Lady Be Good (8 page)

He never lost an opportunity to jibe at her for the name she’d adopted. As if an Irish girl named Monroe would have any chance of working at Everleigh’s! “He’s not stupid, is what he is.”

“That’s bad news for you.” With a shrug, Nick resumed his stroll.

“Wait! I . . .” He looked over his shoulder. “What will you do?”

“
I
do?” He lifted his brows as he turned back. “’Tisn’t me who has the problem, Lily.”

Fear kicked through her stomach. She crossed her arms, hugging herself. “I can’t get the letters for you. He took them.”

“Aye, it’s a proper conundrum. But I’m certain you’ll find a solution for it. You do have a knack for pleasing those toffs.”

“Nick.” She dug her fingers into her sides. “Please. Do you really mean to tell them about me?”

“Stupid question.” His voice snapped like a whip. “Try another one.”

It wasn’t right that he should sabotage her like this! “I’ll be done for if you tell them! Don’t you have any care for your own niece?”

“Care?” He stepped toward her, his gaze hard as a bludgeon. “That’s ripe, Lily. ’Twas
you
who turned your back on your kin. Shook off your family like dirt from your shoes, and rubbed out your true name like a stain from your skirts. And for what, I ask? To grovel for swells who wouldn’t spit on you to put out a fire. And now you come asking if I
care
?”

“I never turned my back.” Did he think she enjoyed bowing and scraping? It was only a means to an end—one that would take her a sight further than bowing in Whitechapel to
him
! “I only wanted to make a future for myself! Can’t you see—”

“Aye, I’ve heard that speech,” he said grimly. “You wanted
better
. And I let you make a choice. But now you’ll live with it, Lily. You won’t come calling me Uncle and begging for mercy, just because it serves to remember your family today. For tomorrow, we both know you’d forget me again, and look away if we passed in the street.”

“That isn’t fair.” The words came out in a whisper, for this was an old argument, and she stood no hope of winning it. But why did he always refuse to see it from her view? “All I wanted was a life where I’d never suffer
from trouble.
This
kind of trouble.” Suddenly she was angry again. “Family, you say? Some family, that threatens and blackmails and harasses me—”

He made a contemptuous noise, a sharp puff of air. “Aye, yours is a sad story, no doubt. But if it weren’t for your rotting bastard of an uncle, ask yourself where you’d be now. Who gave you the fees for that typing course? Who paid for that fine gown with which you interviewed at the auction rooms?”

This was his trump card. She gritted her teeth and glared past him down the road. Onlookers who’d paused to eavesdrop made a quick retreat to avoid her notice. Always a spectacle, in these parts.

“No reply to that,” he said. “You know you’d be plucking cat fur in some garret, praying the week’s pay would cover your rent.”

“So I’m forever to be indebted to you,” she said bitterly. “Forever to answer to your call when you need me.”

He offered her a beautiful smile. “Take heart. It’s a rare occasion when I do. And bound to grow rarer, now you’ve lost your talent and been swindled by a nob.”

Despair leached through her. “What shall I do, then?”

“Find a way to get those notes back,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll be needing them by the last week of June. No later. Otherwise those toffs will have the truth from me.”

“You’ll enjoy that,” she said dully.

He snorted. “Won’t be my doing when they sack you. But no doubt it will make a fine lesson, to learn how your
betters
care for a girl named Lily Monroe.”

“Please lower your voice. And stop that pacing! For heaven’s sake, Kit. Melanie is right; you’re not yourself lately.”

Christian pivoted. Across the broad span of the foyer’s checked tiles, his mother stood, one hand perched dramatically at her brow, her face a mask of bewildered hurt.

“I was not yelling.” He was certain of it. But he had not arrived with the intent of charming and delighting her, either. There was the rub. It had always fallen to his brother—and their father before him—to be the serious ones. Christian’s purpose was to entertain and amuse.

But his mother’s telegram this morning had left him in no mood to entertain her. She had decided not to board the ship to New York. Instead, she and Melanie had turned back for Susseby, the seat of the viscountcy. The whole country knew where to find them now.

Astonishment washed over him anew. “I thought you understood. You cannot remain here.”

“Yes, yes.” She cast an impatient look toward the front door. “Quigley, at least take his hat and gloves. Let him lecture me in comfort.”

He held up a hand, halting the butler in his tracks. Taking her elbow, he led her out of the servant’s earshot, into the nearby morning room.

Inside, she drew away to yank the bell pull. “Watch the carpet,” she said. “You’ve mud on your boots.”

Indeed, God forbid. He took a long breath. This was not the first time he’d had cause to restrain his temper in this room. She worried far more for the carpets than herself. “I am rebooking your passage,” he said. “I will personally escort you onto the ship.”

The door opened. “Tea,” his mother instructed
the footman. “And perhaps a heartier repast for Lord Palmer.”

The man bowed and shut the door again.

“Poor dear,” she continued, “you do look famished. Did you ride straight through the rain? How awful the roads are. It must have taken the whole morning!” She lowered herself to the settee, readjusting her fine jemadar shawl about her shoulders. “I
am
sorry,” she added with a bright smile. “I would have enjoyed New York, but your sister has a point. At Melanie’s age, one must be marriage-minded. Missing a season in town means risking her chance at—”

His patience snapped. “There will be no marriage if she’s killed.”

“Kit!” On a sharp breath, his mother reached for the jet cross at her throat.

She still wore half-mourning for Geoff. The dark wool did not suit her blond coloring, but he knew that part of her pallor, at least, was owed to him. No doubt his words were cruel. But if she did not wish to enter full mourning again, she had no choice but to listen.

He took the seat beside her. How would Geoff have conducted this conversation? Somberly, brooking no opposition. “I do not like to say it. But you must face facts. Geoff’s death was no accident.”

“Stop it.” She turned her face away, showing the elegance of her profile, the high cheekbones and swanlike neck that by all accounts had struck men dumb in her youth. “I won’t listen to this again.”

Christian’s brother had not believed in involving her in unpleasant business. But there was no choice for it. Ignorance would only endanger her. “Be angry with me, if you must. Had I not crossed paths with a madman,
Geoff would still be alive.” The words tasted foul, unbearably bitter. Had he been a shade less
brave
at Bekhole, the entire world would not have read the details of his life—and his family. Bolkhov would not have found them so easily. “His blood is on my—”

“Don’t be a fool.” She swung a blazing look on him. “Life is unjust. Accidents happen all the time. Why . . .” Her lips pressed together, whitening. “Just look at your father. Always reckless on a horse. I warned him against such jumps, didn’t I? But he always said he knew what he was doing. The finest horseman in five counties, they called him.”

“I’m speaking of Geoff now,” Christian said gently.

“I know,” she snapped. “That’s my very point, Kit. Even when one sees the danger . . . I always told your father, I said he would break his neck and leave me a widow. But did he listen?” She pressed a hand to her mouth. “And when it finally happened, it had nothing to do with his skill, only bad . . .” She swallowed. “Bad luck. It happens, you know, all the time.”

Christian nodded. He had no grounds on which to argue it. On his return to England—dazed, ragged from fever—the tidings of his father’s death had seemed like a piece of black luck to him as well.

But he had proof of foul play in Geoff’s case. “I’ve been working with a friend in government,” he said slowly. This was not a piece of information he’d meant to share. “The fire that killed Geoff. It was arson.”

She closed her eyes as though to shut out the news. “The war has left you troubled. These delusions . . . the vicar says they arise from an unquiet mind.”

Christ God. Had Geoff given her such news, she never would have consulted the vicar about his sanity. “Do you require proof? I can arrange for it.”

For a moment, her face seemed to sink in on itself. He saw then how she would look at ninety, sunken-faced and frail, and the vision triggered a rush of terrible emotion.

The feeling hardened his resolve. She
would
live to be ninety. She would be ancient and gray before she passed away in her sleep. That was what he meant to ensure.

As she opened her eyes, a single tear slipped down her cheek. “If the government is involved, then let them solve this,” she said unsteadily. “Let them—let them protect us while they hunt this Russian! But to pull me away from my friends, Kit—and to ask Melanie to go among strangers, when she’s only now begun to recover her spirits—”

“You would rather be under lock and key here?” He rose. “That can be arranged.”

She frowned up at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you will remain at Susseby, under guard at all hours.”

“No!” She scowled. “That, I won’t tolerate. Melanie will have her season.”

“Neither you nor Melanie has a choice in it,” he bit out. “
I
am the head of this family now.”

She stared at him, struck mute. A rare sight, indeed. Enough to trigger a fleeting lick of black humor.
Obey
. That was the line he should have taken from the start.

Obey your brother
, she’d always told him as a boy. No matter the nature of his quarrels with Geoff, or Geoff’s share of the blame, it had been Christian’s role to make peace.
One day he will be the head of the family
, she had lectured him time and again.
All this—Susseby, the estates in the north, the fortune and title—all of it will be his. So respect him, Kit. Obey him, for one day
he
will be your authority, as much as your father
.

He had chafed at that instruction. Sorely resented Geoff for never having to apologize. Resented his mother, too, for turning a blind eye to Geoff’s flaws.

But he had never coveted his brother’s place. In his bones, he knew they’d been born in the proper order. He’d never wanted the burdensome duties of the title. Never wanted . . .
this
.

Yet here it was. “New York or Susseby,” he said with the same brutal bluntness that he might have used on a wayward troop. “Make your choice, madam.”

“Here,” she said faintly. “Susseby.”

The door opened without warning. Two maids carried in silver trays reeking of chop.

His mother hastily wiped her eyes. “Lay them down at the table,” she said. “Lord Palmer will require—”

“I am not staying.”

Her mouth flattened. “At least pay your respects before you go.”

That she imagined he needed a reminder was the harshest punishment she could have dealt him. Perhaps she realized it, for her face softened as she held out her hands. He took them and kissed her cheek. “This will be over soon,” he said gruffly.

“Oh, Christian.” Her fingers tightened around his. “Promise me you will pray for guidance.”

“Of course.” He prayed nightly for guidance, on how best to kill a monster.

A winding path led from the house through the terraced gardens, past a stand of trees to the small graveyard where generations of Strattons lay buried.

In the rainy light, Christian paused by his father’s
grave to bow his head. But it was by Geoff’s marker that he knelt. With damp earth soaking his trousers, he watched the wind ruffle the wet boughs overheard, scattering droplets that darkened the grass.

It was a tired cliché that a second son should find his true home in the military. But the military had not only offered him brotherhood, it had also instilled discipline. Through harsh experience, it had taught him that courage and denial were often the same. Over the course of countless battles, Christian had learned to ignore his inward emotions. He’d grown expert at denying his fear, his anxiety, and his doubt.

With the help of that practice, he rarely permitted himself to think on Geoff. Otherwise, the weight of his guilt would have crushed him into the earth.

Geoff had invited him on that ill-fated trip to York. But on the eve of departure, they had quarreled. Christian could no longer remember the name of the girl—some opera dancer whom Geoff had brought to a late dinner at Café Royal. So unlike him. He’d always been painfully sober—devoted, often to a pompous degree, to the great duties fated by his birth.

But that night at Café Royal, Geoff had seemed a different man. He’d arrived beaming and disheveled, eager to show off the woman on his arm. Christian, who had gone to confer with a waiter about an unsatisfactory cabernet, had turned in time to see this unlikely scene: his brother removing the opera dancer’s cloak as reverently as though he were unveiling a queen.