Now they shared a room, as they had when she was his prisoner, and she didn’t know how she felt about it. Her belly tightened in anticipation of.... what? Would this intimate setting lead to another kiss? Part of her feared the possibility. Part of her hummed with eagerness. Certainly, traveling alone with him raised a question about her reputation and virtue. She should be appalled that she wanted another kiss more than she wanted to remain chaste.
Julia turned her thoughts away from the unexpected situation. They were not at the stage stop for an assignation but as a place to rest before searching out Ned and Alice. She would focus on the possibilities of locating them and not of ruinous temptation.
Some minutes later, Julia was reaching for the door latch when a brisk knock sounded and Tristan asked, “May I come in?”
She opened the door. “I was about to come down in hopes getting of something to eat.”
“Give me a quick moment to wash the dust from my face and we shall go down together. I don’t recommend you going alone.”
She stepped back to allow him in, then seated herself on the single chair placed next to a lamp table in the room. She turned her face to the door and tried not to think about the times she had watched beneath lowered lids when he’d changed clothing in the Surrey house. The sounds of water dripping and shifting in the bowl ceased and she imagined him using the toweling over his face—had he removed his shirt, as he had in Surrey? Heat blossomed at her core and radiated up to her cheeks at her improper wish that she could turn to see. She closed her eyes to imagine the sight. Her pulse quickened and her cheeks burned at the remembered image.
She opened her eyes when she heard him move away from the basin, and prayed he wouldn’t notice her blush when he stood in front of her.
“That feels much better.” He straightened his coat and offered his arm. “Shall we find our supper?”
The aromas of mutton stew, strong ale, and hearth smoke drifted up the stairs and Julia looked forward to a hot meal. Most of the tables were filled, but Tristan led her to one tucked in the corner a bit away from the other patrons, so they could converse without being overheard.
“Ned and Alice were through here last night,” Tristan said after they had ordered a simple meal of stew, bread, and cheese. “They arrived late and Alice was asleep when Ned carried her in. This morning Ned had her bundled tight against the cold when they left at dawn. I suspect he dosed her with laudanum to keep her quiet.”
“Then he will be in Portsmouth?”
“Once he has finished this business there is always the chance he could go to the Americas or the Indies, though Tom did not think it likely. We are just a day behind, though, and I doubt he could complete his business so quickly. He doesn’t know we found Tom and he did not see me when you were taken, so he might think himself safe in Portsmouth.”
Dismay cramped Julia’s middle and compressed her lungs until she could barely breathe. “But what of Alice? How quickly might he act?” She blinked away the sting of tears. “Can we find her in time to save her?”
“Brothels often delay the presentation of innocents to their customers to raise their profit, but I don’t know.” Tristan’s mouth became grim again. “We will find her though. As to Ned, few people like complete change. Tom said he uses a different name in Portsmouth, which would not require him to leave England. It is what most men needing to escape their past do.” His lips lifted in a humorless smile. “It is what I would do.”
Renard had changed Julia’s name when they arrived in England by telling her that she was English now and her name should reflect that. So Juliette d’Orsey had become Julia Dorsey, and she’d forever turned her back on the horrors that she had witnessed. She thought of her sister. If she lived, had Beatrice changed her name as well?
She sat in silence for several minutes. Then she asked, “Do you think Ned knows what happened to Beatrice? Do you think he really was the one who sold her for Renard?” She looked up, desolation in her expression. “Will I be able to discover if she lives?
Tristan frowned. “What could you do if he did? Too much time has passed, Julia. Whatever the truth is, it will not change the past, and fruitless searching will only lead to more sorrow. That is a road you do not want to follow.”
Even if she knew how to search, Julia realized it would take resources she didn’t have. She caught her lower lip in her teeth then released it with a sigh. “I would not be able to pursue Beatrice even if it were not hopeless,” she admitted. “I must find a way to support myself, now that I shall be without Renard’s provision. Perhaps if I change my name Lady Ravencliffe will be willing to write me a reference that will allow me to become a governess.”
“I told you my family will see that you are cared for.”
She shook her head and put down her spoon. “I must find a way to be independent.” She picked it up again but didn’t take a bite. “If I were able to find Beatrice, and she was willing, I would want to share a home with her. If she was forced into a life of shame your family would not be able to extend their patronage to us—nor would I request it of them.”
Tristan put down his spoon as well. “What if she was not willing? She might be under the protection of someone who would not let her leave.” His eyes reflected pity and apology when he added, “I’m sorry to speak so bluntly, but I will not lie to you. After so much time, you will be strangers. She will have changed greatly from your memories.”
At twelve, Beatrice had been filled with joyful enthusiasm for life and its promise. What if she had turned into one of those women Julia had seen in the streets near the docks? Now that she was away from the novelty of what she’d witnessed at the Gray Whale, she admitted that the atmosphere had held a note of sadness under the laughter. Might Beatrice be bitter or coarse or would she resent the life Julia had lived? Would they still like each other?
Julia flinched to realize Tristan was right. It was as though someone squeezed and twisted her heart. Never had she considered that Beatrice might reject her. “Then she will have made a choice she did not have before,” she finally admitted.
Yet after years of thinking her sister dead, the glimmer of hope that she might live had filled Julia with the need to reunite with her. She had been alone for so long, so envious an observer of those with warm family ties, it hurt to imagine a future where her sister lived, but rejected her. The idea of losing Beatrice a second time made the empty place in her heart grow larger, darker, and lonelier.
Another face, younger with blond hair and an impish grin, filled her mind and she clenched her hands. Would Alice be lost, too?
CHAPTER 22
Tristan removed a pillow from the bed, dropped it to the floor, and then pulled his cloak from the wall peg and tossed it onto the pillow.
“What are you doing?”
He looked up at the exasperation in Julia’s voice. “Preparing a place to sleep. The bed is yours.”
“You refused to allow me to sleep in discomfort when I was your prisoner. I see no reason you should be uncomfortable now that I am not.” Her cheeks blazed in contradiction of her matter of fact declaration.
“I do.” Tristan told her bluntly. “You are no longer my prisoner. And you know as well as I that we both enjoyed that kiss at the Gray Whale too much to ignore.”
Her flush deepened.
“If I don’t take the floor we’ll share more than the bed.” He saw the brief flare of desire that lit her expression before she glanced away. She licked her lips and wrapped her arms around her middle. His body stiffened in response. “As I expected us to be able to secure separate rooms, I felt it inappropriate to call attention to the fact.” He faced her with his fists on his hips. She might as well see what she did to him. “But I doubt I will be any more comfortable in the bed than I will on the floor.”
He could see she didn’t know what to say in the face of the evidence that sharing the bed would be dangerous to her virtue and his honor. “I think it best to leave matters where they are.” Hi
s body disagreed, but his conscience applauded his sacrifice when he rolled himself into his cloak and settled on the floor facing away from the bed.
“Good night, Julia.”
She said nothing more before she blew out the candle. He listened to her climb into the bed and settle into place.
Tristan lay in the dark, his body aching, and cursed himself for a fool. Julia had not denied the fire their kiss had ignited. She’d been as affected as he had. Unfortunately, that didn’t change the fact that Julia was a respectable woman who deserved to be treated with courtesy and honor.
He shifted on the floor, rolling to his right side now that the darkness hid the bed and the woman in it. Julia shifted, too. He could hear the rustle of the sheets. She shifted again, then a minute later, again. Listening to her movements, the slight creak of the bed slats, the little puffs of breath that escaped when she turned from side to side, only fueled his imagination and increased his discomfort. He hoped she drifted off soon.
Then, out of the darkness Julia whispered, “Have you ever visited a brothel?”
Tristan tensed. Did her question relate to Alice, or her sister—or to his obvious desire for her? “Why do you ask?”
“I know that men have... needs,” she hesitated. “that cause physical discomfort—and that require relief. The women in brothels do that...” Silence stretched and Tristan knew she searched for a way to finish her thought. “And I wondered... what it is like to...”
She took a deep breath and blurted, “I want to know what such places are like—and if the women there enjoy servicing their customers.” Then, faintly, she added. “And what they actually do.”
Tristan swallowed a groan. Did she expect him to describe the act? Did she really want to know the pragmatic truth about the barter of a woman’s body for coin? Purchased goods were used, then discarded when no longer needed. If he were honest about the conditions in most of those places she would grieve for her sister. If he preserved the illusion that brothels simply provided mutual and voluntary exchange of pleasure for coin he did her no kindness.
It served him right for losing himself in that kiss. It raised her curiosity and that was dangerous for two people traveling alone together. That damned kiss had set him aflame, yet came nowhere near satisfying what he wanted to do with her. He certainly had no intention of making himself more miserable by describing those fantasies to her.
“I know you are awake,” she murmured. “I will not be shocked if ... Is that why you are a bastard? Was your mother –?”
“No.”
“I am sorry,” she apologized. “It is none of my business.”
“She was my brother’s nursemaid after his mother died.”
“Oh.” Julia’s voice held a note of neutrality that told him she wanted to ask more, but felt she’d overstepped the boundaries of curiosity by asking about his status. He sensed the intensity of her silence. Female servants were often prey for their employers, their sons or guests. She would not ask, but he knew what she wanted to know. He had wanted to know the same thing.
“He didn’t force her. Nor, it turns out, did he know about me.”
“If your father didn’t know about you, how –?”
“When she realized she was dying, she sent him a letter asking that he provide me with an apprenticeship –but for reasons too complicated to relate, he didn’t receive the letter for more than six months. It took him several more months to find me.”
More silence. The woman could say more by saying nothing than anyone he knew. He had never told anyone the details of his childhood. Indeed, he resented it when people pried, as though he were a specimen to be pitied. Life in Seven Dials had been harsh, but it was what he knew and accepted, just as Julia accepted that the Terror happened, and that she had been orphaned. But her experience had forged a strength to face whatever new situations challenged her. Though she failed to recognize her courage.
Finally, he said, “I was nine when she died of consumption.” The darkness made it easier to talk about his own loss. “I was on my own for nearly a year.”
She shifted again and he imagined she now faced him, though it was still too dark to see. “How did you survive?”
“I learned to pick more than locks.”
“You were a pick-pocket?” Her shock made him smile.
“All the orphans in Seven Dials pick pockets.”
“Oh.”
Tristan shifted onto his back, stacking his hands beneath his head. “My father eventually found me, but I wanted nothing to do with him despite being taken into his household. I did everything my power to show my resentment and distrust. I knew that servants who fall pregnant are turned off without reference. I assumed that was the case for my mother despite what she told me.”
“What changed your mind?”
He gave a rueful chuckle. “Do you remember when I told you about the brother’s war?”
She made an affirmative sound.
“Lucien was particularly angry one day when I embarrassed him in front of his friends. He showed me the letter my mother had written and taunted me about her being linked with one of the lower footmen. Instead of humiliating me, it proved my father truly didn’t know about me until then.” Amusement touched his lips. “Lucian pretty much gave up baiting me after that. I never reacted the way he thought I would.” The half-smile died. Except for that last time. The one they both regretted.
“It is late, Julia. Go to sleep.”
AS SHE LAY IN THE DARK, Julia considered how much her life had changed since Tristan had entered it. She would never have dreamed that she would be any more scandalous than when she had made that disgraceful scene at a crowded ball.
Now she traveled with a man who was not her husband. She had kissed that man publically—and wantonly—in a common dockside tavern. That memory made her touch her lips. To be absolutely honest with herself, she wanted to kiss him again.
She had slept in the same bed with him for three nights before he allowed her a private room. Julia might still retain her virginity, but she knew she was ruined in all but actual fact. If word of this quest became public it would not matter if she retained her maidenhead or not. Nor would she ever know what it was she had supposedly experienced.
Riding beside Tristan had made her aware of all the unnamed yearnings she had ignored for too many years. The frank debauchery at the tavern and that kiss, had defined her yearning. She wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted the closeness of being held. She wanted... she to be wanted.
She had seen the evidence that he wanted her. More than once, though he’d tried to disguise it and she’d pretended not to notice. But she had. And now she resolved to end the farce they had maintained since the night in the tavern.
If only she knew how.
Tristan had threatened—or had it been a promise?—to truly bed her if they shared one. She had only the vaguest idea of what that meant, but since kissing was a part of it, she was willing to discover the rest.
Still, the idea of blatantly inviting him into her bed after his warning tightened her throat. The darkness of the room had emboldened Julia to ask impertinent and intrusive questions... would it make it easier to invite him to her bed? Would it make it easier to hide her disappointment if he refused again?
Julia had just begun to doze when she became aware of muffled voices on the other side of the wall from where her head rested on the pillow. A low-pitched rumble asked a question that caused a feminine giggle followed by a high squeal and another giggle. Curiosity wiped away the fog of sleep and Julia wondered what had made the woman squeal like that.
All was quiet for a space of several minutes, but soon gasps and growl-like sounds became audible. Above her pillow, something bumped against the wall and the woman’s voice took on a pleading note and something bumped the wall again... and again, until the steady rhythm pounded above Julia’s pillow while the woman wailed and pleaded.
Julia sat up and scrambled to the floor. “Tristan!” she wh
ispered loudly when she reached his side. “Tristan! Do you hear that? There is a man hurting a woman in the room next door.”
Tristan sat up and rubbed his hand over his face. He groaned. “He is bedding her, not hurting her.”
“But she is begging him to stop, can’t you hear that? It is in the tone of her voice. She is pleading with him!”
“She isn’t pleading for him to stop—she’s begging him to bring her to release.”
Julia stopped shaking Tristan’s arm and sat back on her heels. The pleading voice had shifted to a keening wail as the wall shook with increasingly rapid pounding until the male voice shouted in triumph and all sound ceased.
Julia stared at the silent wall, stunned and unnerved. For all the violence of sound and emotion, some dark place deep inside her responded with yearning as well as dread. She turned back to Tristan, her eyes wide and searching in the dim moonlit room. “That is what it is like?”
“Bed sport is something to be experienced, not listened to.” He finally said. His voice had a strange huskiness, as though his words were tangled in this throat. “Definitely not listened to.”
“You are sure he did not hurt her?” She whispered. “she cried out and he shouted.”
“Those were cries of completion—release if you will.” He gave a sigh that told her he didn’t want to talk about what had happened in the next room.
“Go back to bed, Julia. With luck they will be done for the night.”
Julia didn’t move. “How...?”
“Don’t ask,” Tristan warned. “I am fighting the urge to demonstrate as it is. Now, I am pleading—go back to bed.”
“What if I want you to demonstrate?” Julia held her breath. Had she really said that?
Dead silence greeted her. Then she heard his harsh intake of breath before his hand wrapped around the back of her neck and brought her mouth to his. His other arm came around her as he pulled her down and into a tight embrace that made her heart accelerate and her body throb with anticipation. His lips pressed, his teeth nibbled, his tongue tasted and Julia answered his demand with all the instinctual yearning of her heart.
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