Worth Any Price

"The license isn't for Radnor," Nick interrupted. The words suddenly stuck in his throat like a handful of thistles. "It's for me."

An interminable silence followed as the magistrate worked things out for himself. Finally recovering from an attack of jaw-dropping astonishment, Morgan fastened his intent gaze on Nick's reddened face. "Justwhom are you marrying, Gentry?"

"Miss Howard," Nick muttered.

A snort of disbelieving laughter escaped the chief magistrate. "Lord Radnor's bride?" He regarded Nick with mingled amusement and wonder. "My God. She must be an unusual young woman."

Nick shrugged. "Not really. I've just decided that having a wife will be convenient."

"In some ways, yes," Morgan said dryly. "In other ways, no. You might have done better to give her to Radnor and find some other woman for yourself. You've made a considerable enemy, Gentry."

"I can handle Radnor."

Morgan smiled with an amused resignation that annoyed Nick profoundly. "Well, allow me to offer my sincere felicitations. I will notify the superintendent-registrar, and the license will be waiting at his office tomorrow morning. And I urge you to speak to Sir Ross soon thereafter, as his plans will be all the more relevant in light of your marriage."

"I can hardly wait to hear them," Nick said sarcastically, making the chief magistrate grin.

Grimly wondering what kind of scheme his manipulative brother-in-law was devising, Nick took his leave of the Bow Street office. The sunny April day had rapidly become overcast, the air turning cool and damp. Maneuvering nimbly through the mass of carriages, wagons, carts, and animals that clogged the streets, Nick rode away from the river, toward the west. Abruptly Knightsbridge quickly gave way to open country, and enormous stone mansions on large tracts of land replaced the rows of terrace-houses built on neat squares.

As the aggressive outlines of Lord Radnor's weighty Jacobean mansion loomed before him, Nick spurred his horse to a more urgent gait. The chestnut's iron shoes crunched steadily over the long graveled drive that led to the house. The last and only time Nick had come here was to accept Radnor's commission. All business thereafter had been conducted with the earl's agents, who'd forwarded Nick's occasional reports to him.

As he felt the small weight of the enameled miniature case in his coat pocket, Nick briefly regretted the fact that he would have to return it to Radnor. He had carried it, stared at it, for two months, and it had become a sort of talisman. The lines of Lottie's face, the shade of her hair, the sweet curve of her mouth, had been carved into his brain long before he had met her. And yet the likeness-that of a pretty but rather ordinary face-had captured nothing of what made her so desirable. What was it about her that moved him so? Perhaps it was her mixture of fragility and valiance...the intensity that simmered beneath her quiet exterior...the electrifying hints that she possessed a sensuality that rivaled his own.

It made Nick uncomfortable to acknowledge that his desire for Lottie was no less acute than Radnor's. And yet they each wanted her for entirely different reasons.

"No expense is too great in my quest to create the perfect woman,"Radnor had told him, as if Lottie were destined to play Galatea to his Pygmalion. Radnor's idea of female perfection was something entirely different than Lottie. Why had he fixed his attentions on her, rather than on someone who was far more tractable? It would have been infinitely easier to dominate a woman who was submissive by nature...but perhaps Radnor was irresistibly attracted to the challenge that Lottie presented.

Arriving at the front entranceway, Nick handed the reins of his horse to a servant and slowly made his way up the flight of narrow stone steps. A butler greeted him, asked his business there, and seemed galvanized by Nick's reply.

"Tell Lord Radnor that I have news about Charlotte Howard."

"Yes, sir." The butler left with circumspect haste and returned in one minute. He was slightly out of breath, as if he had run back to the entrance hall. "Lord Radnor will see you at once, Mr. Gentry. If you will follow me, please."

As the butler led him across the entrance and through a narrow hallway, the mansion seemed to swallow Nick in its dark crimson interiors. It was stifling and poorly lit, though luxuriously appointed. Nick recalled that Radnor was sensitive to light. At their first meeting, he had mentioned that strong illumination strained his eyes. Now, as then, the windows were shrouded in heavy velvet that obscured every hint of daylight, and the thick carpets muffled all sound as a servant led him deeper into the maze of small compartmented rooms.

Nick was shown to the library. The earl was seated at a mahogany table, his narrow, harshly planed face illuminated by the flame trapped in a nearby lamp.

"Gentry." Radnor's avid gaze fastened on him. He did not invite Nick to take a chair, only waved him closer, while the butler retreated and closed the door with an ineffable click. "What news have you for me? Have you located her? I warn you, my patience is nearly at an end."

Withdrawing a bank draft from his pocket, Nick flattened it on the table, leaving it beside the lamp. "I am returning your money, my lord. Unfortunately I won't be able to oblige you where Miss Howard is concerned."

The earl's fingers curled, sending clawlike shadows across the gleaming table. "You have not found her, then. You have proven yourself to be an inept fool, just like the rest. How can one insolent girl have eluded every man that I have sent to retrieve her?"

Nick smiled casually. "I didn't say that she had eluded me, my lord. As a matter of fact, I've brought her to London with me."

Radnor bolted from his chair."Where is she?"

"That is no longer your concern." Suddenly Nick was enjoying himself. "The fact is, Miss Howard has elected to marry another man. It seems that in this case, absence has not made the heart grow fonder."

"Whom?" was all Radnor seemed to be able to bring himself to ask.

"Me."

The air around them seemed saturated with poison. Nick had rarely seen such fury on another man's face. He had no doubt that Radnor would have murdered him had the means been at his disposal. Instead, the earl stared at him with the dawning comprehension that Lottie had been permanently removed from his reach.

"You can't have her," Radnor finally whispered, his face veined with murderous choler.

Nick's reply was just as soft. "You can't stop me."

The muscles in the earl's face twitched in frenzied spasms. "How much do you want? Obviously this is a means to extort money from me...well, you may have it and be damned. Tell me your price."

"I didn't come to have my palms greased," Nick assured him. "The fact is, I want her. And she appears to prefer my offer to yours." He took the miniature of Lottie from his pocket and sent it skittering across the table, until it spun to a rest beside the earl's rigid arm. "It seems this is all you'll ever have of Charlotte Howard, my lord."

It was obvious that Radnor found the situation incomprehensible, that it was difficult for him to speak through an attack of throat-seizing rage. "You will both suffer for this."

Nick held his gaze. "No,you will suffer, my lord, if you accost Lottie in any way. There will be no communication with her, and no reprisal against her family. She's under my protection now." He paused, and felt it necessary to add, "If you understand anything of my history, you won't take my warning lightly."

"You ignorant whelp. You dare to warn me away from her? Icreated her. Without my influence, Charlotte would be a bovine in the country with a half-dozen children at her skirts...or spreading her legs for every man who dropped a coin between her breasts. I've spent a fortune to make her into something far better than she was ever meant to be."

"Why don't you send me a bill?"

"It would beggar you," Radnor assured him with raw contempt.

"Send it anyway," Nick invited gently. "I'll be interested to learn the cost of creating someone."

He left Radnor sitting in the dark room like a reptile in dire need of sunning.

CHAPTER 7

As Lottie consumed a plate of salty mutton stew, she enjoyed the serene atmosphere of the small dining room, the shining floorboards redolent with beeswax, the sideboard loaded with good white china.

Mrs. Trench appeared in the doorway, a comfortable presence with a sturdy physique, her pleasant expression tempered by a touch of wariness. Lottie sensed the questions in the woman's mind...the housekeeper was wondering if she was truly going to marry Nick Gentry, if a trick was being played on her, if the match had been made out of love, convenience, or necessity...if Lottie was a figure to be pitied or a force to be reckoned with.

"Is your dinner satisfactory, Miss Howard?"

"Yes, thank you." Lottie gave her a friendly smile. "How long have you worked for Mr. Gentry, Mrs. Trench?"

"For three years," came the ready reply. "Ever since he began working at Bow Street. Sir Ross himself interviewed me for the position, as he wished to help the master establish a proper household. Mr. Gentry is a protege of Sir Ross's, you might say."

"Why would Sir Ross take such an interest in him, I wonder?" Lottie asked, trying to discern if the housekeeper knew about the secret kinship between them.

Mrs. Trench shook her head, seeming genuinely perplexed. "It's a great mystery, especially as they were once bitter enemies. Many people criticized Sir Ross for bringing Mr. Gentry to Bow Street. But Sir Ross's judgment has since been proven right. Mr. Gentry is the one they call for when there is the most danger involved. He fears nothing. A cool head and fast feet-that's what Sir Grant says about him. No one cares to find himself the object of Mr. Gentry's pursuit."

"Indeed," Lottie said dryly, but the sardonic note in her voice escaped the housekeeper.

"A brave, bold man, Mr. Gentry is," Mrs. Trench continued, "and no one would dispute that now, after the Barthas fire."

"What fire?"

"You didn't hear of it? Not long ago, the master saved a wine merchant and his entire family in a house fire. They would have perished for certain, had Mr. Gentry not rushed in to find them. TheTimes reported the story, and the master was the most talked-about man in London. Why, even the queen commended him and requested that he guard the prince consort at the annual Literary Fund dinner."

"Mr. Gentry didn't mention a word about it," Lottie said, finding it difficult to reconcile the information with what she already knew of him.

It appeared that Mrs. Trench desired to say more, but she kept her silence on the subject. "If you will excuse me, Miss Howard, I will make certain that the guest room has been properly aired and that your things have been put away."

"Yes, of course." After finishing her stew, Lottie drank a glass of watered-down wine. Nick Gentry, risking his life for someone else...it was difficult to imagine. How much easier it would have been to think of Gentry as purely a villain. Good Lord, one could ruminate about him for weeks and still not come to a definite conclusion-was he a good man acting as a bad one, or a bad man acting as a good one?

The wine made her drowsy. Eyes half-closed, Lottie leaned back in her chair as a footman appeared to clear the table. A humorless smile grazed the corners of her lips as she reflected on the oddity of marrying one man to avoid marrying another. The prospect of being Mrs. Nick Gentry was far more appealing than continuing to hide from Lord Radnor and his henchmen. Moreover, as Gentry had demonstrated, the arrangement would not be without its pleasures.

As she thought of his hands on her body, heat prickled across her face and deep in her stomach. She couldn't help remembering the touch of his mouth on her breast. The silky brush of his hair against her inner arms. The long, rough-textured fingers slipping gently over- "Miss Howard."

Stiffening, she turned to the door. "Yes, Mrs. Trench?"

"The guest room is ready. If you are finished with your meal, a maid will help you to change from your traveling clothes."

Lottie nodded in thanks. "I would like a bath, if possible." Although she did not wish to trouble the maids with the task of running up and down stairs with ewers of hot water, she was dusty and sore from traveling, and she longed to be clean.

"Certainly. Shall you wish to take a shower-bath, miss? Mr. Gentry has installed one in the bathing room upstairs, with piped hot and cold water."

"Has he?" Lottie was intrigued, as she had heard of many well-to-do households that featured shower-baths, but she had never actually seen one. Even Stony Cross Park, with all its amenities, had not yet been fitted with hot-water piping. "Yes, I would very much like to try it!"

The housekeeper smiled at her enthusiasm. "Harriet will attend you."

Harriet was a bespectacled young housemaid with a white mobcap covering her dark hair. She was polite but friendly as she showed Lottie to the upstairs rooms. The dressing and bathing rooms branched off from the largest bedchamber, which clearly belonged to the master of the household. It contained a bed with polished, exposed wooden framework and columns supporting the amber silk canopy above. Although the bed was large, the base was lower than usual, requiring no steps to climb up to the mattress. Stealing a glance at the lavish arrangement of pillows and bolsters, Lottie felt a cramp of nervousness in her stomach. Her attention moved to the walls, which were covered with hand-painted paper featuring Chinese birds and flowers. A porcelain washstand on a tripod foot was positioned beside a tall mahogany wardrobe, topped with a small, square looking glass. It was a handsome and very masculine room.

A subtle fragrance drifted through the air, luring her to investigate. She discovered that the source of the smell was his shaving soap, contained in a marble box on the washstand. As she replaced the top on the box, a bit of soap residue transferred to her fingers, leaving them aromatic and spicy. She had inhaled this scent before, from the warm, slightly prickly skin of Nick Gentry's jaw.

Good God, in less than a week, she had been wrenched from her hideaway and brought to London...she was standing in a stranger's bedroom, already familiar with the scent of his body. Suddenly she could no longer be certain of who she was, or where she belonged. Her inner compass had been damaged somehow, and she was unable to negotiate between what was wrong and what was right.

The maid's voice broke through her uneasy pondering. "Miss Howard, I've started the water. Shall I 'elp you into the shower-bath? The 'eat doesn't last long."

Obeying the prompting, Lottie ventured into the blue-and-white tiled bathing room, noting the porcelain tub with its exposed pipes, a dressing-stand and a chair, and the shower-bath neatly fitted into the space of a tall but narrow cupboard. The tight confines of the room explained why the washstand remained in the bedchamber.