Secluded with the Rogue

5. Now Jack Knows

Now Jack Knows

W as he in love with her?

Jack’s aroused state prevented him from comprehending her words for a few seconds. Indeed, she could not be serious.

And yet, she lay beside him as stiff as a board, eyes pinched closed, fists and thighs clenched.

Was this a joke? No. Even the most talented of actresses couldn’t feign such mortification.

Jack removed his hand from her leg, his cock not appreciating that things weren’t proceeding as promised. But he couldn’t go any further until matters between them were clear.

“Delia.”

She didn’t move.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

Her bottom lip trembled, but he resisted the urge to calm her with a kiss. And when she opened her eyes, his heart stopped. She was pretty, damned pretty. And alluring as hell. But… Had he been wrong about her?

“Tell me.” He exhaled through his nostrils. “What position, what employment is awaiting you here in Old St. Vincentshire?”

“I’m to be an elderly lady’s companion.” She bit her lip. “Why?”

Hellfire and damnation. Pox on a… Nearly indistinguishable curses rolled through his mind.

Jack scrubbed a hand down his face. “I thought you were… I assumed.” Oh, hell . “Forgive me.”

“You thought I was…?”

God, but she was na?ve.

Jack rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “A bird of paradise.”

“A bird of what?” she asked, twitching and fussing at her bodice and skirts like an anxious robin.

“A light skirt, a trollop. Good God woman, I thought you were a prostitute.” Jack closed his eyes, anticipating a sharp slap across his face.

But it never came.

She hadn’t so much as moved, not even to twitch and fuss. He’d apparently stunned her into silence with his admission.

“A prostitute?” Her voice finally emerged, small, defeated. She rolled off the bed with a moan. “That’s why you are sharing your chamber—and the dinner. I’m here under false pretenses.” She’d moved back to one of the chairs and was shoving her feet into a rather sorry-looking half-boot. Even from here, Jack could see that they weren’t even close to dry from her march through the snow earlier that day. “I didn’t know. I would never have. To imagine that I thought—!” She dipped her head to lace up one of the boots. “ You idiot, Delia! To imagine a man would fall in?—”

Jack sat on the edge of the bed, trying not to stare down the top of her bodice while simultaneously realizing that he’d been a fool to think she’d had any sort of experience at this.

She had asked him if he was falling in love with her ! No one in the world could be that unworldly. He shook his head. He’d been the fool, not she.

Even in the borrowed gown, she held her shoulders in a manner consistent with having been raised a lady—a manner that was developed, rather than learned.

She was flitting around the room now, gathering up her coat. When she located the gown she’d worn earlier, washed but damp, she stared at it and then down at the red velvet dress, her expression making her look as though contemplating an impossible mathematical equation.

“I can’t take it. It’s not mine. I should change. If you’d be so kind as to allow me a moment alone, I’ll make haste to absent myself from your chamber… But I cannot wear this.” She plucked her fingers at the velvet skirt.

Her thick lashes blinked furiously, and as she made a valiant attempt to maintain her composure, unfamiliar strings tugged at Jack’s heart.

Were they strings of guilt? They couldn’t possibly be affection.

Pity, they must be pity.

“I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.” Jack ran his fingers through his hair, suddenly weary from the long day of travel.

She had been walking—in a blizzard. She was likely exhausted.

“I’ll…” She shoved her arms into her coat and rolled the old gown into a haphazard bundle. “I’ll return the gown once I’m settled.” She jerked her head around and rushed toward the door. But before she could open it, Jack shot across the room to prevent her from doing so.

Directly behind her but careful to give her some distance, Jack propped one hand on the closed door and dropped his other to her shoulder.

“Please,” she said. “I never intended... I’m such a fool! Of course you didn’t allow me to stay in this room and feed me because you were in love with me .” She let out an almost hysterical bark of laughter. “What must you think! What must you have thought!” Her voice broke, and her shoulders began shaking. “You are right, you know. About my family.”

“Hush.”

“You should have left me on the side of that road.” Silent sobs shook her.

With his plans for the evening up in smoke, Jack wanted to be angry at her. But none of this was her fault. The blame was his.

The blame was his but also whoever the hell had sent her traveling alone across England in the depths of winter.

“Don’t be foolish. You would have died.”

“Exactly.”

She was at the end of her rope.

“But I didn’t leave you there and… I am glad for that.” Jack was surprised at the truth in his words. As much as he’d convinced himself he was annoyed by her, he found her to be uniquely… sweet.

He wasn’t at all the sort of man who appreciated innocence or naivety. But with Delia, these traits managed to be… alluring. Hell and damnation, for reasons he didn’t understand, he liked her.

“Come back and sit down,” he suggested. “You aren’t going anywhere tonight.”

“You were willing to put up with me when you thought I was a—one of those women—but now I’m just a burden—to you, to my father, my mother, even my sister thinks I’ve ruined her chances…” She shook her head and then pulled at the door again, but Jack held it closed.

God only knew what would happen to her if she walked out of this chamber tonight. Most of those gentlemen in the taproom weren’t gentlemen at all.

They would likely come to the same mistaken conclusion that he had. And when she told them differently, they wouldn’t care that they were wrong.

“I’ll sleep in the stable. Please. Just let me go.”

“No.” Good lord, it was freezing outside. If she managed to survive the lecherous animals in the taproom, the storm would finish her off.

She dropped her shoulders, at the same time tilting her head forward, thumping it against the door.

She gulped. “It would have been better if you’d kept driving.”

“Hush.” Jack wound his hands around her waist, grateful she seemed to relent. Before all this happened, he’d been kissing her. He’d been tasting her skin and exploring lush, intimate curves.

He stifled those urges and walked her back so she could sit on the bed. She sniffed but didn’t bother wiping the tears off her face.

A flimsy nightdress was draped over the partition set up at the end of the room. It was a garment meant to reveal more than to cover.

He should have retrieved her belongings. It wouldn’t have killed them to take five additional minutes to turn back. He’d simply chosen not to see her as a person.

When had he become such a selfish bastard?

Jack crossed to where his own trunk sat. After rummaging inside, he lifted out one of his shirts. She would swim in it, but she’d likely feel more protected—less vulnerable than if she donned the slip of lace provided by Molly.

“Change into this and then take the bed.” He dropped the linen garment beside where she sat. “You won’t be bothered.” Not by him and not by anyone else.

For the first time since he’d removed his hands from her thigh, she met his eyes.

“Consider it an early Christmas gift,” he said.

She hesitated but then nodded. “I’m sorry for?—”

“No.” Jack’s voice came out gruffer than he intended. “The mistake was mine,” he grumbled, angry at himself. Jack rubbed the back of his neck, glancing around the room, unable to recall the last time he’d slept on a wooden floor.

“May I ask you something?” her voice interrupted his pitiful thoughts.

“If you must.”

“What was it about me that made you think I was…?”

The look in her chocolatey brown eyes was genuinely curious. If she saw what he did at that moment—waves of chestnut hair cascading over her creamy shoulders, voluptuous breasts nearly spilling over the bodice of her gown, her lips plump and slightly swollen from his earlier kisses…

If she could see herself looking as she did now, she’d never ask such a question.

Only.

Jack frowned. She had not been wearing that gown when he’d found her. She’d been buttoned up in her plain brown coat covered in mud and snow.

“Your hair.” His answer was the only thing he could think to give. But mostly it was because he…

Had wanted her. That he had so quickly jumped to that conclusion made him more than a little uneasy.

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

She stared at him and then nodded. “I can’t see your face from here—not without my spectacles.” She wasn’t overset anymore—not outwardly, anyhow. “But thank you for—” She glanced around the room.

Her gratitude only summoned more guilt.

“I should have known.” He winced. “I’m sorry. I just thought...”

“Honestly, it’s the most incredible thing that’s ever happened to me.” She scowled thoughtfully, looking ridiculously lovely. Miss Somerset, Jack was coming to realize, possessed a distinctive charm. “I wouldn’t even begin to know what to do as far as all that’s concerned. Gentlemen I’ve met at balls don’t really notice me. So, you see, it’s rather a compliment to be… that you would want…” She faltered, blushing hotly.

Her words jolted him.

“I was willing to pay you.“ Jack had even considered a permanent arrangement if it suited both of them. Her response wasn’t at all what he would have expected. Any other woman would be scolding him, filled with righteous indignation.

As she should be.

W hen Jack had saved her from the side of the road, Delia had foolishly imagined herself in a fairy tale. Sitting in this room, however, she still had the feeling of having stepped into another dimension.

He had been willing to pay her ?

She ought to be outraged. A proper lady would have been incensed at his kiss alone. A proper lady would have remained in her damp, soiled old gown the moment she’d taken one look at the maroon dress.

A proper lady would have died rather than risk losing her reputation.

However…

Delia frowned. A proper lady would never have been packed up and sent off alone on a mail coach.

Assuming her employers still wanted to hire her, as a companion, Delia was going to become even more invisible than she had been before.

“I’ve never worn red before,” she admitted. Unusual freedom swept through her while talking to him—a stranger.

But Jack was only a stranger in that he didn’t know her from London. He knew parts of her no one else had, or ever would again.

“It suits you.” He’d lowered himself into one of the chairs across the room, and Delia wished she could see him properly.

She had liked seeing him close up.

“I’ll never wear it again.” She met his gaze with a rueful smile. “I’m officially on the shelf now, going into service.”

“You had a season, then?”

“More than one. My mother said two seasons were more than enough. Any more would have been a waste of time and money.”

“But that is not why you are going into employment?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

The fact that Jack would even pretend to care about her circumstances proved that although he was a rogue, he was a compassionate one.

And responsible as well. Rather than blame Delia for this entire misunderstanding, he blamed himself.

He was so very unlike Bartholomew, who’d never taken responsibility for anything a day in his life.

“My brother,” she said. The errant strands of hair around her mouth lifted at her long exhalation. She tucked them behind her ear. “Two months ago, Bartholomew announced that if his debts weren’t paid, he was going to end up in Newgate. My father couldn’t bear the thought of that happening, and, as horrid as Bart can be, we couldn’t either.”

Jack didn’t respond, so Delia continued her tale of woe. “It wasn’t the first time he had gotten himself into this sort of trouble, so it wasn’t as though we had valuable items left to sell. All that remained of any value were Rachel’s and my dowries.”

“And you and your sister were forced to enter service?”

“Just me. Rachel has remained at home to keep my mother company. She’ll be allowed one more season if my great aunt is willing to put up a dowry.”

“And what of your brother?” Jack’s interest sounded sincere.

The answer to this question was the most irksome to Delia.

“He will go right on living as he always has. But unfortunately, all my father has left is entailed, and the next time Bart falls into debt, there won’t be anything to keep him out of Newgate. Can I tell you something ironic?” She continued before Jack could answer. “I don’t want him to end up there. I want him to quit the opium dens and the other horrible habits he’s fallen into and have a happy life. I love him. My family is… they are my family. I already miss them.”

Delia waved a hand in the air. “I’m sorry for going on like this. But…” She dabbed at her eyes. “When you kissed me—it was my first kiss, and it was likely also my last. And it was a rather wonderful kiss, even though you thought I was a prostitute.”

She laughed. Her hero was an excellent listener.

“And that you found me interesting enough that you would have paid…” Delia scrubbed a hand down her face. “I shouldn’t be, and you’re perfectly right if you choose to judge me for saying so, but… I am flattered. And now that I have talked your ears off, I imagine you’d like to ready yourself for bed. I have my coat, and I’ll make a place to sleep on the floor if you don’t mind. I promise I’ll be out of your hair forever come morning.”