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

CHAPTER 3

A few days had passed since the gathering at Esme and Delacourt’s, but Jane still found herself out of sorts. She kept thinking of the conversation started by countesses. The one that questioned what her relationship with Ripley was, exactly. Put that together with the emptiness she felt sitting for hours in her lonely shop and…well, her head was not a good place to hide at present.

She sighed as she began the process of shutting the shop down for the night. There had only been one customer today, an elderly gentleman who had spent time pursuing her general goods but had ultimately only bought a few sweets. She reorganized shelves that hadn’t even been touched, dusted off countertops and eventually moved to the door to pull the shades and lock up.

Before she could, the door opened and a young man stepped in.

“I’m closing up, but if you’re looking for something in particular, I can help you,” she said, forcing a smile to her face.

“Oh no, miss, I’m not a customer,” he said. “You’ve a message.”

He held out a letter and when she took it, he bobbed away. She frowned as she locked the door behind him and then went to the candle at the counter so she could see better. She had no idea who might write her. Messages from Esme always came from her servants, who had a recognizable livery. Friends from the life often couldn’t read or write. She, herself, had been taught to read by Esme only a few years before. The handwriting of the address wasn’t from Ripley.

With everyone she could imagine might write to her eliminated, she found dread creeping through her. Finally, she broke the wax seal and unfolded the page. There wasn’t much to it.

Miss Kendall,

I’m sorry to tell you that your sister, Miss Honora, has disappeared from the grounds of our fine seminary. We have put forth a search before this writing, but she seems to have vanished entirely. In the weeks leading up to the disappearance, several of her schoolmates and instructors noticed a change in her behavior. A sense of distraction and a generally disruptive attitude. And, as you know from other notices, Honora has often thwarted authority and was already on her final warning.

We leave this matter in your hands now with our best wishes.

Miss Gwendoline Knightly

Headmistress, the Knightly Seminary for Young Women

Jane crumpled the letter against the counter, her heart beginning to race. It was panic that rose up on her. Terror that clawed at her and nearly brought her to her knees right there in the middle of her hated shop. All she could think about was Honora and her bright eyes, her loud laughter. Honora as a little girl, the last time she’d seen her sister.

And now she was gone. Missing, perhaps run away. But perhaps something more sinister. She stared at the letter again and then rushed to the door she had just locked. She fled into the street, hastily hailing a hack and directing it where to go before she flung herself inside, letter still clutched in her shaking hand.

She only had one person she wished to see in this horrible moment. Only one person she needed to see like she needed her next breath. And if he couldn’t help her, then she feared no one could.

* * *

I t had been a long day at the boxing club. Wednesdays were always his busiest and saw many a man come in and out of the doors, either for group practice or personal training. At the end of the day, Ripley actually enjoyed the ritual of cleaning the ring up, putting the practice equipment away. It was mindless, repetitive, a way to quiet his normally busy mind, if only briefly.

So he stood in the middle of the center ring, still shirtless after his last training session, washing away the collected sweat of earlier fights from the ring floor. He could hear Brentwood shuffling around him, organizing things.

“I can do the rest,” Ripley said. “Go on home. I’m sure Mariah must be waiting.”

Brentwood gave a little smile at the mention of his wife, inclined his head and took in a breath to reply, but before he could there was a racket of pounding at the locked door. They exchanged a quick look and Brentwood shrugged. “If I’m about to leave, I can answer and send anyone away who doesn’t have legitimate business.”

“Thank you,” Ripley said, and went back to his mopping. There was something about the wild pounding, though, that distracted him from the duty. He stopped his work, leaned on the handle of the mop and watched as Brentwood unlocked the massive double door.

When he did, Jane stumbled inside, half-collapsing in a heap on the floor before his right-hand man.

“Miss Kendall!” Brentwood exclaimed, catching her arm.

Ripley was already moving. He bounded over the top ropes and rushed to her, dropping to his knees when he reached her and gathering her closer to hold her up.

“She’s gone,” she gasped out.

He shook his head even though terror filled him. “Who? Who is gone? Esme? Was she taken?”

“No,” she said.

He was relieved at that. Esme had been in danger not so many months ago. That danger had also reached Jane and she had been kidnapped, hurt. Sometimes he had nightmares of that horrible day. Of seeing her tied to a chair, so small when she was normally so confident and certain and unflappable.

“Then who?” he asked gently.

“My—my sister,” she stammered.

A sister? Ripley hadn’t even known she had one. A secret she kept close to the chest, protected from strangers and even friends. He looked up at Brentwood, who appeared nearly as concerned as Ripley felt. She didn’t need an audience for whatever was about to come. He shook his head and then said, “I have her, mate. I’ll call for you if I need anything.”

Brentwood hesitated but then nodded. “Yes, Ripley. Good night.”

He left then. When he was gone, when Ripley and Jane were alone, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against his bare chest and she began to cry softly. His heart felt like it was being torn in two. He’d never seen Jane cry before. She was too tough from a life of hard edges and difficult choices. But now the sound of her pain and grief was like an injured animal howling around him.

He gathered her up, tucking her against him, and carried her across the hall and up the narrow stairs toward his personal chambers above the club. She hiccupped into his neck as he did so, the soft stir of her breath against his bare skin a distraction only metered by her pain.

He carried her to the small parlor just inside the entryway and placed her on the settee, then set a fire to warm the room and lit a few lamps. She had stopped crying by then and when he faced her, she was watching him.

He poured her a whisky, handed it over and took a place beside her. He was suddenly aware of how small the settee was. How close he had to sit to her.

“Breathe,” he said gently. “And drink that.”

She nodded, sipping the drink and taking a few shaky breaths. Then she looked at him again. “Please help me, Ripley.”

He nodded. He couldn’t have denied her anyway, but certainly not with her in this fragile, vulnerable state that he doubted she’d shown to anyone, even Esme, in years. He took her hand and lifted it to his chest.

“I will. But first you must tell me everything.”

* * *

E verything. Jane shivered at the idea. Had she ever told anyone in her life everything ? There had been half-truths. Just enough to explain. Little lies to soften. But the whole truth was something she kept locked in her heart, tucked away where it wouldn’t hurt her or anyone else.

And now Campbell Ripley held her stare and asked for everything. And she wanted to give it. To offer her secrets because she knew he would protect them. Guard them. Even to his own detriment.

She thought of Nora and nodded. “I’ll—I’ll try,” she whispered. “I have a younger sister. Eight years younger, eighteen just a few weeks ago. Her name is Honora…Nora.”

He said nothing but just kept holding her hands, massaging gently.

She continued, “She’s been at a school for girls for half her life. I sent her there.”

“Why?” he asked.

She squeezed her eyes shut as images of anger and pain and drunkenness bombarded her. All those things she’d tried to protect Nora from.

“Our mother,” she said. “She’s…difficult. Unkind. Like me.”

His brow wrinkled and he leaned closer. “You are not difficult and you are so kind under that tough exterior you show the world.”

She stared into his eyes and could almost believe him. After all, Ripley didn’t lie, did he? She broke the stare because it drew her in too easily.

“I meant she was…is…a lightskirt.” She stood and paced away from him, needing distance from his intensity when she told the story. “She didn’t know who my father was. Just another customer. And she never tried to protect me from her work. She’d bring in men past me, close the door and I’d sit in the parlor and cover my ears.”

She heard him make a small sound, but didn’t dare look at him over her shoulder. It was better to keep staring out onto the street. Count the carriages as they passed by in the inky night so that she didn’t get lost. Get emotional again. That was weakness.

“When I was seven, she met a blacksmith and somehow convinced him to marry her when she became with child. Nora was born two days after my own birthday. We became a family, but not a happy one.”

“He wasn’t kind.”

She did look at him then and held his eyes evenly. “No. Not to me, not to my mother. Eventually, not to Nora. None of us mourned when he died in a fire. But he left us with nothing and it didn’t take three months for my mother to return to her old ways. I was fifteen by then. I watched her drink herself into oblivion and drag man after man through our door. And I had to protect Nora from that. From her…and…and from me. I started the trade at fifteen myself—I had no other choice, we needed the money. But I didn’t want my sister to follow that path. So I sent her away to protect her from that life. From my mother, from me.”

He winced. “So she’s been at school ever since.”

She nodded. “But this afternoon I received this.” Her breath hitched as he took the missive. He unfolded it and read the blunt words from the headmistress.

“I see.”

“She ran away.” Jane bent her head. “Or disappeared. Oh God, maybe she was even taken? All I can think of are all the possibilities. Whatever it is, it’s not good. I wanted so much more for her, Ripley. More than this. More than me .”

He crossed to her then in a few long steps. He shook his head and fire flashed in his dark eyes. “Stop saying that, Jane. Stop acting as if you and your past are why this is happening. You did for her what many wouldn’t have. You offered her a better life than the one that was foisted onto you. You are her hero, not her villain.”

“She wouldn’t agree,” Jane said, and now the tears filled her eyes again. “She despises me. She thinks I’ve kept her from our mother, from whatever fairytale life she imagines she would have lived back at home. She stopped answering my letters two years ago. I am her villain.”

He took her hands and pulled her closer, just as he had when she collapsed on his doorstep. But this time she wasn’t quite as overwrought and she realized she was pressed to his bare chest. A very muscular, very warm chest.

“You are perfect, Jane,” he whispered.

She hesitated and then she lifted her chin, leaning up toward him in what felt like half-time. She knew when he realized what she was doing by the way his body went rigid with awareness and his breath got shorter. She should have pulled away, but she couldn’t. Not now when she felt so weak and needed his strength to keep her steady.

“Jane,” he said softly. A warning, a reminder.

“I don’t care,” she whispered in answer.

He let out a ragged sigh and then his fingers slid into her hair, holding her steady before his mouth found hers.

The kiss was featherlight at first, gentle, soothing. She gripped his bare forearms, palms tickled by the light smattering of hair there, and found herself falling into him the way she’d always feared.

And when he deepened the kiss? When his tongue came out to trace the crease of her lips and urged her to open to him fully? She dove, not fell. She wrapped her arms around his neck, let out a needy sound that echoed in the stillness around them, and met his tongue with her own.

Desperation was what followed. Heated, passionate, long-withheld desire that had always hung between them but never been acted upon. And now the dam broke, pressure too much, and she dug her nails into his shoulders. He moaned in response, such a lovely vibration that rolled through her body and made her ache. Oh, how she ached for him. For this. For everything.

She wanted everything and that recognition sank in beyond the pleasure of his touch and the desire that sparked between them. She couldn’t want everything. That was far too dangerous.

Slowly she pulled away. He let her, though they stayed in each other’s arms, staring at each other in the flickering lamplight. At last she set a palm on his chest and pushed back, freeing herself from his embrace.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He didn’t say anything about that apology. He simply let out a long sigh and shoved a hand through his hair, mussing the dark, thick locks. “I’m going to help you, Jane. I’ll help you find her.”

She swallowed. “How?”

“Let me put on a shirt and we’ll figure it out,” he said as he walked past her out of the parlor.

She turned back to the window and set her palms against the cool glass. She wanted the shock of the temperature to give her purchase, but it didn’t. Ripley had kissed her and it opened a floodgate she feared she wasn’t strong enough to close. One that would end in heartache.

She already had enough of that thinking about Nora and wondering where she would sleep tonight. Was she afraid? Alone? Or with someone who would hurt her?

“Oh God,” she whispered.

All those things were why she needed to stop focusing on Ripley and get her mind where it belonged: Nora. There was no future in anything else.