Arabella stared at Silas, stared at his pale face and guilt-stricken expression and her stomach turned. Not just because he was clearly taking responsibility for her choices, but also because they brought back memories that had nothing to do with him.
She straightened up and lifted her chin. “Don’t be ridiculous. Julia sometimes says the silliest things.”
“Arabella,” he said, sharper now. “She says you were only seventeen in the garden that night. That you weren’t a courtesan yet.”
“I-I never told you I was. And my age is public knowledge.”
“I wasn’t doing the math,” he said. “You said it was early in your career. I assumed that meant you had already stepped into the life.”
She folded her arms. “Well, I did. Just after. What difference does it make, Silas?”
“Because I know how courtesans are made,” he snapped. “I saw, albeit briefly, before I was stolen from her arms, what that life did to my mother. And you are stronger than she was, God knows that’s true. But don’t think for a moment that I don’t know that your choice of this path has likely involved fear and pain.”
She flinched. He wasn’t wrong. There had been kind lovers, but also ones who weren’t kind. There had been a surrender of her virginity that had been as gentle as possible thanks to Simone’s help, but certainly it hadn’t been the beautiful, loving act she’d dreamed of as a girl. There had been loss and judgment, cruelty and sadness over the years she had stepped into her own and accepted all facets of what a courtesan faced.
“I’m sorry that your mother suffered,” she managed to croak out. “And that she was harmed by your father. But my experience is very different.”
“Not so very different,” he said. “You study people, it’s your way to protect yourself. And it’s mine, too. I see the grief in your eyes sometimes, Arabella. I see the flickers of what you lost.”
She pushed off the door and paced across the room, trying to find space between herself and what he was saying. How he was digging into the soul of her and mining facts that she didn’t want to share. Not with him, not with anyone.
“You are being ridiculous,” she gasped, but she could hear the strain in her voice that belied her words.
“Please,” he said. “Look at me and tell me whether I was the one who caused you to choose this path because I smiled at you in the garden like some twisted snake sent to drag you from propriety.”
She did face him then, feeling the truth bubble up in her. Strain against her restraints in ways she had never experienced with any other man who had tried to pry it from her. This man, this beautiful man, he hardly even had to pick the locks on her heart and her past and her pain. He was the key, wasn’t he?
Even if she didn’t want him to be.
“It’s not because of you,” she finally burst out. “You weren’t the villain in my story and you didn’t turn me to or from any path. That was my…my father.”
His lips parted. She’d told him just the tiniest hints of this, given him the fuzzy edges, but now he would know the whole picture, because she couldn’t stop it anymore.
“How?” he asked gently.
She bent her head. “I think you’ve guessed that he was cruel and callous. But he was also violent. Toward me and toward my sisters. I tried to jump in front of his wrath as often as I could to protect them.”
His expression softened. “Because you always do, don’t you? Try to stop the bully or the cheat like the way you played pranks on people as a girl.”
She shut her eyes. “Only I couldn’t changehimjust by mucking up his cordial or pretending to be a forest spirit. Hehatedus for being girls, and he wanted to use us for his own gain as soon as it was socially acceptable.”
Silas shifted. “To marry you off, you mean?”
She nodded. “He started when I was hardly more than a child, trying to haggle for me with men four or five times my age.”
He flinched and she continued so he wouldn’t say something more and break her when she already felt on the edge of tears. “He decided seventeen was the number. The time when he could marry me off without facing judgment. My birthday was the worst day of my life. And when he dragged me to London so I could get my trousseau, I knew I wouldn’t come back again. He would sell me to someone just like him or worse.”
“Arabella, I’m sorry,” Silas said, his voice low and rough. “You must have been terrified.”
“I was.” Her voice broke and to her horror, she felt a tear she never let herself shed sliding down her cheek. She wiped and it hurriedly, wishing he hadn’t seen it when he obviously had. “My aunt, my father’s sister, was the only shining light. She tried to reason with him to no avail. So she switched her tactics. She tried to give me some little taste of joy before the inevitable. We went to exhibits and plays and when she heard of my obsession with Vauxhall, she arranged for tickets even though my father grumbled about the expense.”
“And you saw me with Simone,” he breathed.
She nodded, flashing back to that night just as she often had over the years. To the passion, to the pleasure. To the hope that had flared in her in that moment that she’d realized Simone was a courtesan.
“Yes. I snuck away and went to Simone the next day. I begged her to help me, to train me. To help me escape and regain some autonomy over my body and my future.” She moved toward him. “To escape my father, therealvillain in my story, I stepped onto this path and I’ve never looked back. And yes, it’s been complicated. And yes, there has been pain. But that wasn’t your fault, Silas. It wasn’t because of you.”
There was relief that washed over his features then. “I’m sorry you had to endure that. I know a little about fathers who harm. But what about Evelina and Julia? How did they come to join you?”
