Page 9 of Rules for a Bastard Lord (Rogues Gambit #2)

Every bastard has a tale of woe. Don’t fall for it. Unless you want tofall…

B ram’s goal when coming to see Miss Bluebell was to apologize. And to explain his history with charming, manipulative blonds.

Well, that had been his outward goal. Stepping now into her tidy little home—complete with a neat little bed—he realized his true desire hadn’t changed. He meant to bed her and expunge her beauty, her blond curls, and her sweet bow-shaped mouth from his thoughts.

His apology was only for show. Or because his approach had been angry rather than seductive.

“You know,” he said as he shut the door, “you may be a lady, but I am not a proper gentleman.”

“But you can act it, can’t you?” she asked as she crossed to the kitchen.

He followed, happy to explore this small place she’d lived all her life. He saw touches of her everywhere, mostly in the plants set out to dry on every surface and rafter. Her kitchen was really a stillroom.

“You need a shed for this,” he said, gesturing to the lavender that sweetened the air.

“I use Mr. Bray’s shed for much of my work. He lets me have a corner of it in return for helping his wife. She’s overworked with all the children. I bring the lavender here because I like the smell.” Then, after stripping off her smock, she knelt to start the cooking fire.

He moved to her side because he wanted to be near her. When she looked up in curiosity, he shrugged. “Let me make the fire. You get the water.”

She nodded, then set about the domestic chore. She worked efficiently, her skirt swishing about her ankles, and her hair curling sweetly about her temples. There was little enough light from the window, but once the fire was burning, he lit candles, then relaxed to watch her move. Not work, just move. He hadn’t realized until now how her entire body was a symphony of grace. The easy length of her fingers, the upward curve of her smile, and the seductive shift of hips and breasts as she went about her tasks.

He enjoyed himself immensely, his imagination stripping away her clothing until she worked completely naked. Flushed, pert, and strong. She was a woman who had solidity, and in bed she would be an athletic partner, so unlike the frail creatures of the ton .

Her words interrupted his reverie. Not her voice. That was all sweet music. But her words were inconsistent with his fantasy, and it took him a moment to recover.

“What?”

“Yer mother had a protector?”

He nodded. “Still does.” He watched as she absorbed that. Did she understand what he meant? His mother was a courtesan, and he, a by-blow.

“But you went to school with Lord Linsel and others. Sons of the peerage.”

He nodded. “It is not uncommon. My father recognized me as his. Unapologetically.”

“But you are not legitimate?”

“No.” Would she treat him differently? She meant to marry a vicar’s son. Would she turn him out of her house as a good Christian woman should?

She sighed. “That’s a difficult way to grow. Not truly a son, not really a man.” She looked in the direction of the village. “I feel like I spend my life proving I am just as good as them.”

“Better.”

“Wot?” She grimaced. “What?”

“You have proved yourself better. Smarter, more capable, sweeter.” He leaned forward. “You seem an important part of this village. Did they never truly accept you?”

She didn’t look at him. She was busy pulling out tea leaves, a combination from three jars in some mysterious recipe.

“I am loved by my neighbors, sought after by those who have ailments. I know all the village tales and am centered in some of them.” She sighed. “But I aim for the vicar’s son and the living he will have.”

“But there has been a shadow.”

“O’ course,” she snapped, her hands slapping onto the hardwood table. “Always in whispers about me mum. Always remembering I ran with the gypsies and worked with the witch-woman when Mum got sick. Was I to refuse learning when it paid for Mum’s medicines?”

“Of course not.”

She nodded, her eyes bright. “No. O’ course not. But tell that to the pious ones.”

“They won’t hear it.”

“They will when I meet my relations in London.”

He doubted that. Small minds would remain small. They reveled in it. And in the silence, the kettle began to sing.

She pulled herself together at the sound. Her eyes might shimmer from years of suppressed fury, but her hands were steady as she poured the tea.

“Cream? Sugar?”

“None,” he answered. He’d learned to like it dark and strong, and he’d rarely had money for anything sweet.

“Good,” she said with a rueful smile. “’Cause I got no milk. It’d just spoil.”

“Because you’re leaving tomorrow?” It was a guess, but the tidiness in her house spoke of closing down for a trip.

“On the mail coach.” She passed him tea in a plain cup and saucer. “And you were going to tell me about the woman. The blonde like me.”

Had Cara ever been like her? He couldn’t imagine that woman drying lavender in her kitchen or helping a neighbor with her children. Certainly, she’d never had to drag a pig halfway across a county.

“She looked like you,” he said. “And I was looking for a woman, I suppose.” He smiled and gestured to the seat at the table. “Sit down. We cannot share tea with you fussing with the leaves.”

She’d put away the jars but was now searching for something in the cupboard. “I was looking for some biscuits and jam, but…”

“Gone?”

She pulled down a jar of berry preserves and held it to the candlelight. “Mum’s favorite.”

“How long ago did she pass?”

“Spring. Almost a month now.”

So recent? No wonder she was still reeling. He stood up and guided her to a seat beside him. “Tell me about her.”

She shook her head. “What was your blonde’s name?”

He winced. “Cara.”

“And she was faithless?”

“She was a good deal worse than that, though I suppose that was bad enough. I nearly died because of her, and at the time, I was too stupid to see her as the culprit.”

“Hmmm,” she said. “Now, there’s a tale worth hearing over Mum’s jam. I’ll just get us some plates.”

He stopped her, then grabbed the items himself. There were only a couple cupboards, so it was quick work to find what they needed. Then a moment later he sat down beside her and took a sip of her strong tea.

“I like it,” he said in surprise. Most poor households fixed it weak to conserve on leaves, but it was not only strong, she’d done something to give it an orange tang as well.

She smiled in thanks, but didn’t speak. Her eyes told him that she waited on his tale. He nodded, using the delay of drinking his tea to plan out the steps of her seduction.

“You know that I earned money in school by hiring myself to protect the younger boys. School can be brutal on the little ones, the weak ones, and the…”

“And the illegitimate ones?”

He nodded. “I grew early into my height. That helped a lot. By the time I was done at school, I’d gained a reputation for being a protector of sorts.”

“And this Cara, she needed a protector?”

“Yes.” And a keeper. “She came to me with bruises on her face and red-rimmed eyes. She made sure that night that I felt…” He cut off his words. “Are you not hot in that apron? There’s a breeze in here, but you were working in the garden. Surely.”

“She made you feel…?”

“Take off the apron, Miss Bluebell. Get comfortable. It is a long tale.” And getting her undressed was an early step in any seduction.

She waited a long moment, then abruptly untied the cheap muslin rag. It peeled away from her body like a ribbon on a package, discarded in favor of the intriguing gift underneath. She did not discard her apron but set it neatly on a peg. And he got to watch the way her body stretched for the peg and turned—

“Miss Bluebell!” he said in pretend horror. “Are you not wearing a corset?”

She flushed and bit her lip. “I wore one in town this morning.”

“But now?”

She shrugged. “I was working in the garden, and it was hot.” Then she looked down. “I apologize if I offend.”

He laughed in true delight, then when she looked up, startled, he gestured her back to her seat. “Shall I tell you a secret? Men like knowing the state of a woman’s underthings. Most especially if they are not wearing any.”

She snorted in disdain, but her lips curled in a smile. “That was not a gentlemanly thing to say.”

“On the contrary, ladies adore learning men’s secrets.”

“And you were in the middle of a tale?”

She spread berry jam on a hard biscuit. He watched the length of her fingers and imagined where she might hold him. It was a crass thought, and he was ashamed of it, but it was there tall and proud in his imagination.

“Mr. Hallowsby? She came to you with bruises on her face and red-rimmed eyes.”

“I was lonely,” he said. “My friends were on holiday outside London. It was nearing Christmas, and my mother had a new gentleman to entertain. So I sat alone and hungry in my tiny room and thought dark, angry thoughts.”

She frowned. “How dark? How angry?”

“My father had a family. A daughter and two sons. He had plenty of coal for heat and gifts under a tree at the family seat. And me? I was nothing to him.”

“Nothing?” she pressed. “He educated you, he acknowledged you—”

“Yes, yes, but as a by-blow. What is that but to show me what I couldn’t have? All my friends had a life forever denied to me.”

She looked away, and he regretted the bitterness that still infused his words. Was he truly still angry? At a man who had been dead these last two years?

He leaned back in his chair and wiped his brow. “Do you know that my favorite thing to do at home is to take off my boots? I wander barefoot as if I were again in leading strings. Do you not enjoy that?”

Her gaze came back to his. “Barefoot?”

“On a hot summer day? Surely you have—”

“I spent most of my childhood stripping out of shoes and stockings.”

He grinned, then nodded at her feet. “So take them off. Stretch your toes out of those boots. Imagine how it would feel—”

“I couldn’t!” she said, shocked.

He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I promised to be a gentleman, remember? But that does not mean you have to be a lady.”

“I am—”

“A lady, yes, yes. You are. But you can take off your shoes. Go into another room to do it if you like, if you are afraid I will catch sight of your pretty toes. But you are at home. Why not be at ease?”

She frowned. “Are you trying to avoid your tale?”

“Not at all.” Then when she looked at him skeptically, he pressed a hand to his heart. “Upon my honor, I swear, I shall tell you the whole of it.” He hadn’t meant to tell her the full tale, but now that he’d said it, he resolved to do it. “But go on. I’ll be content here as you take them off. I swear I won’t tell a soul.”

She resisted. She had been reared too much as a lady even in this tiny village to do such a scandalous thing. He kept his expression bored as he sipped his tea, pretending that he didn’t care one way or another.

He didn’t think she’d do it, but the breezeless summer heat aided him, even at dusk. “It would be nice,” she said. When he didn’t comment, she flashed him a guilty smile. “I’ll be just a moment.”

She was gone in a flash, around the corner into “the bedroom” of this one room cottage. He heard the creak of the floorboards and imagined so much more.

With her gone, he could adjust his clothing. Nothing but her sweet honeypot would ease his erection, but at least he could hide it better. And when she returned, he was mopping his brow with exaggerated movements.

“Mr. Hallowsby, I had not thought how uncomfortable you must be. Did you wish to go outside? There might be a breeze—”

“I will stay here. But would you mind terribly if I took off my coat?” Thank God he had no waistcoat today. He hadn’t wanted to risk it on another encounter with an irritated country animal.

“Please, sir. But only if you continue your tale.”

“Of course,” he said as he stripped to his shirtsleeves. “Much better. Thank you.” Then she settled in her seat, and he tried to see if her toes appeared. In this he was disappointed. Every part of her lower body remained hidden beneath her skirt, but he could be patient.

“Where was I?”

“Alone on Christmas and bitter angry.”

“It wasn’t quite Christmas, but close. Then came the knock at my door.”

“Cara with her bruised face and tears.”

He nodded, remembering that night. He’d thought her a beautiful porcelain doll horribly abused. “I’d spoken with her before, but I hadn’t expected her to appear. She was one of my mother’s associates.”

“Another courtesan?”

“A talented one. But she’d chosen the wrong protector, and he’d beaten her because she was pregnant.”

“My God,” she whispered, her hand pressed to her mouth.

“I don’t think it was true,” he said gently.

“But she’d been beaten.”

He nodded. “She cried in my arms. She whispered that she’d heard stories of who I was. She called me such heroic names.” He felt his lips twist in a mockery of a smile. “She had read the tales of King Arthur too. Or at least knew I had.”

“Did she call you Gawain and ask you to avenge her?”

He shook his head. “Lancelot. She cast herself as Guinevere, tied to another, when her heart belonged to me.”

She frowned. “You knew her well?”

“Not at all,” he said, “though she had a way that made even an hour in her company feel like we had been the closest of lovers since childhood.”

She leaned forward, her brows drawn tight. “I cannot believe you are that romantic.”

“I wasn’t. I didn’t think I was. But…” How to explain? “She said everything I wanted to believe about myself. That I was righteous despite being born a bastard.”

“Were you a fanciful man?”

Why didn’t she understand? “It was Cara. The way she spoke to me, the way she clung to me, the way…” He cut off his words. The way she had stroked his cock and begged him to use it. To satisfy her yearning, just that once. Then again and again…

He cut off those thoughts, not wanting to bring that filth into this place.

“Do you know,” he said, “that in the Bible there is a tradition of washing feet? When one enters a household, the lady washes the guest’s feet—”

“With her hair. A woman washed Jesus’s feet and dried them with her hair.” She tilted her head as she studied him. “Are you asking me to wash your—”

“I never thought that, Miss Bluebell. But have you ever had it done for you? Has anyone ever bathed your feet?”

She blinked at him, obviously bemused by the question. “Is this something Cara did for you?”

He shuddered in true revulsion. Though why that act would horrify him, he hadn’t the foggiest idea. “My mother used to do it for her gentlemen. She said it took away the dirt and left everything clean for both her and the man.” He shrugged. “She found it soothing, she said.”

Miss Bluebell stared, clearly not understanding.

“Let me show you,” he said.

“Wot?”

He laughed at her shocked face. “Have you never put your bare feet in the stream and let it wash your cares away?”

“Of course, but—”

“Let me please, Miss Bluebell. It eases me as well.” He smiled, making sure he looked as innocuous as possible. “My mother taught me, and I assure you, it’s a wonder for both man and woman.”

“Washing feet?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. There was sacredness to the act. “And it’s in the Bible, so you know it is holy.”

“I doubt the vicar would agree.”

“He would if he had a beautiful woman washing his feet.”

“But I’m not—”

“Trust me.”

She shook her head, but he didn’t listen. He had seen the washing basin, and they had not used all the water in the kettle. So he added water to boil and pulled out the basin.

“Mr. Hallowsby, I cannot think this is proper,” she said in her stiffest accent.

“It is in the Bible, Miss Bluebell. And I swear no one will know.”

“No one would believe it,” she said. “You, a London gentleman, washing my feet? It cannot be.”

“There you are,” he said, all smiles. “Come, come, where is the bold woman who dragged a pig across the county? You cannot be afraid of a little soap and water.”

She didn’t fear soap and water. He could read the war in her expression. She knew she should not indulge him, and yet she was intrigued. Fascinated. Maybe even hungry for a man’s touch anywhere, including her feet.

That was the way with virgins. Everything was a temptation because most everything was denied They lived a constant game of should I or shouldn’t I? His task was to make the most dangerous indulgences appear innocent.

She fixed him with a level look. “Are you avoiding the rest of the story?”

He looked away. “Mayhaps. A little.”

“Tell me how she betrayed you.”

“Miss Bluebell, how many ways can you betray a man?”

She thought about that, her even white teeth chewing on her lower lip. “She bedded other men. Not just her protector, but other men as well.”

He nodded. “But I expected that. She was a courtesan under someone else’s protection. I could not afford her. Exclusivity with a courtesan is expensive indeed.”

It took her a moment to understand, and she colored a dusky rose as the simple businesslike nature of the rutting became clear. He was impressed. She caught on faster than most virgins would.

“But you loved her. And she went back to her violent protector.”

Had he loved Cara? The kettle began to sing, and he lifted it off to pour water into the basin. There was enough cooler water in the barrel that he didn’t need to run to a stream, thank God. And soon he had the basin filled at a perfect temperature.

“Where is the soap?” he asked.

She stood and grabbed a cake from a cabinet. “It is lavender. I made it a few weeks ago.”

He brought it to his nose and inhaled deeply, but he kept his eyes on her. “Lovely,” he said, making sure his gaze said he was thinking of her.

She laughed, the sound high and tight. She knew he was playing a game, but she liked it nonetheless. Then, lest he think she was completely cowed, she pressed him with that awkward question. “Did you love her?”

“Will you let me bathe your feet?”

She hesitated, and he waited. Two heartbeats. Four. Five.

“I will if you answer all my questions.”

“All!” he said in mock horror.

“Every one. As it pertains to this story of yours.”

He dipped his chin. “Very well.” He settled on the floor by her skirt. He pulled the basin forward and rolled up his shirtsleeves. She was looking at his forearms—probably at the scars that decorated his arms—and while she was distracted, he reached forward for her—

And stopped. Her hands blocked him, holding him back until he looked up into her gaze. “I know this is indecent, my lord. I am not a fool.”

“I never thought you were.”

“You shall wash my feet and no more.”

“Of course,” he lied. There would be much more. After all, according to an apothecary his mother frequented, the Chinese had a whole system of medicine based on just the feet. And though he could make no sense of the diagram she’d shown him, he did understand how to make a woman moan by just touching the bottoms of her feet. “I swore to act as a gentleman.”

“And then warned me that you would not.”

True enough. So he looked up and gave her his most charming look, one perfected as a boy. It held mischief and daring, and never failed to make the women laugh.

Except…she didn’t. To his surprise, she let go of his left hand to touch his face, stroking a lock of hair from his brow. “Are you always charming when you hurt?”

He blinked. “Charm is used to get one’s way.”

“And to hide wounds.”

He shook his head, reluctantly dislodging her fingers. “To prevent them.”

“Then tell me if you loved this Cara.”

He swallowed. “I was young, and she was a skilled courtesan who went to extra effort to enlist my sympathies. Of course I fell in love.”

“And she did not love you back, though she pretended to.”

He frowned. Had he really been so naive as to expect love from Cara? He supposed loyalty at least. Even young as he’d been, he knew she was not a creature prone to love.

“She healed from the worst of her injuries in my bed. She cried as she touched me, and her kisses tasted of salt.”

“Could she cry on demand?”

He laughed, though the sound wasn’t even remotely light. “Most assuredly.” And on those words, he escaped her lax fingers and began to lift her skirt.

There were her feet, white and slightly clenched. She sat perched on her heels with her toes pressed into the floor. As if every part of her, except her feet, were straining toward him.

He raised her skirt higher, revealing the sturdy line of her shins and the fleshy curve of her calves. Higher still, and at such an angle that he could peek…

Her thighs were pressed together, tight and afraid. And when he set her skirt on her knees, he rested his hand on her lap to still the vibrating tension he felt there. “I am just washing your feet. It is in the—”

“In the Bible, yes, I know.” She readjusted her skirt to cover her knees, but not before he saw an old scar across one from a deep cut. “How did she betray you?”

“She told me about the man who had beaten her. She told me his habits and his weaknesses. She did everything but say the words aloud.”

“What words?”

“Please avenge me. Please hurt this man for hurting me.”

“Oh. And did you?”

He nodded, unwilling to dwell on how stupid he’d been. Always before, his protection had existed in a world he’d known, people at his school, children who had a hard time thinking of devious plots.

He said nothing more as he lifted up her foot, gently straightening out the toes, and when she fidgeted because it tickled, he made his touch stronger. Firmer. And as he set her foot into the water, she sighed in delight.

“Oh, that feels good.”

He grinned as he guided her other foot into the basin. And as he knew would happen, the shift of her weight off her feet forced her to lean back in her chair. A couple swishes of the washcloth later, her knees relaxed. She still held the skirt in place, but there was plenty of time.

“I waited for him outside of his club,” he said, surprised that he continued the tale without prompting. “I didn’t know the man. He was an older gentleman, but I’d seen the cut across Cara’s lip from his signet ring.” He frowned. Knowing now what the traitorous bitch had done, perhaps that part wasn’t true either.

“Were you furious?”

“I meant to speak with him. I had some innate respect for my elders, and this man was double my age.”

“Forties, then? Some might say the prime of his life.”

“He was a strong man, that’s for sure. When I said I was Cara’s friend, he sneered at me.”

“Did you become too angry to think?”

He looked at her in surprise. “I am always controlled.”

She shook her head. “A man who is always controlled has lost that control sometime in his past. Was this the time?”

He nodded slowly, realizing now how correct she was. He’d lost his temper other times, but never in such a violent fury. Cara had painted the man as the blackest villain possible and he’d been too stupid to realize his mistake.

“He called me vile names,” he said. “When I said I was her friend.” His words cut off as he choked back a laugh. “I have called her much worse since then.”

“You avenged her. She’d been beaten by this man. She might be a whore, but she didn’t deserve—”

“She lied. She was blackmailing him. Everything she’d said was a lie.”

“Oh.”

“I was too besotted to investigate.”

“I’ll wager you never made that mistake again.”

He looked up sharply, seeing the sympathy in her eyes, but also a kind of worldly humor. She was a virgin, for God’s sake, an innocent. And yet in this, she saw deeper than he did. Clearer.

“I—” he began, but he had no words.

“You were a besotted young man, and you got it wrong. That is how young men learn to be wise.”

“How can you understand this?”

She shrugged. “You know I worked with the witch-woman. She taught me about possets, yes. But mostly, she showed me how to speak with the hurt and grieving. And one of the things she said was that the young are always stupid. That is how they become wise.”

He nodded, trying to see his past as a mishap of the young.

It didn’t work. He’d been a man grown, though still stupid. And whereas the wealthy and the protected could make idiotic mistakes, he was neither. But rather than say that, he focused on her feet. He had been washing off the summer dust, but now he lifted a foot, rubbed it with soap, then began to knead.

She was clearly a woman who walked. Her callouses were thick, as was the strength in her muscles. That made it easy to use his full strength as he rubbed into the spaces between her bones, the hollows of arch and ankle.

He heard her breath catch as he dug his thumb into tight places. And he heard her sigh in delight as the knots began to release.

“Don’t stop talking,” she said, her words breathless.

“There isn’t much more to tell. I beat the man to avenge something that wasn’t true. I walked away and proudly told her what I had done and received my reward.”

The memory of that night of debauchery made him nauseous. He’d spent his last coin to buy them a feast of wine and meat. She’d eaten those sure enough, but what she’d adored were the sweets he’d purchased for dessert. And while she’d licked cream off her fingers, he had feasted on her.

“The next night Cara told me about an earl who had hurt her more than once. And the next night, another lord had insulted her. She was thirsty for revenge, and I was enamored of being her knight avenger.”

“Did you do it? Did you hurt them in her name?”

Bluebell’s voice was strong, though hushed. Which meant she was not seduced yet. So he applied himself to her other foot, bringing it forward into his lap, though he avoided the thickest, most insistent part of him.

“I would have, though not the earl. He was nearly eighty years old.”

“Definitely too old.” She might have said more, but at that moment, he pressed into the arch of her foot. Hard and sharp, as his mother had taught him, and he felt a tremor go through her body before she moaned in relief.

“I never got the chance,” he said. “Thankfully. I was coming home one evening when the son of the first man I’d beaten found me. Him and four of his friends.”

“Oh no.”

“Worse, I knew him. He’d been a fair man in school, though a few years older. He’d once helped me defend a boy, and so I’d counted him a friend. But he was a younger son, so I hadn’t realized the connection until too late.”

“He hurt you?”

“Worse. He told me the truth. He told me that Cara was blackmailing his father. And that the blackmail wasn’t even true.”

She snorted. “All blackmail is true. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “There is truth, and there is scheme. She claimed James’s father had buggered a boy so hard, the child bled to death. There was no evidence but her whispers. And as the man was in the House of Lords, the scandal could have ruined him.”

She gasped, and too late he realized he was speaking to a woman. He should guard his tongue better. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should not—”

“I know what it means.”

He blinked, startled. “But… How?”

“The witch-woman taught me a great deal.”

He shook his head. “I am sorry you know these things.”

“Be sorry for the boy, whoever hurt him.”

He nodded. He was. He was more sorry that he had beaten the man without knowing if any part of it was true.

“James’s father refused to pay and may indeed have hit Cara for suggesting such a thing.” He swallowed, then set to tugging on each of her sweet toes. “Cara sent me to teach him that there were consequences to not paying.”

“And his son came to teach you that there were consequences for listening to Cara.”

He nodded. “They whipped me.” Three words that could not convey the depth of the pain. He’d nearly died from the ribbons they’d made of his back. He had wanted to die when he realized that Cara had lied to him. “It was a message to her, and she…”

His voice cracked. He felt as if he stood apart from himself, wondering why he struggled with the tale now. Compared to her lies and the things she stole from his flat—this next part was nothing. And yet, it burned still.

He felt Miss Bluebell’s fingers on his face. The caress across his jaw and the brush of her thumb across wetness on his face. A splash from the basin, of course, but she stroked it away as if he had cried.

“Tell me it all.”

He looked into the clarity of her blue eyes and poured out the last. “I had broken ribs, you understand. And I was bleeding from the whip. I stumbled home.”

“Was she there?”

He nodded. “I hadn’t expected her to be a nursemaid, but…” He had to take a breath. He had to focus on the darkness of her pupils surrounded by a blue more vibrant than the sky. He had to look at that before he said the last. “She left me.”

She blinked, and then her eyes widened. “Just like that? She left?”

“I told her what James had said. I asked if it were true.”

“And?”

“She sniffed and threw a tantrum.”

“Wot?”

It was that break in her language that drew the smile from him. It made him feel as if he were speaking directly to her soul and not the facade of a lady. Somehow that made it easier.

“She said that I had insulted her and stomped off. I discovered later that she’d robbed me too.”

“The blighter!”

His smile widened. He loved her accent, he realized. Every missed h , every rough cant. He loved it, and in thanks, he rubbed deeper into the hard places of her foot.

“She took a watch that my father had given me. And a silver candelabra from my mother.”

“I hope you got them back. After you mended.”

He grinned. “Oh yes. I got them back.”

“And wot of Cara? Did you beat ’er?” She sounded bloodthirsty, which made him laugh. But he shook his head.

“No. By the time I discovered the full truth, it was too late for Cara. She’d tried to blackmail half the ton , and they had banded together to oust her from their ranks. She wasn’t allowed in any of the places courtesans go to meet protectors. She couldn’t even buy goods from reputable merchants. It had already begun when she’d come to me. I was her last resort.”

“So she was the maker of ’er own end.”

He nodded. That was certainly true. “By the time I found her again, there was little left of the woman who’d used me so cavalierly. I took back what was mine and left her.”

“But is she still there? In London, preying on other young men?”

“No,” he said. What came at the end was ugly and hard, but no more nor less than what happened to many courtesans. “She became a back-alley tart and from there, a gin sot. She died of the pox.”

“I don’t know whether to be grateful or sad,” she murmured, echoing his thoughts.

“Do not think of it at all anymore,” he said—more to himself than her.

“But you thought me like her,” she said, outrage in her tone.

He looked up, seeing the crown of her blond hair, the purity of her skin, and the honesty in her expression. “I cannot explain myself,” he said truthfully. “You two are nothing alike.”

Except that he wanted her as fervently as the young man he’d once been had wanted Cara.

“I would never do that to anyone. I couldn’t even imagine it.”

He arched his brows. “Oh, surely you could. Surely in your darkest moments you’ve thought of blackmail.”

“No—”

“You are privy to all the county’s gossip. I’ll bet the witch-woman knew—”

“She was a good soul!”

“Of course she was. It is not one’s thoughts that determine good and evil. It is one’s actions.” He let her think on that while he maneuvered her legs so that he had better access. Then he leaned forward.

“Shall I tell you a secret?”

She nodded, her eyes lighting with interest.

“I have thought of the money I could make in blackmail.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I did not.”

“Why not?”

Because he remembered Cara. Because he saw where she had been leading him, and he’d sworn never to be duped again. But mostly, because it was easier to make an honest living than it was a false one. Blackmail only led to complications. It was an illusion of easy wealth, paid for daily in watchfulness and fear.

“Because it was easiest to wait for Dicky to betray me.”

She frowned. “That’s a ’orrible time. Waiting for yer friend to betray you.”

He shrugged. “It pays well. And I already knew that Dicky wasn’t my friend.”

She shook her head. “Still horrible.” She made a point of saying her h , and he smiled.

“It’s important to know who your friends are,” he corrected.

And while she was nodding, her expression relaxed and open, he took his reward.