Lady Be Good Read online

He shook his head. “The devil prefers lies, Lily. And if this lot dislikes your truth so much, they’re not worth the bother. You come home where you belong. Not a person in Whitechapel won’t welcome you.”

  He let himself out. The sound of the latch seemed to echo. Small click. Sound of a guillotine dropping.

  She squared her shoulders and made herself look at her employer. Miss Everleigh was staring elsewhere—at Christian’s hand on her arm.

  Lilah jerked away.

  A line formed between the woman’s pale brows. “You will meet me in my office, Miss Marshall.” She turned on her heel and left.

  Silence settled, pure and deep—the hush after a terrible accident. Or before one.

  She rounded on Palmer. “There,” she said. “Now you’ve done it. No better than Nick!”

  “Lily,” he said gently, but she shoved him away when he stepped toward her.

  “You’re not the only one who knows how to fight.” She spat the words. “Will serve me well, when I’m back in Whitechapel.”

  “That won’t happen,” he said flatly.

  Some toxic stew was bubbling up inside, anger and panic and disbelief intermixed. Nick had done it now. Christian had ensured it. “You said we weren’t friends? I guess you meant it. You didn’t care for a moment what your brawling would cost me.”

  “He has no power over you now,” he said sharply. “The truth is out. You’re free of him.”

  “Was that your plan?” Her laughter sawed, jagged pieces in her throat. Nick had been right about him, in a way. He stood before her, tall and beautiful in a suit that would cost a working man a year’s wages, arrogantly oblivious to the wreckage he and her uncle had just made of her life. “You can’t solve anything.”

  “Lily—”

  She started for the door, but he grabbed her elbow. She didn’t fight this time. All the fight had left her. “Call me Lilah, then.” Her voice sounded funny. Rough. “I might as well enjoy it one last time.”

  “Enjoy it?” He paused a long moment. “Do you prefer that name?”

  What a strange question. She stared at the door. “I did. I thought it more elegant.”

  “Whereas I rather prefer Lily.” She felt his hand brush her face. The touch was tender. Soothing. The way one might stroke the face of a feverish child.

  She turned her head away. “I must go speak with her.”

  “And then we’ll leave,” he said. “I’m taking you to my family.”

  The room grew blurry. She blinked very rapidly, till it came back into focus. She would not cry. That would be childish indeed. “What point? I’ll be safe enough.” She blew out a breath. “Besides, how would you explain me to your mother? You’re engaged to someone else.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

  She turned to him on a deep breath. “But I won’t go. Because you are marrying Catherine Everleigh. Aren’t you?”

  He gave her a long, inscrutable look. “I could take the choice out of your hands.”

  “Yes. You could be just like Nick, if you wanted. You’ve already made a fine start tonight.”

  His face darkened. “Very well. Then she’ll keep you on. I’ll make certain of it.”

  If he meant that to comfort her, then he was an even greater fool than she. “Don’t bully your future wife for my sake,” she said, and had the satisfaction of seeing him flinch before she left.

  Lilah had braced herself for a torrent of accusations. But as she stepped into the office, she was startled by Miss Everleigh’s first words.

  “I asked you.” The woman paced in a tight circle, causing layers of taffeta to froth and crunch. “I asked you if you loved him. You said no. Did you not?”

  Lilah nodded.

  “So I will not take the blame for this mess. I will not undo it. I require a husband. He promised not to interfere with my business. And my brother won’t dare cross me. Not as Palmer’s wife.”

  Thrown off guard, Lilah said softly, “I imagine not.”

  “So I won’t break this engagement.” Miss Everleigh pivoted to face her. “I will marry him.”

  “Yes.”

  “But . . .” Miss Everleigh’s mouth twisted. “You do love him. Don’t you?”

  “It makes no difference.”

  “No. It doesn’t. Not now.” A pause. “Oh, why didn’t you tell me then?”

  Lilah smiled, though she felt no humor. “You said it yourself, once. The butcher or the clerk—those are my choices. I must not aim above my station.”

  “There would be no aiming required on your part!” Miss Everleigh pressed a hand to her mouth. “I heard what he said! I saw how he—” She shook her head, then fell into the chair behind her desk. “No. You’re right, of course. It would be a terrible mésalliance on his part.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Yet would it matter?” She yanked her shawl from her shoulders, kneaded it furiously. “Palmer could get away with murder, if he liked. The public worships him! Why, he could marry an East End factory girl, and they would only . . .”

  Lilah saw her register her mistake. “A girl of my background, do you mean?”

  She had never witnessed her employer at a loss for words. But suddenly Miss Everleigh could not meet her eyes. “Is it true, then? What he said? That dreadful man? I think . . . I think I recognized his name.”

  Lilah sighed. “Yes. From the newspapers, no doubt. Nick O’Shea is my uncle.”

  “Your uncle!” She pulled her shawl to her chest in a convulsive recoil. “Why, he was so . . . So pert! So forward! A more ill-bred man I’ve never met!”

  “Probably not,” Lilah agreed. “If it’s any consolation, I think he meant his compliments to you.”

  Miss Everleigh blushed. “Very odd compliments, if so.” She hesitated, looking at Lilah in open bewilderment. “Nicholas O’Shea. Doesn’t he run some . . . illegal house of cards?”

  “Among other things.”

  “And you . . . worked for him there?”

  “No.” Lilah sat down across from her. “But everything he said was true.” She would give her uncle the credit: he’d chosen his words very carefully. His brand of honor was not, perhaps, the kind that Miss Everleigh would recognize, but in his own twisted way, he adhered to a code. “I did assist him, though. The activities were often illegal.”

  “Well.” Frowning, Miss Everleigh smoothed the shawl across the desktop. For a moment she appeared lost in the pattern it presented. “That is very . . . But you don’t still break the law?”

  “No.” Lilah cleared her throat. “Not recently, miss.” As long as one was very conservative in one’s definition of recently.

  Miss Everleigh spoke to the shawl. “I should sack you, of course. That is the . . . proper thing to do.”

  “I expect nothing else.”

  Miss Everleigh took an audible breath. “Have you ever lied to me about other things? Things aside from your name?”

  “Yes,” Lilah said. “I told you I did not answer to the viscount. But I did then. He knew of my past. He had caught me in a compromising situation. And he used me to pry into your business.”

  “Because of the Russian man.”

  “Yes.”

  Miss Everleigh nodded slowly. “What did Palmer use to persuade you?”

  “I took something from your brother. Letters from his associates on the Municipal Board of Works.” She added in a rush, “It was the only time I have broken the law since I joined Everleigh’s. But my uncle threatened to expose me if I didn’t get the letters for him.”

  “You stole from Peter?” Miss Everleigh struggled to contain her smile, but failed. “Really?”

  Lilah nodded.

  “But . . . only once?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you did it to . . . keep your uncle happy.”

  “I knew I could not keep my position here if he told you the truth about my past.”

  Miss Everleigh picked at the fringe on her shawl. “It’s really so important to you, to work
at Everleigh’s?”

  Lilah spoke honestly. “It was always my dream to live decently. As for how I did it . . . I was happier as your assistant than as a hostess. I truly did aim to make a career for myself. But either position would have been preferable to working for my uncle again.” She sighed. “And I knew that would be the only choice remaining to me, if I were exposed by him.”

  “But how awful,” Miss Everleigh murmured. “What a wretched predicament.”

  The sympathy surprised Lilah. But she knew better than to hope. She merely shrugged.

  Miss Everleigh shoved her shawl aside. “So. Does he mean to help, your uncle? With this Russian idiot?”

  “No idiot, I think. More’s the pity. He’s a danger to you, miss.”

  “So Palmer says. But a man like your uncle . . .” Miss Everleigh cleared her throat. “He must have a good deal of experience in dealing with brutes.”

  “Palmer will not take his help.”

  Miss Everleigh sputtered. “Palmer is mad! What does he know of such matters?”

  Lilah bit her tongue. But this show of ignorance grated unbearably. “Lord Palmer is hardly clawless.”

  “No, no, of course not. But honorable men, raised decently, can hardly begin to understand the criminal . . .” Miss Everleigh colored. “The criminal mind. Not your kind of mind. But the true, hardened, criminal mind.”

  This conversation suddenly struck her as blackly humorous. “You needn’t spare my feelings. It’s all right. I won’t be offended.”

  “But perhaps it’s time someone did spare you.” Miss Everleigh scowled. “Bullied by your uncle, extorted by Palmer . . . I am very sorry for it, Lilah.”

  Lilah sat back, astonished. “I . . . thank you.”

  But Miss Everleigh was not finished. “You have a fine mind. It seems a waste to cast you back into the criminal world. I fear you would excel too well there. You would become as hardened as your uncle.” She offered a crooked smile. “Who knows? Perhaps you would even come to take over his business. What a sad end that would be! I think we must spare you that.” On a brisk nod, she rose. “I see no reason for your uncle’s revelations to travel further than they have already spread—provided, of course, that you are ready to swear off any lingering obligations to him.”

  Lilah’s chest suddenly felt very full. Her throat as well. She barely managed to get the words out. “I feel none. I assure you. And I . . . I cannot tell you, Miss Everleigh, how much I—”

  “Catherine. In private, we can be informal, can we not?” She took Lilah’s hands, pulling her to her feet. “Will you do me one favor, though? I would like to speak with your uncle privately.”

  Lilah recoiled. “I don’t think that’s wise. He’s—”

  “I only wish to entreat his help,” Catherine said blandly, “in this matter of defeating the Russian. Palmer need never know of it.”

  Was she mad? “You saw the words they exchanged. He won’t lift a finger to help the viscount.”

  “Then perhaps he will help me.” Catherine smoothed down her skirts. “If Lord Palmer is to be believed, I’m in as much danger as anyone.”

  “You don’t know my uncle. He’s not sentimental. That you’re a woman won’t matter in the slightest.”

  Catherine gave her a small, hard smile. “Good. I’m not sentimental, either. But I am wealthy. I think your uncle and I can reach an understanding. I can afford it.”

  Nick certainly appreciated a rich payday. But he’d turned down money before, when disrespect had attached to it. And Christian had certainly insulted him tonight. “I don’t know if he’ll listen,” she said. “But . . . I suppose I can speak to him.”

  “No. I will deal with him directly.”

  Lilah recognized that stubborn look. “He can’t come here. I would take you to him, but—”

  “No. Give me his direction, and I will arrange a tête-à-tête. There, another lesson for you: that is French, for a private meeting involving two people.” She cast Lilah a speaking glance. “And only two.”

  “I don’t think . . .”

  “Having you there would only muddle matters.” Catherine snapped her shawl open; a delicate scent filled the air as the cashmere settled around her shoulders. “Or do you fear for my safety? Would he molest me, do you think?”

  “No,” Lilah said slowly. Then, recalling the scene in the storeroom, she revised her opinion. “Not unless you . . . requested it.”

  It was a night of spectacles. Catherine Everleigh blushed and ducked her head, but could not quite hide her smile.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  There was a small wedge of grass, barely a proper park, that sat diagonal from Everleigh’s, bounded off from the pavement by a black iron fence. The property had, for several decades, been the subject of an ongoing lawsuit, its rightful possession disputed by the owners of lots to left and right. At one time, in a spiteful gesture, one of these disputants had installed a bench on the grass, and a plaque inviting passersby to sit and dwell at leisure on the fruits of injustice.

  It was from this bench that Lilah watched the carriages queue at the curb, disgorging well-heeled men and women in receipt of invitations to the auction of “A Collection of Russian Antiquities and Treasures, Including Rare Coins, Enamels, Prints, Metalwork, and Diverse Other Curiosities.”

  She had not been invited. All of the Everleigh Girls had been given a holiday, much to their amazement. Vinnie and Maisy had asked Lilah to join them on a tour of the zoo, to be followed by a late luncheon at Mott’s, with champagne and oysters. By now, they were probably half-sozzled, and surrounded by gentlemen willing to fund their way to drunk.

  A small part of her regretted having declined their company. She might be sitting with them now, laughing as she drowned her cares in wine.

  But the laughter would have been false. And it would take more wine than the world possessed to douse these cares that churned through her as she watched the footmen—strangers, replacements for Everleigh’s ordinary staff—pull closed the heavy double doors after the last of the guests.

  She could not imagine what Catherine had told her brother, to account for the upheaval in the usual routine. The presence of the czar’s man, perhaps, had persuaded him that extra measures of security were fitting. It was all speculation: she knew nothing. Catherine and Christian had come up with some plan together, for all she knew. She prayed the precautions would suffice, sealing the auction rooms into an impenetrable fortress that Bolkhov could not penetrate without being discovered. When the doors opened again in two hours, she would rise to her feet in relief, and walk away grateful.

  And then, only then, would she allow herself to burn as she dwelled on this image of Catherine and Christian conferring, making plans to which she would never again be privy, speaking in the hushed, intimate tones of a man and his future wife.

  A passerby tipped his hat, then looked startled. She realized she was scowling, her fingers shredding the stray leaf she’d plucked up from the bench. She glared at him, causing him to step a little more quickly down the pavement. It was not her job today to please gentlemen. She was on holiday.

  All of London was on holiday, it seemed. The sun shone with great, balmy force on the families traipsing by, laden with baskets from market. Young ladies of that enviably middling rank—with enough coin to spare for shopping, but no great station that required a chaperone’s guard—strolled arm in arm. Their laughter sounded happy, and the sound drove her to her feet, restless and miserable.

  From that vantage, she finally saw the smoke. It curled in a thin dark ribbon from the building that neighbored Everleigh’s.

  The weather was too fine to build a fire. And she had never seen chimney smoke so concentrated and dark—not even on the coldest days of winter.

  Her feet carried her across the road. Fear was usually a cold hand on her spine, nudging her away from danger. But now it prodded her forward. Friends did not abandon each other. She must find some way to help.

  There was no h
ope achieving entry through the guards at the front. But there was a high window that looked out onto the back alley, to provide light to the receiving room. Six feet off the ground—but there was always a carriage block nearby. The window was kept locked, but what lock had ever kept her out?

  The auction room was crushed. No chairs, no room for reckless elbows or a misplaced cough. Men jostled into the paintings hanging from the walls, calling out their bids with reckless abandon. As the price mounted, so did the clamor, though it was assuming a quarrelsome edge near the doorway, where a servant in livery was shouldering his way into the crowd.

  Christian met him halfway, angling his head to allow for a private word.

  “Smoke outside,” the man said into his ear. “Next building. No other sign of trouble.”

  Catherine was suddenly at his elbow. “What is it?”

  He took a deep breath. The air was clean. The view out the window showed blue sky. “Ashmore’s on it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Catherine pulled his elbow. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing yet.” Christian watched the window. The first drift of smoke now edged into view. Not so thick; a clogged flue might disgorge that dark cloud.

  But whatever had started to burn suddenly found new impetus. A sizable cloud of smoke spread upward. And then—

  An explosion rocked the room.

  Screams. A sparkling shower of glass. The great window had shattered inward. Bidders shoved and pushed out of their seats, shedding shards. He pulled Catherine against the wall, turning his body to make a shield for hers as bidders shoved past. She fought his grip. “Let them pass!” he yelled into her ear. Shoulders and fists pummeled him as men scrambled for the exit.

  She subsided, permitting him to twist and look toward the door. Men were trampling each other, stepping on their fellows to escape. Somebody wrestled the other door open—he glimpsed Ashmore’s face before the crush forced him out of view. The crowd, given new egress, began to thin.

  Catherine ripped out of his grip, running to stand beneath the great drapes. Firelight washed over her pale hair, glittered over the shards littering the carpet. The neighboring building belched flames.