Did he realise she was a virgin?
Terrified, but knowing this was her only hope of survival, she followed him upstairs and then led him to her room.
He’d looked for a key, but finding none had moved a chair to block entry. Then he’d touched her, so gently, so kindly, that she found herself less nervous and more interested as his hands moved over her.
His eyes were kind, his mouth tender and to her astonishment he caressed her, taking the time to arouse her as they undressed. He was hard, fully erect, but she wasn’t afraid anymore. Perhaps there was some terrible flaw in her character that she had inherited from her notorious father, but she discovered an eagerness for this, an urge to learn more about the whole experience.
She surrendered to him, moving as he willed, lying beneath him, parting her legs for him quite shamelessly.
That night, Jessie had discovered that a man could be kind and loving and that the disposal of her virginity would be so much more than a service performed for money. His touch, his affections…something had happened when their eyes met through the window.
That night, Jessie gave more than her body. She gave her heart to a man who treated her with such sweet attentions she nearly melted. He gave her an experience that changed her world.
But the night ended and he had to leave. He begged her to go with him; she refused. She was a bastard, she told him, and no fit companion for a gentleman. He argued, she held steadfast to her decision, though the pain of it nearly destroyed her.
Finally he left, vowing to ensure that somehow, somewhere, they would be together again.
She had shaken her head in denial. “If we meet again we cannot acknowledge each other, sir,” she’d whispered. “I am a whore. A bastard. Nothing can come of it.”
Before dawn the following morning, she gathered what few belongings she had left and crept silently into the rainy streets of London, putting as much distance between her and the brothel as she could manage. There would be no more men, no giving her body to strangers. She would rather die than let another man touch her.
Turning her mind away from the desolation she had felt at the knowledge she was about to become a whore, she focused instead on the awareness that now she was reunited with the man who had shown her what loving could and should be.
With a sigh of relief, she turned her thoughts to the words of Louisa Stanhope, an author known for her unusually strong yet feminine heroines. It seemed most appropriate. And the heat, the comfort, the sense of security, all took their toll as her eyes closed and she fell sound asleep in the chair.
