Page 52 of The Hellion is Tamed
Hargrave peeled his coat off, one graceless arm at a time, and flung the garment to the floor. “I’m not a wagering man, Alexander. I don’t trade when I own the property outright. Law of our world, you see. I track, I bring back those who travel. You’re sluggish on the uptake, boy, when you should appreciate the significance of our unique situation. Let’s see what your girl thinks of being bartered like a—”
“Heloise Murphy,” Simon said with a lazy yawn thrown into his fist. “Sorry to blurt it out like that, but I was getting bored. You have mine; I have yours.”
Hargrave’s breath seized as if he’d taken a healthy punch to the chest. His startled gaze shot to Emma, and he staggered forward, calculating his strategy.
“Don’t think to touch her. Ever again.” Simon dragged his shoulder against his chin like he scratched an itch and stepped between her and Hargrave. “My promise, if you hold to yours? That the League’s men, watching Miss Murphy this veryminute, won’t act. They’re stationed outside her charming abode on New Street, her business on Royal Mint. The route she walks every morning through Whitechapel Market. The Duke of Ashcroft, more warrior than aristocrat as you may have heard, has an endless supply of able-bodied soldiers in need of work. And killing, come to think of it. Talk about a melancholic group, now that there’s no war to wage. In any time you place Miss Murphy, we'll continue watching you, should you think to spirit her away. I’m guessing she doesn’t even know about you, so your chances of getting her to leave 1882 are limited. My haunts will take me to her in seconds.Seconds. After Finn reads her mind, and yours, of course.”
Hargrave stooped to yank his coat from its haphazard crumple on Emma’s worn planks. “You bastard.”
“I prefer to think of this as clever design. We’ve already established a relationship between Miss Murphy and the duchess. Every modiste wishes to style a member of theton,don’t you know? We have others with gifts that I could call upon. But I think the plan in place is enough for now. You see, I don’t want to drag an innocent woman into this…but love is your burden to manage. I already have mine.”
Emma’s heart sank, her throat closing.Burden.Simon thought his love for her, if that’s what he was finally admitting, a burden.
“You’re not going to win,” Hargrave ground out in a guttural whisper. But he backed away until his boot heel smacked the doorjamb.
Simon’s gaze went to Emma and held. “I already have.”
They watched Hargrave give a final, malicious glance around the cramped dwelling, then he was gone, opening her cage and letting her, for the first time in her life, fly free.
Simon turned to her, his eyes black in the amber light cast from the candle. “Emma, breathe,please,” he murmured and reached to caress her bruised cheek with his calloused fingertip. Touching her so gently, as if he feared she’d disintegrate like an ember on his skin.
She let out a gusting exhalation she hadn’t realized she’d held, her vision spotting, the floor beneath her wobbling. Finally, after hours without sleep or food, giving in.
“Burden,” she whispered and fell toward him as darkness overtook her.
Chapter 17
The sky blanketing London shone pink and battered blue in the hour before sunrise.
A dull wash spilled across the paint-spattered planks in the St Giles warehouse no one knew he owned. The top floor, Simon’s private accommodation. Or, rather, it would be someday. A yawning expanse running the length of the building, with few fittings aside from a shipping crate housing bottles of gin and a towering sleigh bed that he’d found in Julian’s attic and had moved before Piper noticed it was missing. He’d refurbished the space one rotting timber at a time by his own hand. It’s why the work was taking ages and looked reasonably amateurish.
A skilled laborer, he wasn’t.
But he loved the place with a fervor that shocked him.
Sometimes, love didn’t follow design.
He was learning to accept this fact.
Drawing a breath scented with ale from the public house next door, he let the bitter fragrance calm him. This place,hisplace, a decrepit building five short blocks from where he’d been born, calmed him. Coming back, coming home, when he could now afford to buy half of Mayfair from sellers up to their armpits in debt, was ironic, he supposed.
The deal was, he’d left part of his soul on these jammed streets, affection in his heart for the neighborhoodandthe people. The hawker selling fish for sixpence on the north corner, the costermonger selling exotic nuts and pineapples just off the ships for five on the south. The Irish contingent selling onions and oranges, the watercress vendors packing baskets of greens and striding down the alley to start their day.
They werehispeople. Like the haunts were his people.
Therefore, he’d decided, against what was going to please Finn and Julian, that he would live here. In St Giles. Be a part of his Mayfair family, of the League. Run the Blue Moon. But he’d walk these often dismal streets coming home every night. This community washisto improve. He was already in talks with the local magistrate about sanitation, roadways, healthcare, wages.
He had lots of ideas.
Like the women he and Josie were moving not out butup. Creating opportunities, as Julian and Finn had for him. But in their hamlets, haring off to a locale they’d no affection for not part of the deal.
It was mostly money that opened doors and slicked the palms providing the prospects, a fact Simon had long ago made peace with. Easy to forgive when he was a player now, too, able to slick as many palms as were thrust at him. He could walk into any drawing room in London—looking like them, talking like them. He’d danced in their ballrooms, woken in their beds. Sipped their champagne and laughed at their jokes. Gone to school with them, even.
Enough that they thought he was one of them.
When he wasn’t.
However, he wasn’t above realizing this was his way of paying back his good fortune. Of letting his tortured soul heal.