Page 62 of Tempting the Scoundrel
“They represent every friend I lost to Whelan.”
Alex’s hand stilled, her gloved fingers curling into her palm. “And he . . . put you all in a dark place? Like an opal mine?”
Rats scratching the walls. The stones press in, the stench of cheroot lingering in the air. His hand finds O’Sullivan’s shoulder in the blackness, presses there. They had to survive.
“A cellar in the Old Nichol.” Thorne’s voice sounded so calm; it had taken years of practice. “We were let out for tasks. Whatever Whelan needed.”
“Tasks?”
He had a knife in his hand, slick in his grip. Killing meant eating. Sustenance to survive the dark. To make him strong. One step closer to getting out.
“Killing,” Thorne said bluntly. “Stealing. Kids can get into tight spaces, hide more easily. They’re more eager to please, and none of us had family. No one to look for us, no one to miss us if we died. No one to give a shit. You start to learn what things you’re willing to do for a full belly, a hint of kindness, and the promise of fresh air.” Out the window, he could see the rooftops of the East End. He’d scaled so many of them, even when his body was weak and trembling. “We were let out of that cellar for good when we grew into men, and replaced by other children Whelan wished to train. But none of us forgot it. I didn’t, when I took your father’s offer.”
When her eyes rose to meet his, he felt as if he’d been knocked off balance. She had that look about her, back in Stratfield Saye, when she’d tempted him in the water. It was one that enticed sailors to the sea, that spoke of either passion or destruction—or, perhaps, both. When she rose from the bed and approached him, Thorne felt rooted to the floor, held in a trance. He watched as she removed one of her gloves.
She reached for him with a bare hand, nudged aside his jacket, pushed under his waistcoat to find the lawn of his shirt. With brisk movements, she untucked the fabric from his trousers.
There. The heat of her fingertips on his skin, sliding up his torso. Thorne didn’t dare move, didn’t dare speak, lest she find some reason in both to stop touching him. She was that wild fey creature in the lake, holding his fate in her hands. Deciding to love him or drown him.
Alex found his scars, the eleven ridges he had carefully carved into his torso the night before he left London years ago. Names he thought of on the train during their journey to Gretna. Names he catalogued in his mind before every lie to her.
“If you had told me everything back in Stratfield Saye before we married, I would have been furious,” she said to him.
“That’s why I—”
Her fingertips pressed to his scars harder. “I would have beenfurious,” she repeated, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t know how long it would have taken me to forgive you. I truly don’t. But you need to understand something.” Her eyes were fierce now, almost angry. “I still would have gone with you to the anvil.”
Those words settled like a stone inside him, nudging the blade deeper. For the last four years, he had gone to bed every night wishing he’d told her everything when she asked him on the train. Cursing his own stupidity for not telling her then.
“I couldn’t take that risk,” he said. The excuse rang so hollow now.Fool. You fucking fool.
Ever so slowly, Alex slid her hand out of his shirt. When she looked at him now, it was with sadness. “The problem wasn’t the risk, Nick. It wasn’t those lives marked into your skin. It wasn’t even Whelan. It was that you didn’t trust me.”
Chapter 19
Their journey to Mayfair was quiet.
It was a relief after their discussion in Millie’s flat, but Alexandra was also uneasy. All these years, Nick had carried the responsibility for those in the East End, and he hadn’t trusted her enough to share it.
Knowing this had opened up Alexandra’s old wounds, ones she thought had healed over. She was reminded once more of his newspaper articles, criticisms of her work that said, in so many words,Stay away. I have no further need of you.More than that—they were warnings, too:We are fundamentally different. We are unfixable.
And yet . . . how could she fault him for feeling that way? His upbringing left so little room for trust.
But that did not make it hurt less.
She would do well to remember the words he wrote and take them to heart. The ocean liner in her future was another chance for her; it left open so many possibilities away from him. Where she could experience new things. Meet new people. Begin to mend.
But first, she had someone to warn.
The hack rolled to a stop in front of the bricked Mayfair building. Nick offered Alexandra a hand to help her down, and she kept that moment of contact brief. She felt his warmth even with her glove in place.
“Should we be entering a nunnery in the middle of the afternoon, in clear view of everyone?” Nick asked after he paid the driver.
Nunnerywas an old canting word for a brothel, where prostitutes were referred to asnuns. “It’s a club,” she reminded him as they approached the solid wood door at the back of the Masquerade. “And this is the servants’ entrance. I have my own knock.”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Isn’tclubjust a fancy word for a bawdy house?”
“No.” She gave three series of three knocks in quick succession. “Membership is purchased, company is not. Do you plan to use every term in your vocabulary for a brothel?”
