Page 34 of His Brazen Tart
She crossed one leg over the other, causing the diaphanous gown to draw up and reveal a shapely calf. “Why didn’t you tell me that you love me?” she urged, looking genuinely curious to hear his answer. “Surely, you had to know that I felt something. I wasn’t wrong in thinking you returned the sentiment, but you made me feel as if I had gone mad.”
With a sigh, Piers pinched the bridge of his nose. This was the moment he would have to lay himself bare. Hiding the truth from her had been agonizing, and a futile effort as well. It had gained him nothing and he had still ended up alone. Alone, and aching, and filled with regret.
“When I was introduced to Lysandra, I was instantly taken with her,” he replied, each word coming excruciatingly slow to his tongue, as if his mouth rebelled against his heart and mind. He pushed past the difficulty, knowing nothing would change if he didn’t make this effort. And, oh, how badly he wanted to change. He was tired of his life as it was—colorless and morose, his every word and action guided by jaded cynicism. “She was beautiful and charming, and she treated me as if I were the only man in the room … the only man in the world.”
Joan leaned forward with her elbows braced on the arms of her chair, listening intently.
“I knew better than to let myself fall in love with her,” he went on. “I had spent my years at school learning a very painful lesson: I was an intruder in the higher circles of society and shouldn’t aspire to more than what my grandfather purchased with his money. The money he had earned with actualwork. I was tainted, found lacking. Marriage was in my near future for the sake of passing on the title, but I never thought to aim as high as a duke’s daughter.”
“Love knows no bounds,” she offered. “No station or class or obstacle.”
He scoffed. “What we had wasn’t love. I was infatuated with her and in love with theideaof Lysandra. She should have been so far out of my reach, but there she was, smiling at me and flirting and kissing me when we could steal a moment alone. I was so desperate to be accepted that I took her regard as love. Lysandra enjoys attention and flattery. Being a duke’s daughter has accustomed her to doing as she pleases and getting everything she wants without much effort. I thought she wanted me.”
“But she agreed to marry you. Surely that means she did want you in some way?”
“I’ll never know for certain whether she meant to go through with the marriage,” he replied. “But she received a better offer from Hardwick … after the banns for our ceremony had already been called twice.”
“Hardwick is a lecher,” Joan spat with a shake of her head. “He had no right.”
“I could argue that Lysandra was the one truly in the wrong. Hardwick had made no commitment to anyone. Lysandra had, but it wasn’t enough to hold her at my side. The idea of becoming a marchioness rather than the wife of a baronet with a purchased title seduced her right out from under me. Truly, I came to see that she was never mine to begin with.”
“I’m so sorry, Piers,” Joan murmured with a sorrowful look. “She must have hurt you so badly.”
Even as he shrugged to indicate it was of no consequence, he detected the fading pangs of the agony Lysandra had inflicted on him. Back then, he had felt as if he might die from the heartbreak.
“When I went to her demanding answers, she told me that it wasn’t personal,” he said, shaking his head in remembered disbelief. “Even a duke’s daughter has few options in life, and she had made the better choice. This is the way things were done in thebeau monde, and perhaps I would have known that and accepted the outcome better had I been born of the nobility.”
Joan made a low sound of derision in her throat, but made no further comment on the matter. Instead, she stood and approached him, both hands outstretched. Piers reached for her without hesitation, so desperate for her touch, for contact of any kind. He had thought himself content to be alone, but the warm thrill that went through him at the touch of Joan’s palms against his proved just how starved he was for affection, for love.
“So, it would seem we have come to a crossroads,” she said with a soft smile. “You love me, and I love you.”
“Still?” he prodded with a dubious frown. “Even after the way I acted and the things I said?”
Joan laughed. “Real love isn’t so conditional. I might not have had any experience with romantic love, but I do know that. I was hurt, but I didn’t stop caring for you, wanting you.”
He raised her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles, finally allowing himself to rest fully at this moment. It was real, and Joan was all but his.
“What are we to do now?” she asked, stroking the back of her hand over his cheek.
“You could marry me,” he blurted without a second thought. He had thrown away his first chance, but thankfully she was willing to offer him another. Piers didn’t intend to squander it. He certainly hoped Joan had a few more of those chances stashed away somewhere. He was certain to need them sometime in the future. “That night at Olympus, I realized that I didn’t want what we shared to end. I was devastated, knowing I would eventually lose you. I couldn’t think of any other way to protect myself from being hurt again but to place distance between us. But I don’t want distance. I want you, forever and always. You challenge me, Joan. You appeal to every part of me in the best of ways. You make me want to be a better man, for you if no one else. If the last few weeks have taught me anything, it is that I can’t live without you. I’m dying here. Throw me a lifeline. Marry me.”
Joan smiled. “Unfortunately, what we had before does have to come to an end. We can no longer be courtesan and client. I stand by my decision to cut you loose.”
“Fair enough.”
“We’ll start something new … something real and imperfect. But it will be ours. We will face whatever happens next together.”
Piers let out a breath of relief. Even having her close enough to touch again wasn’t enough to reassure him. He needed to be sure that what she was offering would be permanent.
“Then you will marry me?” he prodded.
“On one condition,” she said, suddenly serious again. She returned to where she had left her riding crop and lifted it, giving him a coy smile.
Piers stiffened, watching her caress the shaft of the crop with teasing fingers. “What condition?”
She came toward him with slow steps, the sway of her hips and forward thrust of her breasts reminding him that she was barely wearing anything. “If we are going to wed, I have to know that you can trust me. You see, I have a theory. Your need for dominance is only partly rooted in your carnal desires. There is another part of you that believes remaining in complete control at all times will protect you from being hurt again. If you are in control, nothing can happen to you. No one can hurt you. What you failed to understand is that your fear causes you to hurt other people. It led you to hurt me.”
Piers gaped at her in astonishment. This was a facet of his personality that even he hadn’t been aware of. But now that she’d stated it so plainly, he could see that Joan was right. His careful orchestration of every affair he’d had since Lysandra proved that. His need for control was partly rooted in fear, and he was tired of being afraid.
