Mine Till Midnight
Page 3Having known Evie since childhood, when she had come to visit her widowed father at the club from time to time, Cam felt as protective of her as if she'd been his younger sister. No one would have paired the gentle-natured Evie with such a libertine. And perhaps no one had been as surprised as St. Vincent himself to discover their marriage of convenience had turned into a passionate love match.
"What of married life?" Cam asked softly. "Does it eventually become an overabundance of sameness?"
St. Vincent's expression changed, the light blue eyes warming at the thought of his wife. "It has become clear to me that with the right woman, one can never have enough. I would welcome an overabundance of such bliss—but I doubt such a thing is mortally possible." Closing the account book with a decisive thud, he stood from the desk. If you'll excuse me, Rohan, I'll bid you good night."
"What about finishing the accounting?"
"I'll leave the rest in your capable hands." At Cam's scowl, St. Vincent shrugged innocently. "Rohan, one of us is an unmarried man with superior mathematical abilities and no prospects for the evening. The other is a confirmed lecher in an amorous mood, with a willing and nubile young wife waiting at home. Who do you think should do the damned account books?" And, with a nonchalant wave, St. Vincent had left the office.
"Novelty" had been St. Vincent's recommendation?well, that word certainly applied to Miss Hathaway. Cam had always preferred experienced women who regarded seduction as a game and knew better than to confuse pleasure with emotion. He had never cast himself in the role of tutor to an innocent. In fact, the prospect of initiating a virgin was distinctly off-putting. Nothing but pain for her, and the appalling possibility of tears and regrets afterward. He recoiled from the idea. No, there would be no pursuit of novelty with Miss Hathaway.
Hastening his pace. Cam went up the stairs to the room where the woman waited with the dark-faced chal. Merripen was a common Romany name. Yet the man was in a most uncommon position. It appeared he was acting as the woman's servant, a bizarre and repugnant situation for a freedom-loving Roma. So the two of them, Cam and Merripen, had something in common. Both of them worked for gadjos instead of roaming the earth freely as God intended.
A Roma didn't belong indoors, enclosed by walls. Living in boxes, as all rooms and houses were, shut away from the sky and wind and sun and stars. Breathing in stale air scented with food and floor polish. For the first time in years Cam felt a surge of mild panic. He fought it back and focused on the task at hand—getting rid of the peculiar pair in the receiving room.
Tagging at his collar to loosen it, he pushed at the half-open door and entered the room.
Miss Hathaway stood near the doorway, waiting with tightly leashed impatience, while Merripen remained a dark presence in the corner. As Cam approached and looked into her upturned face, the panic dissolved in a curious rush of heat. Her blue eyes were smudged with faint lavender shadows, and her soft-looking lips were pressed into a tight seam. Her hair had been pulled back and pinned, dark and shining against her head.
That scraped-back hair, the modest restrictive clothing advertised her as a woman of inhibitions. A proper spinster. But nothing could have concealed her radiant will. She was ... delicious. He wanted to unwrap her like a long-awaited gift. He wanted her vulnerable and na*ed beneath him, that soft mouth swollen from hard, deep kisses, her pale body flushed with desire. Startled by her effect on him, Cam made his expression blank as he studied her.
"Well?" Amelia demanded, clearly unaware of the turn of his thoughts. Which was a good thing, as they likely would have sent her screaming from the room. "Have you discovered anything about my brother's whereabouts?"
"I have."
"And?"
"Lord Ramsay visited earlier this evening, lost some money at the hazard table?
"Thank God he's alive," Amelia exclaimed. "—and apparently decided to console himself by visiting a nearby brothel."
"Brothel?" She shot Merripen an exasperated glance. '1 swear it, Merripen, he'll die at my hands tonight." She looked back at Cam. "How much did he lose at the hazard table?"
"Approximately five hundred pounds." The pretty blue eyes widened in outrage. "He'll die slowly at my hands. Which brothel?"
"Bradshaw's."
Amelia reached for her bonnet. "Come, Merripen. We're going there to collect him."
Both Merripen and Cam replied at the same time. "No."
"I want to see for myself if he's all right," she said calmly. "I very much doubt he is." She gave Merripen a frosty stare. "I'm not returning home without Leo."
Amelia replied before Merripen had the opportunity. "Stubbornness, on my part. The idiocy may be attributed entirely to my brother." She settled the bonnet on her head and tied its ribbons beneath her chin.
Cherry-red ribbons, Cam saw in bemusement. That frivolous splash of red amid her otherwise sober attire was an incongruous note. Becoming more and more fascinated, Cam heard himself say, "You can't go to Bradshaw's. Reasons of morality and safety aside, you don't even know where the hell it is."
Amelia didn't flinch at the profanity. "I assume a great deal of business is sent back and forth between your establishment and Bradshaw's. You say the place is nearby, which means all I have to do is follow the foot traffic from here to there. Goodbye, Mr. Rohan. I appreciate your help."
Cam moved to block her path. "All you'll accomplish is making a fool of yourself, Miss Hathaway. You won't get past the front door. A brothel like Bradshaw's doesn't take strangers off the street."
"How I manage to retrieve my brother, sir, is no concern of yours."
She was correct. It wasn't. But Cam hadn't been this entertained in a long time. No sensual depravities, no skilled courtesan, not even a room full of unclothed women, could have interested him half as much as Miss Amelia Hathaway and her red ribbons.
"I'm going with you," he said.
She frowned. "No, thank you."
"I insist."
"I don't need your services, Mr. Rohan."
Cam could think of a number of services she was clearly in need of, most of which would be a pleasure for him to provide. "Obviously it will be to everyone's benefit for you to retrieve Ramsay and leave London as quickly as possible. I consider it my civic duty to hasten your departure."
Chapter Three
Although they could have reached the brothel on foot, Amelia, Merripen, and Rohan went to Bradshaw's in the ancient barouche. They stopped before a plain Georgian-style building. For Amelia, whose imaginings of such a place were framed with lurid extravagance, the brothel's facade was disappointingly discreet.
"Stay inside the carriage," Rohan said. "I'll go inside and inquire as to Ramsay's whereabouts." He gave Merripen a hard look. "Don't leave Miss Hathaway unattended even for a second. It's dangerous at this time of night."
"It's early evening," Amelia protested. "And we're in the West End, amid crowds of well-dressed gentlemen. How dangerous could it be?"
"I've seen those well-dressed gentlemen do things that would make you faint to hear of them."
"I never faint," Amelia said indignantly.
Rohan's smile was a flash of white in the shadowed interior of the carriage. He left the vehicle and dissolved into the night as if he were part of it, blending seamlessly except for the ebony glimmer of his hair and the sparkle of the diamond at his ear.
Amelia stared after him in wonder. What category did one put such a man in? He was not a gentleman, nor a lord, nor a common workingman, nor even fully a Gypsy. A shiver chased beneath her corset stays as she recalled the moment he had helped her up into the carriage. Her hand had been gloved, but his had been bare, and she had felt the heat and strength of his fingers. And there had been the gleam of a thick gold band on his thumb. She had never seen such a thing before.
"Merripen, what does it mean when a man wears a thumb ring? Is it a Gypsy custom?"
Seeming uncomfortable with the question, Merripen looked through the window into the damp night. A group of young men passed the vehicle, wearing fine coats and tall hats, laughing among themselves. A pair of them stopped to speak with a gaudily dressed woman. Still frowning, Merripen replied to Amelia's question. "It signifies independence and freedom of thought. Also a certain separateness. In wearing it, he reminds himself he doesn't belong where he is."
"Because the ways of your kind are seductive," Merripen said darkly. "It's difficult to resist them."
"Why must you resist them? I fail to see what is so terrible about living in a proper house and securing a steady income, and enjoying things like nice dishes and upholstered chairs."
"Gadji," he murmured in resignation, making Amelia grin briefly. It was the word for a non-Gypsy woman.
She relaxed back against the worn upholstered seat. "I never thought I would be hoping so desperately to find my brother inside a house of ill repute. But between a brothel or floating facedown in the Thames? She broke off and pressed the knuckles of her clenched fist against her lips.
"He's not dead." Merripen's voice was low and gentle.
Amelia was trying very hard to believe that. "We must get Leo away from London. He'll be safer out in the country... won't he?"
Merripen gave a noncommittal shrug, his dark eyes revealing nothing of his thoughts.
"There's far less to do in the country," Amelia pointed out. "And definitely less trouble for Leo to get into."
"A man who wants trouble can find it anywhere."
After minutes of unbearable waiting, Rohan returned to the brougham and tugged the door open.
"Where is he?" Amelia demanded as the Gypsy climbed inside.
"Not here. After Lord Ramsay went upstairs with one of the girls and, er ... conducted the transaction ... he left the brothel."
"Where did he go? Did you ask?
"He told them he was going to a tavern called the Hell and Bucket."
"Lovely," Amelia said shortly. "Do you know the way?"
Seating himself beside her, Rohan glanced at Merripen. "Follow St. James eastward, turn left after the third crossing."
Merripen flicked the ribbons, and the carriage rolled past a trio of prostitutes.
Amelia watched the women with undisguised interest. "How young some of them are," she said. "If only some charitable institution would help them find respectable employment."
"Most so-called respectable employment is just as bad," Rohan replied.
She looked at him indignantly. "You think a woman would be better off to work as a prostitute than to take an honest job that would allow her to live with dignity?"
"I didn't say that. My point is that some employers are far more brutal than pimps or brothel bawds. Servants have to endure all manner of abuse from their masters-female servants in particular. And if you think there is dignity in working at a mill or factory, you've never seen a girl who's lost a few fingers from cutting broom straw. Or someone whose lungs are so congested from breathing in fluff and dust at a carding mill, she won't live past the age of thirty."
She adopted an expression of cool indifference and looked out the window. Although she didn't spare a glance for Rohan, she sensed he was watching her. She was unbearably aware of him. He wore no cologne or pomade, but there was something alluring about his smell, something smoky and fresh, like green cloves.
"Your brother inherited the title quite recently," Rohan said.
"Yes."
"With all respect, Lord Ramsay doesn't seem entirely prepared for his new role."
Amelia couldn't restrain a rueful smile. "None of us are. It was a surprising turn of events for the Hathaways. There were at least three men in line for the title before Leo. But they all died in rapid succession, of varying causes. It seems that becoming Lord Ramsay causes one to become shortlived. And at this rate, my brother probably won't last any longer than his predecessors."
"One never knows what fate has in store."
Turning toward Rohan, Amelia discovered he was glancing over her in a slow inventory that spurred her heart into a faster beat. "I don't believe in fate," she said. "People are in control of their own destinies."
Rohan smiled. "Everyone, even the gods, are helpless in the hands of fate."
Amelia regarded him skeptically. "Surely you, being employed at a gaming club, know all about probability and odds. Which means you can't rationally give credence to luck or fate or anything of the sort."
"I know all about probability and odds," Rohan agreed. "Nevertheless, I believe in luck." He smiled with a quiet smolder in his eyes that caused her breath to catch. "I believe in magic and mystery, and dreams that reveal the future. And I believe some things are written in the stars ... or even in the palm of your hand."
Mesmerized, Amelia was unable to look away from him. He was an extraordinarily beautiful man, his skin as dark as clover honey, his black hair falling over his forehead in a way that made her fingers twitch with the urge to push it back.
"Do you believe in fate too?" she asked Merripen.
A long hesitation. "I'm a Roma," he said.
Which meant yes. "Good Lord, Merripen. I've always thought of you as a sensible man."
Rohan laughed. "It's only sensible to allow for the possibility, Miss Hathaway. Just because you can't see or feel something doesn't mean it can't exist."
"There is no such thing as fate," Amelia insisted. "There is only action and consequence."
The carriage came to a halt, this time in a much shabbier place than St. James or King Street. There was a beer shop and three-penny lodging house on one side, and a large tavern on the other. The pedestrians on this street had the appearance of sham gentility, rubbing elbows with costers, pickpockets, and more prostitutes.
A brawl was in progress near the threshold of the tavern, a writhing mixture of arms, legs, flying hats, and bottles and canes. Anytime there was a fight, the greatest likelihood was that her brother had started it.