Chapter Nine

The door of Miss Delaney’s suite, at James’ back, opened and roused him from the fringes of a light sleep. Long ago he had learned to doze on his feet; he always came out of it in an instant, with all senses alert.

Now he turned his head and saw Sebastian Boyd enter the room. Early as it was, the man was clad to the nines in a white silk shirt and black trousers, with diamond studs at wrists and collar. Behind him came a maid, her arms laden with finery of all colors piled so high James could barely see her face.

Boyd walked past James as if he didn’t exist, and without invitation went straight into the bedroom where Miss Delaney still lay abed. The maid, with one horrified glance at James, followed.

Alarm moved up James’ spine like a kiss of lightning. Talking to Miss Delaney last night in the semi-dark, he had woven for himself the illusion that he could protect her. He didn’t know quite why the instinct to do so felt so strong, but now Boyd’s arrival put it to the test. For the man walked in as if he owned the world and everything in it.

“Good morning, my dear.” The words might be inoffensive, but the tone made an insult of them.

Smarmy bastard, James thought. He could only imagine Miss Delaney waking—had she been asleep?—to such intrusion.

“Your clothing has arrived, and we are to attend an important event today. Get up and try these things on so I might select what you’re to wear.”

A murmur of response, indistinguishable by James, came from Miss Delaney. From where he stood he could see into the bedroom and behold Boyd’s well-clad back with the little maid at his elbow. He couldn’t see Miss Delaney at all.

Surely Boyd didn’t intend her to get up and strip off before his eyes? James thought again how she’d looked when she sat speaking to him last night, her hair all tumbled down onto her shoulders, clad in that white nightgown that spewed lace at wrists and bosom: a fragile thing deserving careful handling. Yet now this cretin walked in as if he owned her.

She insisted he did.

Hot rage gathered in the region of James’ stomach and moved upward to his head.

“Up, I tell you.” Boyd’s voice, indifferent to the point of insult, struck like an adder. “Or do I have to remind you what you and your father promised me?”

“Stepfather.” The word possessed a modicum of defiance. James heard Miss Delaney move from the bed, though from where he stood he still couldn’t see her. “Mr. Boyd, I will try those things on if you wish. But please allow me to do so in private.”

Boyd gave a harsh laugh. “Do you think you have anything beneath that gown I haven’t seen on other women?”

“You have not seen what I have beneath this gown, sir. You cannot expect me to—”

“I can and do. You will walk out on my arm this day as a valuable asset. You will wear what I say, smile when I bid, and go where I tell you. Now try on these dresses, the lavender first.”

Silence fell in the bedroom. It was broken when Boyd reached out, swift as a snake, as if he seized Miss Delaney by her arm. “Must I strip you down myself?”

James started forward, made it three full steps before he thought of the ramifications should he intervene. The bastard wanted to humiliate her, true, but he could not actually hurt her if he meant to show her off. But oh, James’ heart went out to the girl as he heard a hiccoughing sob.

“Do not snivel. What woman cries over beautiful clothes? And what did you expect when your father sold you to me?”

“Stepfather.” The word was barely a whisper. The maid, whom James could see, moved forward, and James lost sight of her. But he could still see Boyd from behind, arms crossed as Miss Delaney presumably removed her nightgown in the morning light.

“The lavender gown,” Boyd snapped at the maid. “Help her with it. No—no undergarments.”

Why not? James broke out in a sweat all over his body. What did the man intend to do with her, and why insist on such indecency?

He stood like a rock, aching, while rustling sounds ensued. Then Boyd said, “Now try the green.”

The procedure continued. Boyd stepped forward, presumably to inspect his prize, and James lost sight of him in turn. He debated what to do. Should he make a scene? He had no right. And many people would insist there was no real hurt in this, beyond the humiliation.

He, James, had suffered great humiliation in his life. Bruising as it might be, he knew a person could survive it.

“Adjust that neckline,” Boyd snapped at the maid. “Lower. Hmm. Now the blue gown.”

Catherine’s voice came, quavering. “Where are you taking me?”

“Boat races on the river, but not just for enjoyment. I expect to conduct a great deal of business today. And I expect you to assist me in that, do you understand? You will be accommodating to the men you meet. None of your sullen pouting. Smile at them, and if they touch you, act like you enjoy it.”

“Touch me!”

“Don’t worry, nothing will get out of hand. The green, I think,” Boyd went on, presumably to the maid. “Do something with her hair; I want it to look elegant. And give her a bath first. I want her at her most tantalizing.”

He turned away then, and his arm came into James’ view, but the man hesitated and said, “Oh, and Catherine—you can prepare to make yourself welcoming to me later tonight.”

He stalked from the bedroom then, moving with disdainful confidence. Puffed with his own importance the man might be, but James knew it wouldn’t take much for him to break Boyd in his hands. He needed, though, to school that impulse just as he must school the emotions inside.

Boyd never looked at him as he swept by to the door. “I won’t need you today after all,” he told James as he passed. “Be back tomorrow morning, instead.”

Tomorrow morning, James thought even as he nodded. And what might befall his charge before then? He didn’t want to leave her; it felt wrong. But he knew orders when he heard them. He longed to walk to the door of the bedroom, not to see his charge stripped bare but to lend her some shred of reassurance. Yet he had none to lend and, like an enraged shadow, he slipped out the door.

What to do? James’ every instinct bade him protect Catherine, and as he left the grand house, passing steam servants and human ones alike, he thrashed out ways and means in his mind. He could attend these boat races on the river, let Catherine see him and know someone who supported her was near at hand. But would she want him to witness her further humiliation?

Yet if Boyd meant her some actual harm, if he traded her off, say, to one of his cronies as part of a business deal…

Yes, and what could James do then? Even if Boyd didn’t trade her like any other asset, if he brought her back home, there was still what might happen later tonight. He, James, had no hope of preventing that.

He should have asked her just how she had come into this predicament, why she hadn’t run but had let her stepfather trade her away. For, beneath it all, she carried the resolution of a martyr. He’d been too busy banging on about himself, trying to give her a lesson in endurance.

Fat lot of good that would do her now.

Moving like a thundercloud, he stalked off into the beautiful morning. May in Buffalo usually claimed his heart with its blooming trees and soft breezes following the harsh winter, but now he wondered why it didn’t rain, to cancel the boat races and whatever devilment Boyd had planned.

He caught himself and his thoughts only when he nearly stepped off a curb into the path of a steamcab. The driver shrilled the whistle at him and cursed loudly before blowing by in a cloud of hot vapor.

Careful, lad, James told himself. You’ll do Catherine no good dead.

Ah, but he could do her no good anyway.

Like a homing pigeon, he made for Tate’s place. On the way he passed people starting their day: workmen on their way to jobs, housemaids shaking out rugs, crowds of children. Most looked away hastily as soon as they saw him, his countenance revealed mercilessly in the clear morning light. Some of the children followed him for a block or two, hurling insults like stones, until he turned and glared at them and they fled.

Two blocks from Tate’s, he happened upon two older lads, their faces twisted in ugly glee, tying a can to the tail of a small mongrel dog.

James knew the drill. The cur would flee for some distance, trying to outpace the clattering racket that pursued it, until it fell in exhaustion, all for the amusement of these oafs.

The anger that simmered in him, already nearly at boiling point, seethed up and ran over. In truth, he lost control of his emotions but rarely; when he did, darkness possessed his mind. He recalled little of what took place during the intervening span of time.

That darkness now rose and gripped him, unstoppable as the blood in his veins. He seized one of the young ruffians and thrust him against the nearest wall. The thin drip squeaked at him while his fellow called, “Monster, monster!”

James knew little more until he came to himself in the center of a circle of police officers, two of whom hauled on his arms while a third informed him he was under arrest.

Shit, he thought. How will I get back to Catherine?

He looked down at the two lads who now lay at his feet like bundles of broken sticks. His fists hurt as they always did after he went off kilter.

“Did I kill anyone?” he asked.

The policeman he addressed didn’t bother to answer, merely saying to his fellows who pinned James’ arms, “Bring him in, lads, and have a care—this one’s an ugly brute.”