The stranger’s grunt was noncommittal, leaving Lydia to wonder if she had correctly divined his thoughts. “You can’t wear this home,” he said. “Come with me and I’ll wash it out for you. I have a room above the Silver Lady. We can be there in a few minutes.”
Lydia held back, digging in her heels when the stranger made to pull her along. She shook her head vigorously, appalled by his suggestion. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said firmly. “I don’t even know your name.”
His rare, beautiful smile was wasted in the darkness. Amusement, however, was rife in his tone. “Circumstances have rather played hell with propriety, haven’t they?”
She was silent, unable to find the situation as funny as he obviously did.
“Nathan Hunter.” He dropped her hand and made a small bow. “Now may we get out of the rain?”
“Mr. Hunter…I really don’t think—”
“You’re not the only one with somewhere to go this evening,” he said. “I myself was on my way to an engagement when I came across you and those two thugs. Now, I could have gone on and left you to fend for yourself, but I didn’t. I’m going back to my room, change my evening clothes, and attempt to start this night over. You can come or go as you wish, but if you have a care for your health or what you’re going to tell your parents, you’ll come.”
He turned to go, seemingly uncaring of her decision. That decided Lydia. She followed.
In the lobby of the hotel and gambling hall, Nathan slipped out of his evening jacket and put it across Lydia’s shoulders when she sneezed. It was damp but warmer than nothing. “This way,” he said, pointing to the wide center staircase. “I’m on the third floor.”
Lydia kept her head lowered, hoping no one coming or going from the gambling hall would see her. She’d never been inside the Silver Lady before, but she could think of at least a dozen men of her acquaintance who frequented the place.
They mounted the carpeted stairs quickly, their tread soft. Water squished between Lydia’s toes and through the leather seams of her ankle boots, leaving a trail of wet footprints. Nathan extracted a key from his vest pocket and unlocked the door to his suite, pushing it open and ushering Lydia inside.
Lydia was having third and fourth thoughts as she entered. She immediately put what she hoped was a safe distance between herself and Nathan. Crossing her arms in front of her, warming her hands close to her body, she nervously studied the man who had helped her.
She measured most men against the man who raised her, who called himself her father even though he had no claim to her blood. He was the man she loved best in all the world, the man she knew better than all others, and the only man she knew who didn’t care anything about her money, since it was his in the first place.
There was nothing about Nathan Hunter that brought her father to mind. He was taller, leaner, darker, and harder. Lydia’s sweeping assessment gave her pause. She wouldn’t have come with him if she could have seen him clearly in the alley. She would have turned away in the lobby if she hadn’t been so concerned with hiding her face and avoiding his scrutiny. Now it was too late.
One corner of Nathan’s mouth turned up in a sardonic smile. “I’m not a white slaver, you know.”
It wasn’t very comforting that her thoughts were so transparent. He looked, if not like a white slaver precisely, then a pirate at the very least, or the way she imagined a pirate might look. He had the eyes of a predator, wolf’s eyes, icy gray edged by a ring of dark blue.
They were clear and penetrating, implacable in their expression, cold and hard in a way that a smile could not touch. The lines fanning out from the corner of his eyes had not been put there by laughter or age. He did not have the look of a man who laughed easily, and she guessed he was perhaps only a few years above thirty. He had a narrow, sculpted face, a Roman nose, and a mouth that was barely softened by the faint suggestion of a dimple on either side of it. His hair was several shades darker than her own, his eyebrows nearly black, and his skin was tanned, giving him a saturnine appearance that embraced both danger and attraction.
His clothes marked him as a man of some means. His shirt was white silk, tailored to his broad shoulders. His vest was pale gray, shot through with silver embroidery threads. He checked his watch, a pocket affair on a platinum fob, and turned toward the bedroom.
“I’ll get you a blanket, some towels, and wash out this shawl,” Nathan said, unbuttoning his vest as he went. “Feel free to stoke the fire and add some coals. The sooner you get warmed up, the sooner we can get you out of here.”
He disappeared into the bedroom and returned a few minutes later, his arms ladened with the warmth he promised. He was greeted by a blazing fire and an empty room. Nathan wasn’t completely surprised that he’d frightened her off. He shrugged, dropped the blanket and towels on a nearby chair, and headed back to the bedroom. Standing in front of the large cheval glass he tore at his bowtie and smiled faintly at his reflection. Had Lydia been there then she would have had good reason to be afraid, for his smile was a cold one and never came close to reaching the frosty depths of his eyes.
“Oh, Lydia,” he said softly, “I think you’ve only postponed the inevitable.”
“It’s notas if you’re pretty.” The words were not said sharply, nor were they born of envy. They were cruel by virture of being stated so simply, as a self-evident fact that could not be argued. “I mean,” the speaker continued in the same vein, “I could understand it if you were attractive to men. For a young woman in your position, money is sometimes a curse. I don’t think I would worry nearly so much if I thought they were only interested in you.”
“Mother,” Lydia said quietly, lowering her eyes away from the mirror. She bore her mother’s concern stoically, not dwelling on the hurtful side of her message. “I need to get ready. Couldn’t this—”
“No, I don’t think itcanwait. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?” Madeline Chadwick smoothed the satin bodice of her ball gown and cast a quick, surreptitious glance in the same mirror her daughter was avoiding. Satisfied that her gown was not wrinkled, Madeline focused on the strand of pearls at her neck, straightening them so the clasp was hidden beneath the thick auburn coil of hair at her nape. She caught Pei Ling watching her, the dark almond-shaped eyes giving nothing of her thoughts away. Even when Madeline returned her steady regard, the maid’s gaze did not waver. “You can go,” said Madeline, waving Pei Ling off. “I’ll help my daughter get ready. See if Mrs. Church needs you in the kitchen.”
Madeline pretended she didn’t see that Pei Ling looked to Lydia for direction before she agreed to leave the room. Lydia’s faint nod was the permission Pei Ling sought. Making a slight bow, Pei Ling slipped out of the room.
“I’ll never get used to her,” Madeline said as soon as the door closed. “She moves in and out of a room like a dark spirit. I don’t know why you insist on keeping her. I could find you a perfectly acceptable Irish maid who knows something about—”
“Mother,” Lydia said quietly.
Madeline sighed. “Oh, very well. We won’t talk about Pei Ling. Here, let me do something with your hair.” Madeline approached Lydia from behind, reaching over her shoulder to pick up the brush on the vanity. She gave her daughter’s hair a few hard strokes, alternating the brush with her threading fingers. “It’s still damp.”
“I just left the tub a few minutes before you came in.” Lydia was amazed the lie did not stick in her throat. Usually her explanations were not so facile. She supposed that desperation lent her courage. She couldn’t imagine telling Madeline anything that had happened to her today. Taking the brush from her mother’s hand, Lydia began dressing her own hair.
“Why do you have to wait until the last minute?” Madeline asked.
