“I’ll give you a few days,” Wolf conceded, “until I tell Jasper and the rest. Suttons don’t keep secrets from each other, we never ’ave, and I ain’t about to start because of a set of petticoats that has no business being beneath this roof to begin with.”
The loss of the h in his brother’s speech was telling. When they had been younger, Jasper had seen them all educated. A poor attempt to teach the baseborn rookeries out of them. But the blood of the East End still ran through all their veins, and sometimes it was more apparent than others.
He didn’t like the vagueness of Wolf’s concession, but the hour was late, and he needed to see to his guest. Hart nodded. “Thank you. You’ll not regret this, I promise.”
“We need to tell the rest,” his brother repeated, voice stern.
“Aye,” Hart reluctantly agreed, for he knew already what Jasper’s reaction would be.
And likely what the rest of their siblings would think. He had no wish to involve them because he wanted to keep them safe. But that was a battle he would fight in the morning. For now, he had Lady Emma awaiting him in his chamber where he had left her. He took his leave of Wolf and made his way through the maze of halls that constituted the private interior of The Sinner’s Palace, grateful he did not have the duty of watching the tables on the floor tonight.
Because instead, he would have to be standing guard over his reluctant guest. Perhaps he should have indulged in some drops of jackey first, because the prospect of spending the night in his room with a lovely interloper was already having a far greater impact on him than he would have preferred.
Hart would bed down on the floor, of course.
He knocked on the door to warn her of his imminent arrival and then opened it without awaiting a response. She stood at the lone window, his jacket still wrapped around her shoulders, far too large for her diminutive frame. She spun to face him as he crossed the threshold and snapped the door closed behind him.
“Hart.”
What was it about his name uttered in her voice that made his cock twitch with awareness? It was melodious, that dulcet tone. The sort of voice that ought to be accompanied by a pianoforte. Singing at a musicale. Not here, in the depths of the East End, his to use.
He banished the guilt, for it had no place in his thoughts. “You are chilled?” he asked instead, taking note of the way she clutched his jacket tightly about herself.
“I am…” Her words faltered. “My gown is indecent. I am not accustomed to dressing with such a lack of modesty.”
How painstakingly she phrased her words, taking care to avoid saying anything untoward.
“You aren’t accustomed to dressing like a whore, you mean,” he said coolly.
Take no pity on her. She is a means to an end.
The color fled her cheeks, her white-knuckled grip on the twain ends of his coat tightening. “Yes.”
He resisted the urge to apologize for his words and studied her instead. Her golden hair draped over her shoulders and down her back. Her feet were still bare. The lack of footwear had caused him to carry her from The Garden of Flora to his waiting carriage. He would not lie. The soft weight of her in his arms, the swelling sense of possession, of being responsible for her, had secretly thrilled him.
It was wrong, and he would ignore it. He knew of at least half a dozen women in his acquaintance who would happily fuck him silly if he but crooked a finger in their direction. Better to slake his lust with one of them instead.
Lady Emma Morgan is not for you.
Unfortunately, his body was not nearly as persuaded as his mind.
“Would you care for a different gown?” he asked, thinking she was likely similar in size to his sister Lily.
He could easily procure one of Lily’s frocks for Lady Emma. She could not go about wearing that sinful excuse for a gown for the next few days.
“Yes,” Lady Emma said. “If it would not cause too much trouble to procure one, I would like that very much.”
How polite she was. How proper and prim. Although she was draped in one of his coats and her feet were bare, she presided over the room as gracefully as any queen. Reluctant admiration swelled.
Along with something far more sinister and equally as potent.
Desire.
He wanted her.
“I will fetch you a gown now,” he decided, needing to put some distance between them.
To forget about the glimpse of her creamy skin he had spied through that indecent slit in her skirts. To remove himself from the temptation of her hesitant innocence, those lips no sane man could look at without imagining his cock sliding between them…
Damnation.
“Wait,” she called, halting him in his retreat.
He stopped against his better judgment and turned back to her, waiting for her to give him a reason why she had stayed his departure. When she did not, but instead crossed the short length of the room to stand opposite him, her sweet, seductive scent teasing the air, he choked back a curse.
Her blue eyes were on his, filling him with a fire he had no right to feel and one in which he could never dare indulge. “Surely there is not a gown to be had at this hour of the night.”
There it was again, that voice that was somehow sultry and innocent at once, those lush pink lips near enough that he could take one step and slam his mouth down on hers. There were precious few layers between them. Two, he thought, having held her in his arms earlier. She was almost naked. Her nipples had been tempting offerings, protruding from her bodice, and he could still see them now beneath the thicker barrier of his coat. Hard buds.
He wondered if their color would match the decadent pink blush of her lips.
Hart shook the unworthy thoughts from his mind and forced himself to answer her. “I’m a resourceful cove. I know where to find one.”
In truth, he knew how to find a great many more than one. And how to charm most of the ladies in his acquaintance right out of theirs. But that was a different conversation.
“Oh,” she said, a slight edge of disappointment in her voice, unless he missed his guess.