They were hot and too intimate and yet deadly serious. In other words, very like how they would look glowing above her in a room lit only by a low fire, his arms planted on either side of her nude body as she arched her hips to—
She dug her nails hard into her palm.
The little pain was instantly as sobering as a cold plunge into the Thames.
Yet the next breath she took was both shallow and hot.
And to think she’d thought she was safe here at The Grand Palace on the Thames. And safety now meant freedom from desire—from her own, and from the kind of men who would pursue and then partake of her as thoughtlessly as they would a cigar or Belgian chocolates. In other words: most of them.
“I credited you with more insight than you possess, Lord Bolt, if you think a woman of any kind is at liberty to say whatever she thinks without suffering consequences.”
She managed to say it with some semblance of her usual aplomb.
One did not allow men like Lord Bolt to think they’d found a vulnerability.
She gave a little start and whipped around at the sound of a “Ha! Ha ha!” behind her.
Every chess win was as exciting as the first time for Mr. Delacorte.
Mr. Cassidy was muttering good-naturedly. He knew better than to swear. The epithet jar remained a reproachful presence.
Delilah caught her eye. Angelique gave her a quick smile and turned back to see Lord Bolt take another sip of brandy.
And for a moment they sat in a silence that seemed to be comprised of resettling impressions of each other. It was not a comfortable silence. But troublingly it was infinitely more interesting than any silence she’d ever before known.
His expression as he studied her was somewhat abstracted, as if she were a map to an unfamiliar place.
“Have you considered, Mrs. Breedlove,” he began, “that I may, in fact, be in need of some comfort?”
She blinked, astonished.
His expression remained unreadable. He asked this question as if it were a question of academic interest. A debatable philosophical conundrum. It lacked even a shred of insinuation.
Which was a shame, because it would have been much easier to dismiss that sentence as euphemism: What could be more “comforting” than a quick tumble, from a man’s perspective? That sort of thing. But she was pretty certain Lord Bolt was not a coy man.
Something about the careful way he’d said the words sneaked them past the spike-topped, thick-walled ramparts around her heart, and escaping from Newgate was easier to do than getting past those. She understood that this man’s life had not been shaped by kindness. Perhaps he craved a little respite from whatever relentlessly drove him.
The one remaining undefended corner of her heart ached to reach over and stroke away the shadows beneath his eyes. Because nurturing was a woman’s gift, and she had a gift for it, too. Maybe even a need for it.
And to think she’d just lectured him on the hazards of rigidity. The true danger was softness. Because men who were not shaped by kindness were ultimately hard. They sought their comforts from the softness of women. And some woman eventually paid the price.
She did not want to care. She did nothaveto care.
She was done paying that price. Period.
“Our staff here at The Grand Palace on the Thames will make sure your room is scrupulously clean, that you’re well-fed and warm, and it’s our policy not to allow anyone to kill our guests, unless they truly deserve it.”
He laughed, surprised. A genuine, good laugh.
And something in her eased.
He sighed. “Tell me, Mrs. Breedlove. How did a woman like you come to be a boarding house proprietress? Something tells me you may have once, metaphorically speaking, been fished from the Thames. Because I know of a certainty one does not come by a predilection for lecturing here at the docks.”
Oh, if only he’d been a little more stupid. He’d be so much easier to dislike.
Of all the things she’d been in her life—“daughter,” “mistress,” “ruined,” to name a few—she told him the one thing that required the least explanation. Because she was not about to exchange intimacies with Lord Bolt.
“I was once a governess.”