Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

W hen Ramsbury had sent a message apologizing for missing the fight and suggested meeting at the Donville Masquerade, Finn had told himself he could go there without thinking about his mysterious Hellion. That he could find someone else to warm his cock and forget about her. It turned out he was wrong.

The whole time they’d been there he’d been looking for her. Watching the games around him hadn’t taken off the edge of wanting to find her, nor had several drinks.

It was bloody frustrating.

He glanced over and found Ramsbury staring off into the crowd with much the same distracted look on his face that he, himself, felt. Normally he could depend on Ramsbury to drag him from a mood, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight, clearly.

“Are you brooding to attract the attention of the ladies, or is something truly on your mind?” Finn asked as he sipped his drink.

Ramsbury jolted as if he’d forgotten Finn was there at all and looked at him, but he didn’t answer. It was as if he immediately got lost in thought. Finn stared at him, waiting for what felt like forever, then threw up his hands.

“Ramsbury.” No answer. “Ramsbury,” he repeated, sharper. Finally he shook his head. “ Sebastian !”

At that rare use of his first name, his friend shook his head. “My apologies. Woolgathering, I suppose.”

Finn almost laughed. Weren’t they the pair, both unable to focus. His problem was a woman, but he couldn’t imagine that was true with Ramsbury. He’d never allowed himself to be connected to a lady in his life. He seduced and played and carefully extracted himself.

And here Finn was daydreaming about a woman he hadn’t even touched. “About what?” he forced himself to ask.

Ramsbury’s cheek twitched ever so slightly. “Nothing of consequence. How is your sister?”

Finn wrinkled his brow at the change of subject. One he very much didn’t want to discuss when there was a woman moaning in pleasure just a few feet behind him.

“Marianne? She’s fine, I suppose.” Once he said it, he hesitated, for he wasn’t certain that was true after their tea earlier in the day. “Still mourning her old friend, I think, but otherwise well.”

To his surprise, Ramsbury pressed and for a few moments they talked about his sister.

“Why ask me about Marianne?” Delacourt asked at last. He adored Ramsbury, but he’d always warned him about playing his games with Marianne.

“She’s my friend, just as you have been, so I’m always curious about her welfare,” Ramsbury said with a dismissive shrug.

“Hmmm. Just don’t take advantage.”

“Yes, I know your rule about that,” Ramsbury said, his tone tinged with annoyance. “About her. I assure you I would never go too far.”

Finn looked out into the crowd before he responded and as he scanned over the tables close to them, his heart thudded. There was the Hellion, his Miss X, sitting not ten feet from him. And she was watching him, tracing the edge of her wineglass with one fingertip in a way that made his entire body heat.

Their eyes locked, held for what felt like an eternity, and the hunger Finn had felt from the first moment he encountered this woman came to life.

He glanced at Ramsbury, who looked irritated, and forced himself back to the subject at hand. “Excellent. But I don’t wish to talk about Marianne anymore, not here.” He looked again at Miss X and she worried her lip in the most appealing fashion that drew him like a moth to a flame. “We came here to get our cocks wet. I intend to do so and I suggest you do the same.”

He didn’t wait for his friend’s response. God knew Ramsbury could take care of himself when it came to the ladies. He just patted his arm and then moved off into the crowd toward her. Toward what he hoped would finally be a slaking of the odd, intense need she seemed to create in him.

W hen Esme had seen Delacourt standing across the room from her, what she should have done was depart the Donville Masquerade before he noticed her. In fact, she never should have come here at all. She’d told herself it was for fun, a reward after a hard fight earlier in the day.

But that wasn’t true. She knew it was because she wanted to see the very man who was now striding across the room toward her, all powerful elegance and repressed strength. The man who looked at her like he would devour her whole.

He stopped at her table, standing over her with a long look that almost melted her from the inside, and then motioned to a chair. “May I join you?”

She swallowed hard. This was a dangerous game and yet she kept playing. Foolishly, inexplicably. “Yes.”

He sat and smiled at her. “A new mask.”

She lifted a hand and touched the blue leather, stitched with tiny paste pearls. “I have a great many of them.”

“I imagine so,” he drawled.

She shifted, for he had no idea, in truth. “Is there something I can do for you, my lord?”

His gaze lit up at the double entendre she hadn’t meant to make. Or perhaps she had. Nothing seemed in her control anymore. “I thought we could finish the conversation we began earlier today. The one that was interrupted at the boxing club.”

Her heart was beating so hard she feared he could hear it even from across the table. “Was there more to say?”

“I think so.” He held her gaze steadily.

Lord, but his eyes were beautiful. Soulful, even, betraying a deeper truth beneath the bored, rakish aristocrat he seemed to be. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who wore masks.

She stiffened. It wasn’t her place to know that, to care about that. And the deeper she went into this, the more danger she placed herself in.

“I don’t know what you could mean,” she said. “Like you, I come here to relieve the tension of the realities of my life. That you know I’m truly the Hellion isn’t so shocking a thing, is it?”

“But who is the Hellion?” he asked, and leaned closer. He smelled good. Like sandalwood soap. She felt a strange longing to rub her nose along the angle of his jaw and breathe him into her body.

“I thought the purpose of this place was anonymity,” she said, and was pleased her voice didn’t shake.

“You’re still anonymous. You wear a mask, you have no name.”

She laughed at that idea. It wasn’t so far from the truth. “I have a name.”

He leaned even closer. “And may I guess it?”

That should have made her tense, but there was a sparkle in his eyes that made her laugh even more at his teasing. “Why do you need it so desperately?”

“Because I want to know what to call the woman who has somehow haunted my dreams since I first met her.”

Her smile fell at the seductive tone of his voice and the way he reached out to take her hand. His fingers stroked across hers and she shivered without meaning to. “How often does a line like that work, my lord?”

He shook his head. “It isn’t something I say to manipulate ladies into opening their legs. There is something about you that has captivated me.”

Her breath was nonexistent now. She no longer inhabited a world where someone would be captivated by her. She survived and when she needed to feel something she either fought or fucked. But she never sought more. Never sought the intensity of the man who was tracing her palm so lightly and making her body tingle in response.

She swallowed and tried to recall how to formulate words. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to be unmasked any more than I do.”

His gaze held hers, a flutter of sadness in the brown of his eyes. “You’ve already unmasked me. You know my name, you’ve seen my face. And I could remove my mask right now in the middle of this room and it would likely be meaningless.”

“Yes, because it’s different for men,” she said, unable to control the bitterness in her tone.

His expression softened. “That’s true.” He sighed and released her hand. “I’ll continue to call you Miss X or Hellion, whichever you prefer. And if I ever earn your true name, then I’ll be pleased with it.”

She drew back. He was retreating from his request, not turning it into a demand? How many men would do so? She could name few.

“Now, why don’t we speak of more pleasant things?” he suggested as he waved to a server. “I’ll have an ale. And for the lady?”

“The same,” she said, knowing she could keep her wits with something so light. She clearly needed them. As the man left them to fetch their drinks she leaned on the table with her elbow. “So, are you a regular member of Campbell’s club or did you just attend to watch the exhibition.”

He straightened up a little. “ Campbell . I hardly ever hear Ripley called by his first name. Are you two close?”

She tilted her head. “Are you asking if I’ve fucked the man?”

He shut his eyes briefly. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to do so, I suppose. It’s none of my business.”

“No, it’s not. But I haven’t.” She almost laughed at the thought. “He’s more like a brother to me, in truth. When I first…” She trailed off. Was she about to tell this man her story? What was wrong with her?

He smiled as they were brought their ales. “When you first?”

“I shouldn’t get into it,” she said with a sigh.

“Why not? We don’t know each other, I have no one to whom I’m interested in telling your tale. And I’m fascinated by how a woman finds herself participating in a combat sport.”

She sighed. If she kept her wits, she could give just enough to quell his interest and never enough to identify herself. “I-I didn’t start out in the place I am now,” she said carefully. “But I wasn’t safe where I was. I ran away and found myself in Seven Dials, totally out of my depth.”

“It’s a dangerous place,” he said, concern in his tone that was very much like when he’d first noticed her black eye. As if he had some right or even duty to protect her.

“It is, especially for someone who had no idea how to defend herself.” She shook her head as her mind took her back to that terrifying time in her life. The fear was muted now but she could still access a version of it. “This older woman approached and saw I only had the clothes on my back. She offered to help me and she seemed so kind. I was going to go with her when this petite blonde came screeching out of an alehouse across the street. She chased the woman off and scolded me.”

“Why would she do that?” Delacourt asked.

“Because the old woman was a bawd. It’s an old trick, to put a young woman who knows little into her debt by providing her with clothing and shelter. Then the price comes, you see. The interest on a loan you never even knew you took. Once a person like that has someone in their clutches, they can force them to work the trade to repay it so she doesn’t get carted off to gaol.”

He flinched. “The sex trade.”

She nodded. “Yes. So the young woman rescued me. She got me something to eat, yelling at me the whole time about being more careful and wise to the ways of the street. But eventually she realized I was as stuck as I was hopeless and offered to help. Luckily my trusting nature didn’t get me into trouble twice.”

“That sounds like a good friend,” he said softly.

“Yes. My dearest friend. She was the one working my corner this afternoon.”

“Does she also fight?”

“No. She works the trade, but not under a bawd,” Esme explained.

He nodded. “So how did you eventually come into boxing?”

She shrugged. “I…”

She hesitated. She’d never been ashamed of what she’d done to protect herself. Who she’d become. But this man was from her old world, even if he didn’t know that she’d once belonged in the same glittering halls that he did. Telling him the facts was harder somehow.

But perhaps it would put him off her in the end and that would be good for them both.

She let out a shaky breath. “I followed her into her work,” she said slowly, watching for horror to cross his face. “I sold my innocence to a man willing to pay for it. And then I worked for a little while that same way. Mostly the men were fine. Merchants on the whole. A few wanted to keep me, but I didn’t want to be kept. Occasionally there was one who was…cruel.”

He bent his head. “They hurt you?”

She nodded. “I think one would have gone further than hurting. He was being rough with me at a hell. Not the Donville Masquerade, of course. Rivers would never allow for that here. But you know how it is in some of the others. This bastard backhanded me and suddenly Campbell… Ripley was there. He yanked the man off and helped get me home. He knew Jane.”

She came to a halt in her story. She hadn’t meant to say Jane’s name, didn’t want to give this man too much. He seemed to sense it for he arched a brow. “You said it earlier at Ripley’s and it’s a common name. I’ll pretend you’ve given it as a pseudonym.”

“You have no idea if it is a pseudonym, after all,” she said.

He smiled broadly and her heart did another little flutter at how absolutely stunning he was. Like a statue in some garden where only the rich were allowed to go and see the beauty.

“Where was I? Oh yes, Campbell. He offered to teach me to defend myself. I was resistant, but you cannot deny Campbell and Jane when they are working together on something, and she kept encouraging me to listen to him. Once I gave in, it turned out I was a natural. So I gave up the trade and the rest is history, as they say.”

If she expected him to recoil at her story of opening her legs for money or turning to fighting to defend herself from men who would take what they couldn’t earn, she was surprised. He looked no less interested as he stared at her now than he had before.

She blushed under his regard. “I fear my story is not so romantic as you wished it to be.”

“It’s real,” he said. “And I appreciate that you were willing to share it. It sounds as though you are even tougher than you appear in the ring. And that’s saying something.”

She smiled at the compliment. “Thank you. But what about you? You’re a member of Ripley’s club, but that doesn’t mean much. Half those toffs couldn’t block a punch from their own mothers.”

He laughed. “A harsh but valid criticism. Are you assuming I’m one of the bad half or the better?”

She looked at him closely. “You’ve a pretty face and that might make you want to protect it.”

He smiled. “A pretty face. I don’t think anyone has called it that before.”

“Not in front of you,” she mused as she examined that face even closer. Even half masked he couldn’t hide what he was. “But I promise that women say it’s pretty behind your back because it is. But…but there’s something else about you. Hard angles, fierce lines. The way you hold yourself says you’re a fighter. So I doubt you do anything by half, including spar. If pressed, I’d wager you’re of the part of Ripley’s boxing club that could actually hold his own.”

He had grown silent with every word she said about him, his smile fading as she went along. But now he swallowed. “I don’t think anyone has ever broken me down like that. But I appreciate that I came out on the right side.”

“So far,” she teased, and was pleased that it made him smile.

“I’ll try not to let you down.”

Her body tensed at that promise. It was a throwaway one, she knew that. A part of their flirtatious exchange that was meaningless and yet it somehow moved her.

“Will you dance with me again?” he asked softly.

She glanced toward the swaying couples, thinking of when he’d held her there just a few days before. She should have said no, but instead she nodded without speaking. He got up and held out his hand, his lean fingers offering her temptation that could burn her world to the ground.

She took them and tried not to suck in her breath at the feel of his warmth and strength. He guided her to the floor and put his arms around her, tucking her too close as they began to sway in time to the music. She could feel the entire length of his body from chest to thigh, feel the coiled strength there, feel the way he wanted her without trying to take what she hadn’t offered.

She was dizzy with it, dizzy with his warm scent, dizzy with the way his fingers splayed across her back, tracing her spine gently just as he would if he were removing her gown. Oh, how she longed to have him do just that. To rest back on a bed with him and forget everything but his taste, his touch. To pretend she was still Charlotte Esmerelda, who belonged with a man like this.

To know that a man like this still wanted her when she was just Esme, even if it was just a passing fancy meant only for a night of pleasure.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze locked on hers. “I truly cannot look away.”

With any other man, that would have felt like a manipulation. But it didn’t hit her that way when he said it. It felt…real. It felt like he hadn’t even meant to say it out loud, like he was reminding himself, not her.

She felt herself being tugged into the warm fantasy of something she shouldn’t risk and some distant part of her rang alarm bells. She needed to pull away. Walk away. Never dance this close to the edge again.

“Delacourt,” she said softly.

He shook his head like he already knew what she would say. “I’m leaving London very shortly,” he said. “I’ll be gone a fortnight, to the country with my sister and some friends. I won’t see you for a while because of that. Please, please…will you come in the back with me? Will you let me touch you the way I ache to touch you?”

Her breath was nonexistent now as she stared up into those brown eyes that pulled her in, drowned her, reminded her of who she’d once been before life had destroyed any hope she had of a future as a lady. If she went with him, she would surrender. She knew that. She would give over and she might not be able to stop. He would strip her clothing away, her barriers, she feared her masks would go too. Not just the one she wore on her face but the ones that protected her soul, her body, her life.

And yet she still longed to do just that. To give herself in every way to this man who seemed so driven to protect her even when he didn’t know her.

She blinked. He couldn’t know her. She couldn’t let him any closer.

She stared up at him. He was patiently awaiting her response. Not pushing, not asking, not demanding. He was just waiting, almost like he understood that this was complicated and she needed a moment to consider.

God, but she wanted him. And she couldn’t deny herself just a taste of what could have been.

She lifted up on her tiptoes and cupped his cheeks, her fingertips playing along the edge of his mask. She drew him down, tilted her head and took his lips.

He tasted of ale, of desire, and she opened to him, tracing his lips, swallowing his moan when he drove to meet her tongue. The desperation, the need that had coursed between them since their first meeting was evident in the ever-increasing passion of the kiss. His arms came tighter around her, his body grew harder against her stomach. She lifted against him, fingers clutching at his jacket as she tried to find some way to mold herself even closer.

Her head was spinning, her body was trembling, between her legs she throbbed with desire more powerful than any she’d felt in a very long time and she never wanted this to end.

But she had to end it regardless. At last she pulled back. He released her, both their breath short as they stared at each other. He seemed as stunned by the power of that passion as she felt.

She swallowed hard. “I can’t, my lord. It wouldn’t be wise. Good—good night.”

She said nothing else, but slipped away from him, just as she had the first night they met here. And just like the first night, he let her go without demand or anger or frustration.

Only this time she knew it would be the end. He said he was leaving London for a while. His ardor would cool, helped along by her rejection, and the likelihood that they would see each other again was miniscule.

A fact that made her heart ache, even though she should have felt nothing about it, nothing about him, nothing about any of this except for relief that she hadn’t revealed herself and ended the life she’d spent so long building.