Luck Be a Lady

by Meredith Duran

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Nick squinted at the page. “In closing, then, I tender my petition—” He broke off, irritated as somebody in the far corner, old Burke maybe, yowled for another pint. “I can’t do this here. Too many distractions.”

  Catherine sat in front of him, her own pint of ale untouched, looking serenely oblivious to the squawking, boozy men at the tables around her. “Neddie’s is the perfect setting in which to practice. If you can remain unshaken by all the noise here, you can certainly—”

  “That boardroom won’t be full of men three sheets to the wind, will it?”

  “Of course not. Instead your audience will be full of quarrelsome swells who think you’re wasting their time.”

  He smiled. “Swells, is it?”

  “That is the word you use, I believe.” He saw her catch herself smiling at him; she sat straighter and fixed a serious look on her face, every inch the schoolmistress now. “Perhaps we should take you to Speakers’ Corner. Nothing like the threat of a shower of rotten fruit to focus one’s mind.”

  “God forbid.” He sat down, sheepishly aware of the disappointed hoots that went up.

  “Was just getting good!” called Nate Hooley.

  “Couldn’t understand the half of it, but sounded very fancy,” Nate’s cousin Kip Hooley agreed.

  “Bugger yourself,” Nick muttered as the arses toasted each other and cackled.

  “Mr. O’Shea,” his wife said coolly. “Such language—”

  “One day you’ll call me Nick.”

  “One day I might call you Beelzebub. What of it? The Municipal Board of Works does not allow ladies into its meetings. Take heart, then: I won’t be there to harass you.”

  “Or to prompt me,” he muttered. He looked over the speech, three pages written in her finely flowing script. It might as well have been gibberish, though her hand was clear. “I’ll need to memorize this.”

  “You don’t have time for that.”

  She didn’t understand. He took a breath to school his frustration, but the words still came out sharp: “Don’t got a choice, do I? If I don’t mean to make an ass of myself—”

  Her hand closed on his, startling him. When he looked up into her face, he realized that she’d seen more than he intended to show. Sympathy softened her features.

  “The marriage contract,” she said. “Twenty-eight pages. You seemed to know it well enough.”

  “Aye.” His pulse was drumming, a sick feeling in his stomach. Curious. He wasn’t ashamed of anything. Had vowed as a boy to carry his head high, and until now, he’d always succeeded. “I don’t sign a contract without knowing what’s in it.”

  “Someone read it to you?”

  No judgment in her voice. Only that steady, unwavering pressure of her grip around his hand.

  He loosed a breath. The admission came out easier than he’d feared. “Had Callan read most of it. Otherwise it would have taken me days.”

  She nodded. “Then reading this speech will not work,” she said brusquely. “We must find another way.” She withdrew her hand, but it didn’t feel like a rejection; he knew her well enough now to understand that frown on her face betokened the spinning of wheels in her brain.

  She turned her frown on the various oglers around them. “Have you nothing better to do?” she said in a raised voice. “Talk among yourselves.” And then, as a hubbub of chatter hastily broke out, she glanced back to him, her frown deepening. “What are you laughing at?”

  “You,” he said. “Queen o’ Neddie’s. Tell ’em to doff their hats and take their boots off the benches, while you’re at it. Neddie’ll thank you; he’s been trying for years.”

  She folded her lips together, her typical trick for hiding a smile. But her eyes gave her away, turning into half-moons over the crests of her rosy cheeks. She had more laughter in her than she knew how to manage. The real sin was that she’d been taught to trammel it. And wasn’t it a wonder, he thought, that they could sit across the table from one another, easy and friendly as you please, as though he hadn’t had her naked and moaning beneath him just this morning, with plans to do so again tonight?

  For she wasn’t a coward. Once she admitted her desires, she didn’t disown them—not even when he’d shown up with the breakfast tray and found her only in her shift.

  She’d dropped her robe as she’d stood to receive him. “As long as we’re clear,” she’d said unsteadily, “that it doesn’t mean . . . anything more.”

  Tonight seemed awfully far away. Why wait? He folded the speech and slipped it into his jacket. “Let’s go back to Diamonds,” he said. “Clear our . . . heads.”

  Her eyes narrowed; she averted her face a fraction of an inch, the better to give him one of those skeptical, sidelong glances. But the rising color on her face showed that she’d followed his thoughts well enough. “Not just yet. You don’t require any practice at that.”

  He grinned, delighted. “Nice to have it confirmed,” he said. “But if you don’t mean to drink, or to take these hooligans to task, then—”

  “That’s it!” She slapped the table. “Why, we’ve gone about this all wrong. I’m not the one whom these hooligans will listen to. But you’ve ages of experience in bringing them to heel. Forget a scripted speech; you don’t need one. You shall fly impromptu, relying on the powers of your oratory.”

  “The powers of . . . No,” he said flatly. “I need a script. I’m not going into that meeting with nothing.”

  “But you won’t,” she said. “Your wit, the talents of your brain, are all you require. You’ve a magnificent way with words, Mr. O’Shea. You will simply speak to the board as though they’re the men here at Neddie’s, in need of a lesson in fairness and decency.”

  He snorted. “Look around you. You think I’ve ever lectured these lads on decency?”

  As she took a survey of the shabby, noisome groups around them, her smile briefly faltered. But it brightened again as she met his eyes, and God save him, he wasn’t cold enough to resist it, all that confidence and glee directed solely at him. “You’ll prove it for me,” she said. “Stand, and discourse to them on the need to doff their hats and remove their boots from the table.”

  “I will not.”

  “Do it!” She rose, coming to his side of the table to tug on his arm, so after a second, he was forced to get to his feet, lest the crowd get a fine show for free.

  But once standing, he realized that the crowd had already punched its tickets anyway. For the noise dimmed immediately, and every eye in the place fixed on him.

  “Go ahead,” she urged him quietly. “You’ve the gift of—of blarney, sir. Use it! Or your Irish forebears will no doubt disown you from their graves.”

  He cut her a wry look. “And you’ve the English gift for scheming.”

  With a serene smile, she retook her seat—leaving him alone, beneath the press of a hundred expectant eyes.

  He took a deep breath, feeling foolish. What did it matter if Neddie’s benches got a heel-scuffing? But she was watching him expectantly now, her pointed little chin cupped in one hand, her eyes bright and wide.

  Very well. He’d ordered men to far more dangerous pursuits than this.

  “Lads,” he began—then paused at her slight frown. “Gentlemen,” he amended, and a chorus of hoots went up from the far corner.

  “Gen’lman, are we? Y’hear that, boys?”

  He paused, scowling.

  “Don’t permit that,” Catherine whispered. “Pilcher’s men will try to mock you, too.”

  He fixed his glare on the Hooleys, who knew on which side their bread was buttered. They quieted abruptly.

  Aye, he’d given speeches before, and they’d concerned uglier things by far. He’d persuaded men to risk their throats for him, fighting by his side against the McGowans after that crew had slain Lily’s dad. And he’d put the fear of God into men with flapping lips—men who would go to their graves now without breathing a single word of what he’d asked of them.
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br />   Beside that, boots and land parcels were small fry.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “it has come to my attention that we live in grim times. This fine, fair city, which you’ll know from the newspapers has got more wealth than any other place in the world—which you’ll have seen, with your own two eyes, has got more swells, more toffs, more nobs living in high-flying style than any kingdom from the books of history—in these same streets, where nabobs and silver suits rent an inch of space to your loved ones for half their weekly pay, people are dying for want. They’re dying for want of bread. They’re dying for want of space and air. Dying for a drop of milk to give to an infant who cries for his mother’s breast, when she perished five days ago on the factory floor.”

  Silence now. From the corner of his eye, he could see Catherine’s pallor. Aye, he’d take her on a few twists before he got to the straightaway.

  “You step outside this pub,” he said, “you walk south toward Clerkenwell. You walk farther, till Southwark. Or you walk west, to St. Giles. And what do you see? Darkness, gen’lmen. Beggars dead in the lane. Rubbish and foulness and water too brackish to drink—but they drink it, don’t they?”

  “Poor souls,” someone muttered, to a muted round of agreement.

  “They drink it ’cause they’ve got no choice,” Nick said fiercely. “’Cause the water pipes don’t work. A dying man, dying of thirst, he lifts that pump and what comes out but flakes of rust. While in Mayfair, they’re too good for water. It’s all champagne and fancy French wines, and the water collects in their bathtubs larger than six men around.”

  Catherine shifted uneasily. He caught a whisper from her: “Don’t start a revolution, please.”

  He bit his cheek and pressed onward. “Aye, lads, there’s darkness all around. Misery and suffering. Grievous injustice, children born only to pass in their cradles. Thirst and hunger, endless want. Dying like animals—like the animals the toffs call us, as they walk down gold-paved lanes.”

  Scowls, angry grumbles. George Flaherty wiped his eyes.

  “But not here,” Nick said. “Not here in Whitechapel. Not here.”

  “Not here,” someone called.

  Nick lifted his voice. “Not here in Whitechapel!”

  “Not bloody here,” came another voice.

  “Here in Whitechapel,” Nick thundered, “we look after our own!”

  Somebody slammed a table. Stamping of boots, a thunderous wave of applause. Nick paused to let it draw out. In such a world as this, men looked for reasons to celebrate.

  When the applause began to fade, Nick continued. “Here,” he said in a speaking voice, “here the streets are swept clean. Here, when the water stops running, we raise our shouts, and neighbors come running with a pitcher to spare! Here, when our children clutch their stomachs and call for bread, we tell them, ‘Get to school, and find out how many rolls you can eat!’ Here, when women fall in the street, men stop to help.”

  “Praise God.”

  “Damned right.”

  “And here,” he said, his voice falling to a hush, “when we come to Neddie’s after a hard day of work, we know we’ve earned the right to sit back, to let the sweat of honest labor cool, to lift our pints and look our fellow men in the eye—for we ain’t animals, no matter what they say!”

  “Fuck them!”

  “Fuck the lot of them!”

  “And as we ain’t animals,” Nick shouted, “as we know what decency is, as we understand it far better than any of them ever will, so I ask you, lads—why the bloody hell are you all still wearing your hats?”

  In the sudden silence, he could hear Catherine’s slow, shaking breath.

  “No, you heard me right,” he said to George Flaherty, who was scratching his ear and looking puzzled. “We’ve got a precious place of peace and decency here, lads. So take your goddamned boots off the benches and put your hats aside. Do it!”

  Across the room, hands slowly lifted to heads. Boots hesitantly lifted from benches, hitting the floorboards with dull thuds.

  “’Cause we didn’t come by this decency by accident,” Nick said. “And you don’t get respect for free. So prize what you’ve got here, lads. Nod to your neighbor, and hold his eye like the proud man you are. Don’t show him less respect than you’d show a bloody toff. When you come into Neddie’s to drink with your neighbors—sit straight, and take off your goddamned hats.”

  That did it. All the hats came flying off now. Nick cast another narrow look around the room, nodded to a few men here and there, before retaking his seat.

  “Well,” said his wife, looking very pale indeed. “That was . . . a bit too much foul language, but . . .”

  Maybe he’d have made a fine schoolboy after all. His bloody heart was in his goddamned throat as he waited for the conclusion of her judgment.

  “All the same, it was very effective.” She smiled at him, and his spirit burst loose, soared straight up into the rafters. “I almost pity the Board of Works.”

  * * *

  Catherine snorted as she glanced down the page. “ ‘Straw colored’? Why not call it hay colored? Indeed, why not praise the chest’s alfalfa-like sheen?”

  Silence from the group ranged before her. Catherine sighed. The sun had been pouring through the office windows when she had arrived to review the catalog for O’Shea’s treasures. But the scarlet light of sunset now spilled through the long window that overlooked the street, and her copywriters—two of them so young as to barely sport whiskers—slumped in a variety of glum postures behind their desks, their pens abandoned, their ink-stained hands tucked sheepishly into their pockets.

  “Gentlemen,” she said more gently as she laid the draft onto a nearby desk. “I don’t require poetry. But if you were looking to acquire a chest of drawers, would these descriptions light a fire in your pockets? There is no need to abuse your thesauruses. ‘Golden’ and ‘amber’ will serve nicely, even if they appear twice on the same page.”

  A rustle of movement: the men’s shoulders abruptly straightened; chins lifted and spines stiffened. For a moment, Catherine fancied that she had inspired them. Then the sound of a cleared throat drew her attention toward the door.

  The redheaded hostess—Miss Ames—blushed prettily at finding herself the center of so much masculine attention. “Miss Everleigh,” she said in a soft, apologetic voice. “Your brother requires a word with you.”

  Catherine took a careful breath. O’Shea had intended to interrupt the board meeting this afternoon. No doubt Peter had come straight from Berkeley House—fuming, she hoped, over the results. But he might as easily have come to gloat.

  “Very well,” she said, and reached for her wrap. “Gentlemen, I will return tomorrow. I hope to see all agricultural similes stripped from this text.”

  She stepped out into the hallway, but Miss Ames stopped her from walking onward.

  “You should know,” the hostess said tentatively, before trailing off, her color deepening.

  Nobody blushed as violently as a redhead. But Catherine had never seen Miss Ames lose her composure quite so vividly. She frowned. “What is it? Go on.”

  Miss Ames ducked her head. “Miss, I know you don’t appreciate us to speculate on what doesn’t concern us. But . . .” She looked up, hooking a curl away from her elfin face. “Lilah, she asked me to watch after you while she was gone—”

  “Did she?” Catherine’s first instinct was to bridle. Before her promotion to assistant, Lilah had worked as a hostess—a position that had left Catherine very skeptical, at first, of her capacity to make herself useful in any meaningful regard.

  But Lilah had proved her wholly wrong. Mindful suddenly of the prejudice that had blinded her for so long, Catherine softened her tone.

  “Speak frankly, Miss Ames. What troubles you?”

  “Your brother isn’t waiting in his office alone,” Miss Ames said in a low, rapid voice. “And the two men with him—they don’t look like clients to me.”

  Catherine studied her
for a moment. Among the hostesses, Lavender Ames stood out for her elegant composure. Granted, she took every opportunity to accept money from advertisers; her face was plastered across any number of cheap advertisements for soap and whatnot. But in her demeanor with the clients, she displayed a tasteful reserve that quite contrasted with the other girls’ silly flirtations and chatter. Catherine suspected she came from a different sort of background than the other girls; that her position here represented a fall, rather than a rise. Moreover, she was sharp, often making savvy suggestions about where a collector’s interests might be steered—and whether or not a client’s claims about provenance might be trusted.

  “Miss Ames,” she said, “tell me plainly. What is your concern?”

  “It . . . perhaps I should accompany you into the office, miss.”

  Alarm goaded Catherine to a quick calculation. She walked to the broad window and glanced out at the street.

  Several coaches loitered on the curb. One stood out: unmarked, peculiarly boxy. Windowless.

  “That’s the one they came in,” Miss Ames said, touching her finger to the glass to indicate the windowless vehicle.

  Catherine took a deep breath. This panic was baseless, of course. But Miss Ames had never carried such concerns to her before. She frowned down at the coach. There were three exits from this building. It grated unbearably to slip away like a thief from her own building on some half-formulated suspicion, but perhaps . . .

  Miss Ames caught her arm, gripping very tightly. “Don’t turn around,” she whispered. “But they’ve just come into the hall. They’re walking toward us.”

  Catherine laid her hand over the woman’s. “Listen,” she said very quietly. “If something seems odd to you—send word to Mr. O’Shea at the House of Diamonds in Whitechapel.”

  Miss Ames knew the name. She gave Catherine a slack-jawed, marveling look. But she nodded once, to show she understood.

  Catherine wheeled. Her brother was indeed coming down the hall, flanked by two men of such burly proportions that they made Peter appear a child.