Page 5 of The Courtesan’s Protector (About An Earl #4)

CHAPTER 4

R ipley stood at his armoire, shirt crumpled in his fist, trying to calm the racing of his heart. He hadn’t intended to kiss Jane when he made his argument against her belief that she was somehow the cause of her sister’s current problems. But then she’d looked up at him, dark blue eyes rimmed with more tears, cheeks flushed with emotion and need. All he’d wanted to do was hold her. Like she was his.

But she wasn’t. Jane didn’t belong to anyone. She made certain of it. Her independence was a shield. A wall. He wasn’t certain he was strong enough to climb it. He’d tried once, years ago by asking her if she ever considered finding someone to be with permanently. To love. Her quick dismissal of that notion while she held his gaze let him know she wouldn’t entertain any overtures. He’d respected that and never brought it up again, sticking to their friendship even though it ached.

But she needed help. She needed a friend rather than just another man who panted over her and took advantage. He needed to be that friend.

He slung the shirt over his head, buttoned it and rolled the sleeves. With each movement, he took a deep breath, refocused on what she needed not what he wanted when her warmth seeped into him like the sun cutting through winter clouds.

When he returned to the parlor, she was still at the window, but she was no longer looking out onto the street. She held the letter in her hand and was reading it over and over.

He crossed to her and slipped it away gently. She looked up at him and his heart stuttered yet again, but this time he maintained control.

“Come, you need to eat,” he said.

She blinked. “Eat?”

He laughed at the utter confusion on her face. “Yes. Food. It’s called supper.”

To his relief, she smiled at the quip. “Oh, is that what fancy gentlemen call it?” she asked, even as she followed him down the hallway, into the kitchen at the back of building.

He motioned to a rough wooden chair at the small table in the room and she took it, watching as he gathered what he’d planned to eat for the night. He had stew leftover from the previous evening and he put the pot on the fire to warm as he cut a few slabs of bread from a loaf and hunks of cheese to join it.

“I don’t think you’ll find it fancy now,” he said with a little smile as he poured her a glass of red wine to join the meal.

“It smells divine, though,” she said. “I’m more shocked to see you cooking. I never pictured it.”

“How do you think I eat?” he asked with a chuckle. “Or what?”

“Fire and brimstone,” she said.

“Oh, because I’m the Dragon?” He ladled stew into a bowl and set it before her, along with a spoon and a napkin. He set the plate with bread and cheese, along with salted butter, between them and then joined her at the table.

“I always thought the Dragon fit you,” she said as she buttered her bread. “Powerful. Sleek. Dangerous.” She hesitated and then lifted her gaze to him. “Beautiful.”

He swallowed his sip of wine, feeling it stick in his suddenly thick throat. “Beautiful?”

She shrugged. “You know that you are.”

He didn’t know that. To him beautiful meant soft and gentle. He wasn’t those things. He’d forgotten how to be over the years where he made his money through violence. He still did, actually, just training others to take and throw the blows. How was that beautiful?

“Eat,” he said, and motioned to the stew cooling in her bowl.

She did so and for a short time there was only quiet between them. He could feel her unwinding from the terror of finding out her sister was missing. Her shoulders relaxed, her expression softened. That was what he wanted, but he hated that he had to break that now. That he had to drag her back to her fear.

“If your sister ran away…” he said at last, and just as he thought she would, Jane tensed. “Where do you think she might have gone?”

Her lips tightened and she set her napkin on the table beside her empty bowl, shoving both away. “The last time she wrote to me,” she said slowly, the pain obvious in every word, “she told me that I couldn’t keep her from our mother forever. That one day she’d go to her and there was nothing I could do about it.”

“You think she might have made good on that threat after all these years?” Ripley asked softly.

She let out a shuddering sigh. “It would be the best of a horrible group of options. Which is saying something.”

“Then we should start there,” Ripley said, and stood to clear the table. When he faced her, he leaned against the edge of the basin table and folded his arms. This was for her good, not his own. If he continued to sit too close to her he was going to touch her again. To offer comfort and he didn’t want to violate her space. “Where does she live?”

“Little Oak,” she said, and her voice wavered.

His brow wrinkled. “I’m not familiar.”

“It’s a pleasure village just outside of London. A little like Bath, though not quite as fine. It’s half a day’s travel.”

He nodded. “Then we’ll go tomorrow.”

“We?” she repeated with a shake of her head as if she didn’t understand.

“I told you, I’m here to help.”

She leapt to her feet and took a few steps toward him, nearly closing the distance that separated them. “But your business, Ripley!”

“You have a business, too,” he pointed out.

Her brow wrinkled as if she couldn’t recall what he meant. “Oh, the shop. Oh God, the shop. Well, I’ll simply close it. It’s hardly successful at any rate.”

He stared at her a moment. Esme and Delacourt had gifted her the shop recently, so perhaps Jane was still adjusting to the way it worked. But he sensed it was more than that. Often she seemed…disconnected when he visited her there.

“I can’t ask you to do the same,” Jane continued.

He shrugged. “I’m not closing the club. Brentwood will take care of the management. It will make no difference at all. Even if it did, I’d still do it.”

“It would be…good to have you there,” she said softly.

That admission, even said so softly and in such a shaky tone, meant the world to him. He did take her hands then, reveling in the weight of them in his own. “Janie,” he said, reverting to the pet name he sometimes used for her. “We’ll find Nora. I promise.”

There was a deep sadness in her eyes in response. Both of them were too savvy, too aware of the unfairness and cruelty of the world, to believe that statement. It was a promise he might not be able to keep, something said to soothe her in this moment of high terror.

“I know you’ll try,” she said at last. She stared up at him a long moment and her fingers flexed against his. Her thumb stroked across the top of his hand and he shivered. Then she bent her head. “I-I should go home. I should prepare for the trip and whatever we might find there.”

He nodded. That was best, even though he wanted so desperately for her to stay. To offer himself in a way that would only complicate things even though it would be unforgettable.

“I understand. Let me take you.”

She looked like she would argue, but then her shoulders rolled forward in surrender. “It would be nice not to try to find a hack.”

He led her back through the narrow hall, feeling her presence at his back the entire time. Offering to help her was the right thing to do, he had no doubt about that. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, leave Jane to suffer alone.

But he also had no doubt that by the time this was over, the ache in his heart would be far deeper, because time spent alone with her couldn’t help but change him. It always did.

* * *

R ipley’s phaeton wasn’t a new one, but it was well maintained. It was one of his few frivolities, something Jane had always been fascinated by since the bouncy, jaunty vehicle seemed at odds with the serious, focused man who now drove it through the streets back to her shop and the little home she kept above it.

Still, the cool night air on her face was helpful at present. It kept the pure terror over her sister at bay, settled her. As did the presence of the man beside her. As if he sensed that, his hand came over to settle on her knee gently.

The weight of his fingers was powerful, soothing and erotic at the same time. Her hand trembled as she covered his, splaying her fingers so that they fit into the crooks of his bigger hand. For a few moments they rode silently like that, the weight of everything hanging between them. But also the relief of his presence wrapping around her like a cloak.

After a short ride, they arrived back at her shop. She stared at the sign that swung from the awning as they stopped. This was home, but it hadn’t yet begun to feel like it. She feared it never would.

She looked at Ripley and squeezed his hand before she released it. “I don’t deserve you.”

His expression softened in the dim light of the street lanterns. “Oh, Janie, you deserve so much more,” he whispered. He cupped her cheek, rough fingers brushing her skin. She found herself leaning in to him, felt him do the same even when her eyes fluttered shut.

He kissed her again. Only this time the heat didn’t elevate, the passion didn’t threaten to bubble out of control. This time it was only comfort.

When they parted, he said, “I’ll pick you up here tomorrow morning. Is seven too early?”

She shook her head. “I’m learning to be an early riser. And for my sister? I’d do anything.”

He helped her down and sat while she unlocked her door. She looked back at him before she entered the building, her knight in an open carriage. Then she shut the door to him.

But she worried that having him help her with her sister was likely going to keep her from being able to shut the door to him ever again. That she would open herself up to emotions she’d tried to avoid, desires that had long simmered and a heartbreak she might never recover from. And pain along with it. The kind she knew she could cause him, just as she’d done to so many others.

Finding Nora, though, it would have to be worth it.