Page 16 of Lady Be Good

“Help that bastard?” Nick gave her a disbelieving look. “Did you lose your mind, out in the country?”

Lilah sighed. They were standing on the balcony at the House of Diamonds, Nick’s gambling club. She never liked to visit here. Below, at numerous tables scattered across the thick red carpet, men were throwing money away with an abandon that sickened her.

But she’d written to Nick for five days in a row with no reply, and she’d had no luck ambushing him at Neddie’s, either. When he’d finally written to propose a meeting here, she’d been too relieved to quibble over details.

“Just hear me out,” she said. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Can’t think how,” he said. “Not unless you’ve got the crown jewels in your pocket.”

She hadn’t expected this to be easy. Nick was the most stubborn man she’d ever met. He would not throw water on himself to put out a fire, if it meant following somebody else’s plan for him. “I know you don’t like him. And I know you’ve no cause to do favors for me. But I’ve come anyway. Please hear me out.”

He frowned, then gave her a long, encompassing glance, his gray eyes sharp. “You look right tired, Lily. You feeling all right?”

She shrugged. “It’s just the lighting.” The glare of the electric chandeliers made everybody look sallow.

“Modernity isn’t pretty,” he said. “Adds some glamor, though.”

She nodded. In truth, she was exhausted; she’d barely slept since returning to London. But she knew better than to admit to Nick that she’d been tossing and turning with worry for a toff. “Can we speak somewhere private? It’s very loud in here.” The crowd below wore evening finery, but disported themselves as raucously as brawlers at a gin palace.

“Sweet music of the dice,” Nick said. But he pushed himself off the railing, leading her with springing steps down the balcony to an unmarked door.

He had redecorated his office since her last visit. Dark, striped paper covered the walls. The tasteful Smyrna carpet would have won Miss Everleigh’s approval.

She took a seat in the wing chair that faced the desk. The grain of the leather slid like butter beneath her fingers. “You’re doing very well.” Nick disliked being instructed, but he wasn’t immune to flattery.

He dropped into the seat opposite, grinning as he shoved aside a ledger. “Can’t complain. You see the archbishop down there, at the poker table?” He snorted. “Calls himself Thomas Duckle at the door, as if we’ve never seen a bloody newspaper.”

That door—the famous red door, which admitted wealthy ne’er-do-wells at all hours—stood open thanks to Nick’s generous bribes. Gambling had been declared illegal, but he had the police in his pocket, and several politicians, too. The only group he did not bother to placate were the moralists, whose furious editorials had offered the House of Diamonds a great deal of free advertising over the past few years.

“Congratulations,” she murmured. “Perhaps Mr. Duckle will sell you a place in heaven.”

“Oh, I’ve got better uses for my coin than that,” he said with a wink. He folded his hands together atop the desk, flexing his wrists so his rings rapped the wood. “You bring those letters? Or is Palmer still lording them over you?”

“He gave them to me for nothing.”

He frowned. “Right he did.”

That cynical tone made her sit straighter. “It’s true,” she said fiercely. “He asked nothing for them. He gave them to me from kindness.” To get me free of you, she did not add.

He sat back, smiling faintly. The gambling house had a strict dress code, which Nick always followed when resident. In his formal black suit and crisply starched cravat, he looked almost lordly. “Sounds about right, then. It’s a fool who’ll give away what he could name a price for.”

She would not be drawn into pointless argument. “He’s looking for someone. A Russian. A very dangerous character. The man probably hides among his own people. There are several Russian communities in your territory, aren’t there?”

“They make no trouble,” Nick said evenly. “So it’s none of my concern.”

“It concerns me.”

“No, Lily. It doesn’t.”

“This Russian, he’s after Palmer’s family—”

“The Strattons, is that right?”

His thoughtful tone confused her. Then it gave her a fledging flutter of hope. “Yes. His mother and sister—”

“Seventh viscount in his line,” Nick went on. He pulled apart his hands, took hold of one of his rings and turned it idly around his finger. A ruby cabochon the size of a marble. “Second cousin to a couple of dukes. Hell, he’s even related to the Queen. Ancestors came over with old Willy the Conqueror, don’t you know.”

“You’ve been reading up on him.”

“Thought it wise.” He tipped his head, dark hair falling across one eye. Fine suit, yes. But the shaggy hair of a ruffian. “How much Irish you reckon you’ll find in a family like that?”

“His mother,” she said triumphantly. “She hails from Tipperary.”

He burst into a laugh. “Is that what he told you? Aye, no doubt they ventured beyond the Pale once or twice. Seized some land from law-abiding Catholics. Don’t make them Irish, though.”

She bit her tongue. She must stay focused on her aim. “I don’t have any interest in defending his ancestors. It’s him that I . . .”

“You what?” Nick leaned forward. “What is it, exactly, that brings you to my doorstep to do his begging for him?”

“I’m not doing it for him. He doesn’t even know I’m here.”

“Sure he doesn’t,” he said smoothly.

“It’s true.” The next words came out clumsily, for they effectively bared her throat to Nick. “I care for him.”

He surprised her by sighing. “Oh, Lily.” He sat back, raked a hand through his black hair, then shook his head. “Well, it’s an old story. But I thought I taught you better. Fiona, now—she was softhearted. Took after her da. But you? I thought you were smarter.”

She was foolish, to be sure. No use in disputing it. “You don’t know him,” she said softly. “I can’t hope to persuade you that he’s far better, far kinder, far worthier than you think. Not like the rest of them. Of course you won’t believe that. But if you have any faith in me—then I will beg you. I beg you to trust my judgment, for once.”

His gaze dropped, his long dark lashes veiling his eyes. He nudged the ledger book straight, squared its edges with the corner of the desk. “All right, then let’s hear it. What are your hopes from him?”

“My hopes?” She frowned. “What do you mean? My hope is to find this Russian—”

“Your hopes for you.” He looked up sharply. “I don’t give a damn for Palmer. Let’s speak of what does matter. You want me to help this toff. Find the Russian who would hurt him. What’s in it for you? Think he’ll marry you for it?”

She flinched. “Of course not.”

He studied her a long moment, in which his steady gaze made her feel increasingly exposed, awkward and flushed and miserable.

“Oh, but you do hope, don’t you?” He spoke very gently, which somehow made it worse. “And why not? You walk around that auction house dressed like a lady, talking like a lady. And the swells bow to you, just as they would to a lady—but you’ll never be one of them, Lily. It’s not that you don’t deserve it—God knows you’ve done a tip-top job, remaking yourself. Had I known you had the talent for it, I never would have wasted you on thieving. You’d have made the finest swindler London ever saw.”

She could not hold his gaze. “But?”

“But the swindle ends, darling, when they ask who your father was. And your grandfather, and his father before him. Old William the Conqueror, he’s not in our line. His son killed our kind for sport, back in the day.”

“I know it.” She spat the words. “You needn’t tell me this.”

“I didn’t think I did. But then you came here to beg for one of them. And unless you give me a solid reason why, I’ll be thinking you—with love, Lily; always with love—the greatest damned fool in the city.”

“Here’s a reason.” She raised her head and glared at him. “You won’t have those letters unless you help me find the Russian.”

“Ah.” He steepled his fingertips against his mouth as he considered her. “Threats, is it?” he asked softly. “That wise, Lily?”

“No.” The syllable was threadbare. She cleared her throat and found her voice again. “But if your life were on the line, I would make threats to save it. And I’ll do it for him, too. Punish me as you like.”

“As I like.” He whipped his hands down against the desktop, the crack making her jump. “What I like has nothing to do with it. You’ll never make a lady—but you could’ve been a fine, powerful woman. Stayed here, run an empire with me. But no.” He stood with violent force, and she leapt to her feet, scrambling around the chair to bolt through the door.

But he didn’t come after her. He stared at her, scowling, and her hand, after a moment, slipped off the doorknob. She gathered herself to her full height. “The letters,” she said. “For the Russian’s location. That is the offer.”

“No,” he said flatly.

With the collapse of her hopes, fear seemed to leave her, too. She felt, above all, exhausted. “Very well.” She pulled open the door.

“I’ve a different bargain,” he said. “Nonnegotiable.”

She wheeled back.

“You’re family,” he said evenly. “But this is the last time I’ll do anything to serve Palmer. Understood?”

“Yes. Yes. Thank you—”

“Not yet,” he bit out. “God’s sake, Lily, have you forgotten everything? Hear the price first. Sit back down.”

Something was afoot at Everleigh’s. Lilah knew it the moment she alighted from the cab. The footmen were not at their posts on the front steps. Concern overrode the anxiety still lingering from her conversation with her uncle. She paid the driver and hurried around to the back entry.

The hall was empty. The counting room was locked. Even Mr. Chisholm, that permanent fixture in the contracts office, had deserted his desk. Rattled, Lilah pushed through the green baize doors into the public corridor. Lavender Ames and Maisy Lowell were hurrying up the grand staircase.

“Vinnie!” she called. “What’s going on?”

Lavender looked back but didn’t slow. “Quickly,” she said. “There’s a meeting called in the auction room.”

Lifting her skirts, Lilah took the stairs by twos. As she reached Vinnie’s side, she found herself at the edge of a crowd. The entire staff of Everleigh’s was funneling through the double doors into the oak-paneled hall where auctions were conducted.

Young Pete stood at the rostrum, his sister at his side. Just below them, the senior employees had assembled: the company solicitors; Young Pete’s secretary; and Mr. Hastings, who officially was Peter’s assistant, but in practice led most of the lesser auctions in Peter’s place. They were clustered in a tight, obsequious circle around a tall man, exquisitely dressed in dove gray, whose back was to the crowd.

She recognized the breadth of his shoulders, the way his blond hair curled against his collar. His military-straight posture.

As though he sensed her attention, he turned. Their eyes met across the crowd. He did not smile.

An elbow prodded her, making her flinch. “Hey now,” Vinnie said. “Isn’t that Lord Palmer?”

Her heart gave a queer thump. Like a thousand pricks from a needle, this wave of foreboding. She nodded.

“Why do you suppose he’s here?”

“I’ve no idea.” She cleared her throat. “Perhaps . . . to announce the date of the auction of Buckley Hall?”

But even as she spoke, she knew the idea was absurd. Vinnie confirmed it: “I can’t imagine they’d assemble us for such an announcement. Perhaps for a royal estate, but you said Buckley Hall was not so very rich.”

“It was rich.” Richer than any estate she could imagine. “But not grand enough for this.”

Vinnie gave her a sharp look. “Are you all right?”

“Quiet now,” Young Pete called. He rapped the gavel against the rostrum, causing the assistant auctioneer below to give a proprietary wince.

Maisy Lowell snorted. “Look at how Hastings fondles the thing!” For he had reached out to pat the rostrum as one might soothe an addled horse.

“He’s in love,” Vinnie cracked.

Lilah felt her lips curl in an automatic smile. But she barely registered the joke. Palmer had looked away from her almost instantly, and from this distance—which suddenly felt so much larger than the width of the room, with him surrounded by fawning lackeys—he seemed every inch the stranger he had asked her to make him. Not the man she had lain with until dawn six nights ago. Not the man who had feared for her, and then called her his weakness.

No, the man across the room looked incapable of weakness. He wore a look of bored amusement that she remembered from the first days at Buckley Hall. The look, she had thought back then, of an arrogant, bullying ass.

“All right now, quiet,” Young Pete called, far more loudly than needed; the room had been designed to carry voices as clearly as an opera house, and everybody had already hushed anyway. Into the tense and excited silence, he continued: “Over five years ago, now, we mourned my father’s passing. I know we mourned together, for my father always considered you all to be as dear to him as family, and your grief was a testament to your fellow feeling. At every moment, since then, I have striven to do his legacy justice.”

“You’d imagine his sister had done nothing,” Vinnie muttered in Lilah’s left ear, while in her right, Maisy whispered, “She looks as sour as vinegar, doesn’t she?”

“It is in honor of that legacy,” Young Pete went on, “that I have called you here today. For as family, you deserve to share in our joys as much as our sorrows.” He lifted his hand, beckoning his sister nearer to him.

And then he motioned also to Palmer.

Vinnie gasped. “Do you think—”

“No,” Lilah said. No. She crossed her arms and gripped them very tightly. She must be mistaken. They had not been in London a week. She had met with Miss Everleigh every afternoon, for lessons in typing that also served to organize their notes on Buckley Hall. By no sign or odd mood had Miss Everleigh indicated that she had news of a private and unusual nature.

Yet Peter was still speaking. “It is my great good fortune to announce the betrothal of my sister to Viscount Palmer. Lord Palmer, as you may know—”

Her ears shut out the words. They buzzed senselessly around her: Pete’s speech, Palmer’s words of thanks, Vinnie’s excited babbling. The roar in her ears made it all unintelligible. She could not remove her eyes from Palmer. Christian. Could not look away, though it seemed to burn her very vision when he lifted Catherine Everleigh’s hand and kissed it.

Miss Everleigh smiled.

The astonished applause threw her back into herself. She would be sick, surely. She felt cold and jittery, as though she had drunk too much coffee, and then gone on a whirligig after.

“You never let on,” Vinnie was saying to her. “How did it happen? How did he win her?”

And Maisy, too, was demanding details: “When did they fall in love? Did you guess it right away?”

“I . . .” She could not do this. No amount of thieving could have prepared her to put on this kind of performance, tell these kinds of lies. What filled her throat, her mind, was only the truth: No, they did not fall in love at Buckley Hall. We fell in love. I fell in love with him. And I swear to you, until this moment, I was certain that he did as well.

But that wasn’t right. He’d never spoken of love. And she had explicitly denied it. Was she in love? She had promised herself she wasn’t.

Oh, God. She had lied.

“Excuse me,” she said, and pushed through the women. Thank heavens the double doors had been left ajar; otherwise, heavy as they were, she might have been forced to throw herself at them, again and again, battering herself until they opened, or she fell apart . . .

She fled through the empty hall, down the slippery echoing staircase, past the deserted salons where she had laughed and flirted and traded quips with a hundred gentlemen whose names she no longer remembered.

The butcher! She burst out through the doors, emerging into a light rain, coming to a stop at the top of the stairs, barely cognizant of the marveling looks from passersby on the pavement. Think of the butcher. Or your career.

But this ache was swelling, an unbearable pressure in her chest. Once it cracked, she’d be done for.

He’d never spoken of love. He’d only warned her. Become a stranger. It is safer. He had all but told her he would be her downfall. But he’d imagined the danger outward. How much easier, were that so! For neither he nor anybody in the world could save her from herself.

Stupid, stupid. She started to walk, blindly pushing past her fellow pedestrians. A vendor of hot oysters called out a warning; he ducked out of her path, grease splattering her wrist. She wasn’t wearing gloves. She’d left them inside.

Fiona, we made no plan for this.

When she finally halted, she found herself at the bustling edge of the marketplace. A hundred carts, vegetables and fruit, livestock lowing, women bawling their wares. By dint of long habit, her hand closed over her pocket to protect her purse. She felt the hilt of her knife. The sensation gave her an odd jolt, a sick thudding sense of sinking back into herself.

The world looked unchanged. She dashed away her tears—when had that happened?—and became immediately unremarkable. The next lot of passersby didn’t even look at her. Even in her fine gown, she fit right in with a common crowd.

She took a long breath, then sidestepped out of the way of a slow-moving oxcart. By a cart selling hot pies, a bearded man was about to clip the strings of a housewife’s purse, for she had turned away for a moment, forgetful, to see to her fussing children.

The knife was still in Lilah’s hand. She lifted it and watched it go.

The thief squawked in surprise, his sleeve pinned against the cart. The housewife shrieked and grabbed back her purse; the vendor bellowed for the police.

Lilah stepped up and retrieved her blade. Thief, housewife, and baker gawped at her.

She was still good for something. Good for a lot of things, in fact. She bobbed a brief curtsy and then turned away, quickening her pace when she spotted the approaching bobbies. Ladies did not throw knives.

Nick was right, after all. She would never be a lady in truth, but she did make a powerful woman.

At the corner, she made herself turn back toward Everleigh’s. The engagement changed nothing. It did not alter her. She remained the same: a woman who fought for the people she loved. She’d never been a coward.

She’d never been a figure of pity, either. Before the day’s end, she would write two notes of congratulation to the newly betrothed.

The fire in the hearth had caused the windows to fog. These cold rains had not ceased in a week, sparing no part of the home counties. They had soaked the ruined bones of what remained of Susseby, raising a strange reek that had permeated Christian’s skin. He’d walked through the property again three days ago. But he could smell the ash even now, battling with the stale, cologne-clogged air of Peter Everleigh’s office.

Catherine signed the last page of the contract, then handed it to her family’s lawyer, a rotund, balding man who treated her as though she were no older than ten. He flipped through the pages, checking each with officious care.

“I was thorough,” she said to him.

He gave her an indulgent smile. “Of course you were, dear.” He handed the contract across the desk to Christian’s lawyer. “Lord Palmer must cosign acknowledgment of each clause. I assume you’ll wish to review them first.”

“Thoroughly.” Dyson slipped the documents into his briefcase. “Shall we reconvene in a week?”

“So long?” Catherine sat forward, ignoring her brother’s restraining hand. “I’d hoped to have it settled before the engagement party.” She grimaced. “If we truly must have one.”

“We must,” her brother said tightly. “I will not have it said that this marriage was done in haste. Let them think we’ve been planning it for some time.”

Catherine wanted her independence posthaste. The contract, once signed, would guarantee it. It laid out the terms of a marriage that would function, as far as Christian could tell, in the same regimented fashion as any business partnership.

“A week is perfectly satisfactory,” said Catherine’s lawyer.

“Quite right,” Peter snapped when Catherine looked ripe to protest again. “You will give us all cause to wonder at your hurry.”

Her mouth thinned as she glanced toward Christian. The meeting had not gone smoothly; Peter had seemed surprised by a number of Catherine’s conditions—above all, the clause that required her future husband to allow her fifty hours a week to pursue her professional obligations.

“You can’t intend to stay on here,” Peter had spluttered. “Why—Palmer, do you mean to allow this? Your wife to work?”

Christian had felt curiously anesthetized since his last walk through the ruins of Susseby. But Peter Everleigh’s distress was mildly diverting. “We can review it tomorrow,” he said now to Dyson. “Will that suit you, Catherine?”

She shrugged off her brother’s grip as she rose. “Very well, thank you. Lord Palmer, will you escort me to my office?”

“Later,” said Peter. “I need a private word with his lordship.”

“Yes,” Christian told her. “I’d be glad to do so.”

They walked in silence through the bustling public hallway. Once they had mounted the stairs, Catherine gestured him inside her office and pulled shut the door. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For being so cold to my brother.” She waved him into a chair. “I hope you will always prove so cold to him.”

He smiled faintly. He was coming to understand her better now. A brother like that would have driven him to become a misanthrope, too. “You understand there are more private terms to discuss. Terms we cannot put into writing.”

“Yes. I hoped we might speak of them now.” She pulled open the drapes. The cloudy light fell across her, making her skin opalescent.

Her beauty was truly remarkable. He admired it as he might a sculpture in a museum: worthy of praise, but nothing to do with him. “Did you ask Peter about the discrepancies in the accounts?”

“He claims ignorance. Accused me of misunderstanding the finances.” She sat down, clasping her hands tightly atop her neatly cleared desktop. For a moment, she frowned, clearly wrestling with some private emotion. “Perhaps the accountant was wrong. I believe Peter would embezzle from the company profits—he never loved this place as I do. His dream is a career in politics, not art. But to falsify our clients’ accounts . . . it’s plain thievery. He doesn’t just put our company at risk by stealing from them; he risks his friendships in society, and those mean everything to him.”

“You say no one else has access to the client accounts. No trustees of any kind.”

“No,” she said softly. “Everleigh’s has always been a family affair. No shareholders. And by the terms of our father’s will, Peter retains sole directorship until I marry.”

“Then no one else could be responsible,” Christian said. “And the evidence is plain. He’s been at this game for two years at least.”

She blew out a breath. Then a bitter smile twisted her mouth. “He lies so freely.” She ripped apart her hands, clenching the edge of the desktop. “The moment we wed, Palmer—I am suing for control of the finances.”

He nodded. “And I will support you in every way.” That was their bargain. “Just as soon as this other matter is resolved. It won’t be long now.”

She sat back, studying him gravely. “Are you certain? Demidov—or Bolkhov; whatever his real name is—declined the invitation to the party.” She opened a drawer, handed him the note.

Christian recognized the handwriting. That illiterate scrawl. He’d seen it only once before, on the note that had sent him rushing to York, too late to save his brother.

“I don’t understand such men,” she said. “Revenge is such a waste of energy. Has he nothing else to occupy him?”

Christian gave her a measuring look. She knew the danger now. He had explained it very clearly, the night they had agreed to marry. But her composure seemed genuine. No fear. None of the anger she rightfully should have felt upon discovering herself at the center of a web designed to snare a lunatic.

But perhaps she felt trapped in that web herself. She needed help if she meant to protect the auction rooms from her brother.

He wished he were a different man. Able to reassure her. Able to apologize, or feel regret for the position in which he’d placed her. Instead, he said, “He mentions a gift in this note.”

“Yes.” She offered a thin smile. “It is the custom among Russians to felicitate the newly engaged with a present.” She reached into her drawer again, handing over a small object, gleaming. A ring.

His jaw clenched. The gold was as bright as the day it had been forged. The bastard had polished it.

“You recognize it.”

Go with my blessing. Never forget that I am proud of you. “Yes,” he said. Bolkhov had stripped it from his hand four years ago, in that cave in the Hindu Kush.

The graveyard at Susseby currently overlooked a set of chimneys rising from rubble. After he rebuilt the house, he would bury this ring with his father, to whom it had belonged.

“He proposed it as a wedding ring, did you see? Had you not told me the whole of it already, I would have found that quite odd.” She cleared her throat. “Better than chocolates, though, I suppose.”

There was the regret he’d been searching for. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I have put you into a fine mess here.”

“But you will get me out of another one.” She straightened a pen lying next to the inkwell. “I would eat a dozen more of those chocolates, if that’s what it took to save this company from ruin.”

He didn’t doubt it. At odd moments, she reminded him a little of Lilah. Both women had steel at their core, and the grit to endure any number of vicissitudes, as long as it guaranteed their aims.

It seems quite pleasant, never to be expected to endure. Lilah had told him that once. And he had wanted nothing more in that moment than to guarantee she never endured another injustice in her life.

Lilah’s secrets were not his to share. Catherine, ignorant, had decided to keep her on as an assistant, which was . . . inconvenient. Infuriating. It held Lilah too close to the eye of this storm.

But Christian had bitten his tongue bloody against the urge to suggest that Catherine reconsider, demote her back to a hostess. If he could not offer Lilah a future, then he would not sabotage her chance at something better than the butcher.

The smell of Susseby was back in the air now. He pushed it out of his lungs as he rose.

Catherine stood as well. “Do you know, it’s a pity Demidov—Bolkhov—turned out to be rotten. His wares will fetch a very handsome profit for us. That candelabrum alone will go for a hundred pounds.”

“All the better for you,” he said flatly. “He won’t be alive to take his share.” He slipped the ring into his pocket. “Your hand is too fine for such a heavy band. What is your taste? Diamonds? Emeralds?”

“Either.”

He angled a black smile at her. Never had a betrothed couple been so well matched in their transparent lack of enthusiasm. “Perhaps you should choose the ring yourself. I expect you know jewels better than I do.”

A light knock came at the door. “Come,” called Catherine. “No,” she said to him, as light footsteps halted behind him. “My brother handles all the gemstones. But I hardly want his advice on the matter. Miss Marshall, you seemed to have a fine eye for jewels. Have you any suggestions?”

He held himself very still.

“Diamonds,” came her low, husky reply, “would be the usual choice. But amethyst would complement your eyes quite well, Miss Everleigh. Lord Palmer, allow me to congratulate you now in person.”

He rose and turned, offering a slight bow. She looked fatigued. Deeper shadows under her eyes than he’d ever seen, though she was back in town now, where there was light even in the small hours of the morning.

She could not hold his gaze. “I’m interrupting,” she said. “I’ll come back later.”

“Was there something that needed my attention?” Catherine asked.

He knew he should leave. But he could not look away from her. She sensed his attention. He could tell by her rising color. “Mr. Batten has finished the restoration of the tapestries. Will you have a look?”

“I’ll be down shortly. Apprise Lord Palmer as you walk him out. I didn’t get a chance to tell him of the repairs.”

“Yes, miss.” Very stiffly, she led Christian out the door.

“You’ve no interest in the tapestries,” Lilah said to him in the hall.

“No, not really.”

“I’ll let you go, then.”

Stupid, that the words could catch in his chest like that. That the proof of her wrecked sleep should disturb him so deeply. It was a far milder toll than what he sought to spare her. He would go. At once.

But he heard himself say, “No. I’ll see the mappemonde now.”

In silence she led him down two flights of stairs, into an empty laboratory whose tables were littered with antiques in disrepair. Two tapestries stood stretched against the walls. He walked over to the mappemonde, gazing on it for a long moment. To imagine that this was how men had once envisioned the world: small expanses of fertile land surrounded by vast, dragon-riddled seas—and the darker, unknown terra incognita. How had the uncertainty not driven them mad?

But perhaps, in a world lit only by candles, they had felt better acquainted, more comfortable with such darkness.

He glanced at Lilah, who was staring fixedly away, toward a small window that showed no view but brick wall. “I imagine you don’t like this map,” he said.

“No,” she said immediately. “I much prefer the other one.”

The tapestry to the left, he’d never seen before. “Was this also at the estate?”

“Yes. Last century, French. But Miss Everleigh thinks it valuable in its own right. You don’t often see fairy tales as the subject of such pieces.” Lilah frowned at it. “She says it’s a fairy tale, anyway. It’s not one I’ve ever heard.”

He studied it. In the foreground, two young knights bowed—or groveled—at the foot of a king. In the upper left quadrant, Christian located their swords, abandoned in a distant mountain range, atop which sat a fearsome-looking dwarf. In the upper right quadrant, a grand castle stood in a verdant valley, overlooked by a third knight and a crowned queen. “It’s the tale of the Water of Life.” He glanced back to the king. “See the goblet? The king falls ill, and his three sons go out into the world, one by one, to find the cure.”

“Let me guess: the firstborn is evil, and the second is stupid, and only the youngest has the courage to outwit the monster.”

“No bravery in this tale. Only diplomacy. The first two sons are too vain and proud to reply to the greeting of the dwarf who guards the pass. But the third is courteous, for which the dwarf befriends him. He offers the young prince advice, and a few tools that save the day. The king is healed, and the prince ends up winning a foreign princess and a kingdom of his own.”

“That’s not a tale about diplomacy,” she said. “The moral is never to be too proud for friendship.” She slid him a brief, pointed look. “You never know when that friend might come in handy. So never turn up your nose at an offer of help.”

He let that rebuke pass in silence, for the argument was settled. “I always thought the moral of these tales was to know your place.”

Her laugh was unpleasantly sharp. “Yes, that sounds right, too.”

Did she imagine he had lied to her? That her past, her upbringing, mattered a damn? “The third born is humble due to his station,” he said evenly. “He acts selflessly. Whereas the firstborn fails because he acts from greed—wanting only his inheritance, without any sense of the duties that should properly drive him. And the second born, who should be noble, waging battle for his ideals, wants only the glory, and none of the blood.”

“So he wants to be a hero.”

“Yes.”

“Fitting for you, as a second born.”

He shrugged. “You know what I think on that subject.” And she should know, too, that he was the last man on earth who would attach importance to what others would think of her, should they learn of her history. Public perception meant nothing.

“Why?” she asked, her expression wan. “You are a hero in every way that counts. It’s gotten you the hand of a princess, hasn’t it?”

He sighed. She’d sent him a note of congratulation on his engagement. He had wondered—he wondered now—if she knew how deeply her courtesy sliced. How well she had mastered manners, which were, after all, only another weapon to those fluent in them. “In fairy tales,” he said, “the princess is almost always in disguise.”

Her smile was as sharp as her laughter had been. “And so was Miss Everleigh, until now. Everybody’s talking of it. How calm she seems. Why, she even smiles at the hostesses.”

“She smiled at you long before she returned to London. You’d melted her quite thoroughly, though you didn’t know it.” He gave her a real smile, genuinely amused by the thought. “In the fairy tales, you would be the hero who slayed the dragon.”

She crossed her arms. “Fat chance of that. I’m far from selfless.”

“You’d be the second born,” he said. “In the rare tales where that one wins. Fighting for your ideals.”

“Ideals!” She turned away, looking over the treasures on the tables. “Money, maybe. I would fight for that.”

“ ‘Better things,’ ” he quoted softly. “ ‘Beauty and honesty and honor.’ ”

She recognized her own words. Her face darkened as she turned back.

He did not like her reaction. The memory of the night she had spoken those words in his study, and then asked him to demand something of her . . . it lived in him like a piece of light. That it should bring such misery to her face was one of the more disquieting sights he’d ever seen, and God knew he had many to choose from.

He took a breath, thinking again of Susseby—the great grave where the house had stood. But the air smelled pure here. Clean, clear. Scented with that perfume that was not Pearson’s soap, but simply her skin, and nothing else.

She was staring at him, mouth trembling. “If you see me that way, then how . . .”

“It’s because I see you that way.” She had shown him how to be a hero. For her alone, he could be one. “I should go,” he said reluctantly.

She looked back to the tapestry, her frown less a scowl than a fight for composure. “Yes. You know the way out, Lord Palmer.”