Page 21 of The Hellion is Tamed
Simon spanked the table with his teacup. “Is that what you do, Josie? Simply live?”
She lifted her head, her eyes glittering, as lush and green as spring grass. “Ichosethis. I opted to live in squalor and fight to get others out. I foster every woman I can, giving them afuture. This business is a ruse, you and I both know, except for the women who truly wish to sell themselves and will never turn back. And for them, I provide the best situation possible.” Josie lifted a brow, her expression chiding. “You speak as if this ismylife’s purpose, not yours. We built this together, Mac. Have you forgotten you’re my covert benefactor? Or that this undertaking wasyouridea after seeing how well creating a new life from a lie worked for you.” She gestured to the world outside her cozy little parlor with the knitting needle, a string of yarn tangling around her wrist. “How many of my girls have you employed so far? In the Blue Moon and at your brother’s residences, the homes not requiring a person to have a magical gift? Ten?”
Bracing his hands on his knees, Simon rose to his feet. “Thirteen.” Josie wasn’t a drinker, but she had to have liquor somewhere in this chamber.
If they were going to explore his secrets, he needed a drink.
“Oh, yes. Mollie McCurley. How is she working out?” Josie smoothed her hand over the scarf, fretted at a knot in the yarn. “I worried. A duke’s seat is aiming very high, and her stutter is quite pronounced if she’s nervous. We worked for months to even out the rough edges of her manner and her speech but still…”
“She’ll be fine. The Duchess of Ashcroft is an American and as unconventional as they come. Everyone equal, no kings, no titles, all that rubbish. I asked that Mollie be attached as a maid to her new project, a girl with quite a few jagged edges herself.” Simon dropped to his haunches before a scuffed cupboard and loosened the bottom drawer, a bottle of Irish whiskey rolling to the front with a pop.Bingo. Yanking it free, he gave the cork a twist and drank deeply.
Josie sighed. “I have glasses in—”
“No need.” Simon took another pull, the liquor burning a delightful path to his belly.
“I hate to ask, but is one of your specters here with us?”
Simon dragged his wrist across his mouth and jammed the cork in the bottle. Alcohol was swimming in his head—but better hazy oblivion than unchecked Emma. “Henry. Bootmaker.”
“Blacksmith,” Henry murmured from his spot against the escritoire.
“Blacksmith,” Simon echoed. “A very amiable fellow.”
“Thank you,” Henry said, “you as well.”
Simon wrenched open another drawer, this one littered with hair ribbons, a button, loose change, and at the back, a broken pencil and scrap of wrinkled paper. He pulled the pencil and paper out and slid to the floor, his back resting against the cupboard, his legs outstretched.
To keep his hands occupied and lessening the urge to steal, Julian had taught him to sketch. Only thing was, he wasn’t good at drawing while he was an excellent thief.
Surprisingly, however, the trick worked every now and again.
“Your brothers don’t know about me, do they? The women you’re saving from an absolute horror of a life? You couldn’t even tell the one who smiles all the time, the man they call the most gorgeous in England?”
“Finn,” Simon murmured and sketched Henry with swift strokes, his disheveled hair, the cowlick riding up in front like a rogue wave in the sea. Collar nearly hitting his chin and ruffled sleeves, attire not seen since the late 1700s. Tilting his head to inspect, he licked his thumb and muddied the charcoal edge just as Julian had shown him to do. “They left the slums and never looked back. Humphrey, too.” He gestured with his pencil, a quick jab. “Julian’s a viscount and never belonged here, anyway. And Finn turned into a gentleman the moment he dipped his toe into Mayfair’s seductive pond. They don’t understand my need to retain parts of this sad life, parts of that sad boy. So, no, I don’t tell them I’ve been coming here since I was old enough to sneak away. They don’t know about you, about the network we’ve established.” He added Henry’s curling mustache, thinking it looked more like a scar in the finished product. “They know Simon Alexander, not Simon MacDermot. I’ve never been able to share him easily.”
“Did you ever tell them your mother was a lightskirt, compelling you to now risk so much to help these girls?”
Simon flinched, the pencil going wide across the page. “No.”
“Maybe it’s time to tell them. Quit trying to jam these loose pieces of yourself into a puzzle that only makes sense toothers. It’s acceptable if two such distinct realities don’t quite fit and too taxing to try and make them fit. You can’t live a life like that.”
He’d often thought heshouldtell them. Then, his random disappearances and clumsy fabrications, when pressed, would finally make sense. The somber mood he often had trouble liberating himself from. His sporadic requests to place a female domestic in one of their households.
He knew he needed to tellsomeonewho he was—and was fiercely annoyed to realize that someone was Emma.
“So, darling Mac, you’re here because…”
“I required a moment to breathe. My family is coming to town for the duke’s ball next week. The lot of them. Children, too. It will be utter madness. And this girl, the duchess’s project, she demands my attention, in part. It’s complicated.” He put too much pressure on the pencil, and the tip broke off with a snap. “If you need me, I won’t be able to get away easily. Send a note to Mackey—”
“Wait, go back to the duchess’s project. I hear a catch in your voice. Is this the woman you mentioned?Her?” Josie’s hands twisted the yarn into submission as she probed his soul with a gaze so fervent he was forced to look away. “The one with your gloves?”
Simon flipped over the wrinkled paper and started a new sketch, this one of Emma.Let’s face it, he thought,that’s who you wanted to draw the entire time.“You remember the girl who showed up at Julian’s estate in Oxfordshire? Ten or so years ago? The one I couldn’t talk to? The one who stole the Soul Catcher?”
Josie gasped, her knitting needle hitting the carpet with a soft thump. “Oh, Simon, you finally found her.” Scooting to the edge of her chair, she smiled broadly while his frown grew. “How did you travel back? Was it incredible? What was London like then? Were the clothes very odd? Did she remember you?”
Emma’s reaction when she’d first seen him flashed through his mind, a joyous spill widening her indigo eyes until they completely conquered her lovely face. She’d not only recognized him. For one moment, she’d looked as ecstatic as hefelt.
“I think I’m still in love with her. Just like I was when I was a daft boy of sixteen,” Simon whispered and let his head fall back against the cupboard with a clunk.How bloody senseless was that?With a loathsome snort, he reached for the bottle, but Josie was quicker, on her feet, snatching it from him before he could make the situation worse by getting drunk in the middle of her parlor.