“You must see how.” Now the tears fell again and she couldn’t stop them. “He turned all that energy on them. All that cruelty, and it was even worse. I ached when I read the letters they smuggled out with the help of our aunt. I had no means to save them. And then one day Evelina appeared on my doorstep. She had run just like I had.”
“And Julia?” he pressed. “Did she run, as well?”
“No, she had to be saved. She wasn’t even seventeen when we realized he had made a match for her with a man in his sixties. A lecher who could overlook her two whore sisters. We rushed to her rescue and stole her from our father. Evie and I tried to keep her from this life. She’s so gentle, so romantic, I feared she wouldn’t survive it. But she made her choice when she turned eighteen. And so here we are. All three of Albert Comerford’s daughters are courtesans. Publicly.”
“That must have enraged him,” Silas whispered.
She nodded. “Oh, his rage has no bounds when it comes to me. He believes me the architect of his demise. His vitriol comes in the form of threatening letters twice monthly. Sometimes more when I’m unprotected.”
Now his gaze grew sharp. “He threatens you?”
She shrugged even though the thought of the hat box filled to the brim with his threats made her shiver. “It doesn’t matter. He can’t reach me. It’s over. He has no power. And it’s meaningless. I feel nothing about it.”
Silas stared at her a long moment and then he crossed to her. He took her in his arms so gently that she fought so she wouldn’t sag against him. Then he wiped her cheeks, showing her the wetness on his fingers after he had.
“Sweet, it’s very clear that isn’t true.” Then he folded her into his arms and held her.
And with shocking power and unexpected speed, a dam Arabella had been trying to shore up for years…broke. She shook as she began to weep in his arms, all the fear and pain and disappointment and loss rolling out of her in long, agonizing waves as she cried into the shoulder of a man who simply smoothed her hair and let it all come. Let it pour into him like he was strong enough to bear it.
And when her knees gave out, he didn’t hesitate. He swept her up and carried her from the parlor, up the stairs, down the hall to her bedroom. She was aware of him putting her on her bed, removing her slippers gently.
She tried to pull herself back together then. He would want to have her. That would be the way he’d comfort her, that was what any other lover in her past would have wanted, if they lasted through the painful story at all.
But to her surprise, he didn’t take off her clothing. He didn’t take off any of his own except for his boots. Then he joined her on the big bed and drew her up to him. He curled his body around her, cocooning her in the protection of his body heat.
“You’ve been so strong to carry all this, Arabella,” he whispered at last, she had no idea after how long. “Please put it down tonight. Just tonight.”
She let out her breath in a shaky sigh and clung tighter to him. When she dared to look up into his face, she found him watching her. In the firelight, he almost glowed, like he was some heroic knight from some medieval story, sent to slay all her dragons.
And she knew in that moment that she wasn’t just falling in love with Silas Windham. She was already there. It was too late. No matter what she did next, no matter how she managed whatever was to come, there would be no surviving it. Her heart would be broken.
But not tonight. Tonight she cuddled closer, reveled in the way his arms tightened around her, and let herself drift to sleep. Perhaps the first truly good sleep she’d had since the night she’d run from her father’s home and into the life that had led her to Silas.
CHAPTER19
Silas woke alone in Arabella’s big bed. He reached for her, eyes still half-closed, and she wasn’t there. With a sigh, he rolled over on his back and stared at the velvet canopy above him.
He’d shared passionate nights with her, of course. Given all his body, and even some of his soul. But nothing had been more powerful to him then the trust she’d shown last night. Her story was painful, her tears were heartbreaking, but somehow she’d let herself give them to him.
And he would never be the same.
He heard movement coming from the room adjacent to the bedchamber and sat up on his elbows a little as the door opened. Arabella stepped through. She was no longer in her clothing from the previous night, but in a silky robe, her hair down around her shoulders.
She looked at him and for a moment there was nothing but vulnerability there on her lovely face. Then she smiled and the mask was back, though perhaps not as firmly as before.
“Good morning,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t,” he said. “I was just waking up all on my own.”
“Good.” She worried the tie of her robe. “Perhaps you’d like to share that big bath with me this morning?”
He didn’t have to be asked twice. He was up and on his feet in an instant, coming around the bed to her. “That is the best offer I’ve had in a long time.”
She held his gaze a moment, desire readable there but little else. Still, her slow smile was pure seduction as she pushed closer to him, reaching up to unbutton his shirt. “I aim to please.”
He bent his head and kissed her. Her fingers dug into his chest as she let out a low, shivering sigh of pleasure. There was part of him that wanted to push, to talk more about what he’d uncovered about her past the previous night. But she clearly wanted to regain some control and this was how she would do it.
So he surrendered to her, just as she wished and didn’t resist as she drew him into her dressing room without ever parting her lips from his. He tugged the shirt over his head and then gathered her against his chest again, deepening the kiss, gasping as her nails raked gently against his skin.
