Chapter Seven

Talia jumped away from Fletch and his hand fell from her shoulder.

Not exactly the reaction he imagined from a woman he just proposed marriage to. He took a sip of his brandy, watching her face contort in a myriad of emotions.

"What? Fletch—what?" Her hands at her sides twitched manically, her fingers clamping down over her thumbs again and again.

He shrugged. "My aunt is expecting it after the gardens. And I find the idea intriguing."

Her look snapped to him. "You find the idea, intriguing?"

"Mayhap that is not the right word. I find it convenient."

"You find it, convenient?"

"Also not the right word, I can see." Fletch held in a grin at the indignant ire sending Talia's cheeks red. He hadn't figured her for flower petals and sweet poetry, but maybe that was where her dreams had aspired to. Very possibly so—at least back in the days when she danced among the ton.

She spun away from him, walking over to the fireplace. Slowly, silently, she bent, sliding on the black silk slippers he had set out for her. She stood, wrapping her arms about her belly as she stared at the fire for long moments.

Fletch considered saying something more. Some further encouragement for her to consider the proposal, but he wanted to observe how her thoughts played out. Granted, he knew her current troubles, knew where her mind and her energy were focused—on finding her sister.

But he also knew how her body had curled into him in the gardens—how her mouth had conformed to his control, how the tip of her tongue had tangled with his, how the soft moan had escaped from her throat when he stroked the curve of her breast.

He swallowed another gulp of brandy. No use letting his mind go to those thoughts. Not tonight.

Talia's head swiveled to him. "Your mangled proposal aside, Fletch, I do not think I can answer you."

"Why not? Aside from the obvious current matter of finding your sister—which I am working diligently to do—why not?"

"You need the thousand reasons why not?" Talia looked back to the fire, her hazel eyes downward to the flames. "My feet have not landed on solid ground since my father died, Fletch. I have been jumping, scampering from pieces of a broken, fragmented world, to pieces of a world filled with squalor and hunger and desperation. Years of flailing. Years of scratching for survival. I have never found solid footing, and I need my feet to land somewhere that I can control."

"So let me give you solid ground."

She shook her head and then looked at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling, sad. "You cannot give me that."

Fletch walked across the room to stand before her. "I can, Talia. For the next year, let me give you footing. You will want for nothing. You can discover the person you are now. Your mother will have security. And we will find your sister, I promise you that. You will have an actual home to bring Louise to—much better than cramping her into your room at the boarding house—or did you think to bring her back to Norfolk? Do you even have enough coin for the journey for both of you?"

Her mouth twisted to the side. She didn't care for his assessment of the situation, but her silence admitted to the truth of his words. Her hands went to her hips. "And then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said for the next year. What happens after a year?" Her hands lifted, palms up to motion around her. "It all—this world, this security—gets yanked from me again when you have tired of me?"

"No. You will be free to do whatever you wish to with your time, with the estates and holdings that I will transfer to your name alone. No one will be able to take them from you. You may come and go wherever and whenever you wish. I will have the transfer documents drawn up before the wedding to assure you of their validity."

Her hands landed back onto her hips, her eyes narrowing. "Why would you do that?"

"Because it is what you need."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"What do you need, Fletch? What happens to you after this year? Do you get the same leave of me? Are you just doing this to soothe your aunt, knowing she will pass soon? Then you can be free of me—I am merely the price you pay to appease an old lady?"

Or I will be dead.

Fletch gave himself a slight shake. That fact, he wasn't about to share with her. He drew a sip of brandy.

Her eyes opened wide. "Or is it that you…you like men? That is why you do this?"

He sputtered the brandy that had slipped past his lips, dropping the glass down to his side. "I what?"

"You enjoy men…more than women." A flush crept up her neck. "I did not know this before I worked in the brothels, but there were a few special men in those houses that serviced other men." She coughed, her eyes slipping to the side to look past his shoulder. "Sometimes they worked with another woman and the customer. Sometimes it was two men and the customer. It took me several passes of it to understand what was happening with them."

"The devil, Talia, what did they have you doing in those places?"

Her head leaned to the side, her eyes still avoiding him. "I emptied chamber pots, mostly. All of them. They did not care if I was in the room during…acts." She winced with the word. "As long as I was in the shadows, they just wanted the work done."

The thought of Talia being subjected to the most vulgar of scenes curdled his stomach. That she was forced to put herself in that situation. He needed to find her sister before she felt the need to do something even more drastic.

Her hazel eyes finally pulled from their avoidance and landed squarely on him. "But that is it. You enjoy the company of men, yet you would like to appease your aunt. I see how much she means to you."

A guffaw flew from his mouth. "No, Talia. You are very mistaken in that regard." His look settled on her, running down her body, and slowly returning up to her eyes, his gaze slicing into her. A stare meant to make her squirm under his heat, and she did.

He repeated the path of his eyes, enjoying too much her fidgeting intensifying and sending a flush up her neck. "No, Talia, my tastes are very much in line with what is before me at this moment."

A slight gasp escaped her before she clamped her hand over her mouth. It took several breaths before her hand slipped from her mouth, fingers dragging along her lower lip. The instant indignation in her hazel eyes faded, turning into droll defeat. "In our particular situation, I fear I cannot scold you for your forthrightness, can I?"

A smile lifting the left corner of his mouth, Fletch slowly shook his head. "You cannot."

She exhaled. "Just know that were it four years ago, I would have cut you long ago for your ongoing impudence."

"I expect you would have."

"But still, the question remains, Fletch, why have you offered me this? You do not know me, not truly, and I have not a thing to offer you."

"Some of the finest marriages in history have been forged upon much less than what we have shared together, Talia."

She shook her head. "Yet what we have shared together—you cannot possibly want a wife that will collapse upon you every time you bring her in front of society—a madwoman running at the slightest memory."

"I do not think you mad, Talia. And if that is your fear, then we will not move amongst the ton."

A deep-set frown settled on her face, and she took a step backward, sinking to the edge of the leather chair as her eyes went to the fire.

She was remembering. Remembering her past life. He was beginning to recognize the gaze, the far-off look in her eye when she remembered what it was like to live life as the daughter of an earl. The look ached. Dreams unhinged. Happiness stolen away.

He couldn't blame her. She had the world. And then she had nothing.

But she had survived. And as much as Fletch didn't fully understand his own desire to marry her—he knew it had much to do with that. Talia was a survivor. She always would be.

She looked up to him. "I do not think you understand how I will harm you, Fletch. How I will sully your reputation. I have strayed so far from the lady I once was that I felt no shame at what we did in the gardens—where your hands were on me." Her fingers lifted, rubbing the back of her neck as she dodged his eyes. "No shame. That is not the wife any lord wants, or can afford."

"Have you considered the possibility that you did not feel shame because you wanted it—wanted me to do exactly what I was." He stepped to her, invading the space about her knees. "To touch you. To make you feel fire in the pit of your belly. Fire lower."

Her look lifted to him, startled. "How…how…"

"I know, Talia. I know because I felt it. I felt it in my own body. I felt it in your skin, how you reacted to my touch. You want me. Yet you have not strayed far enough away from being a lady to actually admit to it."

The hand wrapping the back of her neck slid forward, splaying along the bare skin above the lace trim on the bodice of her dress.

"Why do you conjure so many reasons for the contrary, Talia?"

"I do not trust." Her answer was immediate. "Not after what was done to my family by the current Earl of Roserton."

Fletch nodded, pulling the ottoman closer to him with his bare toe. He set his brandy glass on the floor and sat, facing her at eye level. "I know you do not trust, Talia. But I hope that I have given you enough reason to at least contemplate trusting me." He reached out to grab both of her hands. "Here is what I can promise you, Talia. You will always be taken care of. From this day—this year—to the rest of your days. I swear it."

Her eyes closed as she drew a deep breath that shook her entire being. She opened her eyes to him, the twisting blues and browns vibrant in the light of the fire. "You can swear you will not die on me, Fletch?"

His body froze.

It only took a second to recover. A second he prayed she didn't notice.

He stared her straight in the eye, refusing to display anything but resolve. "Yes. I can promise you will always be taken care of, Talia."

A lie. A half-truth. As honest as possible. But Fletch could reveal no more.

She exhaled a long breath, nodding. "Then I have only one last question."

His hands tightened around hers. "What is it?"

"Why me?"

Fletch looked to the fire, contemplating the question. His gaze swung to her. "I think what happened to you and your family after your father died was atrocious. It makes me wonder how very often your situation happens as titles move to distant relatives. It was wrong, what happened to you and your mother and sister, and I would like to right that wrong."

"It is not your wrong to right."

"No. But I am in the position to do so, so I am. Aside from that, I admire your fortitude." His eyes dipped down to her chest with a wicked smile. "And your other assets as well."

She groaned, unable to squash the smirk that was determined to surface in response to his obviously lascivious gaze.

He leaned forward, his eyes meeting hers. "That is a yes?"

Her lips drew in, and she nodded. "Yes. As long as all that you have promised me you will stand by."

"I will."

"Then yes, I will marry you, Fletch."

His chest expanded in a relieved breath. He hadn't fathomed her answer would mean so very much to him. But it did. It did immensely.

Yet the warning, the dread that constantly gnawed at the back of his head, grew frenzied.

She was asking the impossible from him—asking him not to die.

He knew his promise was hollow.

He only wondered if she did as well.

***

His forearm stretched along the white marble mantel, Fletch stared at the dragging movement of the minute hand on the ornate French ormolu mantel clock. Five minutes until three.

He had given the clock to his sister on her wedding day. She had been delighted and then teased him that she would give it back to him on his thirty-third birthday and he would have to be prepared to stare at the thing until he was eighty and he was forced to admit he had been wrong about everything.

His finger traced the delicate gold filigree that adorned the frame of the clock face. Rachel had been so very happy that day. Glowing like he had never seen her before.

It was almost like the glow she effervesced toward the end of her pregnancy.

"Lockston. I did not expect a visit from you, though I welcome it."

Fletch's hand fell from the clock, his jaw hardening. He turned from the library mantel, his arm dropping from the marble.

"Reggard."

Moving into the room, Fletch's brother-in-law pointed at his empty hand. "You have not poured yourself a drink."

Silently, Reggard went to the tall mahogany sideboard and set two glasses upright, filling them with port. The whole of him disheveled, his dark blond hair sat rumpled upon his head, his black jacket crushed like he had slept in it. Even given the hour, Fletch guessed bed was exactly where Reggard had just stumbled in from—if he had actually made it to his chambers after the night.

Reggard walked across the room, his size, even bedraggled, swallowing the room. He handed Fletch one of the glasses and then took a long swallow from the one left in his hand.

Fletch's left eyebrow lifted at the sudden disappearance of half of Reggard's port. He usually didn't care what the man did, but at the moment, he did. He didn't need Reggard drunk today.

"What brings you by, Lockston?"

"I wanted to speak to you before you left for the club tonight."

"Oh?" Reggard tipped his head back, finishing the port.

"I need you sober, Reggard."

"If you need me sober, then you, more importantly, need me functioning. How I get there is no concern of yours." Reggard left Fletch to pour himself another full glass, drinking half of it before he refilled it and turned from the sideboard to Fletch.

Fletch stifled a sigh. "I need your help tonight, Reggard, and there is not another I can go to with my request."

"Newdale cannot help you?"

"Caine is not in town. I need someone today—tonight."

Reggard took a step toward him, interest angling his head to the side. "What is it you need me for?"

"I need you to purchase a virgin at the Jolly Vassal. It is a brothel in the East End."

"You what?"

Fletch's fingers curled at his sides. The last thing he wanted to be doing at the moment was explaining why he bought virgins—and to his brother-in-law, at that. But he had no other recourse. He had no one else to trust with this business at the moment. "There is an auction at that establishment tonight. I purchase virgins to save them from the lechers. I buy one at every auction I can, and then I turn them over to several women waiting in a carriage that will take care of them. I have the guards and the women ready to help with a purchase tonight. I am on a list in which I am invited to the auctions, because I pay high and purchase frequently. I am able to save quite a few innocents in this way. But I need someone to attend the auction tonight and buy a girl."

Reggard shook his head. He took a long swallow of port and shook his head again. His fingers ran over his eyes, rubbing them. He finally looked to Fletch. "Why can you not do it?"

"I have to get married tonight."

"Married? But I thought—"

"It cannot be helped, Reggard."

Reggard stared at him for a long moment calculating. Finally, he offered one curt nod. "But tonight? You arranged a wedding for the evening?"

"A special license from the archbishop. Aunt Penelope and her dragons have made it so. The wedding will be in three hours. You can see how I cannot make it to the Jolly Vassal."

Reggard tossed back the remainder of his second glass of port, his bleary eyes making their way to Fletch. "So I am sure I am not misunderstanding—you want me to buy a virgin in a brothel in order to save her?"

Fletch eyed him, considering going to the sideboard and tipping over the decanter of port. It would at least slow Reggard for the moment. Fletch's voice took a hard edge. "You are the only person in town I can trust with this, Reggard. Trust to have the utmost discretion about the business. No one can know the virgins are not purchased for their…purpose. You are the only one I can ask this of. But you cannot do this soused."

"I thought you hated me, Lockston."

Fletch sighed, his fingers tightening about his glass. "I thought I did too. But my options are limited. And I need someone I can trust. I trust you more than I hate you. Buy a girl. Turn her over to my women. That is all I ask."

Reggard nodded, rubbing his eyes once more. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I miss her, Lockston. Rachel."

"You do not get to speak her name to me."

Reggard's hand dropped from his face and he met Fletch's glare. "So you still blame me."

A statement, not a question.

Fletch fidgeted, stepping to the side of the room to set his glass on a table. He looked Reggard dead-on, his voice cutting. "She was the one in the family that was supposed to survive, Reggard. The one to live. The one to keep memory of all of us."

"I did not kill her."

Fletch saw the pain in Reggard's eyes. Heard the tremor in his deep voice. None of it curbed his own tone. "No. You merely put your babe inside of her. A babe that did kill her."

Reggard blanched. For his size—a head taller than Fletch with a battering-ram chest—the man looked fragile, about to break.

Fletch tried to ignore the visceral rage that surged from the deepest part of his soul. "I am here for your help, Reggard. Nothing more. Will you do as I ask?"

It took a long moment for Reggard to compose himself, to draw himself to his full height. "I will, Lockston. Your sister would have demanded I help."