Page 1 of The Courtesan’s Protector (About An Earl #4)
PROLOGUE
1805
T he first time Campbell Ripley saw Jane Kendall, she scarred him.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Robert “The Beast” MacDougal scarred him.
He’d fought MacDougal before. Several times, actually. They were billed as bitter rivals on the boxing circuits, written about in breathless terms like “vicious”, “violent” and “possible to witness a death in the ring”. It all brought in eyes and money and a certain fame. Ripley didn’t really hate him, though. He didn’t hate anyone he fought.
That didn’t mean he held back on his swings, and this fight was no different. He shifted his weight as he caught MacDougal with a hard cross that rocked the other man back and cut open his lip. The sight of the blood trickling down his chin made the crowd go wild, but they each ignored that, eyes still locked on each other.
They pivoted in the middle of the ring, trying to lock back in on the correct distance for a good blow. And that was when Ripley saw her .
She was standing amongst the rowdy crowd in the front row just over MacDougal’s shoulder, her hand tucked into the elbow of a man. She was one of the few women in attendance, but that wasn’t the only reason she stood out. She was stunning, with pale blonde hair like straw and dark eyes whose color he couldn’t place from this distance, but he found himself wanting to know. She had a long, slender neck and a beautiful face that a greater man might have painted, but Ripley could only gawk at.
And that was when MacDougal caught him with a hard right that threw his head back, slashed across his left eyebrow and brought a black rim around his vision that usually meant unconsciousness was about to visit. His eyebrow split open immediately and blood began to gush from the cut, streaming down his face and leaving a metallic taste in his mouth.
MacDougal gave a wide smile as Ripley lunged forward to grapple with him so he could regain a little composure. He had to get his mind back in the game, shake off the cobwebs. He shifted MacDougal with a great shove and then swung a combination of lefts and rights that sat MacDougal back and finally down where he struggled to get up and eventually waved a hand to concede.
The crowd surged forward as the promoter of the bout lifted Ripley’s hand. Ripley grinned and spat out some of the blood that had gotten into his mouth, but he found himself searching the wild crowd for the lady who had so distracted him in his fight. But she was lost to the cheering, drunken masses. Gone. But as he reached up to touch the deep cut across his eyebrow that would very likely become a scar, he knew she wouldn’t be forgotten.
* * *
1806
T he second time Ripley met Jane, it was at a far more pleasant gathering. The Donville Masquerade, an underground club built for sin more than cards or other entertainments. It had been a year since the fight where he’d first laid eyes on her. As he’d expected, the eyebrow had healed with a bright white slash of a scar across his brow, but women always cooed over it. Men, too, if one were honest.
Here at Donville those coos usually led to a fuck. Tonight, though, as he sat at one of the tables near the back of the main room of the club, a drink in hand, he couldn’t seem to muster up the interest in a fuck. At least, not with the men and women who shot him glances or bought him drinks and called him the Dragon, which was his fighting name. Not a one caught his eye.
Until she did. The crowd parted, almost as if the sea was being pushed aside, and there she was. The woman from the fight twelve long months before.
His breath caught as he stared at her. She was as lovely as she had been a year before. She had a different man on her arm now than she had that night. And her gown was certainly far more revealing. It was a gauzy pink so lowcut that it just barely covered her nipples. She was all fine lines and porcelain skin that he wanted to touch so badly that his palms itched.
She didn’t wear a mask like so many of the ladies in attendance and he realized she was likely a lightskirt or a courtesan. He didn’t care about that, of course. He lived in a world of people who made their money from their bodies, him included, so to judge anyone else who did the same would be the height of hypocrisy.
She glanced at him, almost as if she could feel the burn of his even stare, and when her gaze found his, he saw her take in a little breath. Her lips parted and she wetted them before she jerked her face back toward her companion. Ripley smiled. It seemed the lady recalled him, as well. Or at least wasn’t entirely immune to him.
He pushed away his half-finished drink and stood. He’d have to be careful about this. If she was a courtesan and the man beside her was her protector, he didn’t want to harm her arrangement. A woman could be ruined by a bad separation. He knew that fact far too well.
But if this was just a man paying for her company for the night…well, that was another story. He’d interrupt that without any trouble. Pay her double for her time if she needed extra incentive.
She glanced toward him again and then leaned into the man at her side, whispering to him. Her partner looked a little annoyed, but then he nodded and started off toward the back of the room where one could obtain drinks and other refreshments.
Ripley smiled and took the opportunity she had just given him. He crossed the space between them in a few long strides. She had been watching him with every step and she pushed her shoulders back a fraction when he reached her.
“I thought he’d never leave,” he said softly.
The corner of her mouth quirked a little, but she blinked up at him, all innocence as if she hadn’t just made this moment possible. “Oh? Do we know each other?”
He snorted out a laugh. “Ah, so it is to be pursuit. That’s fine, I like pursuit.” He straightened his jacket a little. “Do forgive the intrusion, miss, but I saw you across the room and couldn’t bear to miss the opportunity to come meet you. Will you allow me to introduce myself, despite my very forward behavior?”
Her eyes widened a little at his suddenly polite manners. Ones that didn’t fit his rough Yorkshire accent, crooked nose and scarred face. But he’d been taught well and could fit in when he needed to do so.
“Oh, I know exactly who you are, Mr. Campbell Ripley.” She smiled a little. “Or should I call you the Dragon?”
“Ripley is fine,” he said. “But you most definitely have me at a loss. I’ve seen you before, a very long time ago. But I never got your name—you slipped away before I could. A little like a French fairytale.”
“Except Cinderella wasn’t a whore.” Her brow wrinkled. “Though she did make the most of a fine gown and a lost slipper.”
He couldn’t help but laugh, though he realized she was putting him on notice of her position in life. Just in case, he supposed, that would put him off. Intelligent.
“At any rate,” she continued, lifting her gaze to his. The eyes he had been picturing for nearly twelve months snagged his and he realized they were a dark blue, like a fine sapphire. “My name is Jane Kendall.”
“Miss Kendall.”
“Jane,” she corrected.
“Jane,” he said, letting the name sit on his tongue. He motioned his head toward her companion who was now making his way back across the space toward them, drinks in hand. “And who is he?”
“ He ,” she said with a sigh as she glanced at the gentleman, “is my every Wednesday night.”
“Ah,” he said, and looked at the man. He’d seemed to get caught up by some acquaintance he was now talking to, though he kept looking at Jane and Ripley with a thin-lipped expression. “What kind of man is he?”
She shrugged. “Temporary. As they all are in the end. But he isn’t cruel and he pays well to have someone on his arm. In the end, though, I know it doesn’t really matter who. He just doesn’t want to go home to his wife.”
“I understand,” Ripley said, and glanced down at her. Their gazes met and she sucked in a little breath. Like she could see through him for a moment, see that he truly did understand, from a deep place he normally kept to himself.
He shook his head and reverted to playfulness to break the tension. “And what do you want?”
She didn’t smile, but held his stare for a long moment. “For it to be worth it. The times when there isn’t much pleasure. When I have to pretend it’s what I desire. I want that to be worth it in the end.”
His lips parted at that honesty, one he was having a hard time matching. It turned out he didn’t have to. She broke the intensity of their connection as she smiled, this time with falsity, at someone just behind him.
“There you are, Gregory, you naughty boy. You took so long with the drinks.”
Ripley turned and realized her lover had returned. His lips were still pursed a little as he looked Ripley up and down. “You seem to have entertained yourself just fine.”
She took one of the glasses from her companion’s hand and motioned toward Ripley. “I think you are a follower of pugilism, my dear. You must know Campbell Ripley. The?—”
“Dragon,” her companion said, annoyance fleeing. “I thought you looked familiar. I was in the crowd when you beat Tank Lewis.”
Ripley inclined a head. “He was a great fighter. His recent death was a tragic loss.”
Death in the ring, no less. Ripley’s chest tightened. There were good ends for men like him, but there were a great deal of bad ones, too. He supposed it was the same for women like Jane.
“Oh yes, I heard he died. Seems he found a fighter that was even more of a match than you. Wish I could have been there to see it.” He extended a hand. “Gregory Vaughn at your service. I’m cousin to the Duke of Bowerly.”
Ripley supposed that was meant to impress him. It did the opposite and he removed his hand from the gentleman’s as quickly as he could. “I think I’ve interrupted your evening enough. Thank you for allowing me to meet your…friend, Jane. I hope we’ll bump into each other again.”
She met his eyes. “I hope we shall, as well. Good night.”
“Good night,” he returned, and watched as she guided away the pompous arse who would have the pleasure of her company. He watched her for a very long time as she glided through the crowd. When she glanced back at him over her shoulder just once, his heart stuttered.
It was remarkable just how attracted he was to a woman he’d seen twice in the span of twelve months. Talking to her, learning her name and the color of her eyes had only made that attraction stronger, not weaker. There was something fascinating about her. Something of strength that called to his own. It was born from pain, he knew that like he knew his own face in the mirror.
He shook his head. Lord, he was being so maudlin. That definitely meant he needed a fuck and to forget the pretty woman whose presence had so disrupted him not once, but twice. But even as he began to scan the room for quarry, he knew somewhere deep in his locked-up heart that it wouldn’t be quite so easy to do that. Even though it should be.
* * *
1810
T he third time Ripley had met Jane they saved a life. Well, that wasn’t quite true, either. It wasn’t the third time they’d met. They had seen each other often in the four years that passed since he learned her name. Over that time he’d watched her in hells like the Donville Masquerade as she danced by in the arms of various men unworthy of her smile, even temporarily.
She’d come to some of his fights, both with lovers and on her on. He grew accustomed to finding her in the crowd there, smiling at him as his hand was lifted. Or offering silent support when it wasn’t.
She’d even attended his final fight a year before. He’d retired, taken his money and started up a boxing club for gentlemen in the heart of one of the best neighborhoods in the city. They flocked to him, begging him to teach them skills he’d taken a lifetime of pain to develop. And he took their money and had made himself richer than he ever had from any prize earned from a match, even his championships.
But even though he and Jane had danced around the edges of each other, they’d never gotten close. He avoided her, truth be told, beyond brief conversations and those bewitching smiles. It seemed she did the same. And why not? Neither of them was a fool, after all. She very likely could see the danger getting close could create as easily as he could.
So she had become a friendly acquaintance. And if he looked for her in every hell and pub he went to? Well, that was just him passing the time.
Just as he was that night at the Painted Pony, a hell that was far more rundown than the Donville Masquerade. There were fewer rules here, too. Women weren’t as protected. A fact proven when Ripley stepped outside to take a piss and there in the alley was a man, pinning a lady up against a wall. His hand was on her throat, her eye was already swelling and she was clawing at his hand, trying to push him away. From the torn state of her gown, it was evident he had already attempted or even succeeded at getting what wasn’t freely offered.
There was a red anger that settled on Ripley at the sight. It was a memory as much as a reality, and one that had made him want to fight from the time he was a child.
“Oy, get off her,” he barked as he started across the alleyway toward the couple.
The man hardly glanced at him. “Stay out of it, you. She owes me more than she gave and I’ll take it one way or another and get me money back for my troubles.”
The woman struggled, still gasping for breath as her green eyes found Ripley’s in wild terror. “No, no.”
“She said no,” Ripley growled, and caught the man’s arm to pull it away from the lightskirt.
The bastard turned and made the entirely foolish decision to take a lazy swing. Ripley caught it easily, shoved the man back and then threw his famous right hook at full strength. It hit with precision and unconsciousness was the immediate effect. The fool hit the dirty alley ground in a heap.
The woman had already started to wobble away, but she was slow in her fear and potential injury. She staggered and hit the alley wall, making little sounds of terror and pain that were likely from some far deeper place than mere physical injury.
Ripley could have left her. Or simply called her a hack and sent her somewhere else. But the look of her, tangled and dirty and trying not to sob made him think of another woman. Another life. He couldn’t abandon this woman if only because he’d always wished someone would come to the rescue of the other.
“Miss,” he murmured, approaching her.
“No,” she whispered, and raised her hands, swatting at him.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised, and reached for her.
To his surprise she darted out a fist and caught him on the jaw. The punch wasn’t perfect or practiced, but it had heat behind it. His jaw stung and that was something.
Her eyes went wide and she lifted her hands to cover her face, as if she feared he’d hit her back. Not the worst assumption considering what she’d already been through. Instead, he caught one of her hands and lowered it.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated, as calmly and firmly as he could. “But you’re in no state to get home. Let me help you. I’ve a rig just up the way. Where can I take you?”
She looked him up and down, uncertain and trying to determine his character with little clues. She glanced back toward the man in the alleyway. He was starting to stir now. Swear a little. She shivered.
“I’ll go with you,” she whispered. “But I don’t want you to?—”
“I won’t,” he said. “My promise won’t mean anything until I keep it. Come on.”
He had a phaeton, which he only ever took to places like the one he was at now when he might need a way to escort someone back to his home above his club. Tonight he was glad to have it for a far different purpose. When they reached it, the lady allowed him to help her up and she settled herself as far away from where he would sit as she could.
“I’m Campbell Ripley,” he said as he grabbed the reins and knickered at the horses to move. She relaxed a little when he needed both hands to drive the vehicle.
“I know that name.”
“I was a fighter,” he explained.
She nodded. “Yes. A—a champion.”
“I was,” he said. “But now I’m just a man who’ll need to know how to get you someplace safe. Will you tell me where you live?” She hesitated and he turned his attention fully to road ahead so she wouldn’t feel ogled. “Or the home of a friend if you prefer me not to know where you stay.”
She was silent for a long moment and then gave him an address. He didn’t speak as he drove her along, and though he still felt her tension and her fear and her pain, she seemed a little more comfortable.
As they neared the place she had told him, she glanced at him. “My name is…” she hesitated again. “Esme. I’m Esme.”
“Esme,” he repeated gently, and looked at her from the corner of his eye. “How badly are you hurt?”
She touched her face. The eye the bastard had punched would bruise. He had the impression that had never happened to this woman before. Perhaps she was new to the game. Though she certainly knew how to throw a punch by nature, at least.
“I can’t answer that question,” she said on a shaky breath. She waved toward a small building. “That’s the one.”
He pulled the rig to a halt and got down. She was already trying to climb down herself, but as she did so she lost her balance and slipped. He caught her with both hands and supported her as she tried to recover herself. Before she could, the door to the home where they’d stopped flew open and a woman raced down.
“Esme?” she called out.
Ripley jerked his head up and stared, for he knew that voice. Jane came to a halt and stared right back.
“Ripley?” she said, blinking in shock.
“Jane?” he said in return.
Jane shook her head and once again her attention turned to her friend. “Oh, Esme,” she burst out, and rushed forward to grab Esme’s other arm.
Esme collapsed against her a little, the tears beginning to fall and her breath coming shorter. Jane glanced at Ripley over her head. “Help me get her in, will you?”
He nodded and together they entered the small home. Once inside, Jane nodded toward a parlor off the entryway. “Wait there, if you will. The hallway is too narrow for all three of us to pass like this.”
He released Esme and watched as Jane shored her up and took her down the hallway, whispering soothing nothings to her as she went. He drew in a long breath and then entered the parlor Jane had referred to. At last, he felt like he could look around and so he did.
The place was small, but there was a touch to it that made it feel like home. There were two worn chairs before the fire and Ripley took one to wait and then got back up when he realized he’d sat down on some needlepoint. He pulled the piece from under himself and looked at it. It was a very pretty piece, a bouquet of flowers, and nearly finished. Was it Jane’s? He had a hard time picturing her as a handiwork person. But then again, most women were taught such things and he had no idea of her past. Of her life beyond those brief glimpses at hells and fights where both of them were playing the role others expected.
He set the piece aside on top of a book set on the small table between the chairs. He tilted his head and looked at the title. It was a gothic romance that was all the rage at present. He had never been a great reader, though he could read. His mother had insisted on that.
“Ripley?”
He pushed to his feet and faced Jane as she entered the room. “Is she badly hurt? I didn’t want to push her too much.”
“She’s bruised and battered,” Jane said with a frown pulling down her lips. “But I think it’s the heart hurt that stings the most. She cried herself out pretty quickly after telling me most of what happened.”
He nodded. “I think I might have been too late for the worst of it.”
“No, you saved her from the very worst. Dead is worse,” Jane said, and shivered as she crossed to a painted sideboard across the room. She poured herself a whisky and did the same for him. When she brought the drink to him, he saw her hand was shaking.
She sat in the chair beside the one he had vacated and he returned to his own. They sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments.
“What’s her story?” he asked at last.
Jane glanced at him and for a moment he thought he saw a flash of something in her eyes. It was gone before he could identify it, though. “The same as most of us, I suppose. She ran from something at home. I found her on the street, ready to get herself into worse trouble without even knowing it. I couldn’t save her from everything, though.” She looked at the door.
“I don’t think it’s your place to save her from everything,” he suggested.
She sighed. “I suppose not. She doesn’t come from our life, though. Our kind of past.”
He nodded. They’d never discussed their pasts, but he’d always guessed they had a similar one. Poverty and pain often recognized each other.
“She does this work,” Jane continued. “She is good at it. I mean, you look at her pretty face and of course men want her.”
Ripley blinked. He hadn’t really given much thought to how Esme looked, beyond her injuries. He supposed she was pretty, now that he considered her. But nothing compared to Jane.
“How long has she been doing this?”
“Months.” Jane sighed. “She hates it most of the time, I think. But how else can women like us make it?”
Ripley found himself touching his jaw. It was a little tender from where Esme had punched him earlier in the night. “She cracked me after I took care of the bastard who did that to her.”
Jane’s eyes went wide. “Did she?” She smiled. “Good girl.”
He laughed a little. “It was a hard punch.”
“That’s a compliment coming from the Dragon .”
He shrugged. “I’m not opposed to compliments. Given or received. I wonder if she might want to learn to throw that punch with more purpose.”
“From you?”
“Yes.” He took another sip of his drink. “I run a boxing club now, for toffs with nothing better to do than spend their money pretending to be rough. Well, some of them aren’t so bad. But I also train fighters who actually compete. Including a few women.”
She drew in a long breath. “Esme as a fighter?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “One punch landed well doesn’t mean much. But at the least she would have more options in her arsenal for the next poxy fuck who tries to hurt her.”
Jane’s lips tightened. “And at the most?”
“Perhaps she’d find a different way to support herself if she hates doing it from her back so much,” he said softly. “Making money from your body can come in many forms.”
“And the life isn’t for everyone,” Jane agreed with a sigh. “Let me give her a few days and I’ll…I’ll talk to her about it. Bring her by your place to let her see for herself if she wants to try.”
“Do you need the address?” he asked.
She stood and he did the same. “No, Ripley. I already knew about the club. I think it’s wonderful you’ve been able to find a different way out. Through. You should be proud of yourself.”
He felt a ripple of that pride work through him at her words. As if her offering him that allowed him to accept it instead of brush it off because it felt too sharp and breakable. They stared at each other a long moment and then he smoothed his jacket.
“I-I should leave you to your friend,” he said. “And I look forward to hearing from you—er, her—er, you both, soon.”
She smiled and motioned him to the door. There they both paused and she stared up at him, those dark blue eyes focused entirely on his face. Her stare froze him there, unbreathing, as if that would disturb the moment.
“Thank you for saving her,” Jane said softly. Her hand came up, her fingers stroked over the roughness of his cheek. And just as he’d always known when he pictured her touching him over the years since he’d first seen her, it was heaven. It was heat. It was everything.
But she pulled away and broke the stare before it could move to anything else. “Good night.”
He nodded. “Good night.”
And then he left her, his hands shaking, his heart beating hard in his chest. He drove away and everything that had told him he had to be very careful about this woman screamed even louder now after he’d felt her touch.
If Esme agreed to his suggestion that she learn to fight, he and Jane would be closer than ever. He’d have to figure out how to maintain distance if he wanted to survive that unscathed.