usually keep it next to my pistol in my coat pocket.”
Cautiously he dipped a hand into the coat she was wearing.
Then he extended his hand, handkerchief dangling from it.
Her hand crept out. And she quirked the corner of her mouth and accepted it.
She dabbed at the corners of her eyes. Then folded it neatly. She did have her standards. They weren’t going to begin being slovenly at The Grand Palace on the Thames.
He was relieved to be of some service to her.
“I’m sorry I was unkind to you just now,” she said.
“I shall doubtless live through it, given that I’m hard, and cold, and dutiful.”
For some reason this made her give a short, albeit bleak, laugh.
The laugh was good, but the bleakness alarmed him.
Silence settled like dust.
He didn’t move, and neither did she.
How had it never occurred to him the peril in which women walked every day, even the most pampered of them? How valiant the simple act of being a woman was in so many ways.
“Do you know how we financed this place, Captain Hardy?” she said suddenly. “Angelique and I sold our jewelry to a man named Reeves on Bond Street so we could turn this building into a home. It seemed so tawdry. But it was so we wouldn’t need anyone else. Particularly any other men.”
He was breathless. He’d longed to hear the truth about this, but he was shocked by the piercing regret that she was telling him now, because she was vulnerable, and she’d come to trust him.
“It’s just . . . I want so very much not to need anyone.” Her voice cracked on that last word.
He quirked the corner of his mouth. “That’s my very definition of Paradise.”
She looked up at him. And gave another of those little ironic laughs. “Oh, you are a funny man, Captain Hardy. How did you get the way you are? I don’t suppose you’ll tell me, as doubtless it can’t be summed up in one word.”
She sounded as though she were asking herself as much as him.
Her new bitterness shortened his breath. She was innocent enough about people to share of herself openly. He partook of this generosity the way he would a breeze through an open window.
And he gave her back nothing.
She might not, of course, be entirely innocent. She might, in fact, still be abetting a smuggler. Still he could not stop himself from giving her what she needed, right now, in this moment. Something raw and true, and of himself.
“My origins,” he began carefully, “are not the sort of story you should hear before you attempt to sleep.”
That was as much as he’d admitted to anyone. He had never supposed his story had any value to anyone apart from himself, until now.
She went still. He could feel the change in her as surely as if she were indeed the weather.
But she ought not to look at him that way. As if his words made her ache. As if she could read the story of his life in the lines of his face. As if he’d just opened a door a mere inch and she could now peer in and see everything.
And this was in part why he never said a word about it. He didn’t need or want comforting from anyone. It was as easy to extricate one’s self from comforting as it was to free a carriage wheel from a muddy rut. He didn’t need to be known. He liked moving through the world without the ballast of sympathy or judgment.
No, she ought not look at him that way.
And he ought not like it.
What he needed—wanted—even in her moment of need—was to peel her night rail from her lithe body and bury his face in her throat, so he could feel her moan vibrate against his lips when his hands traveled lower and filled with her breasts.
Even now. Men were basically animals.
Doubtless she knew this all too well.
She cleared her throat. “Well, then.” Her voice had gone a little thready. “Thank you, Captain Hardy, for the rescue. I suppose it’s off to sleep.”
That was certainly the wisest thing that either of them could do.
“Go on up, Lady Derring. No other unwelcome guests will enter tonight. I’ll stand guard for the evening, if you think that would be helpful.”
Delilah looked into his face, soft yet still implacable, his eyes hot but enigmatic, and loathed herself for how something in her immediately eased at the words. As though he alone had the answers. As though