Kit’s eyes flickered to Henry’s. After a few moments, he said, “Beauty is a strange thing. It can be a gift, and it can be a curse. If you’re lucky, it can be the means of lifting you out of the gutter, but it attracts people, ruthless people, who only want to exploit that beauty for their own gain. Who don’t care where you end up.”
“Is that what happened to your mother?” Henry asked gently.
Kit nodded. “Her father sold her to a brothel when she was twelve years old.” He swallowed, hard. “Can you imagine?”
Henry shook his head, his heart aching. Helplessly, the picture of Marianne at twelve came to mind, followed a surge of anger so intense, it took his breath away.
“She was lucky,” Kit said, the bitter edge in his voice giving lie to the words. “One of the patrons was so taken with her, he wanted her all for himself. She was with him for a few years, before she was moved on. She was mistress to a number of men after that until she fell pregnant with me.” He sighed. “I don’t know why she kept me—it wasn’t a very sensible decision.”
“Why not?”
“She could not keep me with her and live as a man’s mistress, at his beck and call. But she didn’t want to live apart from me, so she went back to brothel work—that was when she started at the Golden Lily. It was a fancy place but still, she was servicing multiple men every day, exposing herself to all sort of risks.”
“And you grew up there? In the brothel?”
Kit nodded. “I think I told you before—my mother left me in Mabel’s care when she died. Mabel wasn’t what you’d call sentimental, but for some reason, she loved my mother, so she agreed to look after me.”
“Until you were sixteen,” Henry pointed out.
Kit looked faintly amused. “I had to earn my keep at some point. Even then, she treated me differently from the other whores. I was not made generally available to patrons of the house. She only offered my services to certain clients.”
Henry winced. He remembered his own discussion with the madam after he first saw Kit. “Christopher is a rare beauty. I am only offering his next contract to a very few select patrons.” She'd had several wealthy men vying to become his protector. When Henry’s bid had been accepted, he’d been triumphant.
Was that Kit’s idea of being looked after—being put to work in a brothel at sixteen? Repeatedly sold to the highest bidder?
Even as he had the thought, Henry was filled with self-loathing. Who was he to judge? He’d never questioned how Kit had become a prostitute, or doubted Kit’s eagerness to serve him. At the time, he had been only too happy to take him at face value—a beautiful, pliable young man with a seemingly endless appetite for pleasure. A man who was always available to Henry, never complaining.
A man who’d seemed to be free of any desires or thoughts of his own, and conveniently devoted to fulfilling Henry’s every whim.
How Henry now regretted not looking beyond Kit’s endlessly accommodating nature. Never questioning whether Kit really was as agreeable and obliging as he had seemed. He was so lost in these thoughts that Kit’s next words near passed him by.
“I like your boy, Freddy,” Kit said. “He seems to be a very decent young man.”
Henry blinked, startled by the sudden change of subject, then he smiled, his heart swelling with affection and pride. “He’s always been like that. Even as a very small boy, Freddy would always speak out when he thought something was wrong.”
“You raised him well,” Kit said. “When he came here, the day he rescued Clara, I was so absorbed with looking after her, that I didn’t even think to ask his name. I feel rather foolish that it didn’t occur to me how similar he looks to you when I first knew you. Tall and handsome and—”
Henry placed his fingertips on Kit’s lips, silencing him. “Please,” he said. “Do not say any more admiring things about Freddy.”
Kit’s laughter was muffled under his fingers, the vibrations ticklish. When Henry moved his hand away, Kit said, “I’ll restrict my admiration to his actions, then. He seems to be a man of action.”
“He is rather,” Henry admitted. “Growing up, he cared for nothing but horses and joining the cavalry.”
“Ah. Is that what he wishes to do?” Kit asked.
Henry sighed. “Yes, unfortunately. I’ve tried to persuade him to consider another