Lions and Lace Read Free Page A

as if she were facing him, not hurt and crumpled on her bench. "We'll take my curricle out after tea."
    "I'm going to the ball tonight," she said, making one last attempt at defiance.
    "You're not," he said. His eyes lowered to her back where her corseted curves seemed to beckon beneath the jonquil satin. "Oh, the price of avoiding vulgarity," he whispered, sliding a hand to her small bound waist. She bolted away from him, and reluctantly he left, locking the door firmly behind him.
    It was several moments before Alana could gain her bearings. Her head ached abominably, and her vision was still not steady. She looked around the room, its oppressive opulence making her long for the simple white house in her dreams. She would find that man, and when she saw his face, she would know him instantly. He would be the man she could share her troubles with, and her triumphs. He would love her, and together they would build a life. It would all happen one day, she vowed, taking what comfort she could in her reveries. One day she would find happiness, despite Baldwin Didier.
    Yet as much as her spirit rebelled, the locked door was her ultimate defeat.
    She made a miserable figure as she picked up her sister's shattered picture. Margaret soon knocked softly on her door, whispering hushed inquiries about her well-being and begging her to let her in. Helpless and angry, Alana rested against the dressing table, her eyes unable to shed tears. Her only solace was her sister's daguerreotype, and she hugged it to her bosom, unmindful of the way the glass shards caught in her bodice.
    Somehow, some way, there was an escape from the hell her life had become. But try as she could, she couldn't think of one. There seemed to be no other option but the one her uncle presented. Her sister's care was frightfully expensive, more than she could ever hope to earn. And the thought of her sister being reduced to public care and all the horrors that brought with it was unendurable.
    Inconsolable, Alana rested her throbbing head against the dressing table. Her sister had been destroyed by their parents' death. Alana had been grateful for the home in Brooklyn that took such wonderful care of her. Even their uncle had agreed it was the best place for Christabel , considering the alternatives. Now Christabel at least lived out her youth in a tranquil environment, well sheltered from the madness their uncle had created around her.
    In the mirror Alana glanced at the ornate expensive drapery at her windows, then at the red mark Didier had left on her cheek. It was ironic, but for the first time in her life she wondered if Christabel wasn't the lucky one.

Lions
     

     
    Were he not a supreme scoundrel, he would be a great man.
    —George Templeton Strong
    ( on Boss Tweed)

 
2
     
    Wall Street called him the Predator. No one knew if Trevor Sheridan was hated more for his wealth, which seemed to multiply as quickly as the Irish tenements springing up north of the Manhattan toe, or if it was the fact that he was a son of Erin, an enterprising phoenix newly risen out of the ashes of his impoverished homeland. Regardless, New York's elite publicly shunned him. Yet as Knickerbocker society pushed the Predator away with one hand, certainly the other hand was outstretched like a beggar from Five Points in the hope that where Trevor Sheridan went in the exchange, they might follow and be the richer for it. Tonight the Knickerbockers had Sheridan very much on their minds. The Predator had them on his mind also.
    "Do you think they'll come?" Eagan Sheridan asked his brother as the two men stood in the dining room of the house on Fifth Avenue. Mara's debut was to start in less than an hour, and the table had been set for fifty guests. Cobalt-colored Stiegel glass goblets and eighteen-karat-gold-painted Limoges porcelain graced the table. The ten-foot centerpiece consisted of 370 pale-pink tea roses interspersed with bouquets of lily of the valley topped off by an elegant