Ripley jerked his head up and stared, for he knew that voice. Jane came to a halt and stared right back.
“Ripley?” she said, blinking in shock.
“Jane?” he said in return.
Jane shook her head and once again her attention turned to her friend. “Oh, Esme,” she burst out, and rushed forward to grab Esme’s other arm.
Esme collapsed against her a little, the tears beginning to fall and her breath coming shorter. Jane glanced at Ripley over her head. “Help me get her in, will you?”
He nodded and together they entered the small home. Once inside, Jane nodded toward a parlor off the entryway. “Wait there, if you will. The hallway is too narrow for all three of us to pass like this.”
He released Esme and watched as Jane shored her up and took her down the hallway, whispering soothing nothings to her as she went. He drew in a long breath and then entered the parlor Jane had referred to. At last, he felt like he could look around and so he did.
The place was small, but there was a touch to it that made it feel like home. There were two worn chairs before the fire and Ripley took one to wait and then got back up when he realized he’d sat down on some needlepoint. He pulled the piece from under himself and looked at it. It was a very pretty piece, a bouquet of flowers, and nearly finished. Was it Jane’s? He had a hard time picturing her as a handiwork person. But then again, most women were taught such things and he had no idea of her past. Of her life beyond those brief glimpses at hells and fights where both of them were playing the role others expected.
He set the piece aside on top of a book set on the small table between the chairs. He tilted his head and looked at the title. It was a gothic romance that was all the rage at present. He had never been a great reader, though he could read. His mother had insisted on that.
“Ripley?”
He pushed to his feet and faced Jane as she entered the room. “Is she badly hurt? I didn’t want to push her too much.”
“She’s bruised and battered,” Jane said with a frown pulling down her lips. “But I think it’s the heart hurt that stings the most. She cried herself out pretty quickly after telling me most of what happened.”
He nodded. “I think I might have been too late for the worst of it.”
“No, you saved her from the very worst. Dead is worse,” Jane said, and shivered as she crossed to a painted sideboard across the room. She poured herself a whisky and did the same for him. When she brought the drink to him, he saw her hand was shaking.
She sat in the chair beside the one he had vacated and he returned to his own. They sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments.
“What’s her story?” he asked at last.
Jane glanced at him and for a moment he thought he saw a flash of something in her eyes. It was gone before he could identify it, though. “The same as most of us, I suppose. She ran from something at home. I found her on the street, ready to get herself into worse trouble without even knowing it. I couldn’t save her from everything, though.” She looked at the door.
“I don’t think it’s your place to save her from everything,” he suggested.
She sighed. “I suppose not. She doesn’t come from our life, though. Our kind of past.”
He nodded. They’d never discussed their pasts, but he’d always guessed they had a similar one. Poverty and pain often recognized each other.
“She does this work,” Jane continued. “She is good at it. I mean, you look at her pretty face and of course men want her.”
Ripley blinked. He hadn’t really given much thought to how Esme looked, beyond her injuries. He supposed she was pretty, now that he considered her. But nothing compared to Jane.
“How long has she been doing this?”
“Months.” Jane sighed. “She hates it most of the time, I think. But how else can women like us make it?”
Ripley found himself touching his jaw. It was a little tender from where Esme had punched him earlier in the night. “She cracked me after I took care of the bastard who did that to her.”
Jane’s eyes went wide. “Did she?” She smiled. “Good girl.”
He laughed a little. “It was a hard punch.”
“That’s a compliment coming from the Dragon.”
He shrugged. “I’m not opposed to compliments. Given or received. I wonder if she might want to learn to throw that punch with more purpose.”
“From you?”
