Page 16 of How to Tempt An Earl
She let out a sigh. ‘When my father and I were together, just the two of us, we had this story we would tell each other—how we would stop travelling and get a house in the Alps. It would have a balcony we could sit on wrapped in blankets and watch the snow fall. It would be quiet. No one would come to bother us. We would play chess and cards all winter. In the spring, we’d walk the paths to the village; in the summer, we’d swim the mountain lakes, grow a garden and put up food for the winter.’
When she looked up, the wistfulness in her gaze stole his breath and something deep within him wanted to give that vision to her. ‘Father and I dreamed of a simple life. No more chandeliered ballrooms, ten-course meals and all the fuss that goes with that.’
‘But it never happened?’ Kieran prompted gently.
‘It almost did. My father had written to me that he had a place for us. When I finished the spring term, we’d go. He died in April, just three weeks before we were to leave. I was away at school. Roan sent a letter to the headmistress, telling her the news, and the instruction that I should spend the summer with a friend. I never got to go back to my father’s home to collect anything of his. It was just one of many places that my father had lived but it was where I’d been with him last. Roan had everything packed. I didn’t even go the funeral. It was too far to come, Roan said.’
She’d been sent away with no chance to say goodbye to her remaining parent. The inhumanity of it cleaved his heart. ‘You were still a child.’ Not that Roan would have cared—men, women, children, he used them all when it suited his purpose. ‘How old were you?’
‘Sixteen. I had two years of schooling left. Roan paid for them, saying it was what my father had wanted. He told the headmistress he felt obligated to give me a home, to bring me out and to provide for me, and of course he’d been named my guardian. There was no reason for the school not to pack me up and send me to him when my education was complete. The generous donation he made didn’t hurt either. I didn’t protest much. I had no idea what I was getting into. I knew him only as my father’s colleague and friend.
‘He was very good at cultivating my services. He was liberal with his flattery and he started small—asking me to help with a menu for this or that dinner, and complimenting my choices. I was happy to help. I was living in a beautiful house, wearing fine clothes, and there was no hint of anything being off. He was busy. There were people coming and going from his office all the time. After I’d been there a year, he asked me to attend one of the dinners, to be his hostess. I was thrilled. He ordered me a beautiful gown of aquamarine French silk with a very sophisticated cut. Too sophisticated for a nineteen-year-old, but I didn’t make the connection at the time. I was too busy being excited by the prospect.’
She hated herself for it; that much was evident. She blamed herself for being gullible. No wonder she’d resented it when he’d said she was naïve. She was trying so hard not to be, trying so hard to ensure that she wasn’t taken in again, as she’d been taken in by Roan.
‘You can’t blame yourself. You had no idea.’ Kieran offered the meagre absolution. No doubt, she’d told herself that a thousand times.
‘That’s not good enough. There were so many signs and I missed them—all of them. Once I started to hear things and put things together, it was too late.’
He wanted to ask what those things were, along with a hundred other questions racing through his mind. Did she think Roan had had a hand in her father’s death? Who did Roan entertain? But not tonight. Tonight was for her to tell her story, to tell him about her hurt. Tonight was for him, too. The more he knew, the more he could help her.
Whoa, careful there!came the warning from the small part of his mind not caught up in her story.
The goal was shifting. What had begun as a fact-finding mission to obtain information about Wapping had become a mission of protection. Keeping her safe meant keeping the information safe and now, here in the confines of the coach, it had become something far more personal. Wapping, Ottomans, Greek independence and the Four Horsemen aside,hewanted to helpher. Hearing Roan had co-opted a young girl to sit at his table, to entertain other corrupt men, had deepened his understanding of why she’d run. He’d not been wrong earlier—she had run for herself as much as she’d run for the Horsemen—and it inflamed him that she should have been put in such a position.
She gave a dry laugh. ‘Sonowthe pity comes. You want to save me, like your water-trough boy the other day.’ She gave a shrug and swept the length of her hair over one shoulder, a move that he found provocative and inflaming in an entirely different way.
Kieran chuckled. ‘You saw.’ She was observant, a skill that would keep her alive, and perhapshadkept her alive this long.
‘Yes. I saw you stuff a fistful of coins in his hand.’ She laughed and then softened her tone. ‘Even when you were worried about our safety, it did not override your concern for him.’
‘Am I not allowed to want to help you? You’re in an untenable position, just as Samuel was. I will grant that the urge to help you is not unlike wanting to help the boy, but the motive is different. Perhaps I do want to help him out of pity for his circumstances, but that’s not what motivates me to want to help you.’
‘No,Ihave a list,’ she said sharply, eyes sparking in challenge. ‘That’s what motivatesyou. Keeping me alive is also what keeps alive the chances of finding your brother’s killer.’
‘That’s not all that motivates me,’ he argued, offended by how mercenary she made it sound. But to suggest he was motivated out of concern for her would push too close to the pity she abhorred. ‘I would protect you whether you had a list or not. I need you to believe that.’
He knew that she did not, despite his assurances, given both verbally and nonverbally. She still feared he would drop her when she had nothing else to offer. Now he knew the reason why. She’d been betrayed by men her entire life—her father and Roan, the two men who were supposed to have protected her, and who knew how many others? For all that she’d shared tonight, and as dark as that story had been, he suspected a darkness still remained untapped.
What had she done for Roan? What had he made her do?
‘I don’t know why you would do anything for me without the list. There’d be no reason. Helping me would make no sense. Without the list, I am just a stranger,’ she countered. ‘What would you want from me in exchange?’
‘You are in danger. That is enough.’ She was in danger from more than Roan. He’d seen her face at Grigori’s tonight. It had been the expression of horrified recognition. ‘You knew the man at the restaurant. Who is he?’
‘Roan’s vilest henchman, the one no one wants to come after them. His name is Ammon Vincent.’ She shuddered as she said it, confirmation that his hunch had been right.
Kieran leaned forward and reached for her hand. It was cold. He rubbed it between his own. ‘Let me ask that question in a different way. What is he to you?’
‘Roan’s men are all violent. I know how Roan exacts retribution from those who have crossed him.’ She was being evasive. He wouldn’t accept that—for her own safety he couldnotaccept that. She was hiding personal history here…to protect herself in some way, perhaps?
He gripped her hand to give her strength. ‘You are prevaricating. Now, tell me—what claim does he have on you to cause you to turn white, to stumble into paralysis, you who have braved two weeks on the road alone? You are not a woman who freezes, but you did tonight, twice.’
He could almost hear her swallow, and her heart beat in fear, as if saying the truth out loud would conjure the man himself. ‘Roan has promised me to him.’
Chapter Nine
Good God… She’d not been offered in marriage but simply promised, like a prize of war. A reward to Vincent; a threat, a punishment, for her. Roan’s barbarism knew no limits. Kieran felt the tic in his jaw jump at the implication of her news. He’d seen Vincent. He was a brute of a man, his body thick with muscle, his eyes full of meanness.
