“What is Bancroft like?” Lorena asked as she stared at Genie.
The girl’s lips began to tremble before she bit her lip. “He’s… oh… you know. A man.”
“A handsome man, perhaps?” Sophia asked with a lifted brow.
Genie looked around the table and then a slow and seductive grin touched her lips. “Very.”
That seemed to say it all.
Alice took a drink of her milk while the other women wore smile hidden smiles. They were married, but it didn’t mean they didn’t appreciate a beautiful man.
“I’m quite jealous of you,” Taygete whispered.
Genie giggled. “I’d be jealous of me as well if I were you.”
The women laughed, and Christin felt a smile began to form on her lips. The women around her had been called scandalous and lived up to that title.
“Where are his offices?” Florence asked.
“In the gardens,” Genie told her. “We had to walk through a hidden passage. Apparently, the man has enemies.”
Well, if he tried to take her niece, Christin would be the newest one. She’d burn London to the ground if any man laid a hand on Tina.
That fire was burning in her when the door to the private room opened, and the very last person she’d expected walked into the room.
Christin closed her eyes and then reopened them, sure that the vision before her would change. And it did, but not in the way she’d thought. One minute, Aaron was by the door and in the next, he was approaching the table.
“Oh, Aaron,” Alice said. “We had no clue you’d be coming today.”
Christin didn’t believe that for a moment. She glared at Alice and a pang of hurt touched her. Didn’t the woman realize she had enough to deal with?
Alice gave her a sympathetic look before turning back to Aaron. He made his way to her side, all the while holding her gaze and making it clear just who’d he’d come for.
A footman came forward and presented the earl with a chair. The girls made room, and Aaron sat beside her.
He turned slightly so that he could face her, but then his nose wrinkled. He leaned forward, and she held her breath as he inhaled before leaning away. “Where the devil have you been today?”
Christin was struck mute at the audacity of his question. He’d not said hello or complimented her dress. Instead, he’d insulted her. “I beg your pardon.
He frowned. “You smell like gin and shite.”
The table gasped, and Christin couldn’t believe he had the nerve! And it hit her then that if Aaron thought she smelled like excrement, then surely the other women had when they’d hugged her, yet none of them had said a word. They were saintly women.
“Aaron,” Sophia hissed.
He ignored her and kept his eyes trained on Christin. “Where have you been?”
“Why do you care?”
He leaned forward and grabbed her chair arm. With a jerk— which caused a small shriek from her— the chair was turned to face him. Then he was in her face. “Where were you?”
A thread of fear touched her, and she whispered the answer he sought. “St. Giles.”
He drew his brows down and looked her over. “St. Giles? Why?”
She blinked, not ready to tell him the truth. “I had an… appointment there.”
His glare didn’t clear. “An appointment? Did someone touch you?”
Someone had, actually, and it wasn’t Tina’s small body that came to mind. Besides, Tina had not smelled like gin, only… shite. It had been Jack who’d—”
“What’s his name?” Aaron growled.
Christin shivered and not all of it came from fear. In fact, a great amount of it was in pleasure.
She was almost sure she heard another female at the table moan.
“Aaron,” Alice called, “this is not the way you speak to a woman.”
“Did you enjoy his touch?” he asked.
“No,” Christin said with great distaste and before she could think better of it. It would not do for Aaron to intimidate Jack. That would only ensure that she never saw Tina again. “I mean—”
“What’s his name?” he said through clenched teeth. She watched as the veins in his neck thickened and heard the sound of splintering. She looked down to find his knuckles white as he grabbed the chair arm.
Dear God, was he breaking the chair?
She waited for fear to strike at her senses, but the only thing she felt were the searing effects of desire.
When had a man last championed her?
Her sweet dear John had, but not with the same ferocity as Lord Jeanshire.
“Christin, I need you tell me his name,” Aaron said, drawing her attention to the present once more.
She could only imagine what he would do if she told him the truth and was sure she’d take great pleasure in seeing Jack Peck quiver in fear, but she knew better. “I can’t tell you.”
Aaron stared at her for a long stretch of time then said, “Leave us.”
Chairs scrapped back before Christin could protest and all the women she’d thought her friends abandoned her.
Sophia paused at the door and gave her a look she couldn’t understand, glancing toward Aaron before nodding her head in that direction. Then she left as well.
“Christin,” Aaron called.
She turned to look at him. “I can’t tell you his name, Aaron.” But she desperately wanted to. She was growing tired of fighting Jack all by herself.
For seven years, she’d been doing it, trying to protect her niece, but all she needed was one more day and then she planned to sneak Tina away and disappear forever.
That plan would not work if Jack grew suspicious of her, if he thought she had a champion.
Aaron pulled her chair closer to his, and she found her knees between his, their calves brushing. Her cheeks stung, and she looked away.
He cupped her chin and lifted her gaze toward his and this time, his eyes were soft.
She spoke before he could, fearing a gentle Aaron more than an intense one. “Please, I’ve only one more day to be bothered with him and then I’m gone.”
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CHAPTER SEVEN
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Gone.
When Aaron had come into the glass-enclosed back porch of the tiny teahouse in Covent Garden, his eyes had found Christin and his heart had leapt. He’d thought of nothing but her during his free moments since the day they’d met, seeing her smile in the smile of others, her black hair in the dark curls of other women, smelling her scent even when he knew it was only a trick of his mind.
Between his search for another governess and hiring men to keep an eye out for his cousin, he’d waited anxiously for this day. Once it had come, once he'd known he’d see her again, he’d vowed he’d not part from her for such a great length of time again.
Not if he could help it.
Not until he made her his own.
Gone.
During the carriage ride over, he’d given himself a lengthy speech on gentleness and controlling his more basic natures, but that had fled his mind once he’d caught the stench on her, a smell that only belonged to the worst dens in London.
The thin layer of control he’d diligently woven over the last two days snapped under his ire.
Still, Sophia’s words of caution had him desperately mending it together, but at Christin’s final plea, all bets were off.
Gone.
If she thought she could leave him then he’d been wrong to have stayed away as long as he had. The word had felt like a threat to his person, squeezing his heart and causing his gut to clench.
Gone?
He’d be damned if that ever became a reality. Whatever she was running from, Aaron would make it plain that all her future destinations led to him.
Her dark eyes searched his desperately, beseechingly. He nev
er wanted to see that expression on her face again. It hurt too much. This woman he barely knew called to the very darkness within him, the part of him that his brothers feared becoming unleashed on the world again.
Her expression gave him the strength to hide some of his temper. “What’s going on?”
She shook her head and leaned away. “I don’t want you worrying about it. I—”
He stood, grabbing her wrist, and pulled her to her feet. His other arm went around her and pulled her startled body in. “Tell me.”
Her eyes widened. “Aaron, I can’t.”
“Tell me.”
She shook her head. “Why do you care?”
He looked into her eyes and at the pulse in her throat and knew she wasn’t ready for that truth, but he would tell her the moment she stopped fighting what was happening between them. “This will work out easier for you if you tell me what is going on. Either way, I’m going to find out. I can either do so with you, and we can discuss a plan together, or I can handle this my own way.”
She stiffened, and a flash of surprise quickly turned into defiance before she started to fight his hold.
But it was of no use.
He shook her slightly, and she stilled. “Speak.”
She pressed her lips together and righteous indignation covered her features. “You’re not the first man to try and bully me or try to control me. Men have come after me and made feeble attempts to take over my business, but I will have you know that for the last five years, I’ve done very well to care for myself. So understand me when I say that I do not need, nor do I want, your help. I will see to my problems my way, as I have always done since the day of my husband’s death. Now release me.”
Aaron stared at her, and a thought came to mind.
Didn’t she know that men cowed before him? Women jumped to obey? He was the Earl of Jeanshire. He’d broken bigger men than her.
But he didn’t want to break her.
Neither had his mission been to upset her, though he thought the outcome quite fascinating.
“No,” he told her.
Her lips parted to speak again.
He cut her off. “You claim you won’t allow me to bully you and yet you allow another to run you off the business you just claimed to have run for the last five years. Yet I stand here, wishing to help you keep that which you care for, and you turn me away?”
Her anger melted under his words.
He leaned toward her and underneath the pungent smell of St. Giles, he found the one that was all her own. Creamy vanilla. “I learned a very valuable lesson a few years ago. Would you like me to tell it to you?”
She held his eyes but said nothing. Neither did she pull away, which was all the encouragement that Aaron needed.
“Pride goeth before destruction.”
She stilled and whispered bewilderedly, “That’s scripture.”
It was, and it was one of the only ones he remembered from during the years when the vicar would come to his rooms at school and talk with Aaron for at least an hour a day, helping him with his grief, and trying to ease the pain.
Trying to help Aaron control his temper.
Until one day, the lessons had moved from Aaron’s room into the vicar’s own forging shed. It was there that the lessons had truly begun. The vicar had been the son of a blacksmith and had never given up the talent completely.
It was under the bending and molding of metal that Aaron had learned self-control.
The vicar, for all his efforts, hadn’t succeeded as much as he’d wished to. Aaron had continued to get into fights, even all the way through Oxford, but he thought the man would be glad to know Aaron had retained a few of his lessons.
And in the last year, he’d watched one friend after another test those very words. Pride goeth before destruction. Like his brothers, Aaron also had his pride. It was something that was instilled in him as a boy, all but part of the curriculum of a young lord as he grew into a man.
Each of his friends who’d fallen in love had had their pride tested and when help was needed, and the brothers always stood together, no matter what.
Aaron barely knew the widow before him, but he quietly decided to pledge his loyalty to her.
Doing so came easy.
“Are you religious?” she asked.
He released his hold on her wrist and slid his fingers up her arm. “I believe there to be a God, if that is what you mean.” But whether Aaron found favor in his sight was debatable. He often wondered if his care for Lily and Mary would somehow redeem him, though he didn’t spend much time thinking about it. He’d have taken the girls whether anyone watched or not.
A perplexed expression crossed her face. “What a strange way to answer the question.”
He drew closer to her and whispered, “You’ve still not answered mine.”
She tightened her features once more, though the feminine construct of her face kept her from looking anything close to severe. But then she pulled in a breath. “You’re wrong if you think it’s the business that I value most.”
His heart leapt in elation that she was speaking, opening up to him. He kept his mouth closed so that she’d continue.
She looked at him with dark soulful eyes. “It’s my niece I worry about most. My sister’s daughter, Tina. She’s eight.” Her lips trembled, and she turned away again.
He lifted her chin and had to hold himself back from kissing her quivering mouth. “Tell me.”
“Since my sister passed seven years ago, Tina has lived with her stepfather, who has always been an issue. He rarely feeds her, and she’s always terribly dirty. He’s not very… nice.”
If her hesitation told him anything, it was that there were other, better words to describe the man.
“He’s in need of money,” she finally said. “If I don’t deliver him two hundred pounds, I may never see her again. His creditor may take her away...” Her situation sounded horrible, yet he knew that as her gaze remained fixed elsewhere, she was hiding something else.
“Does he gamble?” Aaron asked, and he slipped his hand to her shoulder.
“I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “But if I can get him the money, he’ll give Tina to me for a whole week.” A smile curved her lips before it fell flat once more, reality and hardship stealing it away. He saw that he and Christin had something very big in common. They both wanted to protect little girls.
“Consider it done.”
She looked at him. “What?”
“I’ll pay the two hundred pounds.”
She stepped back out of his hold and shook her head. She wrapped her arms around herself as if growing cold, though the room was quite warm. “No, I mean… thank you, but I’ll handle this on my own.”
“Take the money,” he told her. “Have your niece for the week.”
She turned her back to him then moved to the windows where a line of plants had been arranged. “I can’t take your money.”
He followed her. “Why not?”
She lifted her chin and glared at him. “You’ll expect something in return for such a great sum.”
He tried to make his smile less mocking but was sure he’d failed. “Christin, whether I give you the money or not, you and I already have plans.”
Her eyes narrowed to the point that they might as well have been closed. “I’m not sleeping with you.”
He moved closer, and she took a deep breath before stepping back. Her hands went up to his chest and he grabbed them, holding them there. He’d thought to inform her that they were inevitable but instead simply asked, “What sort of man would I be if I allowed your niece to go hungry for one more day? Take your niece for the week and let us work to find a way so that you may keep her.” And his plan to see the rest through was simple. He’d pay off her brother-in-law’s debts, ensure that Christin and Tina were safely tucked away at his home, and then run the man out of town, making it impossible for him to stay.
The plan was a quick and easily solution.
It was a good thing he had no intentions of using the courts. “Let me worry about it.”
She looked up again, puzzled. “Why? Why would you do this?”
He leaned forward and kissed her, finding her lips soft and pliable. The pleasure of her mouth was like an uppercut to his senses, leaving him dazed and hard.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
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Christin saw the kiss coming, knew she should have turned away from it, but failed to make up her mind in time to avoid it.
And once it started, any thought she’d had of denying herself vanished. Emotions had been battering at her like rain against a window all morning, but the press of Aaron’s lips seemed to hold the power to empty her mind. The pain was gone and replaced by desire, making her warm where she’d been cold, full where she’d been empty.
The kiss didn’t give her hope about her current situation.
It did something marvelously better, something she’d never been able to do alone for the last eight years.
It swept the problem away, banishing it from her mind and giving her an amount of reprieve that almost made her weep. It made her heart flutter, made her feel light and daring, reckless even.
She stopped being Christin Potter when he touched her. She stopped being a business woman who always had to keep up her guard. With a kiss that was as bold as brass, she became a woman, an equal to this brutish man, driven by the principals of a beast.
“Riveting,” he whispered against her mouth before tightening his hold on her hands.
Christin's Splendid Spinster's Society Page 6