Chapter Six
U nsure of what to expect of Lord Melton’s first visit to the Market, Lou willed her stomach to cease its useless flopping about and steadied her hands with a few slow, controlled breaths. Glancing at the clock on the wall of her office at The Market, she watched the third hand progress silently forward, ticking off each second. Then her gaze slid down to the signed contract between herself and Lord Melton…though perhaps she should call him by a different name since they were to appear to be lovers. Surprisingly, the man had signed and returned the contract with her messenger without any edits to the language.
She thought about his long string of names. John Richard Griffin, the Earl of Melton, Viscount Childreth, Baron Waldren. There were far too many for one man, if anyone had bothered to ask her. During her surveillance of the man she had learned that his mother and closest friends called him Griff. She had liked it when she’d heard it in the garden, and she let the name roll around in her head and decided she liked it. It had a roughness to it that reminded her of the man.
Lou stole another look at the signed document. For the next six months, baring one of them dissolving the agreement, her body would belong to him. For the sake of fooling anyone who looked too closely, she’d used one of her standard house contracts. The man could do anything with her body he wished while they were together. The question that had her nerves on edge was…would he?
Would he take advantage of the agreement and touch her? And if he did, would she welcome it?
The shiver of anticipation that slid down her spine scared Lou more than the possibility he might wish to caress her. It had been a very long time since she wished for a man—any man—to lay hands upon her. To share pleasure with her.
The vulnerability of desire made her skin itch and her stomach twist.
What if Lord Melton—Griff—didn’t want her? What if he looked at her and saw only a whore, or worse, a cold-hearted killer?
Lou’s heart squeezed tight, and she quickly shut down that dangerous line of thinking. It didn’t matter what he saw. It didn’t matter if he touched her. She was doing this to understand who had ordered an innocent man to be killed. To learn how her system had been compromised so it would never happen again. To learn if all she believed she stood for was a lie.
Desire. Pleasure. Wanting. Those needs had no place in the equation.
Besides, anyone who had ever been important to her in her private life had either abandoned or betrayed her. Some were guilty of both, starting with her parents and ending with her uncle—a killer and a thief. After that, she had determined life was simpler when she kept it professional. She needed to remember this was business; it was not personal. It couldn’t be.
With that firm reminder to herself, Lou dabbed a bit of color on her lips, slipped her mask into place, and descended to the sitting rooms of The Market. She stepped into an already partially filled front salon, pleased to see her girls entertaining their guests. Katerina, with her long blonde hair and clear blue eyes, sat pressed against a masked man who could only be the Duke of Norfolk. Near the fireplace Mary Margaret, with her golden-brown hair and apple green eyes, entertained the Marquess of Worthington, a young, newly elevated peer. Across the room Elena, with her raven hair and mahogany eyes, entertained a trio of young bucks who had clearly started their night of revelry off a bit early.
Lou laughed quietly as one of the young men grew too forward and earned himself a stern rap on the hand with Elena’s fan. Little did he know just what kind of damage the beauty could do with that seemingly innocent item. With a reinforced steel frame and paper thin steel webbing underneath the decorative paper, she could slice a man’s throat or slide a spoke through the ribs before he knew what hit him.
Phillipe, her house manager, stepped up beside her. “Madame LaRoux, you do look enchanting this evening.”
“Mon Phillipe…” Lou cooed in her best fake French accent, “such trifling compliments do not become you.” She cut a playful glare at her longtime friend and employee. “Knock it off,” she said sotto voce .
He chuckled. “As you wish, Madame. Business seems promising tonight. In fact, you even have a Lord Melton at the bar requesting your attendance.”
“Do I, indeed?” She ignored the flutter in her breast.
“Indeed. He presented his membership coin and indicated you two had come to an agreement.” Phillipe raised a brow in question. “Not one I have been informed of.”
“Yes. A rather diverting fellow I came across recently.” Lou raised her own fan, a much less lethal cousin to the one Elena held, and wafted it in front of her face in hopes it would cool the sudden warmth in her cheeks.
“Well then, I assume you’ve already made whatever arrangements you may need for the evening. I shall be about if I am required.”
“Excellent. I should see to my guest.” Lou glided away from Phillipe and went in search of Griff, espying him in the corner of the card room, observing a fierce game of Vingt-et-un. With a sweep of her hi-low skirts, she sailed over to him.
As soon as she entered the room his gaze brushed over her, working from her masked face, down to her daring neckline, and then lower to the upper hemline of her skirts. The feminine layer of ruffles brushed the tops of her thighs, exposing her garters and stockings in the most erotic fashion. The ruffles plunged down the sides of her long legs, creating a rather dramatic frame, before brushing the floor behind her. The weight of his gaze felt heavy, nearly a physical caress as he watched her legs, just there at the apex of her thighs as she walked toward him. Lou cleared her throat lightly as she neared him.
His gaze snapped back up to her masked face, allowing her to catch a flash of desire before he snuffed it out and replaced it with a questioning smile of welcome. “Madame LaRoux?”
Lou smiled brightly. Was he…angry? Pitching her voice low and soft, she leaned toward him as she flipped the fan up to protect their conversation from prying eyes. “My lord.” She dipped her head. “I apologize for the hesitation. Trusting others is not something that comes easily to a woman of my background. It was important I have a bit of time to confirm some of what you claimed before I fully revealed myself to you.”
He stared for a moment as though rolling her name around in his head. Perhaps on his tongue. “I wish I could say I understood, but it is already done. I assume with the arrival of the contract and coin, you found whatever it was you needed to allay your concerns?” He matched her low volume and stayed behind her fan.
Lou shook her head slightly. “Not everything I needed, but enough to know that you seem to be a decent man. Someone who I suspect I should not have been sent to kill. You are a rare peer of the realm who seems to be looking to help those who are less fortunate through meaningful legislation, not apathetic charity.”
“I suppose I should be grateful.” Griff leaned back and offered a half smile.
“Gratefulness is less desirable than you might think.” She spoke at normal volume and dropped the fan as she shrugged a nonchalant shoulder.
“I see, perhaps appreciation is more appealing. You look lovely this evening.”
To her great amusement, the man dared another glance down her body, as though his eyeballs had ceased to answer to his directions.
Lou did not need to look to know he filled out his evening clothes in such a way as to highlight his broad chest and long legs. “Why thank you, my lord. You certainly cut a dashing figure.”
She placed a hand lightly on his muscular shoulder and studiously ignored the sturdy composition of his frame and the firm musculature that seemed to be strapped…everywhere. She remembered what it felt like to have all that hard muscle pressed against her when they’d fought, but she told herself firmly that it was her imagination—and perhaps her pride that had endowed him with such a fine physique.
That all turned to wisps of steam as soon as she laid a hand on his person.
Lou snatched her hand back, as though he were on fire, and pointedly ignored his startled look at her abrupt movement. Together they stood there, the silence growing awkward, even as the game they ostensibly watched grew more heated—and then a man at the table who had just lost a rather sizeable sum of money pulled out a knife and brandished it at the winner. Lou took only a moment to move forward, and though she felt Griff’s hand on her arm as though to restrain her, she shrugged it off and pressed into the fray.
“Gentlemen,” Lou looked down at the knife and back up to the face of the man holding the weapon, and then at his companions. “Is there an issue?”
The knife wielder held the blade up and pointed at the winner. “He cheated.”
Lou calmly reached up and placed her fingertips on the hand holding the blade and pressed down firmly, guiding the knife to the man’s side. “I watched the last few hands of your game, monsieur, and I am certain no such thing happened. Now, I understand losing such a sum can be rather upsetting. Perhaps I can help soften the blow a bit.” Lou looked up and waved Phillipe over. “Phillipe shall take you over to one of my lovelies, and will arrange a bit of solace for you. On the house.”
Phillipe moved up and led the flustered gentleman away as the others slumped back into their chairs.
“I am sorry for the disturbance—and Mr. Quigly, do see that the house receives its cut before you leave for the evening.” Lou quirked a single brow up and then turned to sashay—it was an art form she had studied for hours to perfect—back to Griff.
“Woman, do you have no sense of self-preservation? That man could have stabbed you,” Griff growled as she slipped back to his side.
Lou slanted him a scowl. “I was in no such danger. Besides, this is my place of business. I am certainly not going to allow someone to stab a guest unless I or one of my girls is being paid to do so,” she whispered dangerously.
“Do you not have security to deal with such issues?” Griff’s brows had drawn down into a fierce scowl as he grilled her about topics that were not within his purview.
She turned and leaned in to him, snuggling as though they were lovers, and said in not quite a whisper, “I am an assassin. I have others among my staff who have similar skills, many of them in corsets like myself. I retain a minimal amount of security, typically located on the upper floors to protect my less lethal girls. It would not be conducive to the convivial atmosphere I cultivate at The Market to have a large number of over-sized thugs looming over the guests.” She saw his eyes widen, and she suppressed a smile. “Additionally, I cannot go about throwing members out like tomorrow’s leftovers. It would be bad for business. Please understand, I tell you this so we may move on, not because I owe you an explanation. Now, if you will turn your rather inquisitive nature to the actual issue at hand, let’s see if we can decipher who exactly is trying to kill you—though I am beginning to suspect, based on your rather overbearing nature, there may be a longer list than you might have originally considered.”
Lou pulled back and cocked her head to the side in a meaningful look, annoyed that he had pushed into her affairs, even as her feminine half responded to such male dominance—however misplaced it may have been.
Embracing the desire thrumming through her veins, she placed a delicate kiss to his jawline and peeled away from him. Sauntering across the card room, she willed her heart to cease fluttering in her chest as she stopped in the doorway to signal for him to follow. She staunchly ignored the way her nipples rasped against the linen of her chemise beneath her corset as she watch Griff—Lord Melton—prowl toward her. Her unwarranted attraction to the man was rather like being trapped on a runaway locomotive: the engine was barreling ahead sans caution or breaks. Whatever this was between them was most certainly going to be a problem, and she supposed the sooner she gave in to it the sooner she might get past her fascination with him.
Satisfied, Lou turned and led him through the salon and up the stairs.
Griff trailed behind the infuriating woman, all the while wishing he could stop the aggravating woman and shake some sense into her fool head. Certainly Lou could handle herself, but something deep inside him revolted at the notion that she might put herself in harm’s way.
Which, when one considered both her occupation and her cover, was a rather ridiculous notion. And yet it persisted.
Lou climbed the stairs ahead of him, the slow sway of her hips an entrancing view as he took one step at a time. Bits and pieces of the contract he had signed that afternoon flitted in and out of his head. Per their agreement, he had the right to bed her . While on the surface that seemed a most desirable outcome, deep inside he was certain disaster lay down that path. He was already far too enamored of the woman. Even as he had signed the agreement, Griff had sworn he would not avail himself of the many benefits outlined in the document.
But then Lou had walked into the card room mask creating a mystery, and his resolve had weakened. Was she as stunning as he remembered?
Then he’d looked at her attire with her long, luscious legs on display below that tantalizing bit of fabric shielding her pussy from prying eyes, and that was when Griff’s resolve had collapsed. As she’d approached him, all he could think about was depositing her on the bar so he could spread her firm thighs and taste her cunny. It were as if she had dosed him with some strong aphrodisiac, yet he almost certain that was not true.
Even now—as they retreated to some room within the house—the sensual atmosphere, cunningly crafted to tantalize and tease, wore at his defenses. As did the eternal sway of her lush bum and the fall of long, dark hair that danced just above it. Did she even need to wear a bustle?
Griff’s cock grew harder with each step, each wayward thought.
They reached the upper landing and continued up the next level of stairs, climbing to the third floor and what could only be her private rooms. Griff fixated on the notion that he would likely see her inner sanctum, and a dangerous burble of pleasure danced in his chest. He couldn’t help but wonder how many men had been permitted into her private rooms. Based on how secretive she’d been up to then, he had to assume a very few privileged men had been allowed to enter the sacred space.
Good.
The sitting room they entered was small, cozy, but for all that, lushly appointed. The room was draped in silks and velvets, a riot of color mixing blues and reds, with touches of greens and yellows. There were pieces from the Ming dynasty squished in with bits of modern cog-work art, and furniture from the Elizabethan period alongside more modern Chippendale pieces. A veritable hodgepodge of things that one would think could never work together, yet somehow it felt right for her. It seemed to reflect the contradiction that was Lou. If that was her true name.
She removed her mask, glanced back over her shoulder, and pointed to a table bearing a decanter. “Pour us drinks while I fetch the dossier.”
His breath had caught in his chest at her casual reveal. Her dark, sensual looks fitted back together in his mind like pieces of a mechanism, each cog and wheel settling exactly where it belonged. She was every bit as beautiful as he’d remembered and more—especially as she wasn’t actively trying to kill him.
Lou disappeared through a door and pushed it closed until it sat slightly ajar.
In desperate need of a little fortification, Griff poured a short drink and tossed it back before pouring two drinks and bringing them over to the settee and the coffee table that dominated the space. He sat and waited for her return, choosing to continue to peruse the interestingly decorated space. An all too familiar little gadget caught his eye, and he stood for a closer inspection. On a low buffet sat a whimsical bit of cog and wheel sculpture that had been one of his earliest tinkerings. It had served little purpose but to amuse the viewer with its perpetual motion of cog and wheel to ultimately make a bird arc over the contraption as though in flight. He was rather shocked to see it had landed in the hands of a woman who worked for a government whose primary agenda seemed to be squashing the steam revolution through vicious assassination.
Worry gripped him for a moment. Am I a fool to trust her? No, she seemed as determined to solve this mystery as he was. Tinkers versus Voltacrats, aside, he liked her. More importantly, Griff found himself wanting to trust her. Perhaps she was affiliated with a faction of the government that supported steam tech? Or was at least neutral?
A sound came from the room beyond and he glanced up to find himself perfectly positioned to see every luscious curve of Lou’s derriere as she bent over to pull on trousers. Simultaneously turned on by the flash of skin, and disappointed her legs would be covered for their discussion, Griff snapped back around to the moving sculpture as she moved toward the door.
“Ah, I see you have noticed a bit of my rebellion.” She grinned and walked into the room, crossing to where he stood, her drink ignored on the table where he’d left it. She pressed up against him as she leaned in to look at her automaton. Well, his , really. The press of her breast against his arm paired with the warmth of her breath on his neck as she spoke nearly undid him. “Supposedly, the trinket was made by the Lord of Cogs himself.”
“Indeed, it is quite entertaining.” Griff offered a bland smile and willed his cock to cease being so noticeable. Did she feel the heat that burned between them?
He stood there stunned for a moment as his pulse raced and she glided away, like a figment of his over-steamed imagination. Oh, she is a temptress . She must know what she was doing to him. Was she doing it because of this searing attraction between them…or was she cultivating the attraction for other reasons?
Either way, it was growing harder to ignore.
Sitting down on the settee, Lou took a sip and sighed. “I do love a good scotch.” Setting her glass back down, she patted the couch beside her. “Come, let us have a look at the shoddy dossier I was provided on you. Perhaps you can help me fill in the holes that might lead us to who is behind all of this. I can’t imagine it contains anything you don’t already know about yourself.”
Together they poured over the documents she had which outlined all manner of information about him, from his daily schedule to his preferences for meals and even his penchant for working late into the night.
“Well, I see you have quite a bit of information about me. I feel somewhat at a disadvantage in this partnership, as I know almost nothing about you.”
“That is an unfortunate byproduct of being a mark,” Lou said lightly, as though she discussed killing every day. Which, Griff had to admit, she probably did. “It’s funny, but as sparse as this package is compared to my normal dossiers, I bet I could sell this to the highest bidder amongst the debutantes this coming Season and make a pretty penny. Why, everything a girl should need to know to capture your heart, or at the very least trap you into marriage, is right here.” She shot him a saucy grin.
“You wouldn’t dare!” True panic seized him as he considered the onslaught that would come with such a violation.
“If I didn’t appreciate the unmarried state as much as any bachelor, I might consider it. But I wouldn’t do such a thing to my worst enemy. I might slit their throat, but no—I wouldn’t throw them to the wolves-cum-debutants.” She laughed at the utter fear Griff knew was etched on his features.
For a moment, his heart had skipped a beat, and not in the good way.
“You are a cruel woman.” Griff shook his head and returned to perusing the pages he held. “Does the handwriting look different than normal to you? Perhaps whoever compiled the dossier might be able to offer us a clue.”
Lou looked at the lettering on the page. “I’m afraid the handwriting is different every time. Typically it is all legible, neatly written, but by a different hand. I suspect they use a different secretary each time or possibly one of those new mimic-o-graphs. Have you heard of them?”
Griff repressed a wince. Of course he’d heard of the bloody machine; he invented the small steam engine that the inventor used to power the thing. “Of course, it allows for the reproduction of handwriting. Apparently, it is quite difficult to tell the difference between what it produces and the genuine article.”
Lou shrugged. “So I’ve heard.” She continued to look over the various pages in silence, as did he.
Finally, something caught his eye on one of the longer sheets. Toward the end of the page, there seemed to be a partial sentence that made little sense in the context of the rest of the notations, and were found in the margin, too. The words read…to Inverkeithing. “Do you see this? I wonder where the rest of the sentence is.”
She picked up the page, looked at the alignment of the lettering, angled the page this way and that before looking at him with a shrug. “I had noticed that when I originally reviewed the documents. But honestly, I couldn’t make sense of its meaning in the context of my assignment to kill you.” She stopped and eyed him cautiously. “Is there something you have not told me that might be of importance in this inquiry?”
Fear slipped into his veins and had his heart racing like a stallion on the open moors. “No. Nothing I believe you need to be aware of.” Good God, she couldn’t know he was the Lord of Cogs. It would make him more vulnerable than he already was, a conduit to breaking the will of the Tinkers. Not to mention the damage to the morale of the party if they learned he was not of the working class, not one of them.
No, it was far too risky to expose himself in such a manner. But even that secret had no connection to Inverkeithing as far as he knew.
She eyed him suspiciously. “And you’re sure you have no connection to Inverkeithing? Maybe anywhere else in Scotland?”
“None. I cannot imagine what it might reference. We could look at a map, but I’m not sure what good it might do.” Confusion warred with worry. To his knowledge, there was no connection between himself and Scotland. None between The Lord of Cogs and Scotland. Damnit, he’d never been to Scotland!
“Perhaps we should.” Lou rose and pulled out an atlas and flipped to the pages with a close up view of Inverkeithing on the map. “Do you see anything?”
“Not at all. The…the only person I know with a connection to Inverkeithing is one of my friends. He has an uncle—rich as Croesus—with an estate near there. But I’ve never been there.” Griff sighed. “What if this was made using the machine you mentioned, and it produced a wet page that was somehow transferred on to this margin?”
“That does seem more likely than anything else, at the moment.” She paused as if considering her words. “Very well, then. If I find you are lying to me, it will not go well for you. Lies and betrayal are hard lines for me.” Her shoulders relaxed a bit as if those words had cost her something to share.
Griff couldn’t help but wonder about the story or stories behind her last comment. Lies…and betrayal?
He nodded stiffly, despite her more relaxed state. Her threat was certainly real; so she could never know the truth. “I don’t see us discovering anything else. I should go.”
“You cannot leave this early. It would destroy my reputation.” Lou rose to stop him as he tried to leave.
“Why in the world would it destroy your reputation?” he asked, surprised.
“Madame LaRoux is notorious for keeping her lovers entertained until the early hours of the morning—when she deigns to take one. Leaving now, seemingly unsatisfied, it is not to be considered…especially when things are so new.”
Griff sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So are you suggesting I must stay here for,” he glanced at his pocket watch, “another four hours before I can depart?”
“Precisely.” Lou nodded.
“And how do you propose to entertain me?” He lifted a sardonic brow even as dread swelled within. He suspected—no, hoped—he knew what she was going to suggest. Wanted everything she would offer and more, yet he feared what would happen if he indulged.
Feared he would not be capable of keeping his attraction to her at bay.
“You know the terms of the contract. You seem a very thorough sort. We can simply sit and talk, or both of us being adults, we could consider other more lascivious pursuits.” The woman seemed strung as taut as he felt as he considered her proposal.
Damn how he wanted to taste her, but Griff’s mind warred with his body and heart. What if she decided she still needed to kill him after their investigation? What if he discovered this was all a ruse, and she was somehow complicit in not killing, but discrediting him?
Bloody hell, what if she discovers the truth about me and rejects me for it?
And then he glanced over and noticed she was fidgeting. Could she be as nervous as he at the notion of becoming intimate? That was a curious thing, considering all the facts.
“Very well, I suppose I wouldn’t want to cause undue harm to your reputation.” Griff took his empty glass and moved to the decanter, and poured another drink. He held the container up in silent question, and she nodded. After he poured her another drink, he returned the decanter to its rightful place and sat next to her as she set all the pages aside. “So, tell me. How did you come to acquire The Market?”
Lou sat back and crossed her legs so that her toes brushed his trouser leg, sending little jolts of excitement along his limb. “I bought it from the previous Madame, who I worked for as part of my cover. She was aware I had other priorities, but she took a liking to me and when she was ready to retire, she offered me the opportunity as had her Madame before her and so on. The Market has been in business for nearly a hundred years and has passed from madame to prostitute along the way.”
“And I suppose since the assassin business was good, you could afford to pay her.”
She offered a nonchalant lift of the shoulder that neither confirmed his assumption nor denied it. “And how did you become the Earl of Melton?”
Griff tried not to smile. “I did it in the way one normally does. The previous earl, my father, died and I inherited the title and all it entailed—though I suppose there are new-fangled ways of becoming a peer these days. I heard recently that one man paid an aging peer to become his heir. There was quite a bit of legal finagling to make that happen I imagine.” He shrugged.
She smiled sadly. “In my circles it is not uncommon for heirs once or twice removed to fund the killing of those who stand in their path.”
Horror swept through Griff at such a notion. “I-I can’t imagine doing such a thing. My father and I had not been on the best of terms, but I would never have offed the man.” He swallowed, his throat dry. “Is that what you think of me?”
She watched him intently. “Based on your honest reaction…no, I don’t. But I needed to see how the notion struck you.”
Griff pressed his lips together, momentarily non-plussed that she still seemed to harbor some question of his moral character. But he was keeping secrets from her, wasn’t he? “I am trying my best to honor his legacy, while keeping in mind that times have changed and so has society.”
“And what of your own heir? Your dossier makes no mention of a wife or even fiancée.” Lou lazed casually against the back of the settee, but something crackled between them as she waited for his answer.
“My brother, or his future son, will be the next earl. I have no need of a wife.” He took a sip of his scotch and tried to remember his own warnings to himself.
But then her tongue peeped out from between her reddish lips to slick along her lower one. Griff couldn’t help but track the movement and wish it was his own tongue tasting her flesh.
“That sounds rather lonely.” She leaned forward and into him as she took his drink and set it on the table next to her glass. “And by all accounts, unhealthy. They do say that men need to exercise their sexual desires regularly to keep sharp of mind and focus.” Lou pressed up onto her knees on the couch and hovered over him until their faces were so close, their breath mingled. “I can’t have you unfocused for what lies ahead.”
And then her lips captured his in a searing kiss which shattered any hesitation his feeble mind offered in protest. In a swift move of dominance and need, he pushed her backward until she lay on the couch beneath him as he took control of the kiss and possessed her mouth.