Page 72 of Beyond Scandal and Desire
“Exactly.”
“Will you show them to me?”
“Absolutely not.”
He sounded so blasted final about it. The matter wasn’t even open for discussion. “Why not?”
“They aren’t gentlemen’s clubs. Men might get the wrong idea about why you are there, so I’d end up with bruised knuckles, and a few men would find themselves missing their teeth.”
The happiness that swept through her at an image of such violence was uncalled for. Obviously, ale changed one’s perspective, caused one to act out of character. A more horrifying thought occurred to her—that it made one act in character. “You would defend my honor?”
He looked down on her, gave her a wolfish smile. “As long as you are on my arm.”
Which she’d known if she were honest with herself. It was the reason she’d accepted his offer to come here. For all his humorlessness and questionable origins, he was a gentleman at heart. But also a rogue and a scoundrel. Strange how the latter appealed to her when it absolutely should not. Perhaps she was not truly the lady she’d always assumed herself to be.
A man staggered toward them. Mick’s arm came around her back, his hand clamping on her waist, and he fairly lifted her out of the way and to the side as though she weighed as much as a billowy cloud. The gentleman stumbled to the ground, grunted and promptly began to snore. Three laughing men came over to haul him up. His chums, she supposed.
“Why do men overindulge?” she asked.
“It makes their cares go away.”
What cares did Kip have that he didn’t want? “Do you often get foxed?”
“Never. When you’re sober again, the troubles are still there and you have to face them with a blinding headache.”
“You’re a practical man.” He didn’t answer; he didn’t have to. He wouldn’t have dragged himself out of the gutter if he didn’t accept reality.
His reality had been harsh, while hers had given her a false sense of the world. She’d been sheltered from all this. Men took swings at each other, cast up their accounts and stumbled around. Bawdily dressed women were kissed, touched in places they shouldn’t be, walked off snuggled against a man’s side. Children ran around, unaccompanied, thieves, she assumed, when she saw one being chased by a gentleman yelling, “Stop, thief!”
She was glad when Mick led her back to the carriage. Having finished off her ale and a second, she was feeling warm and lethargic. Settling in across from her, he somehow seemed larger. “What was your business here?”
He shrugged as the carriage bolted into the street. “He didn’t show.”
“Why would you meet someone there and not in your office?”
“Many reasons. Mostly to keep our meeting a secret.”
“Who was it?”
“If I tell you, then it’s no longer a secret.”
She found herself wondering if there had ever been anyone or if he’d made up the excuse in order to give himself a reason to bring her here. She wished the night would never end.
At Cremorne, there had been no one for him to meet, no business to attend to, but he’d feared she’d reject his offer if she knew that all he wanted was more time with her. He couldn’t bring her during the proper hours because they would be spotted by people she knew, word would get back to Hedley, and he had no doubt she would be forbidden from associating with him. Even meeting her at the park too often could cause gossip.
He shouldn’t enjoy her company so much, should ignore her, at least until his plan came to fruition. Then he could call on her properly, like a gentleman. But where she was concerned, he seemed to have little ability to deny himself. His entire life he’d put yearnings and desires on hiatus in favor of a greater goal, but he was not willing to sacrifice time spent with her. In the end, it could very well cost him everything, and yet he couldn’t seem to regret it.
She was unaccustomed to spirits. The ale had hit her hard. She now wore a whimsical smile, as usual one side of her mouth crooked, going up a little higher than the other. He wanted to kiss that higher corner, then the lower one, then her full mouth. He wanted to thrust his tongue between her lips; he wanted to thrust his cock into her heated core. He had no doubt she was a virgin, so she would be tight and he would stretch her—
“She didn’t appear to be enjoying it,” she said quietly, a thread of sadness woven through her voice.
He blinked, abruptly brought from his fantasy back into reality. He stared at her. He’d been in need of distraction, but he hadn’t expected her to provide it with such a nonsensical statement, but then he realized she was referring to the dove against the tree.
“She wasn’t being paid to enjoy it.”
Her eyes widened slightly. Perhaps it was the bluntness of his words. “She was a strumpet, then.”
He shrugged. “That’s as good a term as any.”
