things was the fastest road to disappointment. The more you wanted something, the more disappointed you were when it was taken away, or when you couldn’t have it in the first place.
John might have been dirt poor, but that hadn’t meant he was stupid. Why set himself up for unnecessary pain?
But this was … different. The usual arguments weren’t working and he was left wanting her more than ever.
He had no idea what it was about her. He didn’t just want to bed her, although that thought had begun to take up more and more of his mind, he also felt a compulsion to—God forbid—learn more about her.
Whatever the hell that meant.
It was not John’s habit to get to know anyone, man or woman. Knowing people just meant more responsibility and more possibility for disappointment.
In the weeks following the incident in the alley she had not rescued any other dogs, but he’d seen other acts of kindness: always a penny for a street sweeper, a smile and kind word for the servants who fetched and carried and hovered, and she was sweet to her nieces even when they were snappish with her.
She was a poor relation—a woman tolerated only so long as she was useful—yet she seemed to face her servitude with humor and good-natured acceptance.
If there was one thing in life that John knew about, it was servitude.
But he’d never faced it with good humor or acceptance.
To John, the woman was like a shiny object he could see, but never quite well enough to make out the details. It wasn’t just a matter of want; he needed to get closer.
It was bloody annoying.
He paused beside a lamp post to watch her from beneath the brim of his hat. She was wearing the same dark gray carriage costume she’d worn the last time. As far as John could tell, she possessed only a handful of dresses.
The two girls she shepherded from place to place—his stepsisters, not that anyone would ever believe such a relationship existed—never wore the same garment twice. It wasn’t surprising the girls did not resemble him. Not only did they have a different mother, they’d also had a very different life.
The notion that the two slight things in muslin were related to him in any way made John smile—a gruesome sight that caused an approaching pedestrian to stumble and careen into an oncoming pair of young bucks.
One of the young bloods stopped and called after the frightened older man. “On the tipple this early?” And then the dandy spotted John and his sarcastic smile slid from his face faster than a whore dropped her knickers.
John ignored the other man’s horrified stare and kept his eyes on the three women, who were disappearing into the milliner’s shop, where they would most likely be for hours. And when they came out? Well, they would climb directly into their carriage and go to some other shop.
Was he really going to wait hours for a glimpse that lasted no longer than a few seconds?
John sighed, pushed himself off the post, and crossed the street to one of tea shops that catered to the throngs of Bond Street loungers.
The hum of conversation inside the crowded shop leaked from the room like water trickling down a drain when he entered.
John paid no attention to either the sudden silence or staring eyes and lowered his big frame into a rickety chair near the bow window.
He ordered a pot of tea that he had no intention of drinking from the stammering, wide-eyed waiter and commenced to wait.
***
Cordelia smiled at her niece’s reflection, careful to mask her true thoughts on the hat that Melissa was currently modeling. It was not a difficult thing to do. In fact, masking her feelings was a thing she did well. She had found it was wiser to ignore Melissa’s whims rather than confront them head on.
“It is a fetching bonnet, my dear.” For a lady of the night, she could have added, but did not. “However, that particular shade of red will flatter the sprigged apricot muslin you are planning to wear to Lady Northumberland’s indoor fête champêtre.”
Melissa frowned at her reflection before sighing and plucking off the dreadful hat and handing it back to the hovering shop clerk. “I daresay you are correct, Aunt Cordy. What about that one?” She pointed to a far more appropriate straw and pale green voile concoction and the clerk went to fetch it.
Satisfied that Melissa had been gentled into a more suitable direction