But perhaps it would put him off her in the end and that would be good for them both.
She let out a shaky breath. “I followed her into her work,” she said slowly, watching for horror to cross his face. “I sold my innocence to a man willing to pay for it. And then I worked for a little while that same way. Mostly the men were fine. Merchants on the whole. A few wanted to keep me, but I didn’t want to be kept. Occasionally there was one who was…cruel.”
He bent his head. “They hurt you?”
She nodded. “I think one would have gone further than hurting. He was being rough with me at a hell. Not the Donville Masquerade, of course. Rivers would never allow for that here. But you know how it is in some of the others. This bastard backhanded me and suddenly Campbell…Ripleywas there. He yanked the man off and helped get me home. He knew Jane.”
She came to a halt in her story. She hadn’t meant to say Jane’s name, didn’t want to give this man too much. He seemed to sense it for he arched a brow. “You said it earlier at Ripley’s and it’s a common name. I’ll pretend you’ve given it as a pseudonym.”
“You have no idea if itisa pseudonym, after all,” she said.
He smiled broadly and her heart did another little flutter at how absolutely stunning he was. Like a statue in some garden where only the rich were allowed to go and see the beauty.
“Where was I? Oh yes, Campbell. He offered to teach me to defend myself. I was resistant, but you cannot deny Campbell and Jane when they are working together on something, and she kept encouraging me to listen to him. Once I gave in, it turnedout I was a natural. So I gave up the trade and the rest is history, as they say.”
If she expected him to recoil at her story of opening her legs for money or turning to fighting to defend herself from men who would take what they couldn’t earn, she was surprised. He looked no less interested as he stared at her now than he had before.
She blushed under his regard. “I fear my story is not so romantic as you wished it to be.”
“It’s real,” he said. “And I appreciate that you were willing to share it. It sounds as though you are even tougher than you appear in the ring. And that’s saying something.”
She smiled at the compliment. “Thank you. But what about you? You’re a member of Ripley’s club, but that doesn’t mean much. Half those toffs couldn’t block a punch from their own mothers.”
He laughed. “A harsh but valid criticism. Are you assuming I’m one of the bad half or the better?”
She looked at him closely. “You’ve a pretty face and that might make you want to protect it.”
He smiled. “A pretty face. I don’t think anyone has called it that before.”
“Not in front of you,” she mused as she examined that face even closer. Even half masked he couldn’t hide what he was. “But I promise that women say it’s pretty behind your back because it is. But…but there’s something else about you. Hard angles, fierce lines. The way you hold yourself says you’re a fighter. So I doubt you do anything by half, including spar. If pressed, I’d wager you’re of the part of Ripley’s boxing club that could actually hold his own.”
He had grown silent with every word she said about him, his smile fading as she went along. But now he swallowed. “Idon’t think anyone has ever broken me down like that. But I appreciate that I came out on the right side.”
“So far,” she teased, and was pleased that it made him smile.
“I’ll try not to let you down.”
Her body tensed at that promise. It was a throwaway one, she knew that. A part of their flirtatious exchange that was meaningless and yet it somehow moved her.
“Will you dance with me again?” he asked softly.
She glanced toward the swaying couples, thinking of when he’d held her there just a few days before. She should have said no, but instead she nodded without speaking. He got up and held out his hand, his lean fingers offering her temptation that could burn her world to the ground.
She took them and tried not to suck in her breath at the feel of his warmth and strength. He guided her to the floor and put his arms around her, tucking her too close as they began to sway in time to the music. She could feel the entire length of his body from chest to thigh, feel the coiled strength there, feel the way he wanted her without trying to take what she hadn’t offered.
She was dizzy with it, dizzy with his warm scent, dizzy with the way his fingers splayed across her back, tracing her spine gently just as he would if he were removing her gown. Oh, how she longed to have him do just that. To rest back on a bed with him and forget everything but his taste, his touch. To pretend she was still Charlotte Esmerelda, who belonged with a man like this.
To know that a man like this still wanted her when she was just Esme, even if it was just a passing fancy meant only for a night of pleasure.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze locked on hers. “I truly cannot look away.”
With any other man, that would have felt like a manipulation. But it didn’t hit her that way when he said it. Itfelt…real. It felt like he hadn’t even meant to say it out loud, like he was reminding himself, not her.
She felt herself being tugged into the warm fantasy of something she shouldn’t risk and some distant part of her rang alarm bells. She needed to pull away. Walk away. Never dance this close to the edge again.
“Delacourt,” she said softly.
He shook his head like he already knew what she would say. “I’m leaving London very shortly,” he said. “I’ll be gone a fortnight, to the country with my sister and some friends. I won’t see you for a while because of that. Please, please…will you come in the back with me? Will you let me touch you the way I ache to touch you?”
