Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

F inn clenched his jaw as he scribbled a letter. He hadn’t slept since last night when he’d departed the Donville Masquerade, his mind still reeling from all he knew, and all he didn’t know, about Esme.

The name really did fit her better than Charlotte. Rolled off the tongue just like her pleasure when he tasted her.

“Bollocks,” he muttered as he gripped the quill tighter and tried to focus on the words swimming before him. This was important, it had to do with his sister’s upcoming nuptials, and he owed it to her to give it his full attention.

There was a light rap at his door and he looked up, uncertain whether to be relieved by the interruption or irritated by it.

“What is it, Bentley?” he said as his butler opened the door just wide enough to peer in.

“You have a caller, my lord.”

Finn wrinkled his brow. It was after supper—he expected no guests. But perhaps it had to do with Marianne’s engagement. Now that word was spreading, there had been much to do, as well as much to discuss with both well-wishers and the gossips looking for a reason that Ramsbury would marry a wallflower like Marianne.

He pursed his lips at the thought that he would have to defend his sister again. “Who is it?”

“A Miss Esme Crawford, my lord.”

Finn stared at him a moment, trying to digest those words. Trying to come to terms with the fact that a woman he’d made love to, then watched walk away and assumed it would be forever, was now awaiting the answer to whether or not he would receive her.

“Show her here,” he said, and noted how his voice cracked. “And do not worry yourself about anything else tonight.”

Bentley inclined his head slightly and then disappeared out of the room. Finn set his quill aside and stood, smoothing his waistcoat. He’d removed his jacket long ago and rolled up his sleeves as he worked, and now he wondered if he should put himself back together, replace his armor so he wouldn’t be quite so undone when he encountered Esme again.

But there was no time. Bentley reappeared and said, “Miss Crawford, my lord.”

He stepped away and Esme took just one step into the chamber. Finn caught his breath. He’d never seen her without her mask save for the previous night, when he’d discovered her identity. They had both been naked then, vulnerable in a variety of ways.

Today, though, he could truly soak in her beauty. She had a slender face with high cheekbones and fine brows. She had pulled her dark red hair up in a loose coil of sleek ringlets and waves. Her lips were full and he couldn’t help but recall how they had felt pressed to his own or latched around his cock. Her eyes were a dark green and were still rimmed with the faintest remnants of the bruise he had first seen under her mask the night they’d first encountered each other.

“You may close the door, Bentley,” he said softly, without taking his eyes off of her.

The butler did so and they were alone in the room that suddenly felt small and close. She swallowed hard and then there was a coolness that entered her stare. The walls this woman put up to protect herself.

“I’ve never been to your home,” she said softly.

He cocked his head. “No, I suppose not. Though your father was here several times over the years.”

She flinched ever so slightly. “Your relationship with him was entirely separate from mine.”

“Why Crawford?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your father’s family surname was Portsmith.”

She arched one of those finely shaped brows. “I wouldn’t be hiding very well if I were to use his surname, would I? My grandmother’s maiden name on my mother’s side was Crawford. Far enough back not to be immediately recognized. Close enough that I could recall it if someone referred to me thus when I began.”

He nodded. “Clever. But I’d expect nothing less.”

She drew a little breath and pink entered her cheeks. She’d blushed the same way when he made her come.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked, and moved around the desk to the sideboard. He felt her watching him as he did so, felt her tracking his every step, and he couldn’t help but be as aroused as he was confused by that.

“No,” she said softly. “I’ll keep my head, I think.”

He glanced back at her. “Very well.” He poured himself a whisky and then faced her, leaning back on the sideboard with what he hoped was perceived as bored indifference. “I’m surprised you’re here, after the way you stormed out of the Donville Masquerade last night and told me not to pry into your life.”

For a moment, there was a flash of emotion she couldn’t wipe away from her eyes. It was fear. Finn saw it and recognized it and it troubled him. But then she lowered her lashes and said, “My lord?—”

“Finn,” he corrected softly.

She drew a shallow breath and forced her gaze back up. “ Finn , I hadn’t intended to see you again, if I’m honest.”

He fought not to react even though his chest tightened painfully with that thought. He took a slow sip of his drink and then said, “What changed your mind?”

She worried her hands before her. “Self-preservation, I suppose.” He frowned at the idea that she thought she had to protect herself from him, even as she continued, “I-I never would have revealed my true identity to you on purpose. I shouldn’t have danced so close to the flame when I was aware it could unmask me. I should have stayed away from you, I knew better.”

He pressed his lips together at the idea that she would have rather avoided him than share the dance they’d been dancing since their first encounter at the Donville Masquerade. Rather kept away than experienced the night of passion that had been haunting him for nearly twenty-four hours.

“Then why did you?” he asked.

She didn’t answer that, but kept on speaking as if he hadn’t said anything. “I fear that you are the kind of man who is driven to try to help, even when he is actually hurting.”

He wrinkled his brow. “And what does that mean?”

Only he knew what it meant. He had tried to manage his sister over the years and sometimes had done more harm than good. Same thing with his friends. How could she see that character flaw so easily?

“Are you going to try to go to my family and involve them in some kind of attempt to save me?” She met his eyes unsteadily and the fear she had controlled was back again. Stronger.

He blinked. “I-I must be honest that I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’m still trying to come to terms with who you are and what I now know. But it isn’t the worst idea, is it? Your family must be beside themselves with worry after your absence these last two years. Whatever separated you, couldn’t you overcome it and return to the safety of their embrace, rather than stay on the street where you must endure some suffering?”

Her nostrils flared slightly and her fingers clenched into trembling fists at her sides. “You know nothing of suffering, my lord. Nothing of the truth.”

Her voice quavered as she said it and he took a long step toward her in the face of her distress. “You owe me nothing,” he began. “But I wish you would tell me. Make me understand how all this came to be and why you are so adamant about your position.”

She let out a long sigh and a weariness came over her expression, like the weight of the world had settled onto her shoulders. “Fine,” she said, her voice very soft. “If cutting myself open is the only way to get what I need, then I shall.”

She paced toward him with long, sure steps and he straightened up as she came to a stop before him. She slipped the whisky from his fingers and took a long sip. The intimacy of her lips being pressed where his had been a moment before wasn’t lost on him.

She set the drink aside and looked up into him, those green eyes unreadable beyond their exquisite beauty. “Do you know how my father died?”

He flinched at the pain that question created. “It was…it was a sudden illness, wasn’t it?”

“That is what they say, but I don’t believe them.” She struggled for a moment before she continued, “I believe he was murdered.”

T here, it was out. The words Esme tried not to repeat any more often than she must hung in the air between them and from Finn’s expression, he was as shocked and horrified by what she’d said as she was to know it.

And now she would take a true measure of him. Would he call her silly? Deny the possibility? Dismiss her? Or would he be more? She found herself wishing for the latter.

“Why do you believe that?” he said at last, his voice thick with emotion.

She stepped away from him. It was impossible to say these things when he was so close. “You knew my father—in some ways I think you knew him even better than I did. Because of that, you know as well as I do that he was healthy. He hadn’t been ill, but suddenly he was stricken and then almost immediately dead.”

Finn nodded. “Shocking, yes. But not unheard of. He was in his sixties, after all.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m not a fool. I know that someone can be taken without warning. But it was such a violent illness. So…” She trailed off as she tried not to think of the horror of her father’s last days. He’d vomited blood, he’d writhed in pain. It had been horrific.

“I’m sorry,” Finn said softly, and his hand came out to catch hers. She watched as their fingers intertwined and was shocked at the warmth that spread through her with the touch. The peace.

She tugged her hand away. This man could not be her peace. No man could be, it was simply too dangerous.

“My cousin inherited. Francis and I had never had a close relationship, but once he moved into the estate just a few days after my father’s death, it was like he became a different person. Whatever veneer of civility he’d shown to me came off without my father around to protect me.”

Finn frowned. “What did he do?”

“He was incredibly abusive to the staff, he made demands that all remnants of my father be immediately destroyed or packed away. He removed my pin money and held over my head the fact that he would be in charge of my inheritance until I married. And if he drank he would…he would say things about my father.”

She could see Finn digesting all this, increasing concern lining his handsome face. She had hoped she’d never have to tell him any of it, but she found it was actually a relief to do so. To say these words out loud to a person who was from the world she had grown up in. A person who understood its ins and outs in a way Jane or Campbell Ripley couldn’t, even though they were her saviors and dearest friends.

“I met your cousin several times over the years,” Finn said at last. “I admit I never liked him. But you’re implying that he killed your father, yes?”

She nodded. “I believe it with all my heart.”

“But I don’t understand why,” he said gently.

She threw up her hands. “He would say my father’s death was not worthy of grief. He would laugh when people referenced his illness. And once, deep in his cups, he held up a bottle of brandy in my father’s study and told me it was my father’s favorite, but that he would never drink of it. He smiled with such cruelty, such violence that I wondered then if he had…he had…”

“Poisoned it,” Finn whispered. “That is troubling, but?—”

“Please don’t say but,” she interrupted. “I’m not asking you to believe me. I explain all this to you without any thought that you would do anything about it, except understand why I cannot and will not ever go back to my family. To my cousin.”

Finn let out his breath in a long exhale. “I understand, Esme. I hear you. If you believe this, if it very well might be true, there is no way you could go back. And I understand why you would leave everything behind.” He hesitated. “Was the…was the story you told me before I knew your identity the truth?”

She flinched and stepped away. “Yes. I left and I became a lightskirt for a time, then a pugilist. Does that trouble you more now that you know I was born a lady? Because I’m not ashamed of what I did to survive.”

His brow wrinkled and he stepped toward her. He touched her cheek, his fingers splaying out with the most exquisite gentleness as he stared down into her eyes. “Nor should you be. I admire you just as much now as I did when you first told me. And I grieve just as much that you were forced into such a difficult position in the first place.”

Her breath hitched as she stared into the brown depths of his gaze. His kindness was like a balm on her battered soul and that was so utterly bewitching, but it was also dangerous. And yet she still couldn’t step away from him. Not when he was so damned handsome, not when she wanted him as much as she had the night before. And he wanted her—she could see it in his eyes. Truly her, not some masked temptress that he enjoyed chasing.

“So you won’t tell him?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. Never.”

There was such a firmness to the way he said those words. A solid truth that she found faith in when her world had contained little of it for the last two years.

He was still stroking her cheek and she leaned into his fingers and smiled at him. Then she lifted up on her tiptoes, wound her arms around his neck and drew him to her. He took a short breath before their lips met. It was gentle at first, almost exploratory despite the pleasures they had shared the night before. But when she parted her lips, when she sighed into him, his arms came more tightly around her, he made a low groan from deep in his throat and he claimed her.

She lifted into him, tasting him, drowning in him, trying to get closer to him even when all the layers of clothing and propriety separated them. When one of his hands came into her hair, his fingers bunching against her scalp, she tilted her head and the kiss deepened further. Everything else spiraled away, leaving only desire, leaving only need and want and the tingling of pleasure through every nerve ending.

He pulled away slightly, staring down at her with wide eyes that almost looked like they were filled with disbelief. “Esme,” he whispered.

She nodded, answering a question he hadn’t asked but she saw nonetheless. “Yes, Finn. Yes, yes, yes. Take me upstairs, please just take me upstairs and let’s forget everything but pleasure.”