Chapter 16
He’d wanted to accompany Eve on her appointments. Calum’s wish to join her had nothing to do with overseeing those meetings and certainly was not because he questioned her judgment.
He’d simply . . . wanted to be with her. Instead, at this given moment, he stood precisely where he should—just not where he wished to be.
Calum assessed the crowd at the Hell and Sin.
This was for the best. He rolled his shoulders. It had been wise to not accompany her. Distance between them was safe for the both of them. She would be free to focus solely on the club’s business, which is what she’d been hired to do, and he wouldn’t be tempted to abandon his morals again, just for the feel and taste of her.
He tamped down a groan and, not for the first time since she’d entered the Hell and Sin, cursed himself for this growing attraction. Only this was a need that moved beyond the physical. Rather, it came from an even more dangerous place than mere lust. It had to do with who she was as a woman: resourceful, clever, fearless.
Calum continued perusing the guests assembled at the tables, and then he stilled.
A burning at the nape of his neck—that sense of being watched, studied—held him motionless. It was a familiar feeling that came from living in the streets, where that uncanny awareness had the power to save lives.
With feigned nonchalance, he skimmed an intent gaze around the hell and found him.
The Duke of Bedford’s brown eyes locked on Calum’s. An air of ducal arrogance clung to the ruthless bastard. Time, however, hadn’t been kind to the duke. Softer around the middle, and his cheeks given to fleshiness, he wore the evidence of his dissoluteness on his person, the way any reprobate did. Where a man of his power would have roused terror, now Calum stared boldly back, unremorseful. The duke was the first to look away, his attention called back to another losing hand.
Giving up his focus on Lord Bedford, Calum gave another cursory search of the floors and frowned. Adair wound through the club, moving with a determined step in his direction. He’d returned, which meant—
Calum registered the grim set to his brother’s mouth, and something unfamiliar, something unwanted, scraped along his spine. Fear.
Calum was already moving. “What is it?” he demanded, meeting Adair. That question emerged rusty and steeped in panic.
“I’d speak with you,” Adair said quietly.
Goddamn it. Calum opened his mouth to pepper the other man with questions, but Adair tipped his head. “Let’s not discuss business here.” The patrons. That was what should matter most. But it didn’t. Not in this instance. Unexpected meetings heralded danger and were always call for alarm. Rushing through the dark corridors, he reached the back door.
No sooner had they reached the back of the club and entryway to the private suites than Calum gripped his brother by a shoulder. “Eve?” Terror made him careless, and he didn’t give a bloody damn on Sunday about it.
“She’s fine,” Adair said with a calmness that drove back the cloying dread.
“She is fine,” Calum repeated, more for himself. Calum instantly released him.
He gave a meaningful look in the direction of the stationed guard. That silent street language had them both climbing the stairs without another word exchanged. Calum used the brief reprieve to calm his frantically pounding heart. She is fine. She is fine . . . It was a litany inside his head. Only, the Hell and Sin for nearly two years now had faced threats from within and without.
First, there’d been an attempt on Helena’s life, and then, Ryker’s bride had suffered a knifing in the street. Then, Niall’s wife . . . Those were chilling reminders of how perilous it was for Eve to be here. She should not be here.
They reached Calum’s office. He closed the door behind them. “What is it?”
“It is your Mrs. Swindell.”
“She’s not my . . . What is it?” Because whatever had Adair’s face set in this somber mask merited more worry than how he referred to Eve. As his previous anxiety dissipated, logic was restored. “Did she handle herself poorly?” Doubts crept in. How well do you truly know the lady, after all . . . ?
Adair’s frown deepened. “No. It isn’t that. Not at all. In fact, she handled herself quite admirably. Saved us a small fortune on future brandy shipments, and told Mr. Everett where he could go with his wheat prices.”
Despite his unease, Calum found himself grinning. Yes, a woman who’d wheedle her way inside his club and lay claim to his books was certainly not one who’d tiptoe in fear around the always-nasty merchant. Except . . . His smile slipped. “What is it?”
Adair lifted his hands up. “I don’t know. Something happened during one of her meetings.”
Frustration roiled in his chest, and he clamped his lips tight to keep from snapping at his brother to spit out his damned story. “Something with Mrs. Swindell?” he asked slowly, taking care to use her surname.
Adair nodded. “After we fled Diggory . . .” Calum’s muscles coiled tight at the mention of the former gang leader who’d controlled their childhoods and shattered their souls. “. . . and we’d see him again in chance meetings on the street. That was the look she had. Her skin went pale, and she looked like she’d seen the Devil at dawn.”
Calum’s earlier apprehension stirred to life once more.
His brother dusted a hand over his mouth. “And yet,” he said slowly, “she handled the meeting with Everett immediately after as though nothing had happened.”
Then, when one’s demons resurfaced, one had those fleeting slips from the present . . . until one wrestled the monsters back into place. Knowing Eve suffered a hint of that darkness stuck like a blade in his chest. “Where is she?”
“Didn’t say a word the whole carriage ride home. Silent as the grave, and then when we returned, she sought out her rooms.”
Her rooms.
Not her office.
He frowned. “I’ll speak to her,” he said quietly.
Everything that day had been nearly perfect.
In fact, Eve would have otherwise said her meetings with Calum’s vendors and her discourse with his brother had been faultless. She’d secured Adair’s trust enough that he’d allowed her to handle the appointments without intervention or interference. Eve had secured concessions from both Mr. Bowen and Mr. Everett that would see more coin in Calum’s pockets and help somewhat defray the decline in club profits.
And then between those two meetings, it had begun to rain.
Standing before the dresser mirror, Eve remained motionless. Just as she’d been since her flight from the carriage and through the servants’ entrance to these borrowed rooms. Afraid to breathe. Afraid to move.
Mayhap she’d merely imagined the inky black on her fingers. Of course, she spent the better part of her days working on Calum’s ledgers and books, so she was forever using her hands and ink and . . .
Yet she knew. Because she’d only applied a fresh paste of that horrid concoction to her hair last evening, and invariably nothing went according to plan where Eve Pruitt’s life was concerned. Nor, given her deception, should she expect fate to kindly intervene on her behalf. Quite the opposite, rather.
Fingers numb from equal parts cold from the rain and dread, she loosened the strings of the beloved, and now drenched, bonnet. Carefully untying the satin ribbons, she closed her eyes.
Just take it off.
What was the likelihood that a brief dousing of London rainwater would wash away the concoction she’d applied last evening? Except, the recipe required the head to remain dry for three days’ time. “Enough.” She spoke into the quiet. Eve glowered at the pale, trembling lady who stared back. “It is not as bad as all that.” She yanked the bonnet off. “It is . . .” Her stomach lurched. “Worse,” she whispered.
Oh, blast, double blast, and bloody hell on a Sunday.
Horror wound a path through her, shuttering her thoughts.
Unfastening her cloak, Eve tossed it aside. The garment landed in a wet, noisy heap. She took a step closer to the mahogany dresser, and then another. “No,” she whispered. “No. No. No.” The litany echoed around her chambers. Yanking out her pins, she dropped them to the floor. Those little pings sounded in time to the rain striking her lone window. She gave her head a shake. Drops of water struck the mirror and marred that perfect glass. Frantically, she dragged her hands through the tangled mess, then stuck her face close.
Her heart sank to her toes.
When her brother Kit had returned from one of his many travels around the globe, he’d carried back a book from America that contained pages upon pages of creatures native to that land. One had been a fascinating rodent said to emit a noxious odor that possessed perfect stripes upon its back. From Eve’s previously odorous hair to these great streaks now exposing her brown tresses, she was very much like that American skunk.
Eve slapped her hands over her face and gasped.
She dropped her arms back to her sides. The damage, however, had already been done. Faint traces of black marred her pale cheeks. There could be no concealing this. Eve slid to the floor and, drawing her legs close to her chest, looped her arms about those limbs. What could she possibly say to explain this? Her mind raced with lies upon possibilities upon excuses. Of course, she could share the truth with him: that she was a woman hiding from her brother whose nefarious plans were better suited for those gothic novels than reality. She could omit those careful details about their shared past and her own identity. Go on working as his bookkeeper until the three months passed and she attained those funds.
That was assuming Calum would even want her to stay on in her post if he knew she’d deceived him and intended to soon leave.
We’re not vastly different from a starving dog in the street. If one listens to one’s instincts, one is invariably proved correct.
Eve laid her cheek upon the damp fabric of her skirts. No, he’d never let any person who’d deceived him stay on. She thought of everything that had come to pass: their work together at the foundling hospital, their stolen interludes talking over Greek works, and the night she’d spent in his arms.
A battle waged within between her own selfish needs . . . and what was right.
In the mirror, Eve’s gaze locked on her stained cheek. Regret threatened to choke her.
I have to tell him all. I have to tell him that I’m the girl who nearly cost him his life. The one responsible for him landing in Newgate. “The woman he despises,” she said softly. Everything. When he discovered the truth, the beautiful bond that had sprung once more would wither and die. And yet, with regret there was also . . . a calming peace. She didn’t want to have this or any lie between them. She didn’t want to accept his every kindness while withholding from him the most important truth. Calum deserved more. He always had . . . in every way.
A knock sounded at the door. That solid thump was not the faint scratching or hesitant raps used by a servant. He’s here. “Mrs. Swindell?”
How fitting that he should call forth the false name she’d given. She drew in a shaky breath. It had been but a matter of time. For Eve’s earlier resolve, fear made her tongue heavy. Only it was not fear of being turned out and having no choice but to return home to Gerald, but rather, the animosity that would spark to life in Calum’s eyes.
Another loud bang shook that oak panel. “Eve?”
At the concern that stretched through the barrier and reached her, tears sprang to her eyes. “You’ll lie even about not crying,” she whispered, furiously blinking back those drops.
“What was that?”
A shuddery half laugh, half sob bubbled past her lips. Of course, he heard everything. He always had. Back when she was a child, he’d heard her approach through the mews. A life of power, wealth, and strength hadn’t dulled those senses. He anticipated her steps, all these years later, a woman grown. “Just a moment,” she requested, her voice steady. Using the edge of the mahogany dresser, Eve pulled herself to a stand. She paused to assess her damning countenance.
Streaked hair. Smudged cheeks. Rumpled and wet.
He’d be mad to let her stay.
With a sigh, she pinched color back into her wan complexion. Then, clasping her hands at her back to hide their tremble, she called out, “Enter.”
The door opened, and Calum’s tall, formidable frame filled the doorway. “Eve, is everything . . . ?” He ceased midquestion, and even as his words trailed off to silence, he pushed the door quietly shut, closing them in. His astute gaze missed nothing. It touched on the rumpled cloak, her beloved and now hopelessly destroyed bonnet, and then the most damning piece of all—her hair.
Eve darted her tongue out, tracing the seam of her lips. “I would speak to you.” I would speak to you? That was what she’d say? Suddenly, as the course she’d settled on entered into a territory of the real, she wished she’d put proper thought into just what she’d say. How she’d say it.
Calum met her pronouncement with a stoic silence. “What happened?”
She caught the inside of her cheek hard. Couldn’t he have come in here, making demands related to her post? Or pepper her with deservedly accusatory questions about her abrupt flight abovestairs and rapidly fading disguise? Instead, this was what he’d ask her. Then, why should this be easy for her?
“Eve,” he urged gruffly, taking a step closer.
“Stop.” She held a palm up, and he instantly complied.
And waited.
Eve briefly closed her eyes, searching for strength. It was time to tell him all. She forced herself to meet his probing stare. “I . . . have not been . . .” She grimaced. “Entirely truthful with you.” He’d been right to mistrust her from the start.
His biceps tightened the sleeve of his black jacket. He folded his arms at his chest and leaned back against the door. The tension pouring from his frame belied that casual repose. “Are you married?”
“No,” she said quickly. Eve wrung the fabric of her damp skirts, and then realizing what she did, stopped. Flexing her palms, she laid them flat along the front of her gown. “You asked if I were in trouble,” she said quietly, because mayhap he might at least understand. “And I am. It is the only reason I ever came here . . . for the post.” The reason she’d been in desperate need of that assignment. Unlike the day he’d discovered her at the foundling hospital and worry had filled his eyes when they’d spoken of her past, now he was a blank mask, revealing nothing. Unable to meet his piercing gaze, she studied her interlocked fingers. “I am not telling you this because I expect sympathy.” She deserved none. “I’m telling you so you might . . . understand.” But certainly not forgive. At his silence, she forced her eyes back to his.
He tipped his head in a demand for her to continue.
“I have kept books. However, I’ve not been employed to do so . . . until now.”
A muscle leapt at the corner of his eye. “Whose records did you keep?” Those five words, coated in steel, turned her cold. How odd that of all the questions he might ask, he should unerringly settle for the most damning and correct one.
“They were . . . are . . . my family’s,” she evaded, a coward still. She spoke on a rush, needing the story told and all her lies laid out before him. “A number of years ago, my father fell ill. One of my brothers was gone. The other”—she hardened her mouth—“was uninterested in the family’s finances.” Or anything except his own pleasures. “I handled the record keeping. When my father died, I learned he settled a sum upon me. Funds that would be turned over to my husband—should I wed.”
Calum stilled, and then a dawning horror registered in his eyes.
“Settled funds upon you?” he seethed.
Unnerved by the volatile fury humming under the surface as he was transformed to the rightfully wary stranger who’d stormed these very rooms almost a fortnight ago, Eve backed slowly away, positioning the wide four-poster bed as additional space between them. “A dowry,” she confirmed.
Calum’s entire body jerked. “You are a lady . . . of the peerage.” His voice emerged hoarse with horror and desperation.
Eve might have laughed if the situation wasn’t so dire. For years, the only interest gentlemen extended her was due to her connection to a duke, and now that same connection was causing Calum to eye her as he might a poisonous spider. “Answer me,” he demanded, surging forward so the mattress remained the only physical barrier between them.
Eve gave a wobbly nod.
He scraped a gaze up and down her person. “Who are you?” he gritted out.
Folding her arms about her waist, she sucked in a steadying breath. “My name is Evelina Pruitt . . . and my brother is the Duke of Bedford.”