Chapter 4

Seven O'Clock That Same Day

Io was flabbergasted when she stepped out of New York's headquarters for the Ladies Aid Association—a necessarily vague euphemism for the organization given Anthony Comstock's obsession and the current political climate—and discovered that the street outside the filthy building, which had been quiet when Io had entered, was now raucous and crowded.

How in the world had the entire day gotten away from her?

Well, she knew how, because she had crammed two years' worth of her volunteer work for the LAA into one day. Her job was to distill the information the association collected on subjects like nutrition and health, childcare, and contraception, among many other subjects, into pamphlet-length articles.

Today she had spent three and a half hours with a female physician to draft an updated pamphlet that would accompany the condoms Io would distribute under the umbrella of their sister agency of the LAA in England.

After that, she had spoken to a journalist who had spent four hours outlining the current movement spearheaded by Comstock.

Both the doctor and journalist had left hours before, while Io had stayed on, furiously scribbling.

She now wished that she had left with them.

Io backed up to the door as she studied the almost Boschian scene before her.

The cacophony of dozens of saloons, all with pianos playing different melodies, made it difficult to think.

There were people everywhere, and apart from a few ladies of the night, all of them were rough-looking men.

Men who were exhibiting more than a little interest in Io's sudden appearance.

Perhaps she should go back inside the building until she could decide how to hail a cab. Not that it looked like one could make its way down the congested street.

Io turned and knocked on the door. She had been the second to last to leave. The last was the woman who cleaned the building and had waited with poorly veiled impatience for Io to clear off so she could finish her work and go home.

When nobody answered, Io knocked again, harder.

"You lookin' for somewhere to stay the night darlin'?" The voice came from so close to her ear that she felt hot breath on her neck as a large hand closed around her shoulder and spun her around.

Io's hand, the one that hadn't been knocking, had already slipped into her satchel and closed around the hat pin she kept for exactly this sort of occasion.

Without pausing to think, she yanked it out of her bag and jabbed it into the man's hand.

He screamed and immediately released her.

Io pressed her back against the door and stared up at her aggressor, who was a mountain of a man dressed in a vulgar plaid suit.

"You bitch!" he shouted, clutching his bleeding hand and glaring from it to Io, his expression one of disbelief.

Io raised the hat pin before he could gather his wits. "I'll do it again if you don't go away and leave me be."

The man's eyes narrowed, and he reached behind him. When his hand reappeared, it held a knife as long as Io's forearm. "You'll do what I say, or I'll give you a taste of this." he brandished the glittering blade, which looked better cared for than anything else about his person.

Don't show fear—and don't even feel it—because a feral dog can smell it.

"Step away from me right now or I will make a racket to wake the dead," Io snarled.

His eyes widened. And then he laughed. "And who would care, even if they heard you?" He gestured to his right, where a lounging group of young men eyed her with predatory interest. "Do you think those lads will save you?"

"No. But I will."

Io's head whipped around at the familiar voice, her jaw sagging when she saw Corbin Masterson scarcely a foot from her tormentor.

Where had he come from?

Not that Io cared. She could not recall a time when she had been so happy to see another human being.

The man in the suit cut Masterson a disparaging glance, his posture shifting subtly when he took in the expensive clothing. "And who might you be?"

"The man who is going to pay for your evening's entertainment." Masterson held out a large denomination bill. "Take it and leave the lady alone."

"Why don't I take it and the lady?" he asked, eyeing Mr. Masterson. "And I'll have whatever else you've got in that fine coat o' yours." He leered at Io. "Then I can wet my dick and my whistle."

Mr. Masterson's hand came out from inside his coat holding a pistol, which he pointed—Io noted with interest—at the other man's groin, rather than his head. "It will be difficult for you to enjoy anything at all if you do not take my offer and leave."

The bully's hands shot up, his eyes wide. "Hell! Don't shoot, friend. You'll get no trouble offa me."

Masterson crumpled up the bill and threw it into the street. "Go."

The man scowled but turned away just as the boys who'd been lounging pounced on the money.

The fight broke out so quickly Io couldn't have said who threw the first punch. It spread like a keg of gunpowder touched by a match, even as she watched.

A large hand closed around her upper arm. "Come with me. Now, my lady," Masterson added, dragging Io in the opposite direction from the rapidly escalating brawl.

Io wrenched her gaze away from the melee and hurried to keep up with Masterson's far longer stride. All around them, people seemed drawn to the noisy altercation, even though they could not possibly know what it was about.

"Why are they running toward a fight?" she demanded breathlessly, needing to run, herself.

Masterson ignored her, his eyes darting around, the hand not holding her arm still in his pocket.

Io wanted to jerk out of his grasp but knew it would be foolish as he was all that stood between her and rape or worse.

And so she shut her mouth and kept up as best she could, almost weeping with relief when he led her down a street, to where several rickety cabs were gathered.

***

Not until they were inside the least reprehensible-looking cab and rolling north did Corbin turn to the woman across from him. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Lady Io's face, which had been pinched with fear as she'd trotted after him, rapidly shifted to her characteristic—at least with him—haughty expression. "Why were you following me?"

Corbin could not believe this woman! "Do you want to get raped?" he demanded coldly. "Is that another experience you'd like to try? Because if I had not been there tonight, rape is probably the best thing that would have happened to you."

Her jaw worked furiously, her eyes incandescent with rage and something else—fear, perhaps. When she opened her mouth, Corbin expected her to tear a strip off his hide.

Instead, she said—in the most grudging tone possible, "Thank you for getting me out of that bind."

Corbin did not trust himself to respond he was so bloody mad.

Calm down,some still rational part of him said. The way to handle this woman is not with anger.

"Why were you following me?" she repeated.

The urge to grab her, turn her over his knee, and spank her until she sobbed slammed into him like a fist.

Corbin blinked, horrified by the violent vision.

Where had that come from? He had never raised a hand to a woman in his life!

"Did Zeus put you up to this?" she asked.

"What?" he snapped, still dazed from his brief but intemperate fantasy.

"I asked you if Zeus tasked you to follow me."

He couldn't help noticing that she used Hastings's given name even though she knew the duke hated it. Or probably because he hated it. Corbin would not put it past the woman.

"Or was it the meddling, superior Edith who told you to stalk me?" she went on when he didn't answer her first question.

Corbin gave in to a petty, stupid impulse he knew he should resist and said, "Miss Barrymore is a lady. As such, I doubt she could ever conceive of behaving in such a foolish, common, and thoughtless way as you have done today."

Her eyes glittered in the dimness of the cab and when they passed a streetlamp, he saw her cheeks were stained red.

"I'm sorry," Corbin said stiffly, ashamed by his ungentlemanly outburst. "I should not have said that. It was unkind and cruel." He could not lie and say it was untrue, however.

"Please do not apologize. That was the first genuine utterance to come out of your mouth since I met you, Mr. Masterson. I am grateful for your candor."

Corbin kept his mouth shut.

"So," she said when it was obvious he would not reply, "It was Zeus who sent you to follow me."

"Yes."

"I suppose you will run and tattle to him when we arrive at that gothic monstrosity that he calls home?"

Corbin's entire body heated at her scorn, but he refused to be drawn.

"I daresay Zeus will curtail my allowance once you relate the events of today? Or perhaps he will even beat me for my disobedience? Lock me in my room. Starve me until I submit and become a real lady like Miss Barrymore."

Corbin had not believed he could get any angrier. He'd been wrong. "I have known your brother for most of my life," he said icily, "and your words do him a grievous disservice. Never have I seen John Hale raise his hand to any woman, child, animal, or subordinate. Nor would he deprive you of food or water or hold you against your will."

Something that looked like contrition flickered across her face but was quickly replaced by a stony glare.

"It was my understanding that you and your siblings took a vote—as is the Canoga way," he added, unable to keep a hint of scorn from his words, "and that you all decided to accompany His Grace to England. Is that not true?"

"It is true," she bit out.

"In return, the duke agreed to provide allowances for the two years you reside with him. Do you think Hastings is the sort of man to go back on his word?"

"I met my brother scarcely a month ago, Mr. Masterson. I hardly know what sort of person he is."

Corbin was exasperated but amused by her correction. "I will tell you, then: John Hale has never gone back on his word in his life. He is a ma—a person—of integrity and it is of paramount importance to him to honor his promises." He narrowed his eyes. "But what sort of person are you, my lady?"

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you agree, along with your brothers and sister, to give the duke's offer a fair chance? And yet you have done nothing but rail against every proposed change to your life—from clothing to manners to behaving in a way that does not shame your family or jeopardize your own safety. That hardly sounds like a fair chance to me."

Her lips twisted and he suspected she was chewing her cheek to ribbons not to lash out.

Corbin took a deep breath and forcibly gentled his tone. "Your brother is about to enter British society at a level that is only one step below royalty, my lady. He is offering you and your siblings an opportunity that only a handful of people in the world will ever have. All he asks in return is that you behave with enough decorum that none of you are excoriated by your peers, the public, or the press."

She suddenly leaned forward until their knees were touching. "Are you saying that providing information about contraception and disease to poor women is a matter for excoriation?"

Corbin had his own opinions about gently bred women penning incendiary literature and handing out johnnies on street corners but kept them to himself.

Instead, he said, "Has your brother forbidden you from supporting any of your causes?"

"No," she said with an annoyed moue. "But I am sure it is only a matter of time."

Corbin ignored that last part and said, "You knew that what you were doing today would draw fire or you would not have crept from the house at dawn. Why didn't you take your maid with you to lend you respectability and a footman to protect you? Why didn't you travel in one of the several carriages His Grace has left at your disposal? Why didn't you—"

"I have already left Canoga, the only place I have ever known," she broke in, her voice shaking with emotion. "In a few weeks we will leave New York and the United States behind. I am abandoning everything. Before I go, I just wanted to spend a day reminding myself that life is not only ball gowns and jewels and rich dinners with thirty courses. I wanted some time to remember who I am before I am completely and utterly swallowed up by who I am supposed to be."

Her voice rang out in the cab, her breathing ragged and her eyes glittering, not only with anger, but also, he suspected, with unshed tears, making him feel like the worst sort of bully.

Corbin opened his mouth to apologize for his harsh candor, but the cab jolted to a stop. He glanced out the window and saw, with no little astonishment, that they had come all the way across town and were home.

Lady Io made no move to exit the cab. Instead, she was staring at him, her eyes huge and her expression pensive, obviously waiting for some response to her heartfelt declaration—and not an apology, either. No, he knew that she wanted some sign that he comprehended her fears about the future. Some acknowledgment from him that he understood what a terrifying change all this was.

Coward that he was, Corbin wrenched his gaze away, opened the door, hopped out of the cab, and held out a hand. "Come, my lady. There is still time for you to dress for dinner."