The Wedding of Molly O'Flaherty (3 page)

It had been tricky. About a month ago, after I’d come to London and grasped exactly how precarious Molly’s situation was, I’d visited my solicitors and set into motion a plan to quietly buy as many shares of O’Flaherty Shipping as possible. Of course, it would look suspicious if one person was snatching up any and all shares that shareholders were willing to sell, so Julian had agreed to help me. Together, we’d managed to carve out almost twenty percent of the shares—which, added with Molly’s shares, gave the three of us forty percent of the company. Not enough to dictate decisions, but maybe enough for the company to survive if the other members of the board made good on their threat to leave.

And then Julian and I had decided not to stop there. Using our old European connections, we discovered a Dutch shipping company that was looking for significant investors to grow its global fleet, and consequently, with a hefty sum and a few signatures, Julian and I were now among the chief shareholders in Van Der Sant Shipping, and we could gift those shares to Molly at any point.

Now, Molly’s former board members would no longer be able to weight the scales quite so much in their favor; between Molly, Julian and me, we now had millions of pounds secured in the business, a metaphorical safety net for Molly should her company crumble and fall.

I still hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

I still hoped she would marry me.

I set down my glass and then stretched myself along the floor next to George, curling my body around his chubby snoozing one, tracing one of his out-flung arms with my hand.

Julian watched me with amusement. “Miss Thomas’s children?”

I nodded, not looking away from George. He was such a perfect little replica of his parents, with Ivy’s darker coloring and black hair and already showing signs of Julian’s distinctive eyes and mouth. Would Molly and I have a child that was so obviously ours? With red hair and blue eyes and my grin and her freckles?

The thought was too painful to entertain for long.

“After Charlotte has the baby, they’re thinking of coming home to Coke Manor for a while,” I said, trying to cheer myself up. I loved my nieces and nephews dearly, and I’d always been close to my brother Thomas and his wife. Thomas and I had grown up with parents who loved us and loved each other and who’d made sure to remind us of those things frequently. So now, as an adult, I naturally craved the happy vitality of family life. When I was a younger man, I’d made something akin to a family in Europe with Julian and Molly and the Baron, but nothing could replace the connection I felt with my blood relatives. The longing I felt to be with them again.

That longing was especially strong, given that I would still be alone and unmarried when I rejoined them.

“How long until our work here is official?” Julian asked, changing the subject back to our new investments.

“I believe our signatures were the last ones required. My solicitor told me I should have confirmation of receipt of shares in two days.”

“We should wait to tell her,” Julian said. “Until things are completely final.”

I opened my mouth to argue. I’d wanted to tell her tonight. I’d wanted to whisper it into her ear as we made love with Hugh’s blasted contract burning merrily in a fireplace next to us. But I couldn’t dispute Julian’s suggestion, because of the damage that could be done to Molly’s fragile sense of hope if the deal fell through somehow.

Besides, it was only two days, right?

“Yes,” I agreed finally. “We will keep it a secret from her until we have confirmation.”

I didn’t mention that Molly’s engagement party was also in two days. It wasn’t her wedding, so in a practical sense, it was no impediment to my plan. But in an emotional sense, I couldn’t bear the idea of her in front of London, celebrating her upcoming nuptials to another man. Couldn’t bear the idea of Hugh clinging to her, of them dancing, of them standing at the door and accepting the effusive congratulations of fashionable acquaintances and near-strangers.

Molly belonged to
me
. The only thing remaining was to prove it.

The Hedgehog hadn’t changed in the sixteen years since I’d been here. There was the great room, fronted by tall windows and studded with one massive fireplace. There was the dining room with its leather chairs and small tables and globed lamps.

And then there were the rooms upstairs.

Large beds. Maroon curtains. Warm fires.

White sheets. Scarlet sins.

Mr. Cunningham did not always use his favorite club for his assignations, but he used it frequently enough that he had a room of his own set aside. I walked through it now, the manager of the club trailing quietly behind me. He was not happy about any of this—the knowledge of what Mr. Cunningham planned to do or my plan to stop it. But he owed something to the Baron somehow—a debt or a favor—and so he had not actively resisted my decisions about his club tonight.

“Does he bring girls back here often?” I asked, placing my hand on the silk coverlet of the bed. I’d meant to run my hands along the silk casually, possessively, as if to reassure myself that I wasn’t scared of this club and I wasn’t scared of the place Cunningham slept. But my hand froze the moment it touched the silk, a hundred terrible memories burning through my chest, memories of blood and pain and the feeling of Mr. Cunningham’s weight pressing me into the mattress…

The manager stood close to the door, and if my face betrayed any terror or hopelessness or anger, he politely ignored it. “He often…entertains here,” the manager said in response to my earlier question. “But nothing like you have described to me. They always appear to be at least one and twenty, or more.”

I believed it. This afternoon, I’d called on the Baron, laying the problem of Birgit before him to ask his advice. And then he’d confessed to me that he was no stranger to Cunningham’s proclivities, and how, as a result of the Baron’s intervention, Cunningham now had to frequent brothels across the Channel to indulge in the services he liked best. So it didn’t surprise me that he stayed discreet here in England.

But if he normally kept to less deviant expressions of his desires, then why this pursuit of Birgit? Why now?

Was it some sort of reverse trap? I’d considered that several times today, but I couldn’t see how he would risk revealing such a seamy part of his character and still hope to withdraw from the trap with his reputation unscathed. No, he was exposing himself with the belief that he was doing so safely, something that revealed how comfortable and complacent he’d grown.

How soft.

I thanked the manager for his time and paid him the promised amount for his silence and for his unusual accommodations tonight. I would undoubtedly be bringing his club undue attention and scandal, and for that I felt bad, but the Baron and I had agreed that this was the only way. This was the clearest path forward; it would be painful and perhaps shameful at points, but in the end, Birgit would be safe and Mr. van der Sant would be convinced both of her virtue and of Cunningham’s depravity.

In fact, the Baron would be here tonight to help me from backstage, as it were, to oversee that the club and all of the players moved according to our design. He told me that he’d long felt responsible for Cunningham and saw tonight as a chance to atone, and frankly I welcomed the help. It felt nice not to be alone.

And, since the Baron had also confessed that he’d known about the connection between Hugh and Cunningham for years, I had the feeling the Baron was eager to make things up to me, which was a kind intention, even if it was unnecessary. His silence on the knowledge wouldn’t have changed things one way or the other, but I understood and appreciated the impulse to atone.

I went downstairs to the dining room, looking for the Baron and ignoring the stares of the gentlemen lounging insouciantly around their tables. The blue-gray haze of cigar smoke couldn’t disguise how very female I was, and typically only one sort of female frequented the interior of such establishments. And even then, she was expected to stay within the private boundaries of the club—the upstairs with its bedrooms and implications of sin. She was not welcome in the dining room.

I
wasn’t welcome in the dining room.

I honestly didn’t care where or where not these men believed I belonged, but I didn’t see the Baron’s massive shoulders or dark hair, and so I decided to go out to the foyer and out the front door, pushing past the irritated footman, who clearly also resented my presence (and my refusal to use the kitchen door in back.)

“This is no place for a lady,” said a soft voice behind me.

I spun around, anger hot in my mouth, and then stopped.

And stepped back.

Silas stood in front of me, his blue eyes twinkling, his roguish grin hooked up to one side. Despite the rainy afternoon, he’d stepped out without an overcoat and he was already in evening clothes, a perfectly fitting black coat and pants with white gloves and a tall black hat, which he doffed now as he bowed to me.

I just stared.

“What is it, Mary Margaret? Is it so strange to see a gentleman at a gentleman’s club?”

“This isn’t your club,” I sputtered. “And besides, you are—”

“I’m no gentleman, yes, yes, I know. But what about Julian and Castor? Are you ready to hurl such insults at them?”

And sure enough, Julian and Castor were rounding the corner now, Castor striding forward confidently while Julian adjusted his gloves. Even though I saw Castor earlier today and Julian yesterday, the sight of my three closest friends in the world made my throat squeeze tight and my eyelids burn hot and wet with unexpected tears.

They must have sensed this, because a moment later, I was in a cage of strong arms and chests. And I didn’t care about how improper it must look for the four of us to be embracing in the middle of the street…in broad daylight much less. I only cared about how, in that moment, I knew that people loved me and cared about me. I knew that no matter how I felt, I was never truly alone.

“We’re here. And we’re going to help,” someone said in my ear. Silas. I remembered other things he’d whispered in my ear, things he’d whispered just last night, and I shivered.

That’s my good Molly.

“You’re here for me?” I asked, my face still pressed into someone’s coat. Julian’s maybe.

“Of course,” Julian said in his graveled voice. “Castor told us about what that wretched man was planning to do, and knowing that he was also the one making you miserable with your company’s future…well, we are all grateful for the chance to put an end to him.”

I pulled back and gazed at them, and I was so glad they were here, and I was also so grateful that they’d come here as they did, to support me without a trace of pity or pride. They weren’t acting as if I were a damsel in distress—because truthfully, today wasn’t about me. It was about Birgit.

A fact which was underscored by Julian muttering something about stopping Cunningham before he could hurt another girl, and the way he said it—and the way the other men reacted—made it painfully clear to me that they didn’t know about my own history with Cunningham. There was no awkwardness, no shuffling feet or dodged gazes. I’d hidden my secret well.

Too well.

Suddenly, I was bursting with the need to tell them, to unload the burden I’d carried since I was fourteen. I wanted them to know exactly
how
terrible he was,
how
hurtful, but when I opened my mouth and looked up to their warm, compassionate faces, I couldn’t. I couldn’t say the words.

“We are meeting Mr. van der Sant for dinner,” Julian said, oblivious to my aborted attempt at confession. “And that’s when we will bring him upstairs. The girl knows what she needs to say?”

I nodded. “Yes, we’ve spoken. She knows what to do.”

Silas was staring hard at me, and I realized that while Castor and Julian hadn’t noticed my small hesitation after the hug, Silas did. I flushed, both with shame and the pressure of his gaze, which was hot and heavy and stirring.

Stop it
, I chastised myself.
You left him alone this morning. You were the one who walked away. You can’t have him now.

But I wanted him. I always forgot how powerfully his presence affected me, his tall frame and his lean body and his dimpled grin. I forgot how much my body could remember, how it could feel every kiss and every caress…

I ground my teeth together and willed my desire under control.

“We should go,” the Baron said, consulting his pocket watch. “Molly, we will see you in a couple hours.”

“You gentlemen go in,” Silas said. “I’m going to make sure Molly gets up to her room without any issue.”

Julian and Castor made their goodbyes and then trotted up the steps to the front door of the club, disappearing into its gloomy depths. Silas turned back to me, his cerulean eyes appraising.

“We should go in the back,” he said quietly, and I agreed. He knew that we couldn’t be seen intimately together, not by influential club members and certainly not in Cunningham’s own club. Not while my contract with his cousin Hugh was still in place.

I let Silas guide me, trying to control my breathing as his hand firmly grasped my elbow—a gesture that reminded me of the way he’d touched me last night, of his hand wrapped around my jaw as he had ejaculated on my face. I followed him as meekly as a lamb. As I never followed anyone, ever. Not even my own father, who’d dragged me to Liverpool kicking and screaming the entire way.

This was what Silas did to me now. He melted me, molded me, and it made me happier and more content than I’d ever been.

But what did that say about me? Was I not truly the fierce and independent warrior I’d always imagined myself to be? Was I something more domesticated? Something weaker?

It doesn’t matter
, I reminded myself.
You will never be with him again.

Except the way he led me now, so assertively around the back of the building and through the kitchen entrance, as if he were leading me to a
bed
and not just a bedroom…well, my cunt responded exactly as my head couldn’t. With undisguised want. With complete and utter acceptance and surrender.

Maybe Silas could sense this, because he didn’t let go of me as we walked into the room that the Baron had arranged for us tonight. Instead he closed the door and backed me against the wall, slowly, like a predator cornering its prey.

And then his hands were on either side of me, caging me in, trapping me. My chin tilted up, not in defiance, but in a primally submissive move to expose my throat. He let out a long hissing breath. “You left me,” he accused.

“You knew I would,” I whispered.

His expression shifted into something harder. “Yes. I did know. That didn’t make it any easier to wake up to an empty bed.”

“Silas, I can’t—”

“Goddammit, Molly!” His hands slammed against the wall next to me, making me jump. But it wasn’t anger coursing through him, it was frustration, and I felt the same frustration, I felt it so much.

“It can’t be any other way.”

He leaned in, his blue eyes searching mine. “Not even if tonight takes care of Cunningham?”

I blinked. “Is that why you’re here? Because you thought this would end his power over the board?”

“Yes,” Silas said bluntly. “And because you needed to lure van der Sant here, and Julian and I were the best way to do that.”

I didn’t understand. “Why?”

Silas took a breath, as if wrestling with whether or not he wanted to explain something to me.

This hesitation stoked a fire in me. “Hurry the fuck up, Silas.”

This goaded him as I knew it would, and his eyes flashed. “Because, as of today, Julian and I are shareholders in van der Sant’s company.”

There was a kind of white noise in my mind as I tried to process this, a noise like wind and water and wheels on a smooth road. “You invested in his company?”

Silas nodded.

“But...how? Why?”

And now Silas stepped back, the authority and anger gone, replaced by something gentler, more urbane. He was retreating into his shell, a shell of charm and smiles that had kept him safe for years. “It’s a long story,” he hedged, taking off his hat and running the brim through his fingers.