Wicked Nights With a Lover (6 page)

I’m here for you … soon now … soon …

Understanding slammed into her with gale-force power.

She lurched upright, screaming, ready to flee, to run as far from that dark figure as her legs would carry her, even if it meant losing the lover whose mouth and hands worked magic upon her. It wasn’t worth it. Not if it brought Death.

She blinked in the suddenly altered air, the scream still caught in her throat. She looked about her wildly, serrated breath tripping from her lips. She skimmed a hand down, feeling her night rail covering her body.
Just a dream.

The curtains at her window fluttered as if a wind had just blown through. With the mullioned glass sealed tight?

Her flesh puckered to gooseflesh. She chafed her arms, running her hands over them, concentrating on steadying her hammering heart.

A swift rap sounded at her door. She jumped, swallowing down another cry.

“Miss Laurent!” Mrs. Dobbs’s disembodied voice drifted through her bedchamber door. “Are you well?”

Marguerite cleared her throat, managing strangled speech. “I am fine, Mrs. Dobbs. Simply a nightmare. Forgive me. I did not mean to disturb your rest.”

“Not at all, dear. Only wanted to assure myself you weren’t being murdered in your bed.”

She bit down on her fist at Mrs. Dobbs’s flippant remark, feeling the words like a barb to her heart.

Not murdered. Not dead. Not yet, at any rate.

“I am well,” she called again.

“Good night then, dear.”

Marguerite fell back on the bed, sighing deeply as her head sank into the pillow. She listened to the heavy tread of the proprietress fade down the corridor. In the distance, a door opened and shut, the sound desolate as it echoed through the night.

Rolling to her side, she burrowed beneath the coverlet, seeking warmth, grasping the fleeting scraps of her resolve to do everything in her power to seize her life and mark it as her own, to avoid a fate like the one Madame Foster had described.

Chapter 6

A
sh sat upright in bed and glared down at the large, blinking blue eyes of the tousled female beside him. “What did you just say?”

“Easy there, love.” Mary smoothed a hand over his bare shoulder, her gaze hungrily following the stroke of her hand on his flesh, like she wanted her lips there instead, tasting everything she touched.

He leaned forward, draping his arms loosely upon his propped knees, and stared dazedly ahead as he absorbed her words, his blood simmering to a furious burn in his veins. “Are you certain it’s true?”

“Aye.” Mary fell back on the bed, mindless of her nudity. She and Ash had been lovers off and on for years. Long before Jack made him a partner. Hell, back when he was just one of Jack’s managers. Their long-standing friendship made her someone he could trust. A girl brought up alongside him on the streets, in the days when he picked pockets to survive, would always have his back.

“The great Jack Hadley has gone and gathered his entire flock. All girls. Daughters, can you believe it? It’s almost amusing. For all his procreating, he never fathered a son. Suppose you’re the closest he’ll ever have to that.”

With a growl, he shook his head. Not a son. A son was told things and kept apprised, and Jack had kept him in the dark over the matter of his daughters. Not an oversight, Ash was certain. Everything Jack did was with methodical deliberation.

Not that it shocked Ash to learn that Jack had fathered offspring. He only felt shock over the fact that he was suddenly interested in claiming his progeny—that they suddenly possessed value in his eyes.

Jack was no sentimentalist. He did nothing without benefit to himself. For no other reason had he made Ash his partner. He saw the advantage in it. Claiming his illegitimate offspring had to provide him with something. Ash knew Jack well enough to know that he cared for no one more than himself.

The sounds from his gaming hell floated from below stairs. The buzz of conversation, laughter, the occasional shout from a victor, all acted as a balm to his nerves. Even though he owned a grand townhouse in the City, he stayed at Hellfire, craving the sounds, the smells. His townhouse sat a lonely shell across the river, shrouded in silence. Only solitude and thoughts best left alone awaited him there.

His attention drifted back to Mary. She was talking, he realized. “They’re all supposed to be under his roof together. Grier arrived over a week ago. A nice-enough girl, if not a bit outspoken. Another arrived just yesterday and another is supposed to show up this afternoon. Only that one’s not staying as the other two are … that’s why he’s throwing together a little soiree tonight. He’s hoping to convince the new one to stay for the grand event.”

Three?
The randy old goat had fathered three daughters?

“That a fact?” Ash dragged a hand though his too-long hair, watching Mary rise and begin to dress, his mind churning over the implications of what this development could mean for him. His partner suddenly had heirs. Three, to be exact.

“Reminds me that I need to get back,” Mary muttered. “There’s much to do. He wants everything spotless. He expects at least a dozen to attend …”

“A dozen …
who?”

She shrugged. “Some fine gents, I hear. Real bluebloods.”

The hairs on Ash’s neck began to stand as he watched her shimmy into her gown. “What scheme has he concocted?”

“He ain’t saying, but Grier can’t keep her tongue behind her teeth.”

“And what has this Grier said?”

Mary looked over her shoulder as if she expected the great Jack Hadley to materialize behind her. He was that way. Larger than life, an intimidating figure to many.

“Well … she thinks he’s got it in his head to marry them off to some bluebloods. All three of them. Any swell will do, so long as his blunt has run dry and he’s desperate enough to marry a bastard daughter of Jack Hadley.”

“Bloody hell.” He shook his head. “Why would any swell want to—”

Mary waved a hand about her fiercely. “For this, of course. All of it. The mine, the factory …”

Cold washed through Ash’s veins.
Of course.
For everything
he
had worked so hard for.

It all came together then. He understood why Jack suddenly wished to claim the daughters he’d seen fit to forget. He wanted what they could bring him. Prestige. A door to the glittering world of the ton. The sneering aristocrats would have to welcome him into their drawing rooms if his daughters married men among their ranks. His hand curled into a fist at his side.

Mary must have seen something in his face. An uneasy look drifted across her features. She drew out his name on a heavy breath. “Ash.”

“I’ve made this
this,”
he said tightly, motioning to his elegant suite. “The hells were nothing before me. And the mine? The factory? It was my idea to invest—”

“I know, I know,” Mary soothed.

“He means to hand over what is rightfully mine to some lily-handed prigs who suck up the nerve to marry his bastards?”

“Well, they are his heirs, Ash,” Mary pointed out. “And their future husbands have a right—”

“Just because Jack shagged these chits’ mothers doesn’t give their future husbands the right to claim all I’ve worked for! All
I
have built!” His chest lifted on a deep breath.

“What can you do about it? You’re partners. If Jack gives each of his princesses a share of all he owns, it’s his right.”

“Princesses,”
Ash sneered and shook his head in disbelief. Jack Hadley had thieved, cheated, and murdered his way to the top. Everyone knew it. His daughters were no princesses.

“At least a dozen bluebloods will be in attendance tonight. Grier let it slide that one of them is even a real duke.” She snorted. “Can you imagine that? A duke? Dining with ol’ Jack Hadley. Maybe even becoming his kin?” She laughed.

And taking what is mine? The factory? The mine? The hells?
All that Ash had in this world. “No,” he bit out past his teeth. “I can’t imagine.”

And he couldn’t. He didn’t want to believe that the man who had taken him under his wing would discard him for a gaggle of females he’d never even met—daughters or not. After plucking Ash off the streets and giving him his start, how could he not consider Ash in any of this?

“Well, I’m off.” Mary pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Wait a moment,” he murmured from chilled lips. “I’ll drive you home.”

“Oh.” She arched her eyebrow, the look in her blue eyes decidedly wary. “You’re not going to start any trouble, are you? I’ve no wish to get scolded for talking out of turn.”

“Jack won’t give you a thought,” Ash assured her. “I’m coming,” he said flatly.

He’d hear it from Jack’s own lips that while he viewed Ash as a son, he didn’t consider him good enough to be his heir … good enough to inherit all that he’d built for the two of them. Jack instead preferred for his share of wealth and property to go to a trio of blue-blooded dandies with nothing but birth and rank to their credit. Oh, and marriage to Jack’s bastard princesses.

When Ash arrived at Jack’s Mayfair house, it was to find double the usual servants buzzing about. Like an army of ants, they swept, dusted, and polished everything until it gleamed. Hothouse roses, fragrant and rich in color, covered every surface. Beyond extravagant for this time of year.

Amid the cloying bouquet, the butler led him into Jack’s office, a wood-paneled circular room of deep walnut that was as familiar to him as his own bed. He’d spent countless evenings in this room, a glass of Jack’s finest brandy in his hand, discussing business, life, the politics about Town and how it all might affect their enterprises.

They were alike: both brought up from the gutters, both having tasted abuse at the cruel hands of the unforgiving and merciless London underworld. Both with an insatiable hunger to succeed, to win and prove that they were no longer gutter trash. Ash had always told himself that’s why they worked so well together, why they’d become partners.

Apparently, he’d been wrong. They weren’t alike.

Ash knew what he was, knew what drove him, and he felt not the slightest remorse or wish to change. Some men were built for domesticity and could content themselves with a simple life. A wife, home, children, church on Sundays. He wasn’t one of them. He didn’t aspire to be. Nor was he like Jack. Jack craved a place in Society, position, the final stamp of approval—and he would step on Ash to get it. That much was now clear to him.

Ash surveyed the familiar room with fresh eyes. Even though Jack could scarcely read and do little more than pen his name, books lined the walls of his office, stretching to the domed ceiling.

He settled his gaze on Jack, sitting behind his desk, his secretary beside him, assisting him as they read over some documents.

Looking up, he greeted Ash as though nothing were out of the ordinary, as if gentlemen from Society’s highest echelons were not about to descend upon this very house. “Ash. I didn’t expect to see you today.”

“Is it true?” he demanded, wasting little time.

Jack didn’t even blink. He never did. Never gave an outward sign of what he was thinking. A trick Ash had learned from him.
Never show the world the true you. Cling to your guard.
“Is what true?”

“You have daughters.
Three
bloody daughters!”

Jack sighed and slid a glance to his assistant. “Give us a moment.”

Ash watched him with narrowed eyes as the secretary left the room. Jack leaned back in his leather chair as the door clicked shut. “One of the maids, I presume? Every female on my staff falls into titters at the sight of you. Is there no woman you can’t seduce?”

Ash snorted. Jack knew all about bedding women. His illegitimate offspring attested to that.

“Why are you here, Ash?” he demanded in a hard voice that told Ash he already knew.

“I want to hear the truth from you.”

Jack studied him a long moment before speaking. “I’m a father. Is it so surprising that I should want to see my daughters? I’m not a young man anymore.”

“I know you’ve gathered them all here to auction them off to some damned bluebloods.” He felt his top lip curl back from his teeth in a sneer.

“Is it so wrong to want to see my girls well arranged—”

Ash broke out in laughter. He couldn’t help himself. He knew Jack Hadley too well to believe he was a well-meaning father concerned with the welfare of his daughters.

“Come, Jack. Do you even know their names? This is about you. About getting yourself a duke for a son-in-law.”

The older man’s ruddy face burned vividly. “Of course, I know their names. I took pains to locate them, haven’t I? They’re all here …” A scowl swept his face. “Well, I believe so. The final one was to arrive today. She’s been a bit elusive. Damned inconvenient. I have a big evening planned and I need her here.”

The final one.
She didn’t even merit a name. She was without an identity. And yet Jack would hand over to her, to each of them, what Ash worked so hard to build. It was intolerable.

“So you don’t deny you’ve claimed them as your heirs? That you intend to marry them off and give away all that I’ve labored to—”

“It’s not all yours though, is it?” Jack cut in.

Ash ignored the question, pressing on. “The gaming hells were scarcely hanging on when you made me partner. The mine, the factory … I had to convince you to even agree to invest—”

“But I did agree,” Jack inserted. “You couldn’t have bought the mine or factory without me. And you’ve made me a very wealthy man. So wealthy I can buy myself any son-in-law I want.”

Ash inhaled sharply. “What of me? Am I not to be considered a candidate?” The wild idea seized him, and he could not shake it loose. If marrying one of Jack’s daughters helped him secure even a slight hold on the empire he’d built, then so be it. True, he’d still have two other daughters and their dandy husbands to contend with, but he’d cope—and all the better if he was married to a direct heir. One third of Jack’s share would be his. Combined with the share he already possessed, he’d hold the greatest majority.