Page 2 of The Courtesan’s Protector (About An Earl #4)

CHAPTER 1

1812

J ane Kendall stood in the middle of the shop and looked around, wondering at the fact that it was hers . After a lifetime of roughness and pain, a life she’d accepted and even enjoyed from time to time, this new venture still felt…odd.

It was her friend Esme’s fault. Though Jane supposed she couldn’t call her Esme anymore. She was now the Countess of Delacourt, after marrying her earl just a few months before. Esme was back in Society where she belonged. Jane was happy for her.

But she also felt such…loss. Of her friend, of her regular life. She never said it, of course. Esme and Delacourt had so kindly helped her, she didn’t want to be ungrateful. And yet she was… bored by being settled. Bored and out of place.

The bell on the shop door rang as it opened and she jerked herself back into place and time. She forced a smile to her face, one that fell as the woman who had entered on a gentleman’s arm glanced at her. She knew the lady. Intimately. It was the Viscountess Bowerton and the gentleman with her was her husband.

She swallowed and stepped forward. “Welcome, my lord, my lady.”

The woman halted in her steps and stared at her a moment before she turned up her nose without acknowledging Jane and walked away to look at a few items on a display closest to the door.

“Good afternoon,” the gentleman said, oblivious to the tension between the women. He looked around. “You must be Miss Kendall. I think you took over the place from Old Weasley a few months ago, yes?”

She nodded and glanced at the viscountess again. “Er, yes. I assume you were a patron of his. I hope I shall provide the same service that he did.”

From across the room, the viscountess snorted. Her husband looked at her, his lips pursing, and then nodded and went to the other side of the room to browse alone.

Jane’s heart was pounding. She hadn’t run the shop for long and though she had considered the fact that a former lover might, in fact likely would , one day come through her doors, it was quite another thing to actually experience it. And to have it be Elizabeth Bowerton, a fine lover but not a particularly nice person even when they’d occasionally met for sex years before…well, that made it all the more uncomfortable.

She fiddled with some items in a display case in front of her, half-watching the viscountess as she huffed around the store. At last, she glanced over her shoulder at her husband and then stomped over to Jane. She glared at her and in a harsh whisper said, “I didn’t know it was you who took over from Weasley.”

“Yes, my lady,” Jane said softly. “I’m sorry it’s a surprise to you. But I-I assure you I would never say anything about our…previous arrangement.”

The viscountess’s eyes narrowed and she leaned over the counter so that her pretty face was just before Jane’s. “That sounds like a threat. A reminder that you could use what you know against me?”

The bell at the door rang again, but Jane didn’t look. Instead, she sucked in a breath. “N-no, not at all. I was truly only trying to put your mind at ease that?—”

“You must be aware that I could far more easily destroy you than you could ever hurt me,” the viscountess continued as if Jane had said nothing. “Do you think anyone would shop here if they knew that a former whore ran the place? That she might have opened her legs for their husbands…or occasionally their wives? You’d be shunned, given the cut direct.”

“I think that’s enough.”

Jane jolted at the interruption from behind the viscountess. Both women turned toward it at the same time and heat filled Jane’s cheeks as she realized it was Ripley who stood there, his handsome face impassive even if there was tension to every muscle in his body.

The viscountess glared at him. “And just who the hell are you to tell me such a thing?” Ripley tilted his head and said nothing, just stared at her, unspeaking and unmoving until she shifted. “Another one of the whore’s lovers? Of course.”

She pivoted and stomped across the room, raising her voice as she said, “Come along, Bowerton, I think the quality of this shop has gone down significantly. I cannot imagine shopping here anymore.”

The viscount looked confused at the sudden and very rude order, but he followed his wife out like a whipped dog, the ring of the bell echoing in Jane’s ears as the door slammed behind them.

She rested her hands on the countertop and took a few breaths before she lifted her eyes back to Ripley. She had always been fascinated by his face. It almost surprised her every time she saw him and marveled at the chiseled angles of his jawline, the dark focus of his eyes. Christ, even that slash of a scar across his eyebrow gave him a rakish look. His tall, broad-shouldered beauty was a bit of a balm on her soul, even if she wished he hadn’t been involved in this humiliation.

“That seemed personal,” he said softly.

She shrugged. “An old lover.”

His brows lifted. “And the wife was confronting you over it?”

“ She was the lover,” she said with a laugh. She had no concerns at Ripley’s reaction to that revelation. Some might be shocked at the idea, but she knew his proclivities. They seemed to be of a mind that pleasure was pleasure and the source was not that important.

He nodded. “Ah, I see. And was the lady always so…disagreeable?”

“Never quite so directly cruel, no,” Jane said. “And her fire was much more endearing when it came with money to soothe it. I think it was a shock to her to see me here, twisted further into her world than I ever was before. I’m sure her husband doesn’t know she takes female lovers. I’m certain she never told him she’s never orgasmed with anyone but a woman.” She sighed. “She has to strike before I do and I don’t doubt Elizabeth will.”

“You think she’d try to ruin you?” Ripley asked.

“She said she would. Right before she called me a whore and you so kindly interrupted like a knight to the rescue.”

Ripley’s mouth tightened. “Not a knight, I assure you. Just a concerned friend.”

Jane stared at him a moment. Over the past few years, they had become friends. After the training he’d offered on that horrible night years ago, Esme had become a fighter in his stable. She had bloomed, even before she found the love of her life and married, returning to the world where she belonged. During that time Jane had struggled being so near the man before her, but she’d found ways to do it. To cherish what he was and not hope for what he could have been if it was a different world or a different life.

But there were times, like now, when he stood close to her and she could see the fascinating bend of his nose up close, the arch of that scar across his eyebrow, the fullness of his lips and she longed to fall into him.

Only once she started falling for a man like this, there wouldn’t be an end to it. She would fall forever and that was terrifying.

“I’m happy to have such a friend,” she said with false brightness. “But you cannot have come here today only to save me from demons draped in diamonds. Were you here to shop my wares or for some other reason?”

He smiled a little, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Actually, I’ve come on an errand from mutual friends. Delacourt was at the boxing club this morning and he brought a personal invitation to a fete he and Esme are hosting next week. He mentioned you hadn’t responded yet and asked if I would check in with you.”

Jane bent her head. “Oh. Yes, the invitation. I received it a few days ago.”

“But you haven’t answered,” he said evenly.

“No.” She sighed. “It isn’t that I don’t want to see Esme. I miss her terribly. But…”

“But she’s back in her world.”

Jane nodded. “And if that encounter you interrupted tells me anything, it’s a stark reminder that I don’t belong anywhere near that world. I hardly belong in the one where I currently reside.”

Her hands were still clenched on the countertop and Ripley reached out to cover one. He never wore gloves and so it was his bare skin that touched hers. She sucked in a breath as she lifted her gaze to his. There were only a few times where this man had ever touched her over the years and those fleeting grazes always stirred such things in her. Heated desires and dangerous hints of emotion.

“Esme loves you,” he said.

Jane struggled to find her breath and her words. To break the spell of this moment somehow. At last she turned to frivolous flirtation, always a refuge with this man. She slipped her hand away from his and said, “I know. Everyone does.”

He smiled a little at her playful response. “How could they not? Truly, Jane, do come. I’ll need saving from the fops at the very least.”

She arched a brow. “You? The Dragon needs saving from a bunch of ladies and gentlemen in frilly costume?”

“The Dragon isn’t allowed to respond like he would in the ring,” Ripley replied with a laugh.

She sighed again and then nodded. “For you and for her, I’ll be there. I’ll send word to them today.”

“Good.” He inclined his head slightly. “And now I must get back to my club before Brentwood allows them to have full brawls in the middle of the main ring.”

She smiled at the mention of Ripley’s right-hand man. He was a serious sort, so the idea that he’d let those who trained there do anything wrong was laughable. “Oh yes, wouldn’t want that to happen. Good day, Ripley.”

He moved to the door and gave her a little bow. “See you soon, Janie.”

Her heart fluttered at the endearment he sometimes used. Fluttered even more as she watched him walk out her door, down the street through the shop windows with that casual grace that flowed through his big body. And though she would see him again in just a few scant days, she still felt the little ache that always tightened her heart whenever he walked away from her.

The one that she feared would bring her to her knees in the end, no matter how carefully she avoided that outcome.

* * *

B rentwood was conducting lessons with a group of gentlemen when Ripley returned to the club. From his hard expression as Ripley came through the main chamber, his friend was irritated.

“Keep the hands up and continue,” Brentwood said as he ducked under the rope of the ring and started toward Ripley. “You’re late.”

Ripley laughed. “Sometimes it’s unclear to me who is the boss in this scenario.”

“No, it’s not,” Brentwood said, and there was the faintest hint of humor in his dark eyes. “But you should know that the Marquess of Honington is waiting and he isn’t amused at your tardiness.”

Ripley rolled his eyes. “I’d say he could take it out on me in the ring, but the man has been taking private lessons for over a year and has yet to perfect a right that does anything beyond a tickle.”

“I might not open your conversation with the gentleman that way,” Brentwood said. Ripley shrugged from his jacket and began to loosen the knot of his cravat. Brentwood watched him for a moment through narrowed gaze. “You’re dressed rather nicely. Where did you go exactly?”

“Checking up on me, eh, Mother?” Ripley said, and pulled the long length of the cravat free. He placed both on the back of a chair and stripped off his shirt.

As he tossed it on the pile, Brentwood said, “Were you off with Jane, then?”

Ripley glared at him before he took a seat and began to unfasten and remove his boots. “I was asked to take care of something that had to do with her, so yes.”

“She hasn’t come around as much since the Hellion retired.”

Ripley flinched. Hellion had been Esme’s fighting name. “No, I suppose she hasn’t.”

“But you can’t stay away.”

Ripley rolled his eyes. “I swear, a man makes one little drunken statement about a completely understandable attraction and his friend can’t let it go.”

“Because it isn’t about one drunken statement,” Brentwood said. “And you know it.”

Ripley let out a long breath. “What do you want me to say? Jane is living her life, I’m living mine. We both keep a distance beyond what can barely be classified as a friendship. That’s the end of it.”

“I’ll remind you of that next time you’re in your cups spouting bad poetry about the beauty of her hair.”

“Fuck off, Brentwood,” Ripley said with a chuckle that belied the sting that statement left in its wake.

Brentwood shrugged and returned to his group and Ripley tried to pull himself together as he approached the red-faced marquess who awaited him in the smaller ring in the back of the room. The man looked truly irritated to be kept waiting, so perhaps he’d actually swing when they sparred today.

And if Ripley knew anything, it was that the feel of taking a punch could sometimes ease the ache of a broken heart. He looked forward to it.