Page 21 of The Scoundrel of Drury Lane
Kit gave her hand a light touch, his fingers caressing hers. He wanted to kiss her senseless, but he also wanted her trust, and he wanted answers about her father. He wasn’t about to risk all that for a kiss. Not yet, anyway.
She lifted her chin and said nothing more. Kit collected her canvas bag of supplies from the corridor and carried it for her to the drawing room.
“Please be careful, Mr. Kit. My life is in that bag,” she urged as he slung it over his arm. It struck him that when he’d returned to London, he had carried his own life in a similar bag. He did not miss the protectiveness she held for what lay in that bag. It was full of her hopes and dreams, and she feared he would treat them carelessly. An undeniable feeling of kinship burrowed a small seed into the dark, rich, but untouched soil of his heart.
He cleared his throat and spoke honestly, his words slightly gravelly. “Your dreams are safe with me, Miss Townsend.”
She gave him the smallest of nods, an acknowledgment of that promise. He felt strangely shy, not physically, but emotionally. Lord knew he’d never felt that way before in his life.
The drawing room was cozily lit with firelight and oil lamps. Kit placed her canvas bag on the nearest chair, then looked at her expectantly.
“Tell me what you require to do your work.”
She opened her bag and buried her hands deep into it, finding what she needed. “Do you wish to be seated in your portrait? If so, we could pull that settee over to face the firelight.”
With a nod, he moved the furniture as she had directed.
While her back was turned as she prepared, he removed his coat so that he was wearing only his waistcoat and shirt. He’d had a chance to think about this since meeting her. As soon as the idea had sprung to his mind to have her paint him, he’d only seen one choice: to show therealhim. The wounded, beaten, starved, scarred creature that had been molded into a strong, stubborn beast of many burdens. He wanted London to see what had been done to him. An innocent man. Suzannah would paint London’s sins upon her canvas.
He unbuttoned his waistcoat and removed it. It wasn’t until he’d pulled his shirt over his head that he heard her gasp.
Yes, now you see what your father’s betrayal has done to me...
With his back to her, he smiled darkly. The rage that she seemed to rob him of when he was near her was back now. He focused on what this painting would say to his enemies. That he was back, and coming for them.
6
Suzannah gaped at Mr. Kit’s bare back. It was not the nakedness of his upper body that drew her reaction, but thescars. Dozens of them crisscrossed his back in pale pink and white patterns across his sun-kissed flesh.
She’d seen marks like that only once before. Jude, an escaped American slave who now lived free in England, worked as a stagehand at Drury Lane along with Henry. He too bore marks like this. These markings came from a cruelty that no creature, man or beast, should ever know. She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. Only evil caused such pain in this world.
Horror, the likes of which she’d never felt before, was numbing her from the inside out. It was as though she’d fallen through the top of a frozen lake and was trapped beneath the ice, screaming, and no one could hear her. All she could think of was the pain he must have felt, the fear, the terrible knowledge that he could do nothing to prevent it. Some of these scars were new, others old, some thin and straight, others jagged. They crossed paths like highways over his skin, layering years of pain on top of each other. She was so stunned, so frozen, that it took her a moment to realize he’d started speaking again.
“I wish for you to paint me, Miss Townsend, just as I am. Scars and all. London must see this, thetruth.” He was staring at her over his shoulder, his back still to her so she could see the full effect of his trauma.
“The truth?” she asked. “What truth?”
“The truth of innocence destroyed, Suzannah.” He turned toward her, the scars fading into the shadows as his eyes pinned her in place. “I was once much like Henry, innocent and young. Too naive to recognize evil when it came for me.”
Suzannah was nearly speechless, and her heart battered against her ribs. She hated to see anyone hurting and seeing this man’s pain hurt her far more deeply than she expected it to. “What happened?”
“I was convicted of a crime I did not commit.” His calm voice could not hide the vicious edge it had to it. “I was sent to live and die as a convict, far from here—far fromeveryoneI ever loved—by men filled with greed who took advantage of my innocence. Seven long years... that’s how long I’ve been gone from England.”
Tears blurred her vision as a terrifying truth settled within her. It couldn’t be him. Could it?
“This”—he turned again to show her his back, the ugly scars, the history of his quiet rage—“was my reward for such innocence.”
A man condemned, sent away as a prisoner... seven years ago...
She clutched her paintbrushes in one hand, her fingers tight enough that the wood threatened to crack. “Who...whoare you?” She knew the answer, knew it deep in her bones, but she had to hear the words.
Kit let the shirt fall to the floor as he turned to her, an avenging angel with a demon beneath his skin. A man so consumed with his past, the wrongs done to him, that all she could see was a wealth of muscles, hard angles, anddanger.
“I am a man looking for justice, andyouwill give it to me.” He flexed his arms, and she saw more scars upon his beautiful skin.
Her skin prickled at being so close to someone so determinedly angry, but she couldn’t look away. The way his eyes pierced her where she stood, stripped her bare and demanded that she face his truth... It all called to her, and her body was suddenly hotter under his gaze because of it.
“Why me?” she whispered.
