Eloise peered at her. “Who do you think I am?”
“Adrienne Chenevert’s friend. Lord Timothy Surrey’s sister. And the woman who has gotten under Robbie Green’s skin.” She gave a wry smile as Eloise’s eyes shot wide. “I’ll explain later. First we have to get you out of those clothes. Your tits must hurt like the devil.”
Eloise grimaced. “They do.”
“They were never meant to be laced down like that. We’ll free them up, get you some wine, we’ll talk.”
“And promise you will never tell anyone I spent the night in a brothel.”
Lucy squeezed her. “Never.”
Chapter Ten
Monday, 18 July 1825
Campion’s Gentlemen’s Emporium
Five in the morning
Life as heknew it had ended, but Robert felt nothing. Quite literally—nothing. The frigid numbness that had consumed him over the last four hours had deadened every nerve, every emotion, every thought.
He now slumped in one of the two wingbacks in Bill’s office, staring at the desk. It had been wiped clear of all ledgers, boxes, and paperwork, which now lay strewn about the office as if a great wind had churned through. They had placed Bill’s body on the desk, folding his arms over his blood-soaked chest. A doctor who had been on the gaming floor confirmed his death and summoned an undertaker to help prepare and remove the body to the Campion home.
They had made those preparations in the office, and it had fallen to Robert to tell Nora and their daughters, a task Robert hoped never to repeat in all the remaining days of his life. Nora refused to believe him at first—Bill had run his business empire for more than twenty-five years. There had been fights, of course, but no one had ever used a firearm in any of the facilities. Then she realized the blood that stained Robert’s coat and waistcoat had been her husband’s, and that there was far too much of it for the wound to be minor.
She had swooned against him, and Robert had carried her to the drawing room settee as Hannah and Prudence frantically woke the household and made the front parlor ready for their father’s body. Nora roused slowly, and clung to Robert for a long while, asking questions that he struggled to answer without overwhelming her with the gruesome details. That, apparently, was when the cold detachment began, this sense of distance from the chasm of loss.
The body had arrived, wrapped in a woolen shroud the undertaker had brought and carried on the office door, which Gilley had removed from its hinges. Sawhorses retrieved from the stables braced it, and Robert watched as Bill’s daughters began to gather cut flowers from other rooms of the house to place with loving reverence around their father, sobbing all the while.
Nora peeled the shroud from Bill’s face, and Robert had held her as she merely stared at her husband, silent tears etching their way down her cheeks. Behind them, Hannah and Prudence clung together, sobbing into each other’s shoulders.
Robert had not wanted to leave. He loved these three as much as he had Bill, but as the others left, Nora insisted. It would not be proper for him to remain, and there was much to be done before the funeral. Her resilience and strength awed Robert, and he had left to respect her wishes. He returned to the club, intending to organize the office and answer questions from the staff.
Instead, he slumped in the wingback, his blood-soaked coat and waistcoat thrust away from him, dark lumps in the far corner of the room. He had jerked his cravat—with Bill’s blood-smeared fingerprints—from his neck and tossed it toward the window, where it had hit and fluttered to the floor. He stared at nothing and snarled at anyone who dared approach. Numb. Wishing it were him laid out on that door. Itshouldhave been him on that door. In his head, Robert had gone over every moment of the night a dozen times. Morgan had pulled the pistols. Had aimed them athim. The man’s target had been Robbie Green. Would have been had a shout not come from behind him. A woman’s shout. Morgan had looked away, shifting his aim, and giving the three of them enough time to attack him first. The shout had saved his life but had cost them all Bill’s.
It should have been me. It would have been better had it been me.After all, he had no one in his life like Nora Campion. Or Hannah and Prudence. Strong women who loved him. Never had. No one had ever cared for Robert the way they did Bill Campion. No one who longed for his touch or would mourn him if he died. His parents, of course, his siblings. But not like Nora would mourn for Bill. Probably no one ever would, especially if he carried through with plans to marry one of the most frigid women in the country.
Robert squeezed his eyes shut at the thought, which drove the numbness even deeper. In less than twelve hours he was scheduled to meet with the Duke of Makendon to finalize the contracts for his marriage. To discover what the duke wanted from him and his family. To bond him permanently to a woman who would give him an heir of the highest ranking and caliber but who made his teeth grate with the bare scrap of a thought about bedding her.
Then another woman flitted through his thoughts, one warm, intelligent, and kind, whose kisses had seared through him the night before like fiery metal on an anvil.Eloise. What had happened to her?Despite his order, she had not been in the office when they had brought Bill up.Had she slipped away during the fight?
A tap on the door frame of the office scattered his thoughts, but he ignored it. A second tap resulted in a deep growl from his throat, his eyes still shut. “Go away.”
After a moment, a rustle of skirts near his chair made him sigh. “Please go away.”
A soft hand tugged at his. “Robbie. I need to show you something.”
He opened his eyes and looked up at Lucy’s tear-stained face. Her eyes were swollen, the lids red. She licked her lips. “We are all hurting. The girls—we mostly spent the night in the parlor, talking about Bill. I know you are—” She broke off and swallowed hard. “But you need to see this.” She tugged on his hand again.
Robert hesitated, then with another long exhale, he stood and let her lead him from the office. She continued to grip his hand as they descended the stairs and crossed the main floor, past the bloodstains where both Bill and Morgan had lain. Morgan had eventually returned to consciousness and had been carted away by a constable. Robert looked away as he and Lucy entered the brothel side of the establishment. She turned—not in the direction of the parlor—where the women met with clients before taking them to their rooms—but down a dimly lit hallway, then up another flight of stairs. This hall was lined with doors, and she stopped at the third one in.
“This is my room.”
His shook his head. “Lucy, I can’t—”
She put a hand on his chest. “No. It’s not what you think.” She opened the door and gestured for him to step inside.
He did, taking in the eclectic, feminine décor and musky scent. He had never been in any of the women’s rooms—he did not partake of their services—and management of that side of the business fell primarily to Ophelia, who took care of the girls and called on him only for security and difficult clients. Filled with items that were in shades of either lavender or green, the room had been arranged with comfort in mind, with warm blankets, an overstuffed chair and small sofa, and a four-poster bed piled high with pillows and a down-filled comforter, which had been thrown back.
