Cast in Ice (17 page)

Nick sat in his dark and empty room and stared out the window. The moon was full tonight, the sky clear enough to count a million stars. But he didn’t care much for counting stars. He didn’t care much for doing anything. His mind was too numb, his heart too broken to do anything.

The glass in his hand was empty again. He lifted a decanter of brandy from the floor beside his chair and filled it. He hadn’t had so terribly much to drink, only enough to dull the ache. And to decide what the best course of action would be.

They were leaving in the morning, and Winnie had ignored him since their conversation in the gazebo. She’d taken her evening meal in her room that night, and he hadn’t bothered her. She’d been visibly shaken from talking about her mother.

He didn’t know exactly what she was involved in, but she needed money for more than just to keep her mother wherever she’d put her.

If only she would trust him. If only she would confide in him. But so far, she hadn’t trusted him enough to accept his help.

Nick lifted the glass to his mouth and took another swallow. He hadn’t seen her all day. She hadn’t left her room, and even when he’d knocked on her door and asked to see her, her maid Tilly told him she was resting and didn’t want to be disturbed.

He missed her. He was worried about her. He wanted to talk to her, and assure her that everything would be all right. That he would take care of everything if she would just trust him to help her.

But, she’d not only stayed in her room all afternoon, she’d taken her evening meal in her room, too. Of which she’d barely touched anything on her plate, according to Cook, who was worried about her, too, and didn’t mind saying so.

Nick leaned forward in his chair and anchored his elbows on his thighs. He turned the glass in his fingers and watched the liquor ripple with each turn.

He didn’t know how it had happened, or when. But he’d come to care for her more than he ever thought he’d care for any female. Especially the daughter of nobility.

He thought of his mother and his father. Of the life they’d led. The choice his mother had been forced to make—life as she’d always known it, or happiness. He always swore that if and when he ever fell in love with someone, it wouldn’t be with someone whose father held a title. Yet, that was exactly what he’d done. He’d fallen in love with a lady whose father was a bloody duke.

He took another drink from his glass, then looked at the clock on the mantel. It was nearing two o’clock in the morning. Far too late to go to her. Far too late to disturb her. Far too late to try to convince her to let him help her. And yet…

He paused with the glass midway to his mouth when he heard a noise at his door.

Muted light from the candle she held illuminated her enough so he could see her fragile outline.

She stayed in the open doorway, neither stepping back out into the hallway, nor stepping into his room.

Nick knew if he didn’t invite her in, she’d turn and leave. “Come in, Winnie,” he said, standing beside his chair and turning to face her.

She stepped inside his room and closed the door behind her. With a shaky puff of air, she blew the flame out and they were in the dark.

“Am I disturbing you?” she asked, then laughed softly. “Of course I’m disturbing you. It’s the middle of the night. I should go.”

“No. Don’t leave. Come here.”

He walked to her and took her hands. He placed her unlit candle on the nearest surface, then led her back to where he’d been sitting. She shivered in his arms, whether from the cold or from nerves he didn’t know, so he took a cover from the back of the chair, then brought her down with him when he sat. When they were settled, he draped the cover over them and held her on his lap.

“Here,” he said, handing her his glass of brandy. “Take a sip. It will calm you.”

She didn’t argue, but took the glass and brought it to her lips. She took a small sip, then handed it back to him.

She looked up at him with a frown on her face, then wrinkled her nose. “Do you like it?” she said after he’d settled her closer to him.

“The brandy?”

“Yes.”

“I do. Don’t you?”

She shook her head. “No. I could never understand why my father and brothers drink it. It burns going down, and tastes terrible.”

“You have to develop a taste for it. As you do most liquors.”

“Oh,” she whispered, relaxing against him. “Perhaps I should have another drink,” she said.

He smiled. “Are you trying to develop a taste for it?”

“No. I just like how it makes me feel.”

“How’s that?”

She took the glass from his hand and took another sip. “Warm. Different.” She took another sip, then gave the glass back to him. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?” she whispered.

“Why are you here?” he asked, brushing his fingers through her loose hair that cascaded over her shoulder.

“Because I need you to hold me,” she answered. “Because this is the last night we’ll have together, and I want to spend it in your arms.”

A heavy weight settled in the pit of his stomach. “You sound as if after tonight we’ll never see each other again.”

“That’s possible,” she whispered.

“Is that what you want?”

He felt the muscles in her body stiffen, and she reached for the glass in his hand and took another drink. “You know it isn’t,” she said, handing the glass back to him. “But sometimes what we want and what we get are two different things.”

“I know you’re in trouble, Winnie. Let me help you.”

“How?”

“Tell me where you’ve taken your mother and I’ll make sure everything works out for the best.”

“The best for whom?”

“For all of you. For your father, and your sister, and your brothers and their families.”

She was silent for a while, then she breathed a heavy sigh. He was certain she was going to ask for his help. Certain she was going to allow him to take the burden from her shoulders. Instead, she asked him a question he wasn’t expecting.

“What’s your connection to
The Soiled Dove
? Why are you going there?”

It was his turn to take a drink from the glass of brandy they were sharing.

He thought about not answering. His reason for going there wasn’t widely known. Only Mack knew the real reason he went. But he didn’t see a reason to keep it from Winnie. She, more than anyone would understand.

“My reason for going to
The Dove
is Lady Jenny Belden.”

Winnie sat forward. “Jenny Belden? Didn’t she suffer an unfortunate accident several months ago that killed her? A carriage accident? Or a horse riding accident? I can’t remember exactly.”

“Yes, she died several months ago. Almost a year, to be exact. Only she didn’t die from an accident. She took her own life.”

Winnie’s eyes filled with shock, then sadness. “Why? What would make a young lady with her life ahead of her take her own life?”

“Because of what happened to her at
The Dove
.”

Winnie lifted her hand and tenderly touched his cheek. “I’m sorry. Was she a special friend of yours?”

He shook his head. “Not of mine. Although I had met her several times. She was a special friend of my niece, Lord and Lady Rummery’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth. Lizzy. She and Jenny had been friends forever, and they were introduced to
The Dove
by several other young ladies and gentlemen of the
ton
. They didn’t know the risks they were taking by going to
The Dove
. Just like you. They only craved the pleasure
The Dove
provided, and thought the masks they wore the height of excitement. Until Jenny lost her money. Plus a great deal more.”

Nick swallowed past the lump that formed in his throat each time he thought of the innocent young girl Jenny had once been. “More than she could pay back without going to her father and admitting how she’d lost the money.”

“Which she couldn’t do,” Winnie answered for him.

“Which she couldn’t do.”

Nick took another drink from the glass of brandy. Winnie drank after he did.

“Lizzy and her friends combined their money, but they didn’t have enough to cover Jenny’s losses. Then, Ellsworth gave Jenny the choice of going to the third level, and earning back her losses.”

Nick closed his eyes to block out a picture of what it had been like for such an innocent young girl to stand before a crowd of jeering, drunken lechers, and have her physical attributes described in coarse and disgusting terms.

“Jenny didn’t know what Ellsworth meant when he offered to let her earn back her losses, so she readily accepted his offer. She didn’t think she could go to her father for the money, so she agreed to be auctioned off. Until she realized what was happening. But by then it was too late. The man who bought Jenny raped her, then left her.”

Nick took a large swallow from his glass. It was difficult to talk about what had happened to Jenny. She wasn’t the only innocent young lady Ellsworth and
The Soiled Dove
had ruined. Virgins brought the highest prices. They made them the most money.

“She took her own life because she couldn’t live with what had happened to her, didn’t she?”

“Yes.” Nick rubbed his hand up and down over Winnie’s arm. He needed to touch her, needed to assure himself that he’d saved Winnie from being harmed in such a way. “A ferryman found her floating in the Thames. I doubt her parents will ever get over her death.”

“And you intend to make sure Ellsworth doesn’t get his hands on another innocent young lady,” she said, as if she could read his motives.

“Yes. And rumors are just surfacing that Ellsworth and Willard are involved in sex trafficking. They are kidnaping young girls off the streets, mostly from the East End where another innocent young girl losing her virginity is hardly noticed. After they’re ruined, they release them back to the streets, where they have no choice but to continue down the path Ellsworth and Willard have forced them to lead.”

Nick drained the brandy that was left, then reached down and picked up the decanter from the floor. Winnie took it from his trembling fingers and filled their glass, then Nick lowered it back to the floor.

“If you know what they’re doing, why don’t you shut them down and have them arrested?”

“Because I don’t know the identity of the third owner of
The Dove
.”

Winnie looked up. “There’s someone else?”

“Yes, and from what Jack and I have discovered, the third owner is a member of the
ton
. That’s the reason
The Dove
caters to the nobility. That’s how word travels concerning
The Dove
.” Nick lowered his gaze and looked at her. “How did you learn about
The Dove
?” he asked.

“I heard about it at Lady Winstead’s ball. It was the first ball of the Season, and everyone was abuzz with rumors of a new gaming hall that was open to anyone with ties to the nobility. It also allowed females—in fact, encouraged females―to be part of its clientele.”

“So you became a member,” Nick said, taking the glass from her hand and taking a sip.

“Yes.”

“Because you needed the money you could win at the tables.”

She stiffened at the mention of the money and the inference to her mother. He handed the glass back to her, then took her free hand in his and held it.

She grasped his fingers as if they were a lifeline that would save her.

“I know your mother is alive, Winnie, so there’s no use denying it.”

When she took a larger sip of brandy than her usual modest sips, he took the glass from her hand and placed it on the floor. He didn’t want her to have liquor as an excuse as to why she’d said things she hadn’t intended to say. “I won’t ask you where she is because I know you won’t tell me. But what I want to know, is how you managed to get her away.”

For several long seconds, Nick didn’t think she was going to answer him. Until she took a deep breath and released it as a sigh of resignation.