another she’d despaired of ever seeing again.
“Kit,” she whispered, taking a tentative step forward, and then another. She stopped. Afraid to breathe. Afraid to utter one more word. Afraid that if she made one false move, this moment would end just like every other dream of him invariably did.
“Evie,” he said in hoarsened, very real, and very much alive tones.
With a cry, Eve rushed across the room. He instantly folded her in his arms and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Oh, God, Evie. I’m so sorry. I did not know.”
And that rumble of his chest as he spoke and the bergamot scent that was so patently his proved he was indeed real. She sobbed against his chest.
It was over.
Dismounting, Calum handed his reins to a servant and climbed the steps of his club with a peculiar sense of doom and peace mingling.
He scanned the room. At this early-morn hour, the tables were largely empty, with the exception of the most di
ssolute lords. His gaze landed on Adair.
Stationed beside the hazard table, he spoke to Harpe, one of their oldest dealers, a man who’d been with them since the club opened. Adair spoke with an ease that ran counter to the man he’d left this morning. As he spoke, Calum watched him. Adair had always been a quiet leader of their group. He’d not ruled with the same rigidity and obvious strength of Ryker, but in his own right, he was of equal—mayhap greater—strength. The club would suffer . . . but they would survive, as they always had, and then eventually thrive . . . because that was what they did. And ultimately, they’d one day be stronger for the love and partners they’d each found who had only strengthened their family. In time, as Helena had aptly pointed out, Adair would see that. He might not forgive it for a long time until then, but he would.
Filled with an aching need to see Eve and tell her all, offer her everything he had, he started across the gaming floors.
His brother looked up midspeak, said something else to the dealer, and then fell into step alongside him. “I would speak with you,” Adair said, easily matching his long strides.
“I need to speak with Eve first.” He’d withheld the words she deserved long enough. A sense of absolute rightness sent heat to his heart.
“She is gone.”
Calum passed the guards stationed at the stairway leading up to the private suites when Adair’s words registered. He slowed his steps. He’d misheard him. He’d merely imagined those three—
“Her brother arrived earlier and—” While his brother’s voice droned on, a loud humming filled Calum’s ears. His breath came hard and fast as he struggled to drag air into his lungs. “. . . and so it is settle—”
With a roar, Calum grabbed his brother by the shoulders and drove him into the wall. The guards cried out, and then hovered, wisely choosing to not interfere. “You let her leave.” He knocked Adair back into the plaster.
The slightly shorter man grunted. “By Christ, listen to me. It is for the best. She—”
The Heiress's Deception (Sinful Brides Book 4) Page 27