Lady Be Good (28 page)

“True. Did you ever wonder why they altered it so often?”

“Miss Everleigh says they were innovators. Visionaries.”

He glanced at her, the firelight shadowing his face. “They kept knocking down the walls. Expanding them, making new routes for egress. Not much innovation in that. As visions go, it’s the dream of claustrophobics.”

The notion unsettled her. “What do you mean to say?”

“I mean, they traveled to escape this place.” He reached for the bottle, splashed more liquor into his glass. Set down the bottle and stared at it. “Came back very reluctantly, already itching to leave again.”

She did not like that idea. “It was their home. They were a famously loving family—”

“It’s a house,” he said. “That doesn’t make it a home. And family—yes, family is important. But it can trap you more neatly than four walls and a locked door.”

Her chest tightened. She knew that truth too well. She would not have imagined hearing it from
him
. “I like my version better.” She needed that inspiration. “Imagining them free and bold, wandering the world with this place waiting like a beacon.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said at last. “It’s a romantic idea, Lilah.”

Lilah
. Sometimes she was still Miss Marshall to him. She did not understand the logic that governed his use of her name. She only knew that when he addressed her familiarly, her stomach dipped, and for a brief moment, she grew soft and foolish.

Foolish, indeed. The last time they had conversed at length, he had instructed her to fear him. Then he had offered to kill her uncle.

That she believed he could do it was . . . deeply attractive. Nick had no power over him—not even the power to intimidate. How could she not be drawn to such immunity, such perfect freedom?

She cleared her throat. “I’m no romantic.” Far from it. She was a cold-blooded woman indeed, if she could desire a man for his ability to kill.

“There’s nothing wrong with romanticism, of course.”

“No, of course not. It’s quite ladylike.” She directed a black smile into her glass. “Of course, Miss Everleigh reminded me recently that I do not enjoy a lady’s privileges. She suggested I find a butcher to marry.” She glanced up, shrugging. “Perhaps I will.”

He blinked. “Any butcher in particular?”

“A decent one. The problem, of course, is that decent men want decent wives—even the butchers.”

His smile looked peculiar. As though he were hearing an unpleasant joke. “And you think you aren’t decent.”

“We both know it. I’m a common thief.”

He looked away. “No call for the butcher to find out.”

“Yes, I’ll have to hide my history from him. More than enough for him to accept that I once was an Everleigh Girl.”

In profile, his jaw looked hard as flint. “If he were fool enough to condemn you for that, he would not deserve your honesty anyway.”

“And my virginity?”

Slowly he faced her. “What of it?”

“Surely I would owe him that, at least. In exchange for his protection.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked very quietly. “Protection?”

“Oh, who knows?” This man had shown her that she knew herself far less well than she’d imagined. “I thought what I wanted was simple—to be a lady.” Her laughter felt false. “It was my sister’s plan, actually. We would remake ourselves. Our accents, our deportment. For gentlemen never tell a lady—a proper lady, like Miss Everleigh—to
take it on the chin
. It’s their duty to shelter her from harshness. And that seems quite pleasant, never to be expected to endure. To be free to pursue better things, like . . . beauty and honesty and honor. So we—I—set out to become that kind of woman. A woman whom men seek to protect.”

What a strange look he wore. “Then you’ve succeeded.”

“No, not yet. But I’ll know it when I do. He will treat me as if . . .” As if her sensibilities were spun of priceless glass.

“As if you’re cherished,” he murmured.

“Yes.” She had his attention now. But like some wicked drug, a small taste wasn’t enough for her. “It won’t be the butcher who gives me that, though. He’ll be too suspicious of me at first. His friends will have warned him about Everleigh Girls, the rumors that we’re whores in disguise. He’ll need to overcome his doubts before he loves me. Of course, once he discovers I’m a virgin, he’ll feel quite smug. He’ll try to cherish me then. But it will require false pretenses. He’ll never learn about my past. He’ll never even ask, for fear of what he might find out. And if somehow he does learn my secrets . . . why, he’ll recoil.”

He had not looked away. “You’ve given this some thought.”

She nodded. “Generally on the nights after you’ve touched me. I lie awake, thinking about it. There are ways to fake virginity. Some count it a great deceit. But I think, piled on top of all the other lies I mean to tell, it won’t make much difference. Whereas if I had cause to hate this butcher—to resent that I had saved myself for him, this happy fool who would condemn me if he knew the truth about me—well, that would be far worse. One shouldn’t hate one’s husband. Don’t you think?”

He laid down his glass. “Lilah . . .”

A strange exhilaration coursed through her, fear and excitement at once. He understood what she was about now. His focus was so hot and intense that it brought a rush of blood to her face. “Ask me something,” she said.
For she would tolerate no false pretenses tonight. “Ask me something I never told you.”

He slowly rose. She moved aside, making room for him on the settee. He sat down, but he did not touch her. “What is your sister’s name?”

“Was. Fiona is dead.”

The compassion in his face caused her chest to tighten. She had so much more practice in hiding truths than revealing them. “How?”

She cleared her throat. “Appendicitis. The doctor came too late. She’d been hiding the pain for days.”

“It’s difficult, isn’t it?” His mouth twisted. “Difficult,
hell
. I try not to think on Geoff. Otherwise it becomes . . . unbearable, at times.”

Unbearable
. She recognized that single word, the naked honesty within it, as the greatest intimacy he’d ever shared with her. And like a gin addict given a sip of the poison, it awakened a terrible desire in her. With all her heart, she wanted to crack his mystery. To make
him
spill his secrets, speak of everything he’d kept hidden.

Yet at the same time, with a fierce panicked desperation, she also recognized how impossible, how unlikely, what a miracle that would be. All she could do was bare herself, and hope he did the same in reply.

“I have an uncle,” she said. “But he is not really family.”

He caught her hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissed her fingers with a strange formality. “Why is that?”

“He took care of us—Fiona and me—when both our parents were gone. But he was . . .” She hesitated. “Too young, I think, to know how to care for us properly. He felt . . .” Ah, what a strange word to use to describe Nick, but she knew it was true: “Honor-bound,” she
said. “He felt honor-bound to try. My mother—his older sister—had been very dear to him. But perhaps we would have done better in the poorhouse.” She winced. “No, of course I don’t mean that. But he . . .”

He was watching her. Listening. The gentleness in his face would break her heart.

“He took over my father’s trade,” she said. “And it changed him.”

He placed her hand in her lap, then touched her face very lightly, tucking a curl behind her ear. “He became a clerk?”

“No, of course not.” Her smile felt real now. “My father was no clerk, and you know it.”

He traced the slope of her neck, his touch whisper soft. “Then what?”

“Nothing too awful. My father wasn’t violent by nature.” How breathless she sounded. She felt giddy, drunk on her own confessions. “But he did anything you might imagine that could make money and get a man jailed, if caught at it. My uncle, on the other hand . . . he’s a crack shot.”

He gazed at her for a long, steady moment. She felt color rise to her face. It wasn’t shame that made her blush. Her entire life, she had been a criminal’s daughter, a criminal’s niece. But she’d always wished to be more. To be
seen
as more—and never as much as by this man, God save her.

He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. His lips felt gentle, questing, as though they searched for an answer to some question that could not be put into words. When he drew back, he said, “You’ve come very far. It’s a testament to you. Your wit and your courage.”

What a miraculous interpretation. She bit her lip to
stop a smile. Then she reached for his necktie, fumbling with the knot.

She sensed his gaze on her face, but she could not meet it. She concentrated instead on the knot, acutely aware of how her fingers trembled.

The knot yielded. Silk whispered across cotton as she pulled the tie free. She opened his collar, baring his throat, then leaned forward and kissed the corded muscle.

He hissed out a breath. She looked up into his eyes. “A hero called me courageous,” she said. “It seems he was right.”

“Ah. A hero.” He reached for her hand, laid it on his thigh. Slowly he set to unbuttoning her sleeve. “Is that what you see in me?”

“No. When I think of a hero, I think of some distant figure from the newspapers—some upright stranger who gives boring speeches.”

He smiled faintly, his attention on his work. “Then you have it right. He’s a stranger to me, too, this idiot from the poem.” He rubbed his thumb across the tender skin of her inner wrist, then lifted it to his face, inhaling deeply. “That charge at Bekhole,” he murmured against her wrist. “It was a desperate gamble. Not a choice, not an act of courage, nothing borne of ideals. My aim was to live. I hoped we would kill more of them than they killed of us. And so we did. Turn around,” he added softly.

Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She resettled herself. “That isn’t fair to you.”

His mouth touched her bare nape. Her eyes drifted shut. His fingers skimmed down her back; her gown began to loosen. “What difference does it make?” he
asked. “I have an entire country to applaud me, if I need it.” His hands worked now at the laces of her corset. “Peculiar, though.” His voice was growing husky. “The admirers all ask the same questions.
Was it very horrible? Do you think on it often?
” Cold air whispered against the top of her spine. His lips found the spot, a teasing kiss far too brief for her liking. “I know what they want to hear. I tell them:
No. Not so very bad. I don’t think on it much at all
. And they call it a brave face, and applaud me again. But there’s no bravery involved there, either. I’m only speaking the truth.”

“But that’s a blessing,” she said. “To be able to forget.” One that she envied. The darkness would not frighten her, if only she could forget what it meant to be trapped in it, alone.

The corset loosened quite suddenly. His knuckles brushed the length of her exposed spine, pausing to massage her lower back. “But I don’t forget,” he said. “I remember Bekhole very well. The blood and the fear. The way I had to steady my voice during my instructions to the men. My envy . . .” His hand stilled. “My envy for a stray tree, its leaves shaking in the wind. The only tree on that field. That it could stand amid so much slaughter without fear . . . I longed to
be
that tree. Or to protect it, for nobody else would.”

Clutching the gown to her chest, she twisted back. She caught the quirk of his lips before he shook his head. “The scrubbiest little tree,” he said. “But I felt the oddest anxiety that it should not be destroyed.”

“And was it?”

“Of course.” He caught her hand, gently tugging it loose. The neckline sagged. He made a low sound in his throat, unmistakable approval. “Leveled by cannon shot.”

She shivered.

“You’re cold? Come here.” He drew her into his side, his arm around her shoulders. Her cheek pressed against his chest. For a moment, as he idly stroked her arm, they sat in a companionable silence, the fall of her gown arrested only by the pressure of their bodies pressed together. “No,” he said at length, “the tree didn’t make it. But when I do dream of the war . . . I dream only of that tree. Of my failure to save it. It had grown there for decades, untouched. Perhaps it bore fruit. Its world, its concerns, had no bearing on ours. It was innocent. But we destroyed it, regardless.”

“You . . . grieve for the tree?”

“Yes, well.” He angled a crooked smile down at her. “I never said it made sense.”

She reached up to touch his face. That wicked scar that came so close to his beautiful eye. “How did you get this?”

She felt his jaw tighten. “A man gave it to me.”

“I didn’t imagine it was self-inflicted.”

“Lilah.” He pulled away. “I tell you what I can. Where I’m silent, it’s for your sake.
You
are the one I’m protecting here.”

His words shot a powerful current through her, more elemental than even desire.
Protect me, yes
. “So you know my worst secret, but I’m to be spared yours?”

“Your worst secret.” She could not read his expression. “Was that all?”

Stung, she pulled up her neckline. He diminished the effort it had taken her to tell him. “Do you require all the bloody details? How low must I paint myself?”