“I’m not joking,” he said curtly. “We need the money.”
She sauntered up to him, trailed a finger down his chest. “Youdoknow how one advertises one’s trade at the mops, lover?”
Though he might have lived his whole life in London’s underbelly, he wasn’t an idiot. “One walks around with a tool from one’s trade. You hold a mop if you haven’t any specific skill, but you’re willing to learn.”
“Exactly,” she drawled. “So how will it look for you to prance up and down the fair—waving that giant cock of yours about?”
His jaw clenched. “I can do honest work, Kitty.”
“You say that because you’ve never done it before.” She smirked. “Other than fucking, what are you good at, hmm? You’re far too good-looking to be a field hand, and your skills don’t qualify you to be even a second footman.”
His face burned; he had no reply.
“Self-delusion is for the stupid and weak.” She suddenly palmed his crotch, her rough squeeze driving a harsh breath from his lips. “Besides, can you imagine being in service day in and day out? And for what? Twenty-five pounds a year,” she scoffed. “You’ve made four times that in a single night—and enjoyed yourself far more in the process. No, Corby, drudgery wasn’t meant for the likes of us.”
His mind knew she was right, yet something in him resisted.
He shoved her hand away. “Perhaps in your dotage,” he drawled, knowing how much she hated any reference to her age, “you’ve given up hope for change, but I’m a young man. I’ve a whole future ahead of me.”
“You’re a whore,” she said flatly. “A pretty one, to be sure, but your future lies between your legs, and don’t you forget it.”
Anger roiled; he held it ruthlessly in check. “My future is mine to decide.”
“You wouldn’t even have a future if it weren’t for me. Imadeyou, Corby: I gave you your manners, your clothes, your fine accent. Without me, you’d be nothing but a whore’s bastard.”
The reminder pitted his anger against his sense of loyalty—his greatest weakness. Because despite everything, he couldn’t forget what Kitty had done for him. Where he might be now if it hadn’t been for her.
Dead, probably.
“It’s because of you that we have nothing.” His hands curled in frustration. “If you hadn’t gotten mixed up with Black, we’d still have a roof over our heads, a thriving business—”
“We can have that again.” In a blink, Kitty went from petulant to seductive. Manipulation was the tool of her trade, and even knowing that didn’t make him impervious to the tears that glimmered in her fine grey eyes. To the hitch of remorse in her voice. “I know I’ve made mistakes, Corby, but I can fix this. I have plans to get us out of this mess.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “What plans?”
“London’s still too close, clinging to us like a hangnail. We need to make a clean break—get farther into the countryside,” she declared. “Shropshire, maybe. Or Dorset.”
“Sheep and pigs,” he said with a snort. “What in bloody hell are we going to do there?”
“Start another business. It doesn’t have to be a bawdy house, although,”—she slid him a look—“that would be the obvious place to begin. Given our areas of expertise.”
“Let us not forget those. I fuck for money, and you spend it as if it grew on trees.”
“Sarcasm isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
He lifted a brow. “Was I being sarcastic?”
“Just think of the advantages we’ll have over the local competition,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “We’ll bring panache, class, exotic tricks—”
“We?”
“To start. All hands on deck and all that. Oh, don’t give me that look,” she said crossly. “I was plying the trade whilst you were in your nappies. I suppose I still know how it’s done.”
“I suppose.” He wondered if it ought to bother him that his lover planned to bed others… but he was no hypocrite. And, truthfully, he didn’t give a damn.
Possessiveness wasn’t part of his nature.
“There is one small problem, of course.”
