O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,41

protested. “There is someone I do not wish to see!”

As if by magic, or perhaps by ghostly intervention, the heavy chain about the door handles simply fell away and the door opened a crack.

“This is beyond ridiculous,” Oliver noted. “Surely you can see that we are being managed?”

“I don’t care,” she answered. “If my options are facing him or hiding in a derelict building, I will gladly take the derelict building!”

And with that, she pushed past him, disappeared inside and Oliver was left to either follow her or abandon her to a potentially dangerous fate. In truth, the latter wasn’t an option at all. Who knew what might be lurking inside, after all? In a city like London, where housing was hard to come by and very expensive, squatters in buildings that were empty or under construction were not uncommon. Easing the door open a bit further, he stepped inside. No more than two steps into the building, he heard the chain slide back into place. Turning back to the door, he attempted to push it open, and it was as if it were both locked and barred.

“Damn and blast!”

“What? Did he see us?”

Oliver glanced over his shoulder to see Elizabeth standing there. Her face was white and he could see the tension in her features. “To my knowledge, no one saw us… but now this door is locked behind us and unless there is another way out, we are well and truly stuck here. Who was out there, Miss Burkhart? Who are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of him,” she insisted. “I just… well, it’s just a part of my past I’d rather not have to confront. The last thing I need to do is bump into William Satterly and have all of society gossiping about it.”

A pang of what could only be jealousy washed through him. And he asked a question even though he desperately feared the answer. “Do you love him still?”

She turned to him then, her expression one of shock and then a rueful laugh escaped her. “I never loved him at all. He called it seduction, you know. And it was… but he didn’t seduce me into his bed. He seduced me into believing that he was anything other than a libertine. And when I wouldn’t go to his bed, the seduction was quickly abandoned and his true nature was revealed in the most violent and foul manner. And then I discovered that it was all because of a bet he made with my cousin… a Marchebanks from Derbyshire. Your neighbor.”

That was why she’d run the previous night. Because of his unwitting connection to her past and those responsible for her pain. “And despite the fact that he committed this heinous act, you don’t fear him?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think he will hurt me. No one has bet him that he can, and so there’s no incentive for him to do so. And frankly, he prefers young girls. Not women of my age. I simply didn’t want him to see us, or anyone to see him and I together. I can’t abide the thought of making things more difficult for Lillian.”

“Your daughter,” he said, recognizing the lie in her pretty excuse. “Your daughter who is married to a viscount and will one day be a duchess. I daresay, Miss Burkhart, that whatever you do, her position in society is quite secure.”

She looked away then. “Fine… I don’t wish to give her a reason to regret letting me be in her life after so long. I wasn’t—I didn’t—” She stopped then, looked away from him, drew in a deep breath as if the thing she were on the verge of saying was simply horrendous. “I left her. When she was a baby. I left her on Satterly’s doorstep… I was careful to do so when I knew his mother would be present so that he wouldn’t simply ship her off to a workhouse or something even worse.”

He didn’t judge her. Having been spared the dubious blessing of being raised as part of the nobility, most of his life had been spent in America, in cities that were growing at a rate that was simply staggering. The poverty that was rampant there had been something that was impossible to remain ignorant of, and if there was one thing he knew, women who had children out of wedlock almost always found themselves impoverished. Society had a tendency to punish only the vulnerable.

“Why?” he asked.

“What do you mean