Never Entice an Earl

by Lily Dalton

  “Yes,” she answered simply.

  He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Very well. That is that, I suppose. I shouldn’t have taken the liberty of kissing you without all the necessary vetting and permissions and I should apologize, both to you and to whoever he is.” The last three words dripped with disdain and derision. “But forgive me if I don’t, not to him. Because he’s a bastard and he doesn’t deserve you. If he did you wouldn’t have been at the Blue Swan tonight. He would have died before allowing you to go.”

  His sudden ferocity stunned her, and she could do nothing but stare at him in silence, her thoughts in disarray.

  Part of her unwisely and against all good sense wanted to take it back, to assure him there was no one else. To run back to his carriage and let the night and its adventure play out until dawn. She felt so much curiosity about the world that she’d never been allowed to see firsthand. What other young lady of her acquaintance had ever been inside the walls of a low-end gaming hall, and seen the life the less fortunate half of London lived? It had been ugly and dangerous and a mistake for her to go alone, but she felt grateful for having expanded her understanding, and Cormack made her feel safe.

  But she had to let go. To do so, she forced herself to face the reality she’d chosen to ignore: that he’d been at the Blue Swan, which meant he’d been looking to drink, gamble, or find a woman. Yes, the night had been exciting and he had kissed her and seen her safely home, but it was time to say good-bye.

  “It’s time for me to go,” she said.

  Scowling, he turned to consider the back façade of her grandfather’s town house. Lamps would be lit in the entrance hall, in expectation of her mother and sister’s return from the Heseldon ball, but the back of the house, where her grandfather’s bookroom and the conservatory were located, was dark.

  “If you aren’t going to the door, how do you propose to get inside without being seen?”

  “I left a window unlocked on the ground floor, behind some shrubberies.”

  “Of course you did.”

  His manner, more acerbic now in tone, stung, and she bristled. It seemed clear that now that he couldn’t have what he wanted, he couldn’t wait to be rid of her. In silence, they walked together toward the back of the house, making their way through the small garden.

  She couldn’t help it. She wanted to hear it from him. “Why were you at the Blue Swan tonight, Cormack? Are you a gambler, or was it a woman you wanted—or both?”

  She hoped he’d be shockingly honest with her, and destroy every heroic idea she had about him.

  His boots crunched on the gravel. “I’ve been looking for someone for a very long time. A man.” His mouth twisted with displeasure. “I thought that tonight at last I’d found him.”

  It was not the response she’d expected.

  “I see.” Why did it relieve her so immeasurably to know he’d not been at the Blue Swan for gaming or women, but to find a man?

  “A friend of yours, or a business associate?” Daphne led the way down a narrow gravel path that led between the house and a row of tall shrubberies, every nerve in her body drawn tight, knowing that Cormack followed close behind.

  “Most certainly not,” he growled.

  “An enemy, then.” She glanced behind, so that she might see his expression. Yet he towered above her, an inscrutable shadow.

  “He wronged someone very important to me,” he uttered with quiet ferocity.

  “Someone you love?” she dared to ask.

  “Very much so,” he hissed through his teeth.

  A tremor moved down her spine. What would it be like to be loved by such a man? Overwhelming, she suspected, in a wonderful sort of way. At the same time, she feared for the man he sought. She’d seen Cormack nearly destroy a man tonight, all in defense of a stranger—her. He didn’t even love her.

  “After what occurred tonight,” he added, “I don’t know how I will find him again. Likely anyone who could tell me was carried off by the authorities.”

  She glanced up to the window overhead, and stopped. “This is the window.”

  “Then this is good night and good-bye.” He shifted his stance. They stared through the darkness at one another, he sullen faced and she suddenly and overwhelmingly morose.

  “I’m glad I was there,” he said.

  “So am I.” She wanted desperately to help him somehow, as thanks for saving her. As thanks for behaving like a gentleman when he could have been a lecher or a murderer—or worse. He’d returned her home in one healthy piece, and she couldn’t be more grateful. “Cormack, I—perhaps I can help you.”

  Shadows carved hollows beneath his cheekbones. “How?”

  “That man on the stage tonight, his name is Mr. Bynum. I’m not certain, but I believe he is the proprietor of the Blue Swan, because he’s the man responsible for collecting my father’s debt.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “He escaped tonight.”

  “How do you know?”

  “After the authorities burst inside, like everyone else, I ran. I had a hackney waiting outside, you see, that I’d paid to wait for me just around the corner. Mr. Bynum pushed me aside and took it from me, him and two of his girls.”

  Cormack straightened, a dangerous heat forming behind his eyes. “I see. And that’s when the other man dragged you off into the alley.”

  “Yes.”

  Cormack’s eyes went flat, and almost black. When she reached a hand to touch his arm—to try and bring him back to the present, he flinched. “I’m listening.”

  “He seemed to know all the regular patrons at the Blue Swan. He told me tonight that he keeps an office above the tobacco warehouses on Rosemary Lane.”

  “Why did he tell you that?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “He said for me to come there if I wished to discuss my options for paying off the debt more quickly.”

  He exhaled sharply. “You know what he means by that.”

  “Of course. I just wanted you to know where to find him. Perhaps, if given some incentive, he could help you find the man for whom you search.”

  Cormack moved closer, and his shadow enveloped her. He raised his hand to touch her cheek, to smooth his palm against her skin. She closed her eyes, in ecstasy at his touch.

  “Kate…”

  “Good-bye, Cormack.” She laughed, drawing away. “I mean it this time.”

  But behind her smile, the mere speaking of the words sent her spiraling into remorse. To think that she would never see him again. That she would never kiss those lips again.

  With a shove, he opened the window, and muttered, “I don’t know how you would have managed even this part of the night without me. You can’t even reach the ledge.”

  “The window didn’t look so high from inside. Good thing I found a tall man to bring me home,” she teased.

  He braced his hands on her waist, and lifted her to the ledge—

  Only to drag her off again, and pin her against the wall, his mouth crashing onto her lips.

  She moaned and sighed, consumed by wanting him. By wanting this. By wanting more.

  “You’re so lovely, Kate,” he breathed reverently, his lips moving to her cheeks. “Whoever he is, he doesn’t deserve you.”

  Her arms went round his neck, claiming him as her own for one perfect moment. His mouth found hers again, his tongue moving over her bottom lip to explore the inside her mouth. She savored the taste of him. Touched his hair and the warm skin of his neck, determined to remember the textures, and this moment, forever.

  Then he was gone from her arms. The night spun round her, as with a sudden jolt of movement, she found herself on the ledge again, legs dangling down. His hands encircled her ankles, and boldly smoothed over her calves, as if he, too, sought to memorize her.

  Gray eyes stared up, burning in the night. “I’ll find this Mr. Bynum and I’ll pay your debt.”

  Her pulsed leapt. “Cormack, no.”

  “It is done, Kate,” he hisse
d. “Just promise me you’ll never step foot in the Blue Swan or another place like it again for as long as you live. Stay here, where it is safe, and live your life well.”

  The words he spoke stole her breath, but still she managed somehow to speak.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I will.”

  In a blink, he was gone, only to emerge moments later from the shadows at the edge of the house. Daphne closed the window and watched until he arrived at his carriage, climbing atop to take a seat beside Jackson, where he seized the reins from the other man’s hands. The horses started in their harnesses and the vehicle disappeared down the lane.

  Daphne maneuvered the dark corridor and the stairs to her room, managing to avoid notice. Distant voices sounded from the vestibule, two night footmen talking about new boots and blisters.

  Only after Daphne closed the door to her room did she exhale. Never before had she experienced such an overwhelming sensation of relief. She felt giddy with it, as if she’d executed the greatest, most forbidden dare. She threw herself onto her mattress and rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling. What a terrifying night.

  What a magical night.

  Cormack. The memory of their kisses and the fervency with which he had insisted on paying her debt—Kate’s debt—inspired a bittersweet ache deep inside her chest. In the days to come, she would relive her memories of him, a hundred and perhaps a thousand times.

  But she would never tell anyone what she had done. Not Kate. Not Sophia and Clarissa. Because if no one else knew, well…

  Then it was as if her visit to the Blue Swan had never happened at all.

  Chapter Five

  Three hours later, and Cormack still hadn’t slept a wink. After leaving Kate at Hamilton Place, he’d gone straight to Rosemary Street, fearful the only trail that might lead to the Invisibilis would grow cold. He’d haunted the alleyways until a wagon loaded with chandeliers and chairs had led him here.

  Now he and Mr. Bynum sat on opposite sides of an old desk, both wearing the same clothes as they had the night before, sizing one another up through bloodshot eyes.

  “You ’eard me.” The man’s upper lip curled in contempt. He lifted the ledger and snapped the book shut in Cormack’s face. Early morning light filtered through threadbare curtains, along with the sounds of bells clanging on the nearby ships moored off the quay. “I prefer to carry Kate Fickett’s debt…er, Mr. Fickett’s, that is, thank you very much.”

  Kate Fickett. The name didn’t seem to suit her, but he supposed a person, upon being born, did not choose one’s own surname nor complain to one’s parents about its unsuitability.

  Quite on purpose he had brought up the matter of Kate’s debt first, wrongly believing that particular matter of business would be quickly and simply settled. He’d thought it was just a simple matter of monies to be paid. Obviously, he’d been wrong.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand. I’ve offered you payment of the amount in full, including the ridiculous amount of interest you just quoted.”

  Mr. Bynum scratched his cheek. “Sorry. Not interested.”

  “I can get you cash, instead of a bank cheque,” he gritted out from between clenched teeth. “If that is the issue.”

  “It’s not.” He flashed a weaselish smile. “Was there anything else? I’ve got business that needs attending.”

  Cormack enforced calm over himself. Leaning forward, toward the desk, he crumpled his gloves in his hand. “She’s worth more to you on that stage than what she owes. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Bynum shrugged. “’At’s what keeps the customers throngin’ through my doors, nubile pieces o’ fluff like ’er. Not their posing and prancing, of course, but every man’s ’opes of takin’ ’em to bed—which often, I can arrange.” The man’s lips curled into a dirty smile. “I ain’t no saint. Never claimed to be. People know when they come to me, I lend generously, but on my terms. ’At girl will pay off ’er father’s debt on my stage, even faster if she’s willing to lay on her back.”

  Fury seared Cormack’s veins and he lunged from his chair, half over the desk, to seize the man by his collar. The violence of the movement toppled the inkwell. Indigo liquid spilled across the documents beneath them, to drizzle over the edge and drip, drip, drip onto the floor.

  Mr. Bynum’s chair balanced precariously on its two back legs. Behind him were stacked boxes of liquor, mirrors, and paintings, salvaged fixtures from the Blue Swan.

  “Careful, man.” He breathed heavily through his nose. “Once my blood’s been shed, there’s no negotiating terms.”

  Bynum’s words kindled an even hotter fire in his chest, and Cormack seethed, “I’ll pay you double what her father owes.”

  “She’s ’at good, is she?” His laughter revealed a row of yellowed and crooked teeth. “No, don’t tell me. Think I’d prefer t’ find out for m’self.”

  Five minutes later, Cormack stormed down the alleyway, shaking the pain from his throbbing fist, supremely satisfied at having knocked that bastard Bynum off his block. Better yet, in his pocket he carried one Arthur Fickett’s note marked Paid In Full. He did not normally resort to violence to settle business disputes, but in just one night it seemed a singularly pretty face had turned him into a Neanderthal. No, not just a pretty face. Kate Fickett, whom he intuitively knew to be so much more, and had known from the first moment he saw her on that stage.

  When Bynum had said such filthy things about her, he’d lost his mind. He liked to tell himself it was because of what had happened to Laura, that he’d become a champion of the downtrodden, but he knew his motivations weren’t as altruistic as that.

  The only problem now was that he’d burned his only known bridge to finding the Invisibilis. Too late, after obtaining Bynum’s signature on Kate’s note, he’d attempted to extract the answers he needed, but by then heavy bootsteps and male voices sounded on the stairs, and he had decided to make his exit before he found himself outnumbered by Bynum’s thugs.

  “’Ey, you there. Wait!” called a woman’s voice from behind.

  He turned to see her running toward him, wearing a cloak with the hood up to conceal her hair.

  “Me?”

  She peered at him through hard eyes, rimmed with smudged kohl. He caught a glimpse of black hair, and in that moment, his mind said: Cleopatra.

  “I ’eard what you did in there for ’at gel.”

  “You know her?”

  Her two pale hands held the cloak together at her throat. “Just from talking to her the few minutes before we went on that stage last night. She’s…nice. She ought never to ’ave been in a place like that.” She bit into her lower lip. “But then, once, we were all nice girls.”

  Only then did he make out, from inside the shadowed recesses of her cowl, the dark bruise on her cheek.

  “Why did you follow me?” he asked.

  “I ’eard you ask ’im about something else,” she said in a hushed voice, before glancing over her shoulder. “About those men who follow the club, and meet in the back rooms from time to time.”

  “It’s very important that I find them. Do you know something that might help me?”

  “Only that last night, after the constables busted in, one of them dropped this as he climbed into his carriage. I hope you find it of some use.” She pressed something into his hand, and backed away. Turning, she disappeared into the shadows of the alleyway.

  Cormack looked down. She’d given him a handkerchief that bore a large heel print at its center. But then he thought to turn the folded square of linen over, and saw it: a monogram, sewn in gold thread in the shape of a coronet—with the four distinct “pearls” of a marquess and an ornately scrolled letter R beneath.

  *

  “Daphne Bevington! What have you done?”

  Daphne turned from the window, where she’d been daydreaming over a handsome face and ardent kisses for the past quarter hour, to see Kate marching across the breakfast room, her face pale and drawn above her black lace colla
r.

  Oh, no. The look in her lady’s maid’s eyes told her that some aspect of last night’s secrets weren’t secret anymore.

  “Shouldn’t you be in bed still?” Daphne asked with wide-eyed concern, placing herself behind a chair for protection, and resting her hands on the upper frame. “Last I recall, you were an invalid.”

  “I felt very much improved this morning, thank you very much.” Kate’s lips curved into a sudden smile, but her eyes did not follow suit. Instead, they narrowed. Knowing Kate as well as she did, Daphne realized she was angry. “That is, until I saw this.”

  The piece of paper in her hand crackled. Now not even her lips pretended to smile.

  “What is that?” Daphne asked, praying she projected innocence, though she could think of only one subject of recent discussion that might require any sort of formal documentation.

  Kate threw a glance over her shoulder as if to be certain no one had entered the room to observe them, and hissed, “It is the note for my father’s debt, previously held by the owner of the Blue Swan.”

  Daphne’s heart leapt. “Ah, I see. ‘Previously,’ you say? Do you have good news to share?”

  At that moment, a footman in knee breeches, coat, and white gloves brought in a large covered chafing dish with steam frilling out at the edges, which he deposited on the sideboard. Kate stood woodenly, the paper clasped in her hands. As soon as he’d gone, Daphne reached for a plate.

  “These eggs smell delicious.” She heaped a pile on her plate, hoping the smell forced the still-recovering Kate to keep her distance, or even better yet—go back to her room. She didn’t want to have to answer any questions. “My, I’m starving. Are you? Or is your stomach still unsteady? You do look dreadfully piqued. Don’t worry about me, you go and rest.”

  “Daphne.”

  “I swear, Fickett,” she blurted in a breathless rush, “I’ve never seen that paper before.”

  She snapped her mouth shut. Even to her own ears she sounded guilty of something. Because, of course, she was very guilty, and not good at hiding secrets, so why had she thought she’d suddenly developed a talent for subterfuge? Certainly Kate saw straight through her.