Vanquished (23 page)

On the bright side, if she looked a fool, at least Hadrian wouldn't be there to witness it. She never had gotten up the nerve to ask him, and given how she was feeling, that was likely a blessing.

As if sensing the maudlin turn of her thoughts, Lottie poked her head outside the dressing-room curtain. "The gown is spectacular. You must come for a fitting." She beckoned Callie back.

Biting back a groan, Callie set aside the magazine and rose. "Coming, Auntie."

Once she was on the other side of the curtained alcove, Lottie drew the curtain closed and asked, "By the by, dear, what did that nice young photographer say when you asked him to escort you?

Turning away to unbutton her shirtwaist, Callie scarcely gave a glance to the sleek black gown with its straps of paste brilliants hanging on the back of the door. "I've been so busy, I haven't had the chance to speak with him, but I can hardly ask him at this late hour."

She tensed, anticipating a well-deserved scold, but instead Lottie only reached out to retrieve the discarded linens. Smile beatific, she said, "No worries on that score, pet. I already have."

Callie wasn't the only one in desperate need of eveningwear. Fortunately Hadrian and his barrister friend, Gavin were of a similar height and build. A gentleman born, Gavin's finely tailored suits might have come from Harrods and his hats from James Lock and Company, yet he wouldn't hesitate to strip the shirt from his back if he deemed a friend needed it more. As much as Hadrian hated to take further advantage of Gavin's generous nature, the prospect of taking the blood money he'd got from Dandridge to outfit himself held even less appeal.

More and more of late, he found himself scouring his brain for ways he might find the funds to repay Dandridge and call the whole thing off. Barring that, with only one more week to go, he'd have to work bloody fast at fulfilling his end of their bargain. That he'd let any number of opportunities slip by set off a chorus of alarm bells inside his head, casting grave doubts on his ability to exact ruthless ruin on someone whom he'd come to own as one of the most goodhearted human beings he'd ever known.

A woman's heart, Mr. St. Claire, can be a very fragile thing particularly once it's been broken . . .

Meeting Callie's aunt had only deepened his dilemma. Now there was a woman whose respect, under other circumstances, he would very much have liked the chance to earn. What she would say of him once she learned that his true intent was to ruin her beloved niece, to pick up where apparently some brute had left off years before in breaking Callie's heart, was enough to send him searching out the gin.

But instead of drinking away his cares as he once might have done, he'd spent the past few hours since her leaving pacing his studio, too edgy to sit still let alone concentrate on his work. Finally, he gave up, stripped off his apron, and set out on foot for Gavin's. It was coming on dark by the time he reached his friend's rented rooms at the Inns of Court. With luck, he would find the barrister at home rather than working late in his office.

Only when Gavin's manservant showed him into the flat's small sitting room, he found that his friend wasn't alone. Their old Roxbury House mate, fellow orphan Patrick O' Rourke lounged on the leather-covered couch, cigar in one hand and glass of whiskey in the other.

Sighting Hadrian on the threshold, he set down his drink and shot to his feet. "Harry, man, we were just talking about you." Broad-shouldered and barrel-chested with a shock of thick, ginger-colored hair, Rourke enfolded Hadrian in a bone-crushing hug.

Hadrian hid his awkwardness at hearing his true name yet again behind a smile. "No wonder my ears were burning. What has it been, an age and a day?"

Pulling back, he surveyed his old friend. Loosened neckwear, rolled-up shirtsleeves, and rumpled silk vest aside, the Scot had done well for himself, Hadrian could see that straightaway. The diamond stud winking from the lobe of one ear was the genuine article, not paste, as was the large emerald set in gold on the middle finger of his work-roughened right hand.

Impeccably dressed in a dark flannel suit and folded neck cloth, Gavin rose from the wing chair in front of the fire. "Our mate, Harry, styles himself Hadrian St. Claire these days." Hadrian shot his friend a grateful look. Trust Gavin to smooth over any awkwardness to do with his dual identities.

If Rourke wondered at the reason for him taking a new name, he kept it to himself. "Ah, Hadrian is it? Verra fancy. I'll be sure to mind that."

"What can I get you?" Gavin asked, already at the liquor cabinet.

Walking over to the fire, Hadrian answered, "I don't suppose you've any gin lying about?"

It was a well-worn joke between them, a way of tweaking Gavin over his blue-blooded lineage, and yet as always it served to bring out Gavin's rare smile. "I'm afraid not. Will brandy do?"

Hadrian nodded and Gavin poured three fingers' worth into a crystal snifter. Handing it over, he waved Hadrian to an empty chair.

When they'd settled in with their drinks, Gavin said, "Rourke was just telling me how he's been keeping himself these past years. It seems our friend here has returned to us rich as Croesus."

Rich as Croesus!
Blast, but if only Rourke has resurfaced a fortnight ago, how very different Hadrian's life might be now. Sipping his drink, he looked across the room at the Scot and mentally asked himself if he dared ask a friend he hadn't set eyes on for years to loan him what amounted to a minor fortune?

Over the next half hour, Hadrian listened with half an ear as Rourke brought them up to date on his life over the past seven years. After leaving Roxbury House, he'd headed north to Scotland to search for his mother's family. To keep himself, he'd signed on to one of the railway crews, working his way up from the blistering labor of laying tracks to foreman to principal shareholder and finally to full owner.

Finishing his story, Rourke shot Hadrian a wink. "Not bad for a braw Scottish lad who started out as a purse snitch, aye?"

Hadrian agreed it was so. Indeed, their common past as petty thieves had been a big part of their early bonding as boys. When the leader of the flash house from which Rourke worked was picked up by the law, he'd saved himself by turning over Rourke instead. The plucky twelve-year-old had been on his way to Newgate when luck and a stranger's benevolence had landed him in Roxbury House instead.

Mind on his own troubles, Hadrian asked, "So, my friend, other than looking up your old mates, what brings you back to London?"

Gavin answered for him. "It seems our friend here is trolling for an heiress."

Wondering why a rich man need marry for money, Hadrian turned to Rourke and asked, "Have you anyone in particular in mind?"

Rourke answered with a slow nod. "I've my eye on Lady Katherine Lindsey."

"Kat Lindsey!" Startled, Hadrian almost choked on the swallow of spirit he'd just taken.

Rourke's gaze narrowed. "Aye, you know her, then?"

Hadrian nodded. "She's one of the reigning Professional Beauties. Society ladies who model for me," he clarified when Rourke's mouth flew open.

"You've no touched her, have you?"

Taken aback by the ferocity of the Scot's gaze, Hadrian hastened to reassure him. "Hardly. Lady Kat is about as warm as a cake of ice and has the temper of a wildcat when crossed. If it's a fortune you're after, you'd best look elsewhere. Rumor has it her father is a gamester who's landed the family deeply in debt."

A rumor he knew to be true given that unlike the other society beauties he'd photographed, Katherine Lindsey sat for him for money, not acclaim. Yet something inside him, what he might have termed honor were he a better sort of man, held him back from revealing the terms of the private arrangement between the two of them.

Seemingly satisfied, Rourke settled back into his seat. Stretching his muscular legs out to catch the fire's heat, he yawned and said, "Nay matter. It's the lady's blue blood I'm after, no her purse."

So Rourke wanted a highborn wife to serve as a breeder. Stubborn as the day was long, the Scot loved nothing more than a challenge and courting Lady Kat would certainly provide him that and more.

Then there was Gavin sipping his drink and quietly observing the byplay. Orphaned after his parents perished in a tenement-house fire, he'd come to Roxbury House only to be reunited with his maternal grandfather. Restored to his rightful place in society, Gavin would one day inherit a baronetcy. In the interim, he'd followed in the footsteps of his forbears in reading the law, a profession he professed to despise despite his fast-growing reputation as a crack barrister. Looking between his two old friends, at the solid successes they'd made of their lives, Hadrian felt ashamed at the depth of his envy.

Rising to refill their drinks, Gavin asked, "By the by, what brings you here in the middle of the week?"

Hadrian handed over his empty glass. "A visit from a lady actually."

"No surprise, that." Rourke grinned. "We always did call you Handsome Harry for good reason."

Considering he might have done better for himself had he been gifted with less looks and more brains, Hadrian shrugged. "A friend's widowed aunt, actually. She's invited me to a benefit ball tomorrow evening." He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out the invitation, which he handed around.

Taking it, Gavin glanced down. "The Tremayne Dairy Farm Academy is an excellent cause, to be sure. I'm going myself, family duty and all that." He grimaced as though being the heir to title and fortune was a good deal less amusing than one might imagine. "Given the cachet of Lord and Lady Stonevale as sponsors, members from every top-drawer family in London are sure to attend."

"Every top-drawer family, you say?" Reaching for the embossed invitation, Rourke fingered it for a moment, before venturing, "How might a charitable fellow like myself go about wrangling one of these?"

Gavin's dark brows shot upward. "I've an extra invitation. You can go as my guest if you like, only since when do you fancy formal affairs? My God, you scarcely can bring yourself to tie on neckwear."

Rourke glanced to Hadrian and grinned. "But then it's not so much a ball as a hunt, only my quarry isn't deer or elk but a certain Wild Kat in want of taming."

"Oh! Isn't it jolly
To cast away folly
And cut all one's clothes a peg shorter
(A good many pegs)
And rejoice in one's legs
Like a free-minded Albion's daughter."

--B
ARBARA
B
ODICHON,
circa 1850

C
allie stood before the floor-length dressing glass in her bedroom stripped down to her dressing gown. Jenny had just left from arranging her hair into a soft upsweep she had to admit became her. She turned her head from side to side, checking to make sure the paste diamond brilliants remained in place. The ornaments matched the stones in the thin straps of her gown almost exactly. At Lottie's urging, she'd even applied a light touch of cosmetics. Perhaps it was only the benefit of the encroaching evening shadows but her eyes looked a deeper green, her mouth moist and inviting, and her skin luminous rather than simply pale.

She glanced to the back of the door where her evening gown hung. At any moment, Jenny would be back to help her dress and then she would join Lottie downstairs. Together they would go in her aunt's carriage to Hadrian's shop and from there to the Covent Garden Opera House. Before the thought of walking into a formal function wearing something so very revealing would have been the stuff of nightmares, but she found she could scarcely wait to put it on.

Her aunt's words of a fortnight before rushed back to her.
Take a chance, Callie. Be brave in this as you are in so many other ways.

Take a chance. Be brave. If not now, this night, then when?