The Wallflower Wager - Tessa Dare Page 0,55

persist in selling yourself short. If I’m the crown jewels in camouflage, you’re a . . .” She churned the air with one hand. “. . . a diamond tiara.”

He grimaced.

“Fine, you can be something manlier. A thick, knobby scepter. Will that suffice?”

“I suppose it’s an improvement.”

“For weeks, you’ve been insisting you haven’t the slightest idea what it means to give a creature a loving home. ‘I’m too ruthless, Penny. I’m only motivated by self-interest, Penny. I’m a bad, bad man, Penny.’ And all this time, you’ve been running an orphanage? I could kick you.”

“I’m not running an orphanage. I give the orphanage money. That’s all.”

“You gave them kittens.”

“No, you gave them kittens.”

“You sent them gifts at Christmas. Playthings and sweets and geese to be roasted for their dinner.”

“It was the only business I could attend to on Christmas, and I don’t like to waste the day. All the banks and offices are closed.”

She skewered him with a look. “Really. You expect me to believe that?”

He pushed a hand through his hair. “What is your aim with this interrogation?”

“I want you to admit the truth. You are giving those children a home. A place of warmth and safety, and yes, even love. Meanwhile, you are stubbornly denying yourself all the same things.”

“I can’t be denying myself if it’s something I don’t want.”

“Home isn’t something a person wants. It’s something every last one of us needs. And it’s not too late for you, Gabriel.” She gentled her voice. “You could have that for yourself.”

“What, with you?”

She flinched at his mocking tone. “I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s what you meant. Isn’t it? You have this idea that you’ll rescue me. Bring me in from the cold, put me on a leash, have me eating out of your hand. I’m not a lost puppy, and I don’t need saving. You’re being a fool.”

Her chin jutted toward him. “Don’t mock me. Don’t you dare mock me just because you’re afraid.”

“You think I’m afraid. You don’t know the meaning of fear. Or hunger, or cold, or loneliness.”

“I know the meaning of love. I know that you deserve it. I know you are too good a man to be alone.”

“Don’t say such things,” he warned her. “Don’t make me prove you wrong.”

She put her hand on his arm. “I’m not wrong.”

He tipped his head back and cursed the sky. There was nothing for it. He couldn’t convince her with words. She’d never understand unless he showed her the truth.

“Come along, then.” He pulled her arm through his, roughly. “We’re going to take a little stroll, you and I.”

She pulled against his arm. “Where are you taking me?”

“On a tour of Hell.”

Penny stumbled as he pulled her around a corner, off the bustling street of shops and onto a smaller, crowded lane. Passing women eyed her with a mix of curiosity and contempt. Men raked her with lascivious gazes.

“Stay close.” His voice was dark and bitter. “This is where the ladies of the evening hawk their wares, and in a neighborhood like this one, it’s evening ’round the clock.”

Penny’s face heated. As they stepped off the pavement, she lifted her hem to keep it out of the muck.

He clucked his tongue. “Mind you don’t raise those skirts too high. Another inch, and you’ll be mistaken for one of them.”

The air was foul with the stench of filth and gin. People called and whistled to them from glassless windows and doorways on either side of the lane.

“Let’s have a little tour of my childhood, shall we? I was likely conceived in one of the many rooms above this street. Fathered by a man who could be any of dozens, and born to a prostitute who was a slave to gin. Nonetheless, she made a better mother than many. She didn’t abandon me to die of exposure. Not as an infant, at least.”

Together, they weaved through a dense warren of twisting, fog-smothered passages. Derelict buildings crowded either side of the alleys. Streets so narrow, one couldn’t see the sky.

Penny could have never retraced their steps. If he left her alone here, she would wander helpless in the fog forever.

But Gabriel never paused—and she didn’t suppose it was because masculine pride made him reluctant to ask for directions. He knew precisely where he was going. Every twist and turn belonged to a map etched in his mind.

They passed a beggar woman with her palm outstretched for a farthing. Penny slowed on instinct, but he tugged her past.

“There’s a cellar down