Brogan pulled her back inside and closed them in. He pounded on the carriage ceiling. “Roll on,” he called.
“What are you doing?” She wriggled on his lap. “I can help her.”
“You can get yourself killed. Even I don't want to step outside in this neighborhood after dark.” He snorted. “No, this lesson will be conducted safely from within the confines of this carriage.”
With one last wiggle, she slid from his lap and plopped down across from him. She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “This feels less like a lesson and more like a lecture. You're showing me problems, but not allowing me to help. My father might not be the richest earl in England, but as you’re overly fond of pointing out, I’m not going hungry. I can help. Stop the carriage.”
“We’ll stop again.” They rounded a corner, and Brogan pounded on the ceiling. The next thing he pointed out to her was the front door of a brothel. Two scantily clad women lounged against the entrance, calling out to men as they passed by.
“There are probably twenty such girls in that whorehouse,” he said. “Do you have ribbon enough to help them all? Will you dissect your gown until you’re down to your skin trying to feed the world’s hungry?” He scraped his palm across his jaw. “There's so much misery here, you could drown in it.”
“But…” She peered out the window until one of the working girls caught her eye and gestured lewdly. Juliana drew back. “There must be something we can do.”
“You want to help?” He set his shoulders. “You have to use your head, not your heart. You can start a charity or a foundling home. It's something a woman in your position sometimes does. And it does help. But you can't help everyone.” He glanced away. “If you married me, you wouldn't even be in a position to do that.”
His guts squeezed. If she married him, she would be nothing. A small footnote in history. The Earl of Withington’s idiot daughter who let her heart overcome her good sense.
Brogan couldn't do that to her. He wouldn't, even if he spent the rest of his life regretting letting her go.
She was but a shadow in the darkened carriage, but his gaze traced every dark line and curve of her form.
And he would regret it, he knew. He’d have moments when he lay in bed alone and kicked himself for rejecting everything she had to offer. Before he remembered the kind of life he’d saved her from.
But he would be full to bursting with regrets.
He regretted meeting Lady Juliana Wickham.
He regretted taking her case.
He regretted starting this affair.
He regretted ending it this night.
Juliana wasn't a woman a man could just walk away from unscathed. She left scars.
“I want to go back to your apartments, please.” She laced her fingers together on her lap.
“Not yet.” He pounded on the roof once more. They had a final stop. One more piece of evidence to prove to her that he… He swallowed.
“Please, you've made your point,” she said.
“One more stop.” Two more turns and they were there. “Halt,” he called to the driver. This time he opened the door. He didn't let her climb down, of course, but he wanted her to have a full view of where the man she claimed to want to attach herself to came from.
They leant forward together to look out the opening.
“What am I looking at?” she asked.
It was a squat, three-story building. The roof slanted, giving the building the appearance of listing to one side. Who knew? Perhaps the structure actually did lean. If there had ever been paint on it, it had long since worn away. The windows were boarded up, even on the upper floors. There was nothing on the streets that a resident could possibly want to see.
“That building.” He jerked his head at it. “That’s where I grew up, where my family and I lived until I had some success in the boxing ring.” He fingered the wood piece in his pocket. “This was my home.”
A man stumbled from the alley next to it and vomited upon the street. They were twenty feet away, but Brogan imagined he could smell the acrid scent. He probably could. The same man had probably cast up his accounts every night this week.
The man looked up from his hands and knees. Brogan could see the moment when his look became calculating. Whether he would come begging or attempting to steal, Brogan didn't care to find out. He shut the door and told the driver to move on.
Juliana worried the fabric of her gown, rubbing her skirts between her thumb and forefinger. “That’s it, then? You rub my face in poverty, a poverty I was fully aware of by the way, and think I’ll go running?”
Being aware of poverty and seeing it right under one’s nose were two very different things. Brogan knew it. Juliana knew it. Her words may have been defiant, but the tone was already becoming more uncertain. His previous life had shocked her.
