Page 26 of Meet A Rogue At Midnight
Her lips moved against the shell of his ear. “Why did you go by the name Jonas Bacon after you left Plumtree? Were you a naughty man in London?”
Quivers danced on his nape. He could get used to her whispers.
“Not much to tell.”
Cold-hot sensations rattled inside him. He put one muddy, snow-covered boot in front of the other. Livvy wanted more than fleshly pleasure. She wanted his secrets. What she asked came with torturous emotions, the kind that ripped a boy’s heart in two and molded him into a stoic man. He was good at keeping people at arm’s-length, a skill he’d first mastered when slurs followed him as a boy, spoken behind his back.
Bastard. Mongrel. Baseborn.
Followed byBig Ox. Big Oaf. And Brainless Beastsaid to his face.
The roof of Halsey Tower rose in the distance. He pushed onto the side of the road and stood before an elevation. There was no fence marking the Halsey meadow save the slight rise in the soil.
“Your family’s property.”
“Jonas?” Livvy slid down his backside.
He stepped over the rise and, turning around, he waited for Livvy. She stayed on the roadside, midnight bathing her set chin and wide-open eyes. He knew the look. It was common to the fair sex when they required a man’s answer.
“Are you avoiding answering me? Why did you go by the name Jonas Bacon in London?”
Snow lightened the darkness around them, the frozen bits sparkling like diamonds. London was a byword on his journey since leaving home. In it was the answer to his past and his future. London’s ships took him far away. Plumtree hemmed him in.
Except for Livvy. She was freedom itself with her copper hair and forward nature.
Her head tilted at a gentle angle. He caressed her jaw, the fur of her hood tickling the back of his hand.
“You’re not content for sex alone, are you?”
She cupped her hand over his. “I would haveyou.”
Throat dry, he swallowed hard. Her tenderness healed the edges of his sadness.
“What did you find in London?” she asked.
Denying a woman’s request for intimate knowledge was one thing. Denying Livvy was another. She was a friend, a childhood memory come to life as a woman full grown who knew and saw too much, a woman who could read unspoken words in his eyes. But, she wanted him to rip out his heart and give it to her. She’d be content with nothing less.
His hand fell away from her. “You won’t budge until I give you something.”
Until I give you all of me.
Her silent nod was his answer. From his side vision, he spied faint smoke streaming from her tower. The squat turret was easily a hundred paces, yet the distance could be forever. Chill air braced him, cooling his ardor.
“When I left Plumtree, I was never going to come back. My mother was shamed, and the Braithwaites were upstarts.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Setting fire to the Captain’s furniture shop—”
“Was an accident. You can’t keep blaming yourself for that. The Captain doesn’t. I know that for a fact.”
“It was still fuel to the fire that I was the ne’re-do-well Braithwaite. Jacob was at St. Mary’s College by then. I was Big Ox, remember?” He met her fixed stare with a hard one of his own.
“Big Ox bothers you. When we were children, you’d toss a jest back at them or turn away. But, tonight, you stood there and took it.Why?You could’ve told Will Halsey not to call you that.”
“Because the Will Halseys of the world aren’t worth the effort.”
“You mean to keep it all in,” she huffed. “Be a man, endure, and all that folderol.”
He smiled when she stepped into the meadow, using the Captain’s favored word.
“I am a man of few words. Jacob did most of the talking when we were lads. You know that.”
