Chapter 21
Calum had but five hours until the Duke of Bedford returned to the Hell and Sin.
In the end, it was not Ryker, Niall, or Adair who could help him from his situation.
One of his uniformed servants handed over the reins. “’ere ya are, sir.”
Accepting them with a murmur of thanks, Calum pulled himself astride. He nudged Tau into a quick trot, and then as he reached the end of the street, Calum gave the restless mount his freedom. Tau bleated his appreciation and thundered onward.
The night’s cold still hung in the air, and Calum welcomed the wind as it slapped against his face. His pulse accelerated, pounding a frantic beat in time to Tau’s hooves as they struck the cobblestones. Any other time, he would have found calm in this. Riding had always filled him with the same exhilaration as securing a fat purse, and then racing off from those unsuspecting lords and ladies.
Not now.
Five hours. He had five hours before Bedford returned. The same bastard who’d put a knife in Calum’s side and seen him in gaol. The vile reprobate who’d given his friend permission to rape Eve.
And I am expected to turn her over to him.
Because there could be no mistaking Adair would hold him accountable when Bedford struck the final death knell on their club. A familiar frustration rooted around his belly and mind, once more. Calum had begrudged Niall not one jot of his happiness, and yet Calum would be expected to make a decision for all, at the sacrifice of his own happiness.
As the dirtied cobblestones of St. Giles gave way to the fashionable end of Mayfair, he flexed his jaw.
It surely spoke to his selfishness that resentment burned strong inside him for what his siblings had that he’d be asked to sacrifice.
Calum slowed his mount outside a familiar white stucco residence. Dismounting, he did a search of the area. Even if the lords and ladies of Polite Society failed to see them, they were always there. His gaze landed on a small boy with a cap pulled low on his head. He motioned to the lad, and he instantly sprinted forward. Yanking out a purse, Calum tossed it to the street urchin, who easily caught it with dirt-stained fingers. “I need you to watch my . . .” His words trailed off as the cap slid forward on the child’s head. “Horse,” he finished.
For the lad with wide blue eyes and thick, curly blonde hair was none other than . . . a girl. His heart pulled. With her dirt-stained cheeks and tattered garments, she may as well have been Helena, all those years ago, when they’d sprung her free of Diggory.
“Wot?” the girl demanded combatively. She stuffed the purse inside a pocket sewn along the side of her pant leg. How many times did I don garments like the ones this child wears now? “Ya aren’t lookin’ for me to bugger ya,” she demanded.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not. I’ve a meeting in this household,” he pointed to the front door. “When I return, there will be more coin.” I was this child . . . Near an age to himself when he’d been orphaned and then escaped from the foundling hospital. Her belly grumbled loudly. “Afterward, if you are searching for honorable employment, I am the proprietor of a—” Gaming hell. His throat tightened, and the staggering truth of the threat facing that very establishment slammed into him with the weight of a fast-moving carriage. This is what I jeopardize. Men, women, and children who will find themselves on the street once more.
“Oi’m not lookin’ fur the koind of employment you’re talking about,” she spat at his feet, jerking him to the present.
“It is a gaming hell. The Hell and Sin. The best . . .” He faltered. For that was no longer true. “One of the finest in London. Your work wouldn’t involve you lying on your back or offering any other favors. Think of it,” he said quietly.
She narrowed her eyes and met his offer with stony silence. Smart girl. That world wariness could only come to one who’d lived on the streets.
Bounding up the steps, Calum rapped hard on the door.
The wide panel was instantly opened by the graying butler there. “Mr. Dabney,” he greeted. It spoke volumes of the servant’s professionalism that he gave no outwardly show of surprise to the early-morn meeting. Then, mayhap it served as greater testament to the peculiarities he’d come to expect from the Duke of Somerset’s family.
“I’m here to see the duchess.” How peculiar to go from a girl like the one who now held Calum’s reins to a step below royalty and for some . . . like him the stain of the street mattered still.
“If you’ll follow me?” The butler turned on his heel and started down the halls of Somerset’s elegant townhouse. The servant’s unhurried steps and calm stirred Calum’s frustration. He yanked out his watch fob, consulting the time. Four hours and approximately thirty minutes.
And I still don’t have a goddamned idea as to how to make this right for everyone.
“Mr. Dabney,” the butler announced.
Spectacles perched on her nose, Helena glanced up from her desk. Surprise lit her eyes, and she instantly came to her feet. “When I indicated I expected a meeting immediately, I did not . . .” Her words faded to silence. “What is it?” she asked as the servant closed the door behind them.
“There is trouble.”
The color leached from her cheeks, and she rushed around the desk. “Killoran’s men?”
“No,” he silently cursed. He was making a bloody mess of this. “It’s—”
“Diggory’s henchmen?”
Now three years dead, those loyal to that old gang leader continued to wreak havoc on those who’d betrayed him.
“Everyone is . . .” Except there were different forms of harm, and the existential threat now posed by Bedford was as dangerous as a blade or knife wound. “No one is hurt,” he settled for.
Helena slid her eyes closed and mouthed a silent prayer. Then she opened them, the earlier worry back in place. “What is it?” she asked again, motioning to a seat.
Restless, he rejected the offer. Calum clasped his hands behind him and strode over to the window. Peeling back the edge of the gold satin curtain, he stared out.
The little girl holding his horse shifted back and forth on her feet. Occasionally she stole a furtive glance about, and then reaching up, she scratched Tau on the shoulders. She instantly dropped her arm to her side. How many times he’d had to remind himself to present a wholly hardened image to the world. There hadn’t been room for weakness or shows of it . . . not even with his siblings. Only in those mews of the Duke of Bedford’s townhouse with the young Eve had he been free to ask questions and talk and dream without fear of judgment.
Helena moved behind him, hovering at his shoulder.
“We are in trouble,” he repeated again, for himself, needing to hear that and fully accept what Eve’s presence in the hell meant. He let the curtain go, and it fluttered back into place. “The bookkeeper . . .”
Helena jerked erect. “Mrs. Swindell?”
He nodded. “She is not who she said she was.”
His sister thinned her eyes. “Who—”
“Her name is Evelina Pruitt. She is sister to the Duke of Bedford.”
Helena’s eyebrows went shooting up, nearly reaching her hairline. “Bedford’s sister?” Her expression darkened. “Bedford’s sister,” she repeated, shaking her head.
His family would only hear the lady’s connection to the duke. They didn’t know that Eve had provided them food when their bellies had been emptiest or that she’d been a friend to him. They couldn’t know, because Calum had kept that part of himself from his siblings. “She came seeking the post because she herself is in danger.” Calum proceeded to explain everything from his first meeting the Little Lena Duchess to Eve’s interview to her commandeering his books and rooms, to Bedford’s arrival. When he’d finished, Helena stared contemplatively back.
“So, in order for Bedford to remain silent, he is demanding the return of his sister,” she said quietly.
He gave a brusque nod. “If I do not comply, he’ll destroy our club, which has been suffering—”
“Since Niall,” she supplied.
Calum started.
With a little chuckle, Helena slapped him hard between the shoulder blades. “For all your intent to keep me safe as a girl and then woman, you never credited me with seeing enough. You still don’t.” Her smile dipped, and she gave his arm a light squeeze. “It’s how I know you’ve feelings for Lady Evelina.”
His throat bobbed up and down. “Love,” he said hoarsely. “I love her.” It was the second time he’d uttered that profession and the second person he’d given it to, and still Eve had never heard those three words from his lips. Calum dragged his hands over his face. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispered. “I love her.” Calum let his arms fall to his sides. “There is no one I want to be with more, but how do I choose her when everyone else will lose?” he begged, needing an answer that would make all of this right.
“Oh, Calum,” Helena said collecting his hands. “Sometimes you cannot make everything right for everybody.”
He stared blankly down at her head. No. He could not.
“No matter how much you, just like Ryker and Niall and Adair, tried to make my existence into what you thought it should be . . . you still have not learned that you cannot control life. You cannot ensure the club will always be thriving and successful. You cannot control the decisions of others. Or force Bedford to remain silent even after this. So much is beyond our grasp.” She gave his hands a squeeze, forcing his gaze to hers. At just three inches shy of six feet, she was taller than most men he knew. “We cannot even control who we love. Our hearts decide that.”
And Calum’s heart had belonged to Eve Pruitt long before she’d ever reentered his life. Of all the mews in London where he might have sought shelter, it had been hers because fate had known they were to be joined. “So, what do I do?” he asked gruffly.
“You let love win,” she said simply. “For that is the only power you truly have in any of this. You keep her at your side, and face what you will, knowing you have her, me and Robert, Ryker and Penny, Niall and Diana, and so many others now as friends and family.”
He briefly closed his eyes.
I want that. I want to be selfish and take that gift she offers.
Adair’s furious countenance flashed to his mind’s eye. “Adair was not so forgiving.”
Helena snorted. “That’s because Adair hasn’t been in love. He might not understand your decision now, but in time, when some woman knocks him totally on his arse, where he belongs, then he will know.” She winked.
“Thank you,” he said hoarsely.
“Pfft.” She swatted at him. “You already knew the answer when you came to me.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall. A moment later, the door opened. Calum and Helena looked as one. Her husband, Robert, the Duke of Somerset, stepped into the room, a toddler cradled in his arms. “Someone is here to see you, love . . . Oh, Calum.”
Helena motioned him forward. “We were discussing matters of the club.”
“Is everything all right?” the duke asked, coming over.
The duchess instantly tickled her son under his chin, earning an incoherent babbling laugh for her efforts.
Calum stared on, and a wave of envy went through him. So long he’d thought the Hell and Sin was all he needed . . . but this is what he wanted. A family. Children. Love. And he’d found that latter part with Eve. Now he wanted it all with her. “I’ll leave Helena to explain. Thank you, both,” he added.
He turned to go, but Helena rushed over, blocking his path. “What?”
Helena leaned up and placed a kiss on his scarred cheek. “When the nightmares came, you were the brother who was always there. Let others be there for you now. I trust you’ll find the same peace I have in accepting that.”
And for the first time since Bedford had stormed his club and put his threats to him, Calum smiled.