More than beautiful. She had the face he imagined an angel might possess. Not that it mattered. What she looked like meant nothing to him. Her usefulness to him, and his ability to get some answers about what had happened to his brother, was his only concern.
Ruthlessly, he tamped down a surge of awareness.
Her lips parted, her gaze dipping to the floor where the mask had landed in a sign of silent censure.
“I paid for the privilege,” he reminded her coolly. “And I’ll be seeing far more of you by the week’s end, love. May as well accustom yourself to it.”
That was a lie, of course. He was not going to bed Lady Emma Morgan regardless of how beautiful she was or how desperately hard the notion of taking everything he had just paid for made his cock.
But the less she knew of his plans for her, the better.
* * *
Emma staredat the mask lying in a crumpled heap on the rose-bedecked woolen carpets like a reprimand. He had seen her face, the nameless man who had paid handsomely for the privilege of taking her innocence. A tidy fortune. Enough to absolve her family of almost all Papa’s debts, she reminded herself.
Even as a voice echoed in her mind. This was a terrible miscalculation. Surely there is some other way. It cannot be too late to save yourself…
But it was.
It was too late to save herself, and it had been for some time. But it was not too late to save Abigail and Cassandra, which was why she was standing here, clad in the most improper gown she had ever beheld, being toyed with by the dangerous-looking stranger who had just bought her, as he had said, body and soul.
It is just one week, she told herself firmly, a reminder she had echoed to herself repeatedly after her father had asked her to do the unthinkable.
You are already ruined, he had said weakly that terrible night. I would never ask you to sacrifice yourself for me, but for your sisters. For Abigail and Cassandra.
And that was why she was here. She must not forget. She had to remain calm, whatever happened. She could survive the next week if it meant preserving her sisters from future ruination. Or, heaven forbid, saving Abigail and Cassandra from finding themselves in similar, desperate straits. About to lose the only true value society placed upon a lady…
She forced her eyes up from the floor, meeting the hazel stare of the man—she did not dare call him a gentleman—who had emerged victorious from the humiliating auction. As she had stood on the dais, she had been grateful for the mask maintaining her anonymity. It had protected her like a shield in battle, and now she had none. No defenses.
“Of course, sir,” she said with a tranquility she little felt. “Will you not tell me your name?”
He pursed his lips, drawing her attention to them. She had to admit they were finely formed. Generous lips, lips that would perhaps be pressed to hers soon, if he were the sort of man interested in wooing. Neither his words nor his actions thus far, however, suggested he was.
At least he was handsome. Distractingly so, even if the vileness of her present circumstances could not be overlooked.
“You need to understand something,” he said now, his voice deep and gruff, with an edge of warning. “I ain’t here to court you.”
She thought she had spied a trace of the East End ruffian in his accent. Certainly, it was present in his garb, in his form. His shoulders were broad, and he was a large man, his frame brutish rather than elegant, his fists large, his hair too long, his dress all black save for a snowy cravat at his throat.
She licked lips that had gone suddenly dry. “I am aware, sir. However, it was my hope that we might at least grow acquainted before…”
Her words trailed off in dismay as she realized she had not learned a polite way to describe one’s own ruination.
A bark of laughter escaped him. “Before we make the beast with two backs?”
He found this wretched situation amusing, curse him. She was at her lowest point, lower, even, than when she had been humiliated before all London. And yet, he saw levity.
Her hands curled into futile fists at her sides. “I have no notion what you mean, sir.”
“Before we fuck,” he elaborated, using a word she could only imagine to be so crude and so vulgar that she had never heard it before.
“Sir,” she began hesitantly, feeling adrift, “if you please, I have no notion of what you are saying.”
“Floating hell.” His lip curled, any gentleness she thought she had spied in his countenance having fled. “You are an innocent, aren’t you?”
In polite society’s eyes, she no longer was. But the difference between perception and reality was often woefully skewed.
She raised her chin in defiance. “That is what you paid for, is it not?”
His expression shifted. “I paid for something I want very much.”
The response only heightened her confusion. Every part of her was on edge. She was nearly trembling with the overwhelming nature of the peculiar moment in which she found herself. The bawd who owned the pleasure house in which they stood—Madame Laurent—had, in polite terms, and with the kindly air of an older sister, explained much to her.
Emma hoped the education would prove sufficient.
“And what is it that you want?” she asked into the tense silence that had fallen between them.
Her? Surely not. He did not know her. He had not even seen her face. Her innocence, then? Was her virginity of such interest? She hardly thought so. Else, why prolong the interview? He could have dispensed with this interminable dialogue and proceeded with his devious plans.
“You, of course. Did you have any doubt?” His voice was as grim as his countenance.
Despite his words, he did not seem like a man who wanted her. Quite the opposite.