He was a man that at least one person felt she owed everything. Frannie hadn’t used the word lightly. She truly felt she owed Claybourne everything. Catherine couldn’t imagine being that much in debt to anyone. Oddly, she wanted to reach across the short distance separating Claybourne from her, take his hand in hers, and plead with him to tell her every sordid detail of his past.
Why was it the more time she spent in his company, the more he intrigued her?
Thankfully the coach came to a halt before she could carry through on what she was certain would be a rash decision. Did she truly want to know his past? Wouldn’t the arrangement be better served if they kept their distance, were more strangers than friends?
The door opened, and she made a move toward it.
“Allow me to go first,” Claybourne said.
“There’s no need for you to escort me.”
“I insist.”
He stepped out, then assisted her in alighting from the coach. He walked with her until they reached the gate that led to the garden and the path used by those delivering goods to the residence.
She placed her hand on the latch. “Good night, my lord. I’ll see you tomorrow at midnight.”
“Catherine?”
She froze. His voice held a roughness, a seriousness that almost terrified her, and an informality that was equally frightening. She thought she should look at him, but she was afraid of what she might see, what he might say. So she waited, barely breathing.
“This person you want dispensed with, is it because he…did he force his attentions—his body—on you?”
She dared to look over her shoulder at him. Dark and formidable, he stood there in the shadows.
“You don’t have to tell me the details, but if he took your virtue against your will, you have but to give me his name now, tonight, and your portion of our arrangement will be concluded, and I shall immediately see to mine.”
Her throat tightened painfully with the realization of what he was asking and what he was offering. Surely he was not as noble as all that. “Are you saying you’d not require me to teach Frannie before you took care of the matter?”
“I am.”
How easy it would be to just say yes. To have the matter taken care of expeditiously and quickly. She would never see him again. And if she’d not witnessed his odd honesty, if she’d not begun to question her opinion of him, if she’d not begun to realize that he possessed a moral code that was to be admired, she might have taken advantage of his offer. But the truth was that she selfishly didn’t want this moment to be the last she ever saw of him.
Earlier he’d spoken about wanting something so desperately as to be willing to do, to believe, anything in order to obtain it. He felt that way about Frannie. She was his deepest desire, marriage to her the dream he wanted realized. And he was willing to give it up, for Catherine—who meant nothing to him—if she’d been wronged.
Claybourne quite simply fascinated her. She’d never known a man who seemed quite so complex, a man who seemed to have so many varying facets to him. He was not all evil.
Nor was he all good. It was an immensely captivating combination.
“My virtue remains intact.”
He seemed to wilt just a bit as though he’d been preparing himself for the blow of learning that she’d been harmed.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, my lord.”
He bowed slightly. “Tomorrow.”
She went in through the gate and closed it quietly behind her. She didn’t wish to acknowledge how his concern had touched her.
Claybourne was far more dangerous than she realized. Whether a sinner or a saint, he held her interest as no other man ever had.
Chapter 6
Frannie Darling stepped out of Dodger’s Drawing Room—the elegant name she’d
suggested for something rather inelegant at its core, as though pretty words could make sin acceptable—and walked toward the stairs that led to the small flat where she lived. It was still part of Dodger’s, but the outside entrance at least made her feel as though she were stepping away from the dregs and into a better life.
Not that she didn’t have the means to live in a fancier dwelling. She did. Feagan’s lads treated her as an equal, and she shared in the profits from their ventures. She could live in a palace if she wanted, but the money she earned was never for her. Others were far more deserving.
