Mrs. Bonner batted at his hand. “Will you desist. Matters are bad enough already without you adding making merry to the mix.”
He sighed. One thing he’d learned from these months of association with the woman was that she smiled little. Not that he could blame her. She had little to smile about.
He swallowed past the thickness in his throat. “Let me assist you.” Reaching for the rope around her ankle, he tried to slide it past her boot. The rope caught at a small hole in the heel.
She slapped him away. “I can untangle myself.”
Max rocked back on his haunches and gave her a couple of moments of flailing about. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like she managed to wrap another rope about her elbow. Her chances of success were low, but she looked delightful twisting this way and that. Strands of dark red hair had escaped the tight knot at her nape but they couldn’t hide the angry flush reddening her face, or the heaving of her breasts.
“Do you concede defeat?” Really, he had all evening to enjoy the spectacle. Her skirts crept past her knees, and he would love to see just how far gravity would take them. But he began to suspect the blood in her face had more to do with hanging upside down than pique. And the way she was managing, she could end up wrapping one of those ropes around her neck.
“No. Just …” She heaved a sigh, and a lock of hair blew away from her face and drifted back to her lips. “Fine.” She reached out a hand. “Please help me up.”
He pulled her upright and set her on the one foot that was free. Max eyed the harness, trying to determine which rope to attack first. “Do you mind my asking what, pray tell, you were doing?”
“I was putting the ropes away.” She tilted her chin up and sniffed. Her left leg was still caught in the ropes, torqued at an indecent angle away from her body, ruining the sanctimonious effect. She swayed, hopped on one foot, and clutched the ropes.
“An inventive method, to be sure.”
Mrs. Bonner narrowed her eyes, and he bit back a grin. The woman was all starch and misguided propriety, and Max enjoyed ruffling her tail feathers.
Ignoring her yelp, he hefted her to his shoulder and dragged the now slack ropes from her body. His fingers scraped across her hips and thighs and he forced himself to make the contact as fleeting as possible. His face was at her waist and he couldn’t help but breathe her in. Her clothing smelled of lavender with an undertone of lye, a combination that shouldn’t be appealing. His cock didn’t agree and gave an interested twitch. It was such a mismatch of odors, a contradiction much like the woman. He wondered how long it would take a man to know Mrs. Bonner completely.
He set her on her feet and gripped her shoulders when she wobbled.
She shrugged him off. “I’m fine. I thank you.” Shaking her skirts, she heaved a sigh. “This place is awash in filth and oddities, and I cannot understand how it continues to turn a profit.”
Max unknotted the ropes and began to loop them around his hand and elbow. “What exactly is so filthy about people seeking pleasure?” He slid the coil on his shoulder and started on another rope.
“What happens under this roof is a sin, as you well know.” Mrs. Bonner took one of the coils and strode to the far wall. She hung the rope from a large nail. “I am quite happy that my employment here is almost at an end.”
Max plodded to the wall, avoiding her gaze. When her employment ended, so would their association. He would miss her wide-eyed shock at the scenes played out in The Black Rose. The way she would press her lips together in disapproval, but sneak glances of the so-called sin when she thought no one was looking.
Perhaps convincing her that The Black Rose wasn’t a den of iniquity would help change her mind. She needed employment. His paid well. It was only sensible. “How can it be a sin to enjoy what God has so freely given us? Minds and interests, and bodies to revel in it all. Isn’t it more sinful to waste our lives by denying our blessings?”
She shook her head as she pulled a coil of rope from his shoulder. “By that way of thinking, we’d have license to do anything we wanted. Steal, cheat, murder …” She paled and turned for the wall.
He hung the last length of rope. “Has your time here been so unbearable?” he asked hesitantly. “I had thought when I offered you this job that it would help your situation.”
Clasping her hands together in front of her, she stared up at him. In the dim light, her deep blue eyes looked as dark as the night sky. “No. I was fortunate to get the work and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. But youwerehigh-handed about it. Ignoring my objections to the manner of work, insisting I take the apartments here above the club.” She shook her head. “I almost thought you were going to drag me to your carriage unless I agreed.”
Max remained silent. He wasn’t quite certain he wouldn’t have. The woman had been damn stubborn. And he was responsible for her well-being. Knowing she was safe and provided for had eased his mind.
“But, much as I dislike this establishment and your general bossiness”—she arched an eyebrow and his damn cock twitched again—“you have done more for me since my husband died than anyone. I need to remember that.”
“I would have done more, if you’d let me.” That still burned. The fact that she wouldn’t let him set her up in her own apartments after the fire. That she’d lived in a cramped home with her cousin, his wife, and his five children. But she hadn’t wanted charity from a stranger. When The Black Rose’s former owner and manager, Madame Sable, had been arrested, asking Mrs. Bonner to replace her had seemed the perfect solution. Honest work for honest pay. Even though it was work she loathed.
Maybe he should have told her he was responsible for her condition. Maybe then she would have accepted his help freely.
“You did plenty.” She strode for the door. “No other landlord would have done so much for a tenant. Especially as you’d only just purchased the building the week before it burned to the ground.”
He’d bought it a week after, making sure the previous owner wouldn’t sustain a loss. But if she knew that, she’d ask questions. And if she asked questions, he’d have to tell her more lies. And lying to such an honest woman made his stomach tighten and his throat go dry.
She’d refused the damn fire insurance he’d offered. Saying she knew she and her husband hadn’t purchased it and she didn’t want anyone to be cheated. How many people did that? She was broke, a widow, her home and clock shop burned to the ground, and she refused easy blunt.
He followed her down the hall and into the main room. A raucous game of Beast of Burden had broken out. Max couldn’t see which club member was down on all fours bearing the woman about on his back. The beast crawled around the room, carrying the chit to every gentleman. The places on her body where she received her kisses were most … inventive. The music from the small band on the landing competed for dominance over the howls of laughter.
“Why don’t we go to your rooms?” he asked. “I need to discuss something with you.”
