Luck Be a Lady

by Meredith Duran

  “Two buildings,” he said softly. “If that’s all you’ll profit me, you’re the poorest gamble I ever took.”

  “What . . .” She pushed out a sharp laugh. “Come now. Am I— Surely you’re not suggesting you wanted something else all along. From me? I won’t believe it.”

  His smile was brief and dark. “Why not? You think a man can’t covet what he’s told he doesn’t deserve? A boy can look into a window and covet a wood fire. You think a man can’t look into your auction rooms and covet a woman?”

  Stunned, she fumbled for words. “I . . . You never met me. We barely spoke—”

  “I watched you,” he said quietly. “From the moment Lily first showed up on your doorstep. I always had my eye on you.”

  She crossed her arms against a strange feeling, tremulous and unbalancing. “You . . . worried for her, I suppose.”

  “I watched you.”

  “No.” She shook her head, panic bolting through her. She didn’t want to hear such things. This was business! This arrangement had not been borne of anything to do with feeling, with curiosity, with . . . desire . . .

  But it did. His face showed her so. He didn’t look pleased to have made his admission. His expression was stark, the look of a man beholding a fatal mistake.

  And suddenly she could not bear to be his mistake. “Why did you watch me?” she whispered. And how foolish was she, to feel this momentary, fragile hope? She’d caught a hundred men gawping at her. Her face . . . my beauty, her father had called her. You have your mother’s face. But she’d always wished to be so much more than that—not only to her father but also, perhaps, to someone else . . .

  “I can’t say.” He spoke in a low, rough voice. “Maybe because I’d never seen a woman like you. Out of place in that world. Owning it, regardless. Maybe I admired that. Or maybe you simply looked like the next rung on the ladder. Or it was even simpler—and you’re right; I wanted what I’d never had as a boy. For a woman like you—for you, Catherine—to look at me, and see . . . not a crook. Not a gutter rat raised high. But a man.” He stepped toward her. “A man who could do more for you than that bloody auction house ever could. Simple, sure. Simple as what we shared in a bed together. Maybe that’s what I wanted all along.”

  He called that simple? “I’m . . . I can’t give that to you. I’ve told you, I’m not fit, that way.”

  A shadow crossed his face, tightened his mouth, and it stung her like the lash of a whip. She had warned him of this. How dare he look disappointed in her! “Bollocks,” he said flatly. “What does that mean?”

  “That auction house may seem like nothing to you, but it’s all I ever wanted—”

  He gripped her cheek. “Now you’re lying,” he said softly, “and here I thought we were being so honest. I saw you want it. I heard you want it, the other night. If you’re afraid, then say so. But don’t you bloody lie to me.”

  She lifted her chin. He would not bully her. “It has nothing to do with fear—or our stations, either.” As cynicism sharpened his mouth, she cast caution to the wind and spoke in a rush. “It’s me. I would disappoint you.” And she could not bear that thought. She, Catherine Everleigh, did not fail. She did nothing by half measures. She would not allow herself to aim for what she could never hope to do well.

  “What nonsense is that?” When she shook her head, he turned her face back toward him. “Look at me,” he said. “How are you unfit? Who put that idea into your head? Your goddamned brother?”

  “He has nothing to do with it,” she said bitterly. “Some things one knows from a young age. My mother . . .” So unhappy with her life. Squandering her energies on gossip and backbiting, silly feuds among her friends. Taking to her bed at any sign of Papa’s wrath. Quarreling, always quarreling with him. She had warned Catherine that a woman’s lot was to be dependent on the pleasure of a man. Marriage, Catherine, is the most perilous risk a woman ever takes. Take care whom you choose. Make sure you can keep him happy.

  But the only man whom Catherine had known how to keep happy was her father—for she excelled at her work. And what other man would be content with that?

  “I don’t want that life,” she said fiercely. “I don’t want to be . . . beholden . . . to an ideal I can’t achieve. And yes, I enjoy your touch. I want it. I will admit that. I . . . think of you, at night, and too often during the day, and I . . . But it means nothing! You said it yourself, once—it happens on street corners!”

  “Like hell this does,” he growled, and caught her by the waist.

  * * *

  Had she resisted, he would have let go. But as Nick drew her toward him, something changed. Her face, so taut from her inward struggle, suddenly relaxed. She closed her eyes and took a deep, audible breath, then threw her arms around him, like a child leaping from the edge of a high wall, aiming for the unknown.

  He held her tight, gripped her waist as she buried her face against his neck. Some powerful emotion rocked through him, a ferocious need leavened by deep relief. Even as a boy, he had never begged but once. He’d swept streets, blacked boots, ducked the occasional swing of a ganger’s fist at the docks—but begging, no. There, he’d drawn the line. And had Catherine pushed him away just now, he might never have reached for her again. For it had come to that, hadn’t it? He wouldn’t take what she didn’t give freely, and by God, he wouldn’t beg.

  But she had come to him. Hallelujah. She stood pressed against him, her breath warming his throat in unsteady puffs, some lingering effect of the fears that wracked her.

  Nick didn’t hope to understand those fears. Didn’t expect he could reason them away for her, either. That was her battle. But he could sure as hell give her a reason to fight.

  He kissed the crown of her hair, soft and silken. The kiss seemed to jar her from her trance. Her hands scrabbled on his waist, tightening as though to keep him against her. He swallowed a ragged laugh. As though, even with a gun at his head, he would step away. Given practice, she’d come to understand that.

  He meant to give her a great deal of practice now.

  He smoothed a path down her arms, pulling her hands free of their grip on him, lacing his fingers through hers. He eased down to kiss her neck. Her pulse was still drumming. She turned her face away, either from shyness or to give him a better angle.

  He tracked his mouth slowly down her throat, right to the edge of her gown, high-necked, unadorned blue wool. Dozens of buttons fastened it closed; he had noticed them as he’d followed her up the stairs earlier.

  God help her if she liked the dress. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. Felt her tense as she saw it.

  “Hold still,” he said.

  She did better. She turned for him, bowing her head as she presented her back.

  Wealth had given him a thousand pleasures he’d never anticipated. But he’d never known any sweeter than this: to cut Catherine free of her clothing, without regard for the cost.

  To feel her trust, her unflinching faith, as she held still beneath his knife.

  The dress split and fell away easily enough. The corset laces were no trick to cut. But as he threw it across the room, the sight of her underlinens struck a flint deep in his belly, an impatience that made his hand shake. He cast down the knife and used his hands on the rest. The way of a savage, no doubt. He felt so. Desire was too pretty a word. She’d held herself away too long. His entire life, she’d been held away. But she was here, now.

  Naked, before him.

  She turned back, the shredded layers mounded at her feet, God’s own glory emerging from the ruins of what had separated them. Straight-spined, every inch of her skin gilded by the candlelight. The slope of her shoulders, like water flowing. Her waist dipping, then swelling into her full hips, like a crescendo of song. He laid his palm along that curve, touched her bare skin, and felt the shock of rightness sing through his bones.

  How could she not know? How could she doubt, even for a moment? He looked up into her face for the answer. She
was watching him. Not blushing. Not bashful, nor defiant, either. Her eyes were wide and awake to him, her lips trembling at the edge of a smile.

  They looked at each other in the silence. Elsewhere, penetrating dimly through the walls, were the sounds of the ordinary world—muffled laughter, gleeful cries from the gaming floor, the rattle of dishes, mundane routine. Here, inside her rooms, as she stood naked before him, an enchanted silence enclosed them, profound and deep, like the hush in a church during prayer.

  He trailed his hand up her body, skating over the weight of her breast, the delicate winged line of her collarbone, the graceful column of her neck.

  He touched her face very gently. “How can you know what you might be? Without trying, how can you know?”

  A sheen filled her eyes. “I . . . suppose I can’t.” And then she stepped forward and kissed him.

  His eyes closed. He’d been no virgin when he’d taken her to his bed. But it came to him now, as he kissed her back—as her arms wrapped around him like vines, and she moaned and tilted her head, to encourage him to go deeper—that he’d been innocent all the same. A blessed kind of innocence: he’d not known a kiss could take him like a hard blow to his chest. All the breath went from him as he kissed her. All his ambitions, they seemed to spiral through him, to concentrate into one aim: to make her never let go. For she tasted . . . like all the money in the city. Walls that reached to the heavens. A view that spanned the world.

  He picked her up, swung her into his arms, and carried her into the bedroom. Laid her on the bed and stood another moment to look at her, sprawled across the sheets like Christmas morning. Here was the view. He would sear it into his brain, each detail: the sunlight spill of her unraveling braid; the gentle curves of her bent legs; the heavy sway of her breasts; the shadow between her thighs, calling to him, calling . . .

  She started to sit up. He put one knee on the mattress, holding her down by the shoulder. “Let me look,” he said.

  “Look while you undress,” she said softly.

  A faint sound escaped him. Maybe the beginning of a laugh, for he meant to encourage such brazenness. But the sound broke apart as she reached for his shirt, fumbling with the first button.

  “No.” He had no patience for this, either. He stood, quickly shedding his own layers. Dropping them without regard, so he could join her on that bed.

  She opened her arms for him. He wanted to go slow. Some distant corner of his mind, canny and conspiring, urged him to take care. To take her so thoroughly, leave her so limp and satisfied, that she would never again question that she belonged beneath him, with nothing to keep them apart.

  But for once in his life, his discipline failed him. When her hands—cool, small, rough—touched his bare chest, something snapped.

  He fell on her mouth. Drank her in as he swept her body with long, firm strokes. Greedy, he felt greedy; panicked in the old way, the desperation of a boy who didn’t know when the next feast would come. If it would ever come again. He’d grown up with want, need, as his main companion. He felt it now, deep in his gut, as he broke from her mouth to suckle her breast. Take all you can, now. For you may never have this again.

  She seemed to catch his mood. She reached down his body, her palm sliding over his chest, his belly. He caught her hand before she could find his cock; he had no faith in his restraint; he refused to spill himself before he’d been inside her. He placed her hand beside her head, holding it firmly there, and then felt her teeth: she had turned her head, caught hold of his thumb. He groaned as she sucked his finger into her mouth; their eyes met, hers heavy lidded, frank and unashamed.

  He stared at her, riveted. Here, this, her face now—that look would be his aim, God willing, every night henceforth.

  Until five years is up.

  He pushed the thought away too late; it made him snarl. He pulled his hand free, stroking her nipple as he slid down her body. Took hold of her thighs and pushed them open. Blond curls, soft to the touch; he brushed them with his hand and felt her hips shudder.

  He lowered his head, kissing the plumpness of her inner thigh. She smelled like the ocean; she whimpered once as he splayed her wider, ignoring the token resistance of her thighs.

  Here, the other beating heart of her. He laid his tongue against her, and felt her jerk. Slid his hands up her belly, the gently rounded satin-soft flesh, this miraculous work of God that was her womanly flesh, and with a choked noise, she subsided, her thighs relaxing for him.

  It was a gift. He felt, for the briefest moment, overwhelmed by it—the feel of her, the smell, the taste of the heart of her, the surrender, laying herself open for him, vulnerable and trusting.

  And then he licked into her, and the sound she made, the way her thighs clutched around him, made him groan deep in his throat. He tongued her again and again, listening hard, waiting for the stroke that made her body jerk most sharply—there, that was what she wanted.

  He gave it to her, ignoring the clutch of her hands in his hair, the broken murmur she made. It wasn’t too much. He’d see to that. He’d see her through it, and when she was broken, when she could not shudder again, he would fit himself into her softness, hard as a bloody rock he would sink himself into her so deeply that she’d cry out anew—

  She gasped and keened, her hips shuddering beneath his. He felt through her folds, pushed a finger inside her as he blew on her, a violent satisfaction at the feel of her contractions. He could give her that. He would give it to her again.

  He rose over her, aching and swollen, sucking in his breath as the head of his cock brushed her slippery quim. She was flushed, frantic, as she scattered kisses over his face. “Please,” she whispered.

  He pressed into her, filled her to the hilt. She pushed her tongue into his mouth, gripped him against her as he began to move. It was ancient. It felt ancient, with her. It felt like something begun in a dream, long ago, and resumed now by the force of inevitable fate, that he should strain now against the fierceness of his own need, that he should kiss her deeply, and stroke her cheek, and focus on the shape of her ear beneath his hand, the tender flex of her lobe beneath his thumb, as he fought against his own climax. He rotated his hips, and she gasped. She liked it. He did it again, and she clutched onto his shoulders, nails digging hard.

  A laugh ghosted from him, hoarse soundless triumphant delight. He reached between them, finding her spot as he twisted his hips again.

  “Oh—” She gaped up at him, then her lashes fluttered shut as she arched to meet him. “Oh . . . I think . . .”

  Not yet. He slammed his palm into the headboard, sharp carved edge digging into his skin, focusing on that, on giving her what she needed, stroking her steadily, deeply. God but she was the most beautiful sight on this earth as she writhed beneath him, struggling to find it—

  “Ah . . .” The breath burst from her as he felt her clutching, deep inside, around him. And as simply as that—he was done for.

  Ripping free of her then was the hardest, the sweetest bloody punishment he’d ever taken. With one hard stroke of his hand, he brought himself to completion. Then he turned back to kiss her.

  Her lips felt lazy on his. Her hand brushed over his face, her thumb stroking his cheekbone. For a long minute they lay together. And then, with a rueful smile, he rose to find his discarded shirt.

  When he’d cleaned himself off, he turned back to her—and saw the remoteness that had gathered in her face like a shadow as she watched him.

  He took a hard breath, preparing himself for what came next—her withdrawal. A resumption of the quarrel.

  But when she spoke, she sounded thoughtful. “I know how you must do it.”

  He didn’t follow. “Do what?”

  “How to get those lands from Pilcher.” She sat up, her hair a shimmering fall down her back. “My brother means to argue that your bid came too late. You must go before the board, insist that the tender period was not adequately advertised. That the board should put the lots to public auction, in ord
er to ensure the process is fair. Make an argument about the politics of it. How the board will made to appear in the press, if they deny you the chance to bid.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, a bit rattled by how quickly she had moved on to business. “That gives him a chance to outbid me,” he said slowly.

  “He may try, but we won’t allow it.” She swallowed, then reached out and laid her hand over his.

  Such a small thing, such an ordinary sight, to seem so . . . important. When he looked up, he caught her own gaze lifting from the same spot. “If you truly want those lands,” she said, “we’ll run a ring. We’ll ensure nobody can outbid you.”

  He turned his hand in hers, threading their fingers together. “A ring.” But there was a more surprising word yet, in that sentence she’d just spoken. “We.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I’ll show you how. I’ll help. But first, you must persuade the board to hold the auction.”

  He smiled. But she did not smile back. Her expression looked very sober now. Very pale.

  Ah. It might have been a victory, this offer of aid. But he sensed suddenly that it was the opposite. A woman so fierce—unique in all his experience—in her commitment to honorable business, would not make this offer lightly.

  But she would do it for him. Her gift, to make up for everything she felt she lacked the ability to give.

  He considered her. Lovely, proud, stubborn, infuriatingly deluded woman. He was too much the businessman to turn down the opportunity she offered. But he was also a crook. He knew how to steal what wasn’t on offer. He wouldn’t lose those lands. But between those lots and her, he knew the better investment. The one more likely to yield a lifetime of riches.

  “All right,” he said. “Whatever it takes, I mean to do it.”

  She gave him a relieved smile. He smiled back at her, no effort required.

  Her naïveté was his best advantage. You’re one of my own, he’d told her. And he didn’t let go of what was his.