The Most Honorable the Marquess of Longmere. Cecy wrote the address in flowing script then slowly returned her pen to the standish, never taking her eyes off the words the old Cecilia would never have written.
When had she ever cared about anyone but herself?
When had she begun to think of Lady R as a friend instead of someone who was going to raise Cecilia Lilly to the pinnacle of the world of high-flyers?
When had Holly, the tavern wench, begun to matter? Fetch and two houses full of abandoned children? Nick Black’s minions, right down to slim, unassuming Andrew Lovell, the tutor?
And Nick himself . . .
Dear God, he was going to kill her! At the very least, she’d be out on the street again, homeless, despised . . .
But she couldn’t let him do it. She simply couldn’t.
Cecy slipped down the servants’ stairs into the kitchen and had a few words with Jed, the kitchen boy. He flashed a smile as a shiny coin changed hands, and then he slipped out the back door while Cecy, the picture of innocence, regaled Cook with a carefully crafted explanation for sending the boy on a short errand.
Late that afternoon, on her way back from Boone Farm, Miss Lilly surprised her escorts with a sudden urge to take tea at the Duck and Drake, a not-too-shabby inn where they sometimes paused to rest the horses. She swept inside, leaving her guards to gaze after her, undoubtedly hesitant to follow as they suspected her true need was to visit the necessary. Just as she’d planned.
A brief inquiry to the landlord and he ushered her to a private room, rapped on the door, opened it, and discreetly withdrew. Jason, Marquess of Longmere, unfolded from a chair by the fire.
“Longmere.” Cecy curtsied then took a chair opposite his.
“Cecilia.” He sat back down, his blue eyes assessing her, making no effort to hide his curiosity. There was also, she hoped, a tinge of guilt.
She had thought she could do this . . . knew she must do this, but now the moment had come, her stomach roiled, she couldn’t breathe . . . She ducked her head, fighting for control.
He took matters out of her hands. “Cecilia, I am sorry. I don’t know what happened that night. Perhaps I was trying to prove something to Pinkney and Upham. Certainly, we’d all had too much to drink. Only later did I realize I was angry with myself—I have no taste for orgies. Yet that night I went mad, did things, allowed things that sickened me. And to top off my insanity, I took it out on you.”
Longmere clenched his fists. Cecy sucked in a sharp breath. “Sorry.” Jason tucked his hands into his lap. “Afterwards,” he continued, “I slept like the dead, I didn’t know how badly you were hurt, I didn’t know you’d gone out. And yes,” he added on a groan, “the whole story finally got back to me. And I’m grateful to Black for saving you. His gain, my loss.”
The marquess picked up a wine bottle from a small table beside his chair, poured a glass, and handed it to her. “Ironic, is it not? The bastard, the hero of the hour? The peer of the realm, the villain.”
Cecy took a sip, while she used his apology as a catalyst to regain control of her emotions. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I did not come here for an apology, but I appreciate it. It helps me get through what I planned to say.” She took a deep breath, gripping the wine glass in both hands. “Have you invested any money in the diamond mine proposed to you by Mr. Wolfe?”
Jason’s shoulders straightened from their dejected slump, his blue eyes flared. No one could ever accuse the Marquess of Longmere of being a dullard. “I meet with him tonight for the final bit of paperwork.”
“I would advise you to withdraw. Diamond mines can be a risky business.”
Long moments of silence and then he said, “Lord, I am such a fool. I never thought . . . Wolfe is Lady Rivenhall’s man of business, and Juliana Rivenhall would defend any of her chicks to the death.” He heaved a sigh. “I suppose Black is in on it too.”
“It’s . . . possible.” Cecy focused her gaze on the glowing coals in the fireplace.
A bark of bitter laughter. “The rumors, damn him! Very inventive. My latest inamorata has decamped, finding some fat Cit preferable to me.”
Cruel, Cecy thought. Justified perhaps, but cruel. They’d had some good times, some precious moments when she’d truly thought he’d cared . . . “Perhaps a sojourn in the country, or some months on the continent?” she suggested. “Give the gossip time to dissipate, be obscured by the next scandals to come along.”
“Why?” he asked softly, his blue eyes sharp and penetrating. “Why warn me?”
Cecy gazed into her wine glass, drew a shuddering breath. “I’ve been so frightened, so terrified. I was existing, not living. I finally realized I needed to face you, face my fear. And besides . . .” She lifted her chin, forced herself to look directly into his deceptively clear blue eyes. “I recalled that in all the months we were together you only went mad the one night. And though I would never chance it again, I did not feel you deserved to be totally ruined. Nor do I want to see Nick bring down his brother. And even if you are no relation at all, I feel the punishment is too harsh. It’s very female of me, I know, but there it is.” She took a hasty sip of wine, handed her glass back to the marquess, and stood up. “I must go now. They’ll be looking for me, and I’d prefer to put off the day of reckoning until another time.”
She curtsied. “Goodbye, Jason. Thank you for meeting me.” She hastened out the door, huffing a sharp breath as she found her stalwart guards standing one on each side, arms folded, looking grim. She could only pray the door was stout, her conversation with the marquess inaudible, for when Nick found out she’d met Longmere secretly, warned him away from the carefully baited trap . . .
Time to run back to the Academy . . . except it seemed likely Lady R had helped hatch the plot against Longmere. Darius Wolfe was her man of business, was he not? She would likely be as angry over Cecy’s defection as Nick was bound to be.
Hopefully she had a little time before her role was discovered . . . but when she passed through the outside door, there was Longmere’s carriage waiting in the courtyard, his crest emblazoned on the door.
Too late.
And besides, she had nowhere to run.
Cecy allowed Tim Riggs, the younger guard who never glowered at her, to hand her into the carriage. She arranged her skirts, sat tall and proud. Unlike her friend Belle who had no way to avoid the abuse her father showered on her, Chastity Singletary had plunged, headlong and heedless, into this life. She deserved whatever punishment came her way. Why Nick, Lady R, and Darius Wolfe couldn’t see that, she truly didn’t know.
It was a long chill ride back to Princes Street.
Nick sat at his desk, scowling. Cecilia had looked ill at dinner, pale and tired. Had he asked too much of her, jaunting about from pillar to post on his business? Was there an unseen injury from her beating that the doctor had not discovered? Or had there been some incident he knew nothing about?
He shook his head. Fool that he was, it was likely nothing more than her time of the month. Yet he couldn’t keep himself from worrying. The ruthless, all-powerful Nick Black, felled by a pair of green eyes . . .
A quick rap on the door and Pike walked in, presenting a note on a silver salver. Ah . . . the word he’d been waiting for. At last they had Longmere by the balls.
Or not. Nick unfolded the note and read: Longmere canceled the meeting. Any idea why? DW
Hell and the Devil! Had he guessed? Impossible. They’d laid the trap well, Nick knew they had. God knows they’d laid down enough of their own blunt to grease the wheels.
Coincidence? Or was Longmere, a proper aristocrat, so disinterested in profit that he was off draping diamonds over some fille de joie rather than investing in the means of acquiring them?
Nick shook his head. Not even Longmere was that frivolous.
Longmere knew. Someone had betrayed their plan.
Nick sat, head in his hands, lips thinned to a straight line as he ran down the possibilities. He’d like to think it was one of Wolfe’s people, but . . .
Cecilia’s wan face leaped to mind.
She couldn’t . . . she wouldn’t . . . Never.
But he hadn’t told anyone else, not Charles or Guy, not even Fetch. The diamond mine was Wolfe’s plan. Besides Lady Rivenhall and himself, only one other person knew about it.
Anger surged. Nick bounded to his feet, jerked the bell rope, and ordered Pike to send for Burt Higgins, the older of Cecilia’s two guards.
Nick could tell the moment the man shuffled in that he was hiding a secret. He fixed Higgins with the look that had caused more than a few strong men to wet themselves, and waited.
“I know I shoulda told y’, Mr. Nick, but I like her, y’know. I didn’ want to get her in no trouble.”
Nick’s deadly glance never wavered. “Tell me.”
“Miss stopped at the Duck and Drake fer tea.” Burt worked his jaw, shifted his feet. “The markis—Longmere—was waiting fer ’er in a private room. I c’d ’ear ’em talkin’ but not what they wuz sayin’.”
“How do you know it was Longmere?”
“Caught a look, now didn’t I, when t’door opened. And oi saw ’is coach, plain as day.”
“Thank you, Higgins. Ask Pike to send for Miss Lilly.”
“Aye, Guv.” The big man turned and lumbered out as fast as his legs would take him, obviously anxious to get clear before Nick changed his mind and produced a whip, or something more lethal. He had his hand on the latch when Nick called out, “Stop!” When he turned, fear blossoming on usually stoic face, Nick added, “Say nothing to Pike. Just go, get out of my sight!”
Cecy endured dinner that night in uneasy misery, ready to swear Nick’s glances were more like stabs from his sword-stick. While the men were still indulging in port and business talk, she slipped into his study and hastily snatched up a novel by Monk Lewis, which likely had been chosen by the female who once was mistress here.
Wishing to avoid any private moment with Nick, Cecy wandered into the drawing room, where she paused before the harp. Was it the owner of the Monk Lewis novel who had played this instrument? She stepped forward, idly plucking the strings, trying to convince herself they formed a tune.
Out of tune was more like it as a string that should have been taut went thud, offering a sound that even the best imagination could never call music.
Perhaps she could take lessons . . . the men would like a change from the songs she sometimes sang, accompanying herself on the pianoforte.
As if there were any possibility of her staying. She would likely be on the street before morning.
Why had she done it? Why? Just looking at Longmere made her ill, and yet she had saved him from financial ruin.
Because she was female and women were weak?
No! . . . Because she was strong. Strong enough to turn her back on the past and move forward. Strong enough to learn from her mistakes and leave vengeance to God. Strong enough to know the best thing she could do for Nick Black was keep him from harming his brother.
Cecy plucked one of the harp’s shortest strings, and a high note of surprising purity reverberated through the room. Too pure, too sweet. Cecilia Lilly was more the lax string with no musicality than the string that had somehow retained its pristine pitch. She palmed the string, the high sweet reverberations ceased. Cecy made a face, and sighed. Sometimes, when she and Nick were alone, indulging in bouts of repartee, she fancied him as a man alone on a mountain peak, a man much in need of a companion. A man who warmed when he spoke to her, becoming almost human . . .
Cecy dropped onto the harpist’s stool as reality rushed in. She was a plaything, a distraction; occasionally useful but primarily an amusement. Until something better came along.
Until her debt was repaid in full.
She shivered, staring blindly into the abyss. She was wrong about Nick. She had mistaken her own feelings of isolation for his. Oh yes, time to face the truth. Cecilia Lilly was alone, as Chastity Singletary had been alone. Once a colorful butterfly in a swarm of gray Methody moths, she had climbed to the pinnacle, a shooting star among the most high-ranking males in the ton, only to fade into a wraith of her former self, bobbing about, attempting to keep afloat in a sea of criminals.
Another grimace. Papa would not have approved her mixed metaphors.
But Nick? Nick was not alone. Nick had Mr. Stark, his secretary, Mr. Fallon, his man of business, Ned and Ben, his bodyguards who stuck as close as a second skin. And then there was Fetch. She might have mistaken the purpose of the boy’s relationship with Nick, but not the depth of the underlying emotions. For all Nick was brusque with Fetch, they were more like father and son than master and apprentice.
While she . . .? She had once claimed Lady R as mentor and friend, , but after her betrayal . . .
Holly? Perhaps they could run away together . . .
And surely Belle would never turn her back. Cecy’s head came up, speculation lighting her eyes. And fading just as quickly. Lord Ashford was an exceptionally tolerant gentleman, but taking Nick Black’s presumed mistress into his house . . .?
Boone Farm? She could claim to be enceinte—she’d have several months before anyone questioned her. Time enough to find a way out of the maze that had her trapped.
Cecy jumped to her feet, her thoughts interrupted by the sound of the men’s voices as they approached the drawing room. Grabbing up the leatherbound book she had laid on a nearby table, she scurried for the servants’ stairs and headed for her room. A poor place to hide, but compared to the dangers to a woman alone at night on the streets of London, her bedchamber was her only place of refuge.
With grim determination Cecy attempted to read the novel that must have seemed lurid to its original owner but completely failed to capture her attention. She had allowed Emerson to dress her in one of the tantalizing bits of nightwear Lady R had chosen for her graduation ensemble, quickly wrapping her in a matching nightrobe, whose flimsy fabric, flounces, and embroidery did little to shut out the chill. Armor. Just in case. Or should she have wrapped herself in the ugliest nightwear she could find? Cecy shivered, her ears on the prick for some hullaballoo downstairs, something to indicate Nick had discovered her meeting with Longmere. Her betrayal.
Silence, only silence. Too nervous to sleep, particularly at the early hour of eleven, she went back to her book, but the words on the page made no sense. How long before Nick and Mr. Wolfe discovered their fat fish had wiggled off the hook?
Perhaps she had days yet before the axe fell . . .
She didn’t hear him come up the stairs, had no notion he paused a moment, head bowed, just outside her door. And then he was there, one hand on the latch, face implacable, eyes like the frozen ice of mid-winter. His gaze never leaving her face, he shut the door behind him, snicking it on the latch. “Did you like it—the beating?” he asked softly. “Is that why you went back for more? Surely, if that was your desire, you knew you could find it here. I assure you, I am very good with my fists. A family trait perhaps?”
Cecy shuddered. Her usually agile mind a blank, she dropped the book and pulled the coverlet up to her chin.