Then Came You (The Gamblers #1)(50)

“Too soon for what?”

The sound of his voice seemed to recall her. She wiped her expression clean and rolled away from him, jerking at her skirts. Carefully she avoided looking at him. “I must bid you good night, my lord. I th-think you’ll be comfortable here—”

“Not likely, you little tease!” He watched in fury as she fumbled to restore her appearance and left the room. He shouted a few choice obscenities after her, adding, “I’ll see you in Newgate for this! And as for your damn butler—” The door slammed, and he fell silent, glaring at the ceiling.

Lily faced Burton in the hall, too distracted to worry about her disheveled appearance. There was a note poised on the silver tray in his hands. The paper was sealed with a dirty blob of wax.

Burton proffered the tray. “You instructed me to deliver them to you upon their arrival, no matter what time—”

“Yes,” Lily interrupted, snatching the letter. She broke the seal, and scanned the scrawled lines. “Tonight. Damn him! He must have people watching me…always seems to know where I am…”

“Miss?” Burton had never been privileged to know the contents of the letters, which arrived at the terrace on a sporadic basis. He had come to recognize them by the elaborate, untidy handwriting, and the strange appearance of the bearers. The letters were always delivered by ragged boys fresh from the street.

“Have a horse saddled for me,” Lily said.

“Miss Lawson, I should like to point out the inadvisability of a woman riding alone in London, especially at night—”

“Tell one of the maids to bring my gray cloak. The one with the hood.

“Yes, miss.”

Slowly she went down the stairs, keeping hold of the railing as if to steady herself.

Covent Garden was an especially unsavory area of London, where every worldly pleasure from the conventional to the unthinkable was to be had for a price. There was advertising both visible and verbal: printed bills and notices plastered on every wall, the din of swindlers, pimps, and prostitutes shouting invitations at every passerby. Regency bucks, coming from the theaters with their light-o’-loves, teetered drunkenly to the market taverns. Lily took care to avoid all of them. A drunken lord could sometimes prove as dangerous and inhuman as a professional criminal.

As she crossed through pools of gaslight and shadow, Lily felt sympathy for the parade of prostitutes trodding the thoroughfares. There were young girls and haggard old women and every age in between. They were either thin from starvation or bloated with gin. They all wore the same weary look as they rested on steps and posed on corners, producing painted smiles for any prospective customer. Surely they would never have turned to such an existence had there been any other choice.

There but for the grace of God, Lily thought, and shuddered. She would kill herself rather than turn to such a life, even the life of a courtesan wearing diamond clusters and servicing her protector on silk sheets. Her lip curled with disgust. Better to be dead than owned by a man and forced to serve his physical needs.

Traveling south on King Street, she passed the churchyard. She ignored the catcalls and jeers thrown at her from the roofed shacks that served as shops and dwelling places. Cautiously she went across the street from the market entrance. The two-story arcade was fronted with a pediment and granite Tuscan columns, an oddly regal design for a place containing such squalor. She reined in her horse and paused in a shadow. There was nothing to do but wait. Ruefully she grinned as she saw a pair of young pickpockets nimbly working the crowds. Then she thought of Nicole. Her face turned to stone. My God, what kind of existence was she leading now? Was it possible, young as she was, that she was already being used to turn vice into profit? The notion brought stinging tears to her eyes. Roughly she rubbed them away. She couldn’t give way to emotion, not now. She had to be cool and self-controlled.

A lazy voice came from the darkness nearby. “So ’ere you are, then. I ’ope you bring what I want.”

Slowly Lily dismounted and clutched the reins of her mount in one hand. She turned in the direction of the voice, and forced herself to speak steadily, though her entire body was trembling.

“No more, Giuseppe. Not a farthing more until you give me back my daughter.”

Chapter 7

Count Giuseppe Gavazzi had all the striking splendor of a figure from an Italian Renaissance painting—boldly prominent features, curly black hair, rich olive skin, and lustrous black eyes. Lily remembered the first time she had ever seen him. Giuseppe had been standing in a sunlit Florentine piazza, surrounded by a group of Italian women who hung on every word he spoke. With his flashing smile and dark beauty, he had taken Lily’s breath away. Their paths had crossed numerous times at social events, and Giuseppe had begun to pursue her ardently, ostentatiously.

Lily had been overwhelmed by the romance of Italy and the previously unknown excitement of being seduced by a handsome man. Harry Hindon, her only other love, had been staid and so very English, qualities that had pleased her parents. She’d thought Harry’s tight grasp on propriety would influence her, save her. Instead her wildness had caused him to leave her. But Count Gavazzi had seemed to relish her impulsive glee—he had called her exciting, beautiful. At the time it had seemed as if she’d finally found the man with whom she could drop all pretenses and be herself. Now the memory of her own foolishness disgusted her.

In the past few years Giuseppe’s looks had coarsened—or perhaps it was merely that her perception of him had changed. His pouting lips, praised by the Italian signoras for their sensuous fullness, now seemed repulsive to Lily. She loathed the way his gaze roamed greedily over her, though once she had been flattered by his attention. There was something seedy about his appearance, even in the way he stood with his hands clasped on his h*ps to emphasize their unusual narrowness. It made her stomach turn to look at him and remember the night they’d spent together. He had astonished and humiliated her by asking for a gift afterward. As if she were some dried-up spinster, obligated to pay a man to come to her bed.