Luck Be a Lady

by Meredith Duran

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve been down there since . . . why, since Mr. Johnson left, I suppose. The mind proves willing, but sometimes the knees don’t.” She drew away to smooth down her skirts. Then she kicked out her legs, wiggling each foot, and pulled each of her elbows across her body in a long, unself-conscious stretch.

  Cats moved like that. He’d never imagined Catherine capable of it. The sight riveted him. Made his voice slightly husky as he said, “Find anything good?”

  “Oh, goodness—where to start? It’s like Ali Baba’s cave of wonders.” She beamed up at him, and in the sodium light, she looked like a wonder herself, her hair incandescently pale, her large eyes glittering. He reached out and wiped away a smudge with his thumb. It was a mark of her single-mindedness that she did not even protest. “Remind me,” she said, “to tell you about the tambour-topped table tonight. The most extraordinary specimen!”

  Her skin seemed to leave a mark on his, his thumb feeling branded as he tucked it back into his pocket. They had made a practice of dining together this week. Seemed she felt it was professional to keep him apprised of his possessions. In truth, he had no use for the information; this stuff had been rotting in here. That she would turn it into coin was a favor to him—another, after her fine work at the B Meeting on Tulip Patrick’s behalf.

  That piece of mercy hadn’t gone unnoticed in the neighborhood. Who was Tulip’s angel, then? Mrs. Sheahen had stopped him in the street to ask. I hear she spoke like a poet.

  Catherine hadn’t said much that he could recall. But she’d committed to it, all right, in spite of her reservations. No doubt it was the first time she’d lied to the law, but she’d done it in smooth, steady tones that rubbed like balm across a man’s sore ears. Tulip had looked at her in amazement, and half the room had gaped. She had that kind of power, though thank God she didn’t know it. She had no idea that she could light up a room like a lamp at midnight.

  He liked their dinners together. He liked her company, for all that he didn’t understand half of her interests. Surprising deal of pleasure in listening to her speechify about furniture. The enthusiasm that animated her face, the fervent appreciation in her voice, put him in mind of a girl discussing her lover. No ice queen, here. Aye, he was learning a good deal about the lies she told—to herself, as well as others. Business, ha. Wasn’t business that made her spring out of bed each morning, and kept her vibrating well through supper. What she called business, he called passion—and she had it in spades, albeit for dusty relics of the past.

  But passion, it seemed to him, was a native resource. You had it or you didn’t—and if you had it, it made a moveable talent, durable and directable. No man alive would watch her grow flushed and rosy as she praised a walnut stool, and not think of how it would feel to be the focus of that flushed intensity.

  He put his hand on her waist now, nudging her down the aisle. She came willingly, lamp swinging at her side, her attention darting back and forth as she tracked the shifting beam of light—hunting, no doubt, for what she might have overlooked. She would have made a fine thief. She had the steel for it, the discipline, the constant watchful attention. But he wouldn’t have risked her on it.

  The thought made him frown. He’d risked himself, and his family, and any number of other people whom he cared for.

  Still. It didn’t sit right, thinking of Catherine chased by the law.

  “It will take another few days to make certain I’ve combed through everything,” she was telling him in a cheerful, chattering voice. “Then two days, at least, to crate and transport the items to Everleigh’s. I mean to rush this lot to auction. We’ll hold it in early December. Does that sound acceptable?”

  “Fine,” he said brusquely. Wasn’t that she was too good for danger. He didn’t think her better than himself or his kin. But for all the luxury of her upbringing, she’d known little joy, it seemed to him. Treated ill by the very people who should have cared for her best. Her brother, sure, but her dad, too. What kind of father asked his little girl to prove herself by sitting silent for hours at a time? Nick’s own da had been no example of fatherhood. But one imagined that gents who had no need for a child’s income might indulge their kids a bit, rather than . . . train them like circus dogs.

  She’d kept quiet, though. She’d told Nick as much, with pride in her voice. Aye, she’d have made a fine thief, too, if her dad had asked it of her. She’d have obeyed, no doubt, without a word of challenge. Maybe there was the difference. Nick had put his nieces to thieving when they were still girls, believing family stuck together. Training them in the only way he could. But he’d always trusted them to speak up for themselves, to challenge him and break away once they found their footing.

  Catherine, in their place, would have become the best thief in England, and never broken free of it. That was the difference. That was why Nick wouldn’t have put her to it.

  It was also why he wouldn’t listen to her again should her brother cause trouble. If Peter Everleigh menaced her once more, Nick would draw blood.

  “Are you listening?” she demanded.

  “Sorry, lost track, there. What was that?”

  “December won’t draw the best crowd, of course. I wish we could wait. This collection deserves a spring auction, when the ton is in town for—”

  He snorted. “If it’s money you want, you should look outside that lot. They’re up to their eyeballs in debt. Otherwise, I’d have no collection to auction, would I?”

  She paused. “A fine point. With land prices falling . . . Whom, do you think, has the money?”

  “Tycoons. Industrialists.” He offered her a sideways smile. “Criminals.”

  She bit her lip to stop her own smile. “I don’t think the criminals have postal addresses. But perhaps you’re right. We should expand the invitation list to include—”

  “Why bother with invitations at all? Throw open the doors. Come one, come all.”

  She shook her head. “Exclusivity is what distinguishes us. Otherwise, why not go to Christie’s or Sotheby’s?”

  He drew up by the door. “Your goods might distinguish you. Try trading on them.”

  “Of course we trade on goods. But . . .” She handed him the lamp and reached for the cloak hanging on a nearby hook—then turned back, laughing. “One thing I’ll say for it: it would enrage Peter. Worth considering, simply for that.”

  “There you go,” he said. There was the devilry in her. Just took a nudge.

  “At any rate, I’ll certainly take out a grand advertisement—full page, illustrated. Heaven knows that some of these pieces would draw a crowd all the way from China.” She set to buttoning her cloak. “How did you manage to acquire them? I can’t imagine that your debtors would offer their finest wares straightaway.”

  “Generally not.” She was having trouble with her buttons, he noticed. Hands tired from her work. “But I know how to read a face. How to tell what a man doesn’t want to part with, and what he wouldn’t mind losing.”

  Her hands paused. She tipped her head, looking struck. “Very clever. So you don’t pay attention to the antiques, but to the demeanor of the man who offers them?”

  “That’s right.” And her demeanor right now was warm, interested, engaged. He gently knocked aside her hands, fastening the rest of the buttons himself.

  He could feel the way her breath hitched in the rise and suspended fall of her breasts. Could hear her noisy swallow, and sense the agitation behind her rush of color. “I . . . am very bad, I think, at reading faces.”

  “Oh, I think you’ve got a fine eye,” he murmured, and smoothed her hair back with his knuckles. Very fine eyes. Impossibly lovely. “I expect you don’t need to bother with faces, though. The tables and cabinets keep you occupied.”

  Her lips curved in a hitching, hesitant smile. His knuckles still pressed against her cheekbone. But she didn’t step away. She was looking directly at him. “My brother once said that I’d rather sleep with a cabinet th
an . . .”

  He leaned forward, lips brushing her ear. “Than what?”

  “A husband,” she whispered.

  He pressed his mouth to her neck. That tender skin just beneath her ear.

  A small gasp escaped her. “You . . . shouldn’t.”

  He lifted his brows, intrigued. Shouldn’t was a far cry from couldn’t. He opened his mouth and tasted her skin. Was rewarded by the shudder that moved through her—and then punished, as she stepped backward, out of reach.

  Her lips parted, plump and rosy; she looked dazed. “You . . .” She cleared her throat. “I will remind you. You aren’t a cabinet.”

  He grinned, delighted by the banter. “I call that a blessing, in fact.” But when he reached for her again, she sidestepped and hauled open the door. He followed her into the street.

  The rain had died off, but the air was cold and moist, piercing his nostrils like needles. She tugged her cloak tighter around her and yanked her hood over her hair before striking a brisk pace down the road. “A cabinet,” she said over her shoulder, “doesn’t care if a lady spends her days at the office and works late into the night.”

  He caught up to her. “And a husband would?

  She snorted. “A husband generally wishes his wife to be at home knitting doilies and waiting like a loyal dog for his return—thence to strip off his boots and rub his feet, and murmur sympathetically while he complains of his work.”

  “The foot rub sounds nice,” he says. “But doilies go cheap at market. Seems a doltish man indeed who minds a wife with ambitions, and has the guts to pursue them, besides.”

  With one finger, she hooked back her hood to dart him a sidelong glance. “Most gentlemen don’t feel so.”

  He shrugged. “Well, but I’m no gentleman.”

  She faced ahead again, but after a moment, she said, “Perhaps your tastes will change, now that you have come into money.”

  “I didn’t come into money,” he said evenly. “I made it. And no, I don’t think my tastes will change, since I never gave the matter much thought before a few weeks ago.”

  “A few . . .”

  He waited, but she seemed unwilling to finish that sentence. They drew up before the side door at Diamonds; he rapped his knuckles against it. “A few weeks ago,” he repeated. “When I married you, Kitty.”

  She looked up at him, something troubled working across her brow. “I wish you wouldn’t . . .”

  He seized her hand and delivered it a smacking kiss. “Don’t lie,” he said.

  She snatched back her hand, but before she could argue, the door opened, and Callan was bowing them inside.

  * * *

  Was the candlelight more diffuse tonight than usual? Were the lights turned lower? As O’Shea busied himself at the sideboard, filling Catherine’s plate from a variety of dishes sent up from the kitchens, she took her accustomed seat by the fire and looked for the cause of her uneasiness. His sitting room felt . . . smaller. Or he seemed larger. She could not take her eyes off him.

  Like a solvent applied to varnish, these dinners had begun to erode her defenses. His casual touches, his genuine, disarming interest . . .

  She made a fist in her lap. Ladies hold their hands in elegant postures. You must have a care with your hands, Catherine: they look so mannish and ragged!

  Odd that her mother’s voice was so strong in her memory tonight. She had spent long minutes in her bath, scrubbing at her palms with a pumice stone. But the calluses were all but permanent now.

  The maid had added sprigs of lavender to her bathwater. The scent still clung to her skin. If O’Shea noticed it, he might think she had perfumed herself for him.

  The notion left her unsettled as he carried over two heaping plates. “Outdone himself again,” he said as he placed hers on the table before the fire. “One of these days, we’ll get snails, I’ll lay a wager on it.”

  She managed a smile. They had developed a small joke about his chef, whose name was Thomas but who preferred to be called “Pierre.” Thomas, it seemed, felt himself sorely mistreated by fate; he was convinced that he’d been designed a Frenchman. “Have you ever had escargot?”

  “God be praised,” O’Shea said fervently as he sat. “I’ve been spared thus far.”

  “They’re actually quite tasty.”

  “That’s what old Wilson at the cookshop once told me of squirrel,” he said with a grimace. “But I found a new source of mince pies the next day, I promise you.” As she laughed, he came to his feet again. “Forgot the wine.”

  This, too, was becoming a tradition of sorts. “I won’t drink it,” she said serenely as she picked up her fork. Thomas had indeed outdone himself. Lobster salad, roasted lamb, plover eggs, and butter-drenched artichoke hearts crowded her plate. She glanced to the sideboard to weigh her strategy: dessert looked to be a platter of chocolate profiteroles, cream custards, and a variety of hothouse fruit. She would go lightly on the lamb, then. In heaven, every course would include profiteroles.

  O’Shea returned, carrying a bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. “You’ll only need one,” she said, per the usual routine.

  He lifted the bottle to display the label. She squinted: Painted Pipe Madeira, 1790.

  1790? She choked on a mouthful of lobster. “You can’t mean to open that!”

  He gave her a cat-in-the-cream smile as he pulled a jack-knife from his pocket. In a showy, one-handed move, he flipped open the knife. She rolled her eyes. She would not encourage his penchant for thuggish talents. “Why not?” he asked.

  She sighed. “Do you remember the Sheraton dresser in the storeroom?”

  “French vices,” he said, a purr in his voice. “How could I forget?”

  She bit hard on her cheek, a punishment for blushing. He made everything sound so . . . suggestive. “At auction, that bottle would go for more than the dresser.”

  “Oh?” He turned the bottle in his hand, examining it with new interest. “Seems a sight less useful than a sturdy chest of drawers. You’re running quite a con at that auction house.”

  “A con? I beg your . . .” But he was grinning, so she abandoned her dudgeon. “It’s not a con,” she said mildly. “That madeira is very rare. I should be surprised if ten bottles still existed.”

  “It’s a con,” he said. “For one madeira’s much like another. Only you say it isn’t, and somehow you cozen the sheep into believing you and spending a small fortune on a single bottle.”

  It was impossible to take offense at his words—not when he spoke them so amiably, with that teasing hitch to his mouth. “Those sheep are men of good taste,” she said dryly. “I can understand how you might mistake them as a foreign species.”

  He laughed. “So, tell me, then: what would be the reserve for this bottle at auction?”

  “I’d have to consult previous sales. But at a guess? Fifty pounds.”

  He loosed a low whistle. “And then what?”

  “What do you mean? And then it would sell for seventy, perhaps, and you’d be”—she quickly calculated their agreed percentage—“fifty-six pounds the richer.”

  “Highway robbery, that split.” He flashed her a wolfish grin. “You’re a thief as well as a swindler, with a pretty face to cover for it. And the man who won the bottle—what do you think he’d do with it?”

  “Add it to his collection. A great many men”—she narrowed her eyes—“men of taste, that is—collect madeira.”

  “Wouldn’t drink it, then?”

  “Of course not! A bottle so rare? Why, I expect one would open it only for a—a state dinner, an evening with the royal family—”

  “Well, then.” He stabbed his knife into the cork, then yanked it out with a loud pop. “No sense leaving all the good stuff to those who take it for granted.”

  Her fork clattered to the plate. She sat back in her chair, aghast as he splashed the straw-colored wine into a glass.

  He held it out to her. “Feel like making an exception tonight?”

>   Temptation battled against caution. It was a very rare wine. And perhaps, to broaden her professional knowledge, it would be wise to sample it . . .

  He took her hand and wrapped it around the glass, then guided it to her lips. His gray gaze caught hers over the rim of the glass, his long black lashes a dramatic frame for the devilish light glinting in his eyes. “Tell me if it’s any good,” he murmured, then dropped his glance to her mouth.

  Awareness fluttered through her, soft and ticklish as moths’ wings. If he was the devil, then she was his willing victim. She breathed deeply of the sweet fumes, then opened her mouth as he tilted the cup, pouring a small bit into her mouth.

  Heaven. She pushed the glass away and closed her eyes, rolling the liquid over her tongue. A mild, nutty sweetness, almonds and maple, yielded to the faint, surprising tang of citrus peel. When she swallowed, a creamy, lingering note of toffee spread across her tongue, a hook that demanded another sip for certainty.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “It’s . . .” The words fell away as she opened her eyes. He was watching her, a tense cast to his face, his eyes narrowed and his mouth hard.

  He recovered himself instantly, offering her a quick, curious smile before sitting down and slinging back a mouthful from his own cup. His broad, tanned throat rippled as he swallowed. The way he sat, with his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, drew his trousers into tight definition across his brawny thighs.

  She had seen those thighs naked. She knew the shape of the muscle that gripped his bones; the way that muscle narrowed, so dramatically and elegantly, into his neat, square knees. Awareness, full-bodied and almost painful, surged through her. She felt breathless.

  “Not as bold as I expected,” he said.

  She made herself look away from him, into the depths of her cup. “They call it a rainwater madeira. It’s generally milder than the other types.”

  “Ah. Didn’t know.”

  She tried for a smile. He was sitting four feet away, behaving with perfect courtesy. She should encourage such behavior. “Let me guess. This came from the cellars of another hapless gambler?”