She hadn’t known that. The news embittered her next words. “What he lost was not his to gamble. He is embezzling profits from our auction rooms. If his corruption were discovered, the scandal would destroy us.”
“Pity. And Pilcher? You knew him. Didn’t like him, from what I saw. How does he factor?”
“Oh, I . . .” She hesitated, oddly flustered by the need to speak the words aloud. “My brother has taken it into his mind that I will marry him.”
He nodded once. “And you don’t want to.”
“Of course not. I’ve no intention of marrying anybody. But Peter has threatened to sell the auction house if I don’t comply. And Mr. Pilcher, for his part, is oddly persistent.”
He sat back, a slight smile working over his mouth. “Not so odd, I’d say. You ever look in a mirror?”
She bit her cheek. It was one thing to play deaf to clients’ smooth compliments, but when closeted alone with a rogue, such words felt unnerving. “I—I don’t care why he’s interested. But with my brother’s encouragement, he has made himself quite . . . unwelcome.”
His expression hardened. “How?”
“Nothing worth your time.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
She frowned. “Very well. There was one evening recently . . . he was waiting for my brother at our home.” She had returned home late, and found Pilcher alone in the drawing room. “I had no interest in speaking with him, but he insisted upon it. When I tried to leave, he grabbed my wrist and . . .” It seemed stupid, suddenly, to complain of being touched so, when O’Shea had probably proved far rougher in his time with any number of women. “It was nothing,” she muttered. But had the butler not walked past, she did not like to think what would have happened.
O’Shea was staring at her through narrowed eyes. “You make a habit of doubting your instincts, Miss Everleigh?”
“No.”
“Good.” His smile was swift and sharp, as though she had passed some kind of test.
The approval flustered her. She dropped her eyes, but it seemed there was nowhere safe to look. At some point, he had unknotted his necktie, and his collar fell open to reveal the powerful cording of his neck. The evening coat fit him very closely, emphasizing the heavy musculature of his upper body. He was tall enough that one did not realize at first the power of his build.
She would like to see Pilcher try to manhandle this man.
“Never mind that,” she said. “I want to hire you, sir. To stop my brother from his depredations. And to . . .” She took a deep breath. “To persuade him not to sell the auction rooms.”
“And to discourage Pilcher?”
“A pleasant bonus. But my main concern is Everleigh’s.”
He nodded, then drummed his fingers once. “Stop your brother, how?”
The show of interest encouraged her. He might have refused outright, after all. “I don’t wish him injured. I simply wish him unable to participate in the directorship of Everleigh’s.”
“Prettily put,” he said. “Let’s be plainer. You want him kicked out on his arse.”
Something in his easy, loose posture made her painfully aware of how rigidly she held herself, and the nerves she was trying hard to conceal. “That is another way to put it, yes.”
He grinned. “Not very sisterly, is it? Casting him on the likes of me.”
“My feelings do not factor. A businesswoman never acts from spite.”
His laughter was short and startled. “Is that so? You hear that in some pastor’s homily, or did you make it up yourself?”
She leaned forward. “I believe it,” she said heatedly. “The company is my only concern here. My father entrusted Everleigh’s to both of us. But Peter cares nothing for it. Politics is all that interests him. Very well, he should be encouraged to direct the whole of his interests to the political field. That is what I ask of you.”
O’Shea nodded again, his gaze wandering her face. He seemed oddly fascinated by her mouth, studying it a moment too long for her comfort. “Businesswoman, you say.”
“Yes.” His attention made her feel overwarm and fidgety, as though her blood was rushing too forcefully, or her skin had grown too tight. Her heart was beating faster, suddenly, than the conversation warranted. “Imagine me sexless, if the notion troubles you.”
He smiled. “Now, that would be a pity.”
“Listen,” she said more sharply. “Can you help me, or not?”
“What of the courts? If he’s such a criminal, bring him up on charges.”
“Naturally I’ve thought of it.” Did he imagine her an idiot? “But the courts would not allow for discretion. I would have to publicly reveal Peter’s wrongdoings. That scandal would destroy the company, too. Nobody wants to patronize an auction house that cheats and steals from its clients.”
“True enough.” O’Shea’s eyes unfocused as he consulted himself; freed of his unblinking study, she felt like she could breathe again. “So. No courts, no violence. A tricky proposal. And what’s in it for me?”
“Money, of course.”
“Ah.” He glanced down at his hand on the desktop, stretching out his fingers and flexing them slightly, as though to admire the lurid glitter of the gemstones on his long fingers. “Small problem. I don’t need money.”
What he needed, in fact, was taste. “You surprise me, Mr. O’Shea. Can you ever have enough money?”
He flashed her a swift, startled grin. “A girl after my own heart!”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Money was not her main concern. “It’s only that . . .” He had not struck her as a man to turn down a profit. A recent political cartoon, agitating against crime and corruption, had depicted him outside the House of Diamonds, sitting atop piles of moneybags. Even his niece had once suggested that money would sway his interest. “What do you require, if not money?”
“Well, now.” His lashes dropped, veiling his sharp gray eyes as he tilted his hand to make a study of his rings. “Your brother sits on the Municipal Board of Works, I recall.”
She frowned. “Yes, he does.”
“What’s his aim, there?”
“A stepping stone for his political career.”
“Suppose so. Your brother wasn’t born to a political family. He’ll have to claw his way up.”
“That’s his intention.” What did this have to do with Everleigh’s?
“No doubt he’s using those ill-gotten funds to buy himself friendships.” He glanced up. “And he’ll need them. To make himself a proper goer, he’ll have to ensure those friends are given no cause to shun him, either.”
She followed him now. “Blackmail won’t work. His reputation is linked to Everleigh’s success. He’d never believe I would expose him, if it meant endangering the company.”
“Slow down.” O’Shea offered her a crooked smile, no doubt intended to charm her. “Lovely lass like you will put my brain into knots.”
She snorted. A pity if Mr. O’Shea had not yet heard her nickname. Masculine blandishments were wasted on an ice queen. “Then unknot it,” she said, “and hurry up. I have appointments to keep.”
His smile faded. “The Municipal Board of Works has become a thorn in my side. I’ve got two buildings to the west of here, condemned by an inspector that answers to Pilcher. He’s got no authority in Whitechapel, but it seems the fine lads at Berkeley House will entertain his petition anyway.”
“His petition to . . . ?”
“Knock down my buildings. He calls them hazardous.” O’Shea shrugged. “I’ve put forward my own petition to stop it, but that’ll take another vote. When I add up the friends I’ve got on that board, I’m short by a single man. Your brother’s vote would make the difference for me.”
Understanding welled up, and with it, disgust. The Municipal Board of Works had undertaken a campaign to raze unsafe buildings and ensure decent housing for the poor. Mr. O’Shea opposed this, as all slumlords did. How low. How revolting.
But personal se
ntiments had no place in business. With difficulty, she checked her distaste. “I’m afraid I have no influence over him. I could not persuade him to spare your buildings.”
“I expect not,” he said dryly. “You can’t even stop him from robbing you.”
She bridled. “Yes, thank you for the reminder. I do enjoy this plain speaking, sir.”
“Ain’t it fun?” He took hold of his fist, cracking his knuckles noisily. “Now, what we require, seems to me, is a proper piece of blackmail. Something to bring your brother to heel for us both. You say the threat can’t touch on the auction house, or he’d never believe you meant it. So it must be . . .” He frowned. “Some information which he knows you might reveal, at negligible harm to yourself. At the same time, revealing it would ruin his hopes for a political career.”
“Clever,” she said flatly. “Pity I know no such secrets.”
“Mind you, it must serve my purposes, too. I want his votes, now and in the future.”
“And I would like a world in which Everleigh’s belonged only to me,” she said. “But I deal in fact, not fiction.”
He leaned forward, his weight on his elbows. His full lips canted into a half smile that made her stomach flip. “Then we’ll have to make a fiction into fact,” he said. “You share a roof, true?”
She nodded, biting her lip very hard as a punishment for the stupid tripping of her pulse.
“You’ve got all the access we need, then. You’ll plant something. Proof of a scandal that he must hide, if he wants to keep himself in the good books of his fancy friends.”
She blew out a breath. “Proof of what?” Peter gambled—but who didn’t? He was a philanderer—but he never took up with married women. “You must help me,” she said. Her mind did not work in such low, corrupt ways.
He sighed. “Well . . . they’re not ruling on the buildings for a week or two, yet. Give me some time to think on it.”
“I don’t have time! I told you, he means to sell the company!”
“Pity,” he said, not without sympathy. “And here my niece told me you owned half the place.”
“I do, but I can’t oppose him unless I’m—”
Married.
Her mouth fell open. He arched a brow, but she felt unable to speak. An idea—a preposterous, astounding, utterly unthinkable idea—exploded through her like a firework.
No. She could not propose it.
But for Everleigh’s . . . for the sake of Everleigh’s, was there anything she would not do?
God help her. “I know a way,” she whispered.
“Oh?” His gaze fixed on her, intense and unwavering. So a man would look, when sighting his pistol. A criminal. A beautiful, dangerous man.
Her only hope.
“He wants a political career.” The words felt heavy on her clumsy tongue. Her lips had gone numb, her entire body iced by shock at her own temerity. “I know how to make a secret that would destroy his chances. It would be your secret, and mine, too. He would do anything to prevent us from speaking it.”
O’Shea watched her narrowly. “You don’t look thrilled by it.”
“I’m not,” she said. “It’s a perfect nightmare. Marriage, Mr. O’Shea.” She choked on the next words. “Yours, to me.”
* * *
“Now, here’s a proper spread,” said Blushes. “I’ve not had such a roast since my ma’s own passing.” As he looked over the spread, table groaning with a dozen savory dishes, a near-religious awe worked over his broad face.
Nick exchanged an amused look with Patrick Malloy, who sat to his right. Quite a brawl they’d had before sitting down to supper; Malloy’s wife, Peggy, had insisted that Nick take the head of the table. When Malloy had muttered about a man’s rights, she’d twisted his ear until he squeaked an agreement.
Now Nick presided over a table of fourteen, a solid oak slab that he’d gifted to the oldest Malloy daughter on her wedding day, seven years ago. Peggy and Patrick and Blushes sat nearest, and the Malloys’ grown children ranged down the sides, their spouses beside them.
The foot of the table poked out of the room, straight into the public stairwell. But in Nick’s service, the Malloys had flourished, and so they owned the upper floor as well. Their brood had grown expert in negotiating the corners of the table as they ran up and down the stairs each day. The youngest generation—grandkids, loud and barefooted and gleeful—barely slowed as they raced in and out, shoving each other to fill their plates fastest.
Peggy was passing a tureen heaped with fried potatoes. “God rest your mother’s soul, Mr. Johnson.” One would never guess, by her mellow tone, that she’d pitched a fit at having an Englishman to supper. The woman had a soft spot for a man with a stomach, and Blushes was not disappointing her. “She’ll have lived to a ripe old age, I hope.”
“Oh yes,” he said, tipping the potatoes onto his plate in a heaping pile. “Seventy-four years, and each of them sharper than the last.”
“You’ve got brothers and sisters, I expect?”
“Four,” said Johnson. He speared a wedge, chewed happily as he went on. “And two nephews and three nieces, now, besides.”
“Well, now.” Peggy beamed at him. “You’ll need to catch up, there. Find a lass of your own.”
“A girl of spare appetite,” Malloy added sourly. “Else together you’ll eat Whitechapel out of house and home. Pass those spuds, boy. The rest of us are waiting.”
Johnson hastily complied. For a minute, the only sounds were the clink of forks against stoneware, and murmurs of satisfaction all around.
“Family is a blessing,” Peggy Malloy said. Nick felt her gaze fix on him, and braced himself for the usual harangue. “What a man needs, I always say, is a wife, a decent and steady girl to look after him—”
“Like he needs a hole in the head,” Malloy muttered.
“Psh.” Peggy’s hair had turned iron-gray, but her green eyes retained all the force of her girlhood, in which, no doubt, she’d been a proper looker, and had put many men to shame with that fierce glare. “I’ll give you a proper hole, Patrick Malloy. Keep it up, and I’ll bash you, all right.”
“There’s care,” Malloy said. “You see, lads? Marriage and murder go in hand like meat does with salt.”
Blushes had forgotten to chew, his jaw slack with concern. Nick offered a reassuring smile. Was easy, as an outsider, to mistake what the Malloys had. Patrick was a tough old codger, black cold eyes and a flat, mean face; he looked, and growled, like a cur gone rabid. In a pinch, he fought like one, too; woe be to the man who thought his white hair and wrinkles betokened weakness.
But he and Peggy had made a fine life for themselves, and once or twice, when Nick had stepped through a door too quickly, he’d caught them nuzzling like lovebirds.
“We’d all be so lucky,” Nick said, “for such a bashing.” He lifted his glass, a pint of dark; he always came to supper with a cask from Neddie’s. “To good health and good luck.”
Tankards lifted. “And to marriage,” said Peggy, looking him dead in the eye. “No use dragging your feet on it.”
In reply, he busied himself with drinking. Every supper at the Malloys’, Peggy started in on him. She couldn’t know that today he had nothing but marriage on his mind.
Life had a sweet streak of perversity, didn’t it? He’d watched Catherine Everleigh for years, ever since his niece had gone to work at those auction rooms. Hard not to watch her; she was, in face and figure, a living myth. You heard about her kind in stories, fairy tales told to kids: hair like spun gold, eyes like violets, skin without a blotch or stray freckle. Aye, he’d watched her, all right, with idle curiosity, never expecting in his life to come near enough to touch her. His niece had talked of her sometimes, said they called her an “Ice Queen,” for she showed no interest in the fine gentlemen who dogged her.
He’d liked her for that. Prettiest woman in London, turning up her nose at the soft swells who cast their caps at her. A woman of rare sense, he’d thought.
It must be a true marriage. So she’d told him, yesterday at Diamonds. At that moment, he’d realized he was dreaming the whole business. A man could lie awake for a thousand nights, his hand on his cock, thinking of a woman. But when she appeared, and told him he’d need to bed her? That was generally a fine sign that he was still in his bed, eyes closed, lost to the waking world.
Only it hadn’t been a dream, after all. And he needed to decide what to do about it.
“Mr. O’Shea, Mr. O’Shea!” Small hands tugged at his sleeve.
“Let him be,” Peggy said sharply. “Oi, Mary—manage your tyke.”
But Nick shook his head at Mary, who was already rising from her seat at the foot of the table. “It’s all right,” he said. He laid down his fork and turned to the little boy—Garod, he believed, though Mary and her husband were doing their best to confuse him, with a new babe every winter. “What is it?”
Granted full attention, Garod seemed not to know what to do with it. Breathing heavily, he stared up at Nick, his little brows working as he tried to sound out his thoughts. “I want—I want—”
“Spit it out,” said Peggy. “Then let the man eat.”
“I want to work for you!”
Laughter around the table. Nick grinned and laid his hand atop the little boy’s head.
So small. Had he himself ever been so tiny? “Well, that’s a fine compliment to me,” he said gravely. “But you’ve got some growing to do, yet. You see Johnson, over there?” He nodded toward Blushes.
The boy looked over. His eyes went round.
“Aye, he’s a big one, ain’t he? You think you can grow that big?”
Garod licked his lips. “I think so. I think.”
Malloy snorted. “With that midget of a da?”
“Hey,” called Mary sharply down the table.
Nick laughed. “Well, it’ll take some work,” he told Garod. “And lots of eating. What say you go eat your supper, and put your mind to growing?”
Garod nodded and raced to fetch his plate.
Peggy was staring. “I won’t say a word,” she said when she caught his eye. “But what a man needs—”
Luck Be a Lady Page 6