An ominous shiver stole down his spine, but he shook it off. After all, how could he know that such a simple statement was about to take the life he’d built from nothing and turn it on its ear?
Chapter 6
“Might I see it?” Jane asked, feeling a thrill sprint through her. “Birthmarks have always fascinated me. Neither myself nor my siblings have any extraordinary markings. In fact, we’re all quite plain.”
He gave a snort of wry amusement, a smirk playing on his lips as he asked, “So, you want to have a look at all the places that aren’t pink, do you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Has it occurred to you that I’m merely inquisitive about everything?”
“Oh, it’s occurred to me. And there’s nothing mere about your curiosity. You’ve got the lion’s share, to be sure.”
Indignant, she sniffed and dabbed harder against the laceration along his jaw, earning a gratifying hiss. “Certain people prefer the advancement of knowledge. While others sell off their furniture in order to pay for illicit pleasures at a bordello.”
He growled. “For the last time, I didn’t sell my furniture for a swive. I have money, damn it all. In fact, I own this bloody house.” His exclamation echoed inside the plaster walls. But then he stiffened, his eyes widening slightly for reasons beyond her understanding. “Just don’t tell Pickerington, if you can help it.”
“Why shouldn’t you wish my cousin to know?”
“Not just him. I don’t want anyone to know. Word gets out and before you know it, people start to plot, wanting to take what’s yours.”
She cocked her head in inquiry. “You haven’t told anyone?”
“No one but Reed Sterling. I had a room at his gaming hell for a while. Didn’t seem right to keep it after he married.”
Oh, now she understood. Her mouth curved in a smile as the softer side of the scoundrel was beginning to unfold. “You must hold Mr. Sterling and his wife in high esteem if you wanted to shield them from your constant parade of prostitutes.”
“There was never a parade of—” He broke off. “Look. If I’d wanted a woman in my private rooms, I’d never have gone to Moll’s in the first place.”
She nodded sagely. “Perfectly understandable, especially when your life had taught you not to trust anyone. Which is the reason you haven’t hired anyone to look after your loose buttons.”
“I can look after my own damnable buttons,” he grumbled under his breath.
“Perhaps,” she said, humoring him. “Though, I must say, I’m honored to be privy to your secrets and to have earned your trust after such a brief and turbulent acquaintance. I cannot imagine that trust is something you give easily.”
She could see a hard pulse beating in a rapid rhythm beneath the taut flesh of his throat. Then he raked a hand through his hair. But he must have forgotten about the cut on his shoulder, for he winced.
Roughly, he jerked out of his coat and tossed it aside.
“I don’t trust you,” he barked. “I don’t even know you. You’re just some reckless, peculiar debutante I rescued from a brothel.”
“Correction—I rescued myself. Then I rescued you,” she said, already leaning in to examine the wound with the blot of the handkerchief and a sharp hiss from him. “Is this the arm of your birthmark?”
Without waiting for his answer, she began to carefully peel apart the torn seams at the shoulder. He inched back, twisting at the waist, and the fabric slipped from her fingertips. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re too bloody curious for your own good?”
“All the time, I’m afraid.”
His jaw hardened and he stared intently at her face, roving over every inch. “It would have turned out far different for you in that bawdy house if I hadn’t been there. Or if you hadn’t been wearing this . . .”
Before she could react, his hand deftly stole around to the back of her head and untied the mask with a small tug.
Her breath hitched on a gasp as the scrap of lace fell, unheeded, between them.
Shocked, she stared at the triumphant gleam in his gaze, unblinking. Without the mask, the aura of mystery—which had likely been the sole reason men had fought over her in a brothel—was gone. Stripped bare, she was her ordinary self again.
“Whyever did you do that?” she scolded, her tone accusatory and cross.
“To see who you really are.”
“That makes little sense. You already know my name. You even work with my cousin who has verified my identity.”
“Are you always this logical?”
She swallowed, trying not to reveal how exposed she felt. “I strive to be, which is more than I can say for you. One minute I’m inquiring about your birthmark, and the next—” She stopped as a thought suddenly occurred to her. “You took off the mask to distract me from asking about your birthmark. Surely, you’re not afraid of what I might think of it.”
“Afraid,” he scoffed.
Then, as if she’d issued a challenge to prove his manhood, he reached across his chest to the diagonal tear on his shoulder. Her hand splayed out to stop him, but it was too late. He tore the sleeve clean off with a rip that cut through the air.
“I could have mended that for you.”
He arched a brow. “Mended the pink dappled shirt of a stranger you’ll never see again?”
“Point taken,” she offered with a slight shrug.
Now they were both exposed and, in her opinion, on equal footing.
Her attention shifted to his arm. Or, more precisely, his bare, undeniably masculine arm. His skin bore a slightly olive tint, and beneath the swarthy surface, he appeared to be comprised of a knight’s armor, with the clear delineation of the thick deltoid shoulder cap over the hard, woven bands of biceps and triceps.
Seeing him this way caused a peculiar reaction to her physiology. Her head felt giddy. Her skin prickled with heat. Her fingertips tingled with the desire to touch the dusting of dark hair that grew in a downward arc along his forearm. Stranger still, saliva pooled beneath her tongue. Her sense of smell seemed heightened, his scent invading her nostrils in an absolute olfactory domination.
“What’s this?” He clucked his tongue, smirking at her. “Jane, you’ve proven yourself a modern, scientific woman. Surely the sight of a man’s arm shouldn’t make you blush, considering where you were tonight.”
“I’m not blushing, I assure you,” she said, even while suffused with evidence to the contrary.
A low laugh escaped him. “Must be the heat of the fire.”
She nodded in tentative agreement, her teeth biting down on the cushion of her bottom lip. What made her reaction more embarrassing was the fact that she hadn’t even given his birthmark a passing glance yet.
Not wanting to appear the lecher, she pursed her lips studiously. “Would it be too much of an imposition if I were to . . . possibly . . . touch you there? Merely to further my own understanding of the nevus, of course.”
A slow rakish grin curled his lips and his deep voice curled her toes. “You can touch me anywhere you like, professor.”
Jane immediately thought of a new chapter for the book. A rather scandalous chapter. And, for a long while after that, she completely forgot she wasn’t wearing a mask.