… Several critical votes are before the Houses of Parliament this week. The owner of this very paper is a vocal proponent of setting clear limits for child labor, and watches carefully as this great Nation’s leaders decide the fate of her youngest citizens…
The News of London, May 9, 1833
She froze at the words.
Perhaps she could have brazened it through, if not for the way he’d made her feel, the way he’d slowly, effortlessly dismantled her guard, leaving it on the floor with her trousers and his cravat and all their inhibitions.
The way he’d somehow given her pleasure and peace and the promise of more, even as she’d known all of it was fleeting.
Perhaps she could have lied, but how could she? How could she pretend to know the tricks and trade of London’s finest lightskirt when he’d so thoroughly destroyed her with his kiss and touch and kindness?
She’d expected the kissing. The touching.
But the kindness had been too much. It had stripped her bare, leaving her with nothing to protect her from his careful observations and his probing questions.
For the first time in an age, she did not know what to say. She left his lap, standing, moving naked to the place where he’d divested her of her clothing and her lies. She lifted her shirt from where it had landed on the arm of a chair, and slid into it, pulling it closed around her as he spoke again. “You cannot hide from me. Not in this. You and Chase clearly have some kind of plan – something of which I am a part. Unwillingly.” The words sent fear straight through her, as this brilliant man discovered one of her best-kept secrets and came closer to uncovering all the rest.
The irony, of course, was that most men would be thrilled to know that they had not just slept with a prostitute.
But there was nothing about Duncan West that was like other men.
And there was nothing about him that appeared pleased with the discovery.
He did not seem to care that she was virtually naked, or that she was emotionally bare, or that she was unsettled by his statement, or that she did not wish to discuss it. “When was the last time you slept with someone?”
She tried to hedge her way out of the conversation, leaning down, retrieving her trousers. “I sleep with Caroline quite often.”
His gaze turned furious as he leaned forward and she tried her best to ignore the way his muscles shifted, rippling beneath his smooth skin. “Let me rephrase, I forget sometimes where you have chosen to make your life. When was the last time you fucked a man?”
The curse was a gift, reminding her that she was more than this moment, that she was queen of London’s underworld, more powerful than he could imagine. More powerful than anyone could imagine.
Even he.
She should have been angry with him. Should have squared her shoulders, nakedness be damned, and told him precisely what he could do with his foul language. Should have stalked, bare and bold, to the wall and rung the bell to call security to this place, where he should not be.
Where she should not have brought him.
Where she would never forget him.
She looked away. The whole afternoon had gone pear-shaped, and instead, his anger made her want to tell him the truth. To mend the moment. To answer his questions and return to his arms and restore his faith. Not an hour earlier, he’d vowed to protect her.
How long had it been since someone had wished to do that?
“Look at me.” It was not a request.
She looked at him, desperate to stay strong. “What we did… it wasn’t…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word. “That.”
He narrowed his gaze. “How would you know?”
He meant to hurt her, and he did, the question a blow. Not undeserved, but a blow nonetheless. She answered him, laying herself barer than she had ever imagined she could. “Because the last time I did this, it was.” His brown eyes searched hers, and she let him see the truth. Finished her thought, the words quieter than she’d expected. “This wasn’t the same. This was… more.”
“Christ.” He came to his feet.
She met his gaze. “It is something more.”
“Is it?” he asked, the question filled with something like doubt. He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated. “You lied to me.”
She had, but now she did not wish to, even though she’d wrapped herself in lies. Wrapped them both in them. Even though her lies were layered in myriad ways, too many and too complex to tell him the truth. Too connected to too many others to find their way into the light of honesty.
“I want to tell you the truth,” she confessed.
“Why don’t you?” he asked. “Why don’t you trust me? I would have – had I known that you – that Anna – that none of it was true, I would have —” He stopped. Regrouped. “I would have taken more care.”
She’d never in her life felt more cared for than in the last hour, in his arms. And she wanted to give him something for it. Something that she’d never given another person. Her darkest secret, kept only in her deepest thoughts. “Caroline’s father,” she whispered. “He was the last.”
He was silent for a long moment, before he asked, “When?”
He still did not understand. “Ten years ago.”
He sucked in a breath, and she wondered at the sound, at the way he seemed pained by her truth. “The only time?”
He knew the answer to the question, but she replied nonetheless. “Until now.”