Almost.
“What we shared tonight was wonderful,” she said, and her eyes softened a little with those words. “I don’t want to regret it. So please don’t make me. Goodbye.”
She pivoted then and exited the room, leaving him staring after her. He grabbed for his forgotten boots and shoved themon, swearing at how long it took to button them. By the time he was able to chase after her, she was long gone into the main hall, into the crush of grinding bodies and the loud laughter of the masked participants.
“Fuck,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair before he put his own mask back on.
He should do as she asked. He should back away and just let their night together be an experience he cherished. Whatever else was going on, Esme didn’t seem miserable in her life.
And yet he couldn’t stop thinking of the tears in her eyes, those ones she hadn’t allowed herself to shed, when he spoke of her father. When he spoke of her past life.
And he knew he couldn’t let her go so easily, not without understanding more about what made her so haunted.
He wouldn’t let her go. As Esme rattled home in the hackney she’d managed to hail after she fled from the Donville Masquerade, that was the thing she knew above all else. Finn…Lord Delacourt…whatever she called him, he wouldn’t stop. He would be as relentless in trying to uncover all her secrets as he had been in drawing pleasure from her shaking body.
She covered her face. How could one night be so shattering in two such different ways. And why did it all have to be ruined by the meshing of deep pleasure with the stark terror that now gripped her?
What if he went to her cousin? What if in his deepest desire to help her, he actually steered to her doorstep a man who would destroy her?
“Fuck!” she burst out, slamming her hands on the worn carriage seat. Her palms stung, but she had solved no problems with that outburst.
Eventually the carriage slowed and stopped at her small townhouse and she got out. To her surprise, the candle was burning in the window. That meant Jane was home. She shook her head as she handed over a few coins to the leering driver.
Jane. She would never be able to hide the truth from Jane. Her friend would scold and shout and she would be perfectly right in every single thing she said.
With a sigh, Esme trudged through the door and locked it, checked the window and then moved toward the front parlor. Jane was seated by the fire, reading a book Esme had purchased for them to share. She couldn’t help but smile at the image. She’d taught Jane to read and now her friend was a great fan of novels.
“There you are,” Jane said, tossing the book to the side and getting to her feet. “I thought you were staying in tonight, enjoying some time alone.”
“And I thoughtyouwere going to be out all night enjoying some merchant’s hospitality and his huge cock,” Esme returned as she tossed her mask on the table.
Jane stared at the mask and then slowly back at her. “His cock isn’t huge. How big was the one you landed at the Donville Masquerade?”
“There’s no hiding from you, is there?” Esme sighed and came to stand before the fire, warming her suddenly cold hands by the glow. Images of Finn’s mouth on her flashed into her mind and she turned her head.
“You went looking forhim.”
It was a statement, not a question. Esme nodded without looking at Jane.
“You found him,” her friend continued, stepping closer.
“I did.” She did look at Jane now. She’d expected frustration, even anger on the other woman’s face, but there was only concern. “I did find him. And he…he foundmeout, just as you predicted, so you ought to crow about that.”
Jane staggered back and fell into the chair she had departed upon Esme’s entry into the room. “I wouldn’t crow about you being in danger, I hope you know me better than that. Sit down and tell me everything so that I know what we’re facing.”
“We?” Esme repeated as she took the chair across from Jane.
“Of coursewe, you dolt,” Jane said. “I didn’t save you just to sacrifice you at the first hint of some toff’s wrath.”
Esme’s eyes filled with tears at the support from her friend. “Oh, I adore you.”
“Of course you do,” Jane said with a smile. “Now tell me.”
So Esme did. She unburdened herself of everything that had happened from the moment she entered the Donville Masquerade to when she’d taken Finn to the back room. She told her about giving him her name and her body and her pleasure. And then she told her the rest. The pain. The unmasking and his driving need to find out each and every secret she’d attempted to keep for two years.
When it was over, Jane was curiously quiet as she strummed her fingers together. “He sounds an interesting fop, at least.”
“He is.” Esme gave a humorless laugh. “Far too intelligent for his own good.”
