Worth Any Price (Bow Street Runners #3)(31)

"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 br**sts. 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.