And mopping up the aftereffects of last night’s disastrous raid. Only two of the seven girls had been rescued, and those almost by sheer luck; the rest had been spirited away before the group could find them, vanished into the very bowels of Chinatown where they might never surface again except as downtrodden prostitutes.
There had to have been an informant. Someone had known their objective and had given the tongs enough warning that the slave traders had taken extra and early precautions. It hadn’t done any good to move the raid up by one day. None at all.
Liam’s jaw tightened as he walked into the restaurant lobby. No use in repeating last night’s attempt; the raiders must completely change their methods of operation if they were to get the tongs off guard again. And Liam could not be the one to make those changes. Not after tonight. All of that must be put behind him.
Because, after tonight, his oath to Edward Gresham would be fulfilled. The thought brought him little satisfaction.
After tonight Mac would be out of his life.
“M’sieur? May I be of service?”
The Poodle Dog’s maître d’ approached him with a diffident step, recognized him, and asked him to make himself comfortable while a waiter was summoned to show him to his room.
The first-floor dining room, always popular, was crowded with respectable couples and families; far too public a place for a proposal.
Liam’s room was on the second floor. More private, but still eminently respectable. He’d be waiting when Amelia Hunter delivered Caroline, all proper and correct.
Caroline would certainly not know what went on in the rooms on the upper two floors—floors reserved for… less reputable assignations between men of wealth and their paramours. She would be fully occupied in his. There would be a quiet dinner by candlelight, the proposal free of interruption, and then…
A waiter, circumspect as all Poodle Dog employees, arrived to lead Liam to the elevator. The man made no comment as the contraption made a rattling ascent to the second floor—and beyond, to the third. Even then it did not stop.
“There must be some mistake, my man,” Liam said impatiently. “I am to meet a lady—”
The waiter’s face remained impassive, but his eyes held a glint of knowing amusement. “Yes, sir. A lady, on the fourth floor.”
If Caroline had been brought to the fourth floor, there certainly had been a mistake. The elevator doors opened on a plush, carpeted corridor. Gas lamps were turned very low. The place stank of genteel decadence.
The waiter led him down the hall to the room at the end. Liam knocked once, opened the door, and stepped inside.
A woman rose from the velvet couch where she’d been sitting and turned to him. A woman taller than Caroline, more slender, her hair the wrong color…
“Mac! What the hell are you doing here?”
The door closed discreetly behind them.
“Caroline asked me to come,” Mac said, a little too quickly. “She said the three of us would be having dinner together.”
A coldness washed through Liam, followed by raging heat. “Perry,” he growled.
Mac didn’t flinch, didn’t show any sign of guilt. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Have you finally seen Perry? Where did he go?”
He ignored her question. “Let me understand you.” he said, moving farther into the room. “You claim that Caroline asked you to come here.”
“That’s what her note said.”
For the first time Liam noticed Mac’s gown: it displayed more décolletage than anything he’d seen on her before, and it hugged her figure like a second skin.
“Caroline,” he said, “would not have asked you to accompany her. Not after last night.”
They stared at each other, a lightning-flare of purely physical awareness arcing between them.
Her skirt rustled as she came toward him. “I didn’t intend to hurt Caroline—if she did see us.”
He snorted. “Have you been in a place like this before, Mac?”
She blinked at his change of subject. “Not exactly.”
“Do you know what people do in this room?”
“Eat, I suppose—It is a dining room, isn’t it?”
“A very private one.” He circled the room until he was almost behind her.