Luck Be a Lady

by Meredith Duran

“It might,” Batten said hesitantly. “But your brother was very clear, miss. Not above a week on any particular piece. What you’re proposing would take much longer.”

  She grimaced. What a ridiculous policy to impose wholesale! A few of their richest sales had come from items restored by Mr. Batten—and, increasingly, her. She had a talent for spotting the value in damaged things, and thanks to Mr. Batten’s tutelage, she sometimes understood how to fix them, too. It gave her a fierce satisfaction to pull beauty from rubbish; to restore the imperfect to its original, unblemished state.

  Mr. Batten was gazing at her very sympathetically. “Are you all right?”

  She bit her lip. My brother has gone mad, Batten. He is threatening to sell the place. And I don’t know how to stop him.

  But she did know. Marriage was the way. She only needed the right husband. A pity they were not sold at auction!

  She managed a thin smile. “I’m fine.” As a girl, she had spilled her heart over this worktable with regularity. But a woman could not speak so carelessly of her family. It would put Mr. Batten in a very tenuous position, for Peter was his employer, too. “I simply can’t give up on this painting. Go ahead with Mr. von Pettenkofer’s method. If my brother complains, tell him that I left you no choice.” Not that Peter would. He never bothered to visit the workshop.

  She gathered her agenda and made her way back upstairs toward the public rooms. It was half three, but six items remained on her list. She’d not leave Everleigh’s till ten o’clock.

  The thought made her smile slightly. Her father had rarely made it home for supper, either—though not for want of trying. She, on the other hand, had every reason to linger here. For all she knew, Mr. Pilcher would be at table tonight. Peter made a habit lately of bringing him around.

  She emerged into the lobby to discover a group of hostesses—she deplored the common nickname given to them of Everleigh Girls—clustered around a trio of fashionably dressed gentlemen, one of whom she recognized as the heir to a dukedom. The social aspects of the business were Peter’s calling, not hers, but she saw no sign of her brother.

  Reluctantly, she waved over one of the hostesses, a fox-faced brunette. “Has someone told Mr. Everleigh of our guests?”

  “Oh, he saw them,” Miss Snow said breathlessly. Her color was high; like most of the hostesses, she was an incorrigible flirt, and thrived on the attention of men who would never acknowledge her in the street. “He said we were to see to them ourselves, for he has another appointment.”

  “Is that so?” It was most unlike Peter to lose the opportunity to hobnob with a future duke. Sighing, Catherine girded herself to entertain the guests.

  “He couldn’t have received them, anyway,” Miss Snow continued. “He wasn’t dressed for it.” Here she lifted one slim, suggestive brow.

  “What do you mean, he wasn’t dressed for it?” In matters of toilette, Peter was punctilious.

  “He was wearing a patched coat.” The girl’s voice held a sly note of speculation. “And he set out on foot, didn’t take the carriage.”

  “That is none of your concern.” But a prickle moved down Catherine’s spine, not so much alarm as excitement. “How long ago did he leave?”

  “A minute or two, no more.”

  Her duty compelled her to tour the guests through the collections bound for auction. But this odd behavior on Peter’s part might provide a clue to his secret doings—a question on which rested the very future of the auction rooms. For if she could catch him in some unsavory situation, it would give her a weapon against him.

  She lifted her voice. “Miss Ames,” she called to a redheaded hostess, the most levelheaded of the lot. “Will you see to our guests? I must step out, I fear.”

  * * *

  Catherine’s life had become an absurdity. She was a woman of business, with an auction house to run. She had a hundred items on her agenda, no inclination toward adventures, and no interest in her brother’s private life. At present, her agenda instructed her to be in the receiving room at Everleigh’s, supervising the unpacking of the books from the Cranston library.

  Instead, she was prowling through the East End, sidestepping stray dogs and weedy cracks in the pavement. On Whitechapel Road, amid the bustle of traffic and the cries of chestnut vendors, she had felt safe enough. But now, as she passed into a narrow lane of tenements,

  the atmosphere shifted. The buildings leaned together here like tired old pensioners, blocking the sunlight from

  the rutted lane. In the gutter, a beggar with a scabbed face lay insensate.

  She stopped beside him, noting the spittle that dotted his beard. Hadn’t her former assistant assured her that Whitechapel was not as dangerous as she imagined? But perhaps Lilah had changed her mind, after what transpired three months ago. Together, they had been kidnapped by a Russian lunatic intent on harming Lord Palmer. The Russian had imprisoned them near this very neighborhood, in such an isolated little shack that had it not been for their combined courage and inspiration in effecting an escape, nobody might ever have found them.

  Well. That was not quite true. Eventually, Lilah’s uncle would have found them. Nicholas O’Shea ruled the East End like a tyrant of old. He’d been keeping an eye on the Russian, as it transpired. It had simply taken him and Lord Palmer longer to get there than she and Lilah had been willing to wait.

  Alas that Mr. O’Shea’s dominion did not extend to nurturing beggars. A happy thing that Catherine hailed from a better part of town, where people took an interest in the troubled. “Sir,” she said crisply.

  No reply. Was he only drunk, or did he require a medic? So far, September had proved unseasonably cold; the newspapers said the chill had caused a wave of influenza. Nervously, she glanced around. Ahead, a woman hung out a window, calling incoherently at somebody only she could see. Not a likely source of aid, should this man require a doctor.

  “Sir,” she said more sharply.

  He loosed a sudden, nasal snore that reeked of gin, and startled her into hurrying onward.

  Half a street ahead, her brother was hurrying, too, his manner no less furtive than hers. So far, she had managed to keep out of his sight, her hood disguising her from his backward glances. But it alarmed her that he seemed to know where he was going. Peter was a man of fine tastes and lofty ambitions. Whom could he be meeting here?

  Peter drew up at an undistinguished row house, whose brick face had been handsome once, but now sported several broken windows. The front door swung open. An unseen hand admitted him, then closed the door.

  Catherine came to a stop. Somebody had been expecting him. Watching for him—here, of all places!

  She grew conscious of the curious looks of two girls strolling by, arm in arm—factory girls, she judged by their leather-stained hands. To her right, a rutted alley provided a place of relative concealment. She slipped into it and pressed herself against a damp wall. Her cloak was plain enough, for she had dressed today with the aim of receiving a cargo shipment. But it sported no patches, no rips or stains, and that alone made her stand out in this neighborhood.

  Hurry, Peter. She had no wish to be in Whitechapel when twilight fell. Lilah had spoken highly of her uncle’s ability to impose law and order—but she had warned Catherine just as volubly about the dangers of prowling here as an outsider.

  She sighed, drawing her cloak tighter. She might as well admit it to herself—she missed Lilah. She could not begrudge her a honeymoon, particularly since Lilah had never traveled outside England before. But now, of all times, she could use a friend. And she had only the one, really, if one did not count Mr. Batten. Everleigh’s had always kept her too busy to socialize, and even when she had tried, she had little in common with other women of her rank. She had no interest in discussing the latest gossip or fashions, and no time to read novels. Nobody seemed much interested in her thoughts on the art market, or how to tell an old master from a very convincing fraud . . .

  Well, she was proud of the business she’d helpe
d to build. Her work gave her purpose; it challenged and sustained her. But . . . it did make for a lonely routine. As a child, she’d longed desperately for a true friend. And secretly, in some corner of her soul, she’d never stopped wishing for that.

  An icy drop of rain hit her nose. Alarmed, she looked up into the clouded sky.

  “Hiding from somebody?”

  She jumped. Around the corner stepped a familiar figure. Astonishment briefly caught her tongue.

  She was not good with faces, but it would take a blind woman to forget Lilah’s uncle. He was nature’s cruel trick on the fairer sex, the perfect picture of dark, charming, masculine wickedness. Shining black hair, high cheekbones, lips as full as a woman’s . . . That was surely a flaw. But then, he had that brutal jaw and chin to make up for it . . . and the slight bump to his high-bridged nose, suggestive of some violent fracture in his past.

  “Mr. O’Shea.” She spoke very stiffly, for she had never liked his effect on her. She herself was counted beautiful, and she had seen what power she could wield when she cared to try. She refused to fall prey to a similar spell.

  But what a miserable coincidence to meet him here!

  He propped his shoulder on the brick wall and looked her over. “Dressed for prowling, I see. Did you steal that cloak from one of your maids?”

  She took a strangling hold on her collar. “It is mine, in fact. But I thank you for the insult.”

  His black brows arched. “Don’t think much of your maids, do you?”

  She opened her mouth, then thought better of it, and settled instead on a scowl. She had only met him twice, and both times he had looked at her in this smug, infuriating way, as though she were a joke designed for his private amusement. He made her feel . . . judged and ridiculed, found wanting as a woman.

  As though he were in any position to judge her! He was impertinent, boorish, ill-bred, and criminal. She must never forget that, even if at present he wore a black tailcoat fit for a ball.

  She frowned at him. He was in fact dressed with ludicrous elegance, with a diamond stickpin at his neck. “I was unaware that Whitechapel required evening dress of its strollers,” she said tartly. “Next time I come, I’ll be sure to wear a ball gown.”

  “You do that, darling. And be sure to keep an eye out for the weather, too.”

  “I always do.” As though in reply, another raindrop hit her chin. “I enjoy the rain.”

  His laughter had a rich, ringing note to it, unexpectedly beautiful. “Aye, you look as pleased as a wet cat.”

  “The words of a poet, Mr. O’Shea.” She peered around him. No sign of Peter yet.

  “Who are you waiting for?”

  That purring tone drew her attention back to him. Despite his formal wear, he was lounging against the brick wall with the slouching posture of a dockworker. The sight of such physical perfection, married to such calumny, vexed her in the extreme.

  She fixed her attention on the bump in his nose, the single imperfection to which she would direct all her scorn. How rudely he had replied to her letter! What kind of criminal turned down money, anyway? She had thought to hire him to intimidate Peter. It would have made an easy profit for him. “Is it any of your concern what I do, or for whom I wait?”

  “In my streets? Yes.”

  “Your streets?” She lifted her brows at this magnificently understated arrogance. “Has Her Majesty been informed of your claim?”

  “Oh, I reckon Her Majesty would be glad to cede this piece of London,” he said amiably. “Certainly she’s never bothered to worry for it.”

  That smacked of radicalism, which was just what she expected from a man like him. “I cannot say I blame her. There is a man lying in the road nearby, nearly dead from the cold.”

  “Thomas,” he said lightly. “The gin keeps him warm enough.”

  She scoffed. “How unsurprising, that you should know the names of the local drunkards.”

  “He’s a relation, in fact.” His accent had grown abruptly coarser. “Husband to my cousin.”

  “Note my continued lack of surprise.”

  “I’ll be surprised for both of us,” he said. “Didn’t figure you for a soft touch. Next time you see a drunkard in the street, best keep moving.”

  He had seen her stop to speak to the man? “Were you following me?”

  “The streets have eyes, sweetheart. And they all report to me.”

  Goodness. She glanced past him, toward the open lane. “You mean to say you employ spies? How . . . peculiar.”

  “House of Diamonds is just down the way.” He waved in the direction of the high road, causing the multiple rings on his long fingers to glitter. His jewelry was as gaudy as a grocery girl’s. “Patrons don’t like to be disturbed. So I keep track of who’s coming down the lane.”

  She nodded tightly. The House of Diamonds was his gambling palace—thoroughly illegal, although it scraped by on the pretense of a social club. That explained his apparel, then. She recalled having read, in various scathing editorials by upright crusaders, of the dress code enforced there.

  If he kept track of passersby, he would certainly know all the tenants in this street. “Do you know who lives in that building?” She pointed toward the tenement into which her brother had vanished.

  He did not follow her gesture. “Reckon I do.”

  “Then—might you share their names with me?”

  “No.” His gaze met hers squarely, forestalling argument.

  He had remarkable eyes, the color of quicksilver, thickly and darkly lashed. She gazed into them a moment too long before remembering herself. She made a noise to signal her disgust—and dismissal. “You may go, then,” she said. “I am not in a conversational mood.”

  He snorted and shoved off the wall, as fast and powerful as a spring uncoiling. “Got a coach standing outside Diamonds. It’ll take you back home.”

  In her amazement, she almost laughed. “Indeed it won’t.” Decency, and her friendship with his niece, compelled her to add, “But I do thank you for the offer.”

  He looked at her now as though she’d grown another head. “It wasn’t an offer. Something happens to you here, I’ll have the entire world poking about to investigate. And that won’t suit the business at Diamonds.”

  She frowned. Sound logic, good strategy. He was a businessman, in his way. If only he paid similar respect to her! Chickens lured toward a cliff: that was how he had described her clients. Glittery bits—his view of fine arts. “I’ll go,” she said sourly, “if you tell me who lives in that tenement.”

  He eyed her. “Thought it was the ale that made you so frisky. But it seems you’ve got spirit when sober as well.”

  Boor. “I cannot imagine what you mean. I am always sober.”

  His answering snort was unjust in the extreme.

  “That night at Mr. Neddie’s public house,” she said sharply, “was an extraordinary occasion, which no gentleman would mention. Indeed, had any gentleman been nearby, surely he would have intervened in a timely fashion to stop the madman who kidnapped me.”

  “Wasn’t only you who was kidnapped,” he said mildly.

  She let triumph curve her lips. “Indeed. Your niece was also endangered. Pity we had to save ourselves. At any rate, if either of us did overindulge in the aftermath—which I did not—then it was not from any inclination to intemperance, but merely from a natural wish to forget the events that preceded it. To say nothing of the company in which I found myself afterward!” Here, she gave him a pointed look.

  His brows climbed. “There’s a proper speech. I think I preferred you drunk.”

  “I told you, I was not—” She cut herself off with a hiss. No use in arguing with this ruffian. And, truth be told, she had not been entirely . . . herself that evening.

  If only she could manage to forget the whole of it. But she remembered saying some very forward things at the end of the night, to do with Mr. O’Shea’s face and figure . . . and the amount he might bring at auction, were he a s
culpture for sale . . .

  Oh, she refused to think on it. She had vowed never to drink again.

  She crossed her arms and looked over his shoulder toward the tenement. “Please go.”

  “In a minute, I’m tossing you over my shoulder.”

  She recoiled. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  But perhaps he would. His smile looked rakish. “You might enjoy it. I seem to recall a fine compliment to my shoulders, last time we met. I’d put it down to the drink, but you say you were sober. Well, then. Your sober self, Miss Everleigh, adjudged me a handsomely equipped man.”

  Mortification crawled through her. “You’re a churl.”

  “Maybe. Course, a churl wouldn’t drive you home. He might throw you over his shoulder and carry you to his coach, though. Why don’t you think on it for a moment.” As another spate of rain dampened them, he grimaced and said, “I’ll give you five seconds.”

  She darted another glance at the tenement. Peter might be in that building for hours, yet, and the light was fading now. “Fine. I will allow you to hail me a hackney.”

  “It’s a wonder,” he said, “that you ain’t been robbed yet. You travel much by cab?”

  “I would sooner trust a cabman than you,” she said through her teeth.

  “You think you’ve got anything I want?” As his gaze trailed over her, she flushed and crossed her arms again. “Ah,” he said, laughter twitching at his lips. “I see. You reckon me a lecher.”

  “I see the insult gratifies you.”

  “Oh, I’m gratified by something.” His gaze lifted again, but his smile had faded. “You didn’t get that idea from my niece,” he murmured. “Which means you cooked it up all by yourself. You think of me, Catherine, when you’re lying in bed at night? God knows I’ve thought of you, once or twice.”

  She gaped at him. Never had any man spoken to her so vulgarly. You flatter yourself: it did not seem like a properly sharp retort.

  The truth would not serve, either. God help her, how did he see it? Since their first meeting, she had wondered about him. He was so very . . . free . . . in his attitudes and behavior. She had never met anybody like him.