Lions and Lace (6 page)

She met Sheridan's amused eyes. "I must have my money, Mr. Sheridan. It was unfair of you to take it from me, and I promise you I won't leave here until I convince you to return it."

"Well, I'm sorry, Miss Van
Alen
, of the
Petrus
Stuyvesants
and Thirty-eight Washington Square, you'll have to do better than that to convince me." He leaned on the baroque edge of his desk.

She felt as if she were falling into a great vat of oil, that if she didn't grab something quickly, she and her sister would drown in it. Impulsively she reached out and grasped the satin lapels of his waistcoat. "See here, Mr. Sheridan," she gasped, "I'm sorry for Mara. Truly, heart-wrenchingly sorry! But my God! What is it that's made you perform this act of insanity? We all have those we care about! We can't ruin everyone who might have slighted them!"

Anger hardened his expression. He looked away and said, "For some uncharacteristically foolish reason, my sister believes your set worthy of her company." He turned back to her, and the vengeance in his expression took her breath away. "Mara is a beautiful, warm, and caring young lady. The Knickerbockers will accept her, or I'll use my last gold coin and my last dying breath to see that they do."

Alana was left almost speechless. Sheridan's ferociousness to protect his sister stunned her. If she weren't careful, Alana knew, she'd be lucky to retreat from this man unscathed.

Calming herself, she changed tack. Softly she said, "Both of us would benefit greatly if we could change the situation. You must see that, Mr. Sheridan. Yet the fact is the Knickerbockers don't like you, and whether the reasons for that are right or wrong, we both have to live with them." Despite herself, she began to plead, "So I beg of you—listen to reasoning. You've wrongly taken my fortune, and I must have it back. I must!"

He looked down at her small hands grasping his lapels. That one glance made her want to tear her hands away in fear. She saw something then that she'd never seen in the men in her set. There was an earthiness about this man, perhaps because he'd been spawned from the gutter, but that earthiness didn't translate into the image of gentle, pastoral nature.
When Sheridan looked at her as he was looking at her now, she thought of a lion raging bloody fights for territory or subduing lionesses in the primeval need to procreate.
This Irishman personified nature in all its dark, magnificent fury, and she knew she'd never come up against such a force before. When he covered her trembling hands with his large ones and stared down at her, a taunting quirk to his lips, it was all she could do not to turn and run.

"You feel like ice."

"Let me go," she whispered, unable to meet his eyes.

He refused. Instead he looked down at her wet gown, appearing to take great interest in the way the satin draped across her shoulders. It sent a fiery tingle down her spine. She'd never been perused like this before, as if the man were trying to see her without her clothes, trying to see deep inside her—no doubt all the way to where he thought her barren little heart lay.

Her reaction, though she tried to hide it, obviously pleased him. A small dark smile touched his lips, and he said, "Your dress is quite beautiful, Miss Van
Alen
. I must compliment you on the color. It's the exact color of your skin. You hardly look clothed at all. . . ."

She blushed all the way to the tips of her toes. If her mission with this man hadn't been so serious, she might have slapped his face for such a familiarity. "My dress is not the subject of this discussion."

"Of course.
We were discussing your fortune . . . or lack thereof." He forced her gaze to meet his. "But first tell me—do all you hoity-toity hyphenated New-Yorkers behave in such a ludicrous manner? Demand reparation in drenched
Worth
gowns? Leave your relatives on strangers' doorsteps?
Interesting behavior for society folk."

Embarrassment rose again to color her cheeks. She gave him a censorious look. "My uncle is a vile man, Mr. Sheridan, and you lower yourself when you taunt me with his wretched behavior." She stared at him, and her mouth went dry. His hands were like fire around hers, and she wondered if that was because she was so cold or he so
scorchingly
hot.

"Tell me why he did what he did."

His touch affected her so much, she could barely whisper. "He was drunk. Your ruining us made him go crazy. He thought if I were humiliated, he might gain some kind of revenge."

"And was this revenge also?" He released her, and one warm finger trailed down the soft inside of her arm.

She looked down and saw the bruises Didier had left there. She covered them with one hand, unwittingly showing him the bruises on her other arm. "Please, Mr. Sheridan," she began quietly, her insides dying with shame.

He ignored her and touched her
cheek,
the one Didier had bruised the night of the Sheridan ball. The powder she had used to cover it must have washed off in the rain, and she cringed at what a sight she must present to this man. While his touch was gentle, she couldn't bear to feel it. He was only pointing out another facet of her degradation.

She pulled away his hand and said, "I must ask you to return my money. I'll leave your home and never bother you again. It's not an enormous sum."

"I know it isn't, Alana."

She wondered how he knew they called her Alana, but he already knew so much about her, she didn't bother asking him. With defeat settling around her shoulders like black laurels, she made one last humiliating confession. "My uncle is my curse, Mr. Sheridan. So you see
,
your revenge lacks the sting it might have had. What was done to me tonight is punishment enough. You needn't add to it. Return my money, I beg of you. I must have it."

"If I do, it'll be as if I'd given it back to your uncle."

"But even so, my uncle still pays for Chris—" She stopped herself.

His curiosity obviously piqued, he said, "Pays for what?"

She pulled back, but he gripped her hands anew. Still, she wasn't going to tell him about
Christabel
. And as quiet as they'd kept things, she knew her sister wasn't in that little biography he'd been reading. "Cease this torture, Mr. Sheridan. Tell me what I have to do to get my money back, and I'll do it," she said, shame and fury battling within her.

"My requests would definitely offend you."

He held her gaze. He wasn't smiling. Any other man might have smiled then, even leered. Sheridan looked grave. His coolness scared her. It wasn't that he was unaware of the connotation of his words. On the contrary, his brief heated glance at the flesh pushing over her bodice proved that theory false. Yet he was a master of detachment. His studied nonchalance made her think he was waiting to see which would offend her the most—his "requests" or the fact that they were made by a common Irishman.

"Give me back my money," she
whispered,
an edge to her voice.

A dangerous glint appeared in his hazel eyes. She didn't know what he was going to do next. She knew only that she was vulnerable to him. They both knew it. She was exhausted, cold, wet, and near despair. He could do anything now, ask anything of her, and if he were crafty enough, probably force her to comply.

She suppressed a shiver and lowered her gaze. She looked down at her skirts and for the first time noticed how the wet peach satin clung to her hips and thighs, outlining her shape. Despite the sculpturing of her undergarments and the layers of artfully draped silk, she looked almost naked.

She raised her face to his, desperation etched into her expression. But just when she expected him to
lay
his cards on the table and shock her with his demands, he did the most extraordinary thing. He merely touched her arm and glanced again at the bruises on it. Incredibly, he seemed to soften. "Why do you need that money so desperately, Miss Knickerbocker?''

She stared at him, tears glistening in her eyes. How could she tell him? How could she reveal such a terrible, personal thing to this rude, arrogant man? Her lips couldn't form the words.

He released her and walked once more to the fire. He said, "You may go, Miss Van
Alen
. Forgive me that I don't summon the butler, but at this late hour—"

"Are you not going to return my fortune?"

"Return your fortune?" He smirked. "No, I'm not going to return your fortune. You Knickerbockers owe Mara something for your bad behavior. Now you'll take your punishment and like it."

Her fury exploded. She wanted to hurt him and said the first thing that came to mind. "This won't solve a thing, and do you know why?
Because your fate is written in stone, Mr. Sheridan.
No one has ever changed Mrs. Astor's mind about who the Four Hundred should be. And your filthy manipulations will never make her!"

He grabbed her so abruptly, her teeth shook.
"Nor my filthy money.
Isn't that what you think?"

"Yes," she hissed.

"And if I want acceptance, then I'd better damned well go back to the Irish shanty from whence I came—is that right, Miss Knickerbocker?"

She couldn't answer him for the sob that was rising in her throat. She loathed contention, yet this man could bring out the very worst in her.

Disgusted, he pushed her away. "I'll get Mara into that little society of yours, I swear upon my grave I will!"

"You will never convince Mrs. Astor! Their rules may seem cruel, but they're ironclad. You have to be born into that set. Don't you understand that?" She was no longer taunting him. She was trying to reason with him. She could see the anguish the Knickerbockers had caused, but Sheridan's pain seemed better ended by giving him the brutal, heartless facts, no matter how unacceptable they might be to either of them.

Yet it seemed to make him only more implacable. "There are other ways, and I'll find them."

"There are no other ways.
By marriage or by birth.
That's it!"

He looked as if he might go mad. The truth of her words seemed to frustrate him beyond endurance, and she realized that he had rarely been confronted by such a problem as this—one for which money was no cure.

There was a brief second when he seemed almost ready to let her go, perhaps even to return her funds. He didn't look defeated. In fact, after meeting Trevor Sheridan, Alana couldn't imagine defeat ever crossing those stern features. Yet he was at an impasse. The enormous power his wealth lent him wasn't going to move the obstacle; there was nothing he could do about the Sheridan birthright. He and his family were outcasts in society, and as much as this might be unpalatable, it was also an indisputable fact that he had to know no one could correct.

A log tumbled in the fire. A shower of brilliant orange sparks danced up the chimney, and the flames were resurrected, given one last breath before their final death. She caught herself staring longingly at the hearth, again reminded how weary she was and how cold and damp her clothes were. She must have been looking for a while, for suddenly she realized the room had become ominously quiet. Even the fire had ceased to crackle, surrendering its life with a low hiss.

A tremor went through her. Without glancing at him, she knew he was staring at her, knew it as well as she knew her heart was beating, though she could not see that either. With a reluctance born of fear, she slowly forced her gaze up to meet his.

There was a most astonishing gleam in those dark hazel eyes. An idea was forming in this man's mind, and she knew it was trouble. Sheridan, with his genius for manipulation and revenge, was almost an unconquerable foe. As he watched her like a starved lion viewing his feast, a feast he'd never seen the possibility of or the necessity for, she knew without a doubt that all her problems had just multiplied.

" 'By
birth or by marriage' did you say?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"If—if you think I might find a husband for Mara, I wouldn't know how," she stuttered, backing away from him. That had to be what he wanted—Mara's marriage to a Knickerbocker. Still, she didn't like that glint in his eye by half.

"Mara must only marry for love."

"If you care for her, that's the only way." She stared at him. Why didn't his answer ease this overwhelming, inexplicable panic?

"But
I
don't have to."

She
swallowed,
her throat suddenly dry. "You don't have to what?"

"If I had a Knickerbocker wife, Caroline Astor would be forced to accept Mara."