“I see.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, deconstructing the formality she’d helped him put on less than half an hour before. “My mother was a courtesan,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. I…know.”
He glanced at her. “Oh yes, your research. I’d forgotten you delved into every facet of my life. So you know what everyone knows at the very least, that I was a product of her ill-conceived arrangement with the previous marquess.”
“Yes, and then he took you into his home. A very odd arrangement.”
He pursed his lips. “Most men would have sent me off to some other family. But he wanted to claim me for some reason. To control me when he couldn’t control her. Whatever his reasons for such a strange decision, I was raised in the same house as my siblings, from the time I was five, but they were older than I am. There was distance. Walls.” He turned away a fraction. “Never mind, it’s a boring, sad story.”
She wasn’t so sure of the boring part, but this wasn’t the moment to push. It wasn’t her place, either. After all, she wasn’t keeping him.
He shifted and she saw him put a mask on, cover up the vulnerability she had found there with this topic. “What about you, Arabella? Do you have siblings?”
She laughed at the loaded question he didn’t even know he’d asked. “Yes. You’ve been gone a long time, but we’re actually quite infamous.”
“Infamous,” he repeated with a small smile. “How so?”
“We’re called the Comerford Courtesans. I’m the eldest, Evelina is the middle and Julia is the youngest.”
“And all three of you are courtesans?” She heard his surprise, but not his judgment.
She nodded. “They followed me into the life.”
Now it was her turn to put on the mask. To cover the discomfort she somehow felt at this topic. It was such an odd thing, for a great many in Society knew of her and her sisters. The answers to his queries weren’t ones she often had to give. And yet this man appeared and when he pressed his finger to this particular nerve, she found it to be raw. What a surprise.
He held her gaze a moment and she felt him reading her. “You don’t have to tell me, Arabella.”
She shrugged. “Well, it’s a boring, sad story.”
He smiled slightly at the fact she’d used the same words he had. There was no denying the effect, though. They’d both shut the door on a deeper connection in that moment. A connection that had been right there, begging to be taken since the first moment they’d seen each other all those years ago. Certainly since she’d discovered him at Donville just a few days prior.
It was better that the wall had been erected, though. She knew it. Attachment, closeness, those weren’t things she gave easily, nor truly, very often. And she couldn’t get close to this one. There was an inherent danger to that possibility that felt sharper than any she’d sensed in a long time.
She forced a smile of her own, one that felt false, and stepped up to press a brief kiss to his lips. “I think I may have overstayed my welcome. I’m sure you have much to think about and do.”
He held her gaze a beat. “Ah, I see.”
“But perhaps we can see each other later?” she said, hoping that softened this. She didn’t want to stop playing with him, after all, she just wanted to make sure what was happening between them didn’t end up crossing a line.
“To try out that big tub you promised me,” he suggested.
Her smile became less false at that idea. “I’d love it. Until later.”
She slipped away then and he didn’t follow. When her carriage was brought around, she got in, but the moment it began to move, her legs got shaky. She gripped her hands against them, drawing a few deep breaths.
Every part of her that had ever protected her was now screaming that this affair was perhaps a bad idea. That it couldn’t only lead to heartache.
And yet she didn’t want to end it. Not yet.
CHAPTER9
Despite the fact that he hadn’t truly belonged in the world where his father had raised him, Silashaddeveloped friendships there. There were gentlemen, even those with title, who were wild and fun and didn’t count his parentage as his only value. And a day after his encounter with Reggie, a day after Arabella had all but dismissed him, he was seated with one at Fitzhugh’s, a club he found far superior to the stuffier White’s.
The Earl of Ramsbury had once had a wild reputation that nearly rivaled Silas’s own. But upon his return to London, he’d discovered his old friend was now married and, he shuddered,settled. Still, they’d fallen into good conversation and better whisky like no time had passed.
“It’s good to have you home,” Ramsbury said with a little smile when there was a lull in conversation.
