“Helen.” He kissed her mouth but she didn’t kiss him back. He pulled his head away and looked at her. Her nose, her jaw, her skin, her brow, her eyes, her mouth. “You’re not ugly.”
“Plain, then.”
“You’re not.”
“I am nae beautiful.”
“I don’t even know what that means when I look at you. You’re more than beautiful.”
“Och, Jack. Yer losing yer touch. Dinnae ye know every woman wants to be called beautiful?”
“All right, you’re beautiful.”
“I dinnae believe ye.”
“I like looking at you, Helen. I like touching you. What is that, if not beauty?”
She shook her head. He gripped her chin and forced her to look at him.
“You’re a thistle, Helen. Tough and spiky and able to flourish in a rocky, brutal place. You draw blood with your prickers. But a thistle also has a flower. A rich, purple, majestic flower, like a crown.”
She stared at him. He didn’t know what that look meant. He was relieved when she finally laughed. “That’s very good, Jack. How long have ye been practicing that?”
“I didn’t practice it.”
“Dinnae sulk like a child. I widnae be angry if ye had practiced it.” A small tremble of her lower lip. “Thank ye, Jack Pike. I know that compliment is for me, and only me. Yer nae calling yer London women thistles.”
“Stay, Helen. Don’t go. Don’t leave London, not yet.”
“Ye know why I came.”
“Yes.”
“Is there any reason to believe, in yer mind, that I have a chance of getting a husband here?”
The moment stretched. “Not the Duke of Dunmore. Maybe another man.”
“Aye.”
“I’ll help you. I promise I will.”
“Haven’t ye done so much already?”
He had done nothing but get her some rooms and some clothes, show her the river, use her body for his own desire, and lie to her. Done nothing of worth compared to this woman who would do everything for the people she loved. Marry a man she had never met. Run into a burning building, starve herself, literally work herself to the bone.
He ran his hand now over those bones. Her hipbones, her ribs, her shoulders, her face, one finger on that uncompromising bone in her nose.
“Stay, Helen.”
She looked up at him, eyes not fierce or adoring, but something else.
Lost.
“Aye,mo luran.”
Twenty-Four
Jack and Phineas’ boots crunched on a gravel footpath in Hyde Park. Jack had gone into their club and dragged Phineas out, not wanting to discuss the matter indoors where too many ears were peeled for salacious stories and gossip. And as they had walked through the late afternoon sunshine toward the park, Jack had told Phineas. Everything.
