“Aye. It isn’t a pretty story.”
“But it’s still part of you and I’d like to know it. That is . . . whenever you want to tell me.”
His heavy breath rushed across her cheek. “I don’t ever talk about it. But I don’t mind telling you, if that’s what you want.”
She waited quietly, expectantly.
Then he nodded. “Bill-Jack and me both had our time in that cupboard. In fact, every time we’d tried to run away, we’d end up getting caught by Mr. Devons or one of the older boys who worked for him. Usually, he’d keep us in there for an hour or two. After all, he needed us to be able to work. The old devil was a greedy prig and mean as hellfire. He liked to toss in a bone after he shackled one of us, signaling the rats to come through a hole in the wall. And in the dark, I’d listen to them gnawing it. Feel their feet crawling on me as I tried to kick them off.”
Feeling him shudder from the memory, she held him tighter, smoothing her hands over his shoulders and nape, pressing her lips to his throat.
“The last time,” he swallowed, “lasted two days. The old devil had gotten himself killed and the workhouse closed for a spell. But the thing was, the bastard forgot to throw a bone into the cupboard that time. I was fifteen, but scrawny and thin-skinned so the shackles cut through as I struggled to escape. I don’t know if it was the scent of blood that lured them out. All I know is that I turned into their next meal. They started at the wrist, but there are other scars on my legs. And I don’t know how long it took of my kicking and fighting before I’d killed them all.”
Jane was trying to absorb this without bursting into tears and sobbing against him. Squeezing her eyes shut, she held him tighter and kissed the place above his heart, her own breaking. In response, he stroked her back and pressed his lips to her temple.
“And it was Mr. Rollins who’d found you?”
“No, it was Devons’s widow,” he said. “She took me into her home, tended my wounds for weeks and fed me as much as I could eat until my cheeks were fat and my belly soft. Then, she told me I’d never have to go back to the workhouse again and that I could live with her.”
“You must have been so grateful.” Jane expelled a sigh, her own relief blanketing the sadness over what he’d endured.
“Aye, and I wanted to please her. So, when she told me that I’d be sleeping in her bedchamber from that point on, I never thought twice about it.”
Jane frowned. “Well, that’s peculiar. Was her house quite small and you had no other room in which to sleep?”
“If I recall, her house had five bedchambers, well turned-out.”
“And yet she . . .” Jane looked at his arched brow and at the hint of mirth lingering in his eyes as he watched her puzzle this together. “Do you actually mean to tell me that she seduced you?”
“I wouldn’t’ve called it that at the time. Young men at that age are gluttons for pleasure. I readily accepted my new role.”
She was appalled. To her, Mrs. Devons wasn’t any better than her husband had been. The only difference was a more comfortable cupboard and the rat was female.
“Did you love her?”
He thought for a moment. “No. But for a time I was intensely enthralled by her, not to mention indebted. I was elevated to—what I thought was—a fancy middle-class world, where there was always food enough to eat, clean clothes, and an abundance of . . . enjoyable activities.”
At the sound of his chuckle, she began to ease apart from him. But he pulled her back, securing her in a possessive grip.
“There was nothing between Mrs. Devons and I.”
“Mrs. Devons and me,” she muttered crossly.
And he had the nerve to grin. “There was nothing between us beyond the physical, so stop your frowning, my little jealous professor.” He kissed her furrowed brow. “By the time I’d reached my eighteenth year and my body had grown from nourishment and vigorous exercise”—he paused to wink—“my features had lost their boyish softness. Her interest waned. By my twentieth year, my only use to her was in servicing her friends whose husbands were otherwise occupied with mistresses.”
Jane thought she was appalled before. But this? “She sold you to her friends?”
“I didn’t see it that way. I was given a choice. I could either make my own way, or stay in a life I’d grown accustomed to. Or should I say, to which I’d grown accustomed?” he teased, nuzzling her nose as his fingertips stroked lightly through her hair.
She didn’t feel like correcting his grammar this time.
“I chose to stay,” he emphasized.
“Oh? And have the women at Moll Dawson’s chosen to stay as well?”
He stiffened marginally, his jaw tight. “As a matter of fact, yes. The two women you saw me with that night chose to work at Moll’s in order to save the money to open a dressmaker shop. Venetia is a widow who lost her home and all her belongings when her husband died and his relatives swooped in to devour the carcass. And Hester has a son being raised by a parish vicar and his wife, and she’s working to make a home for him. They both tried to earn enough money as respectable seamstresses, but they were starving and living in a rathole. So they chose to work for Moll. For many it is a choice of survival.”
“I understand that,” she said crossly. “There are few options for women outside of society and within it as well. It isn’t uncommon to be sold into marriage for the sake of wealth, but that doesn’t make it right. And I absolutely abhor the idea of you being used for someone else’s pleasure, or used at all.”
She wrapped her arms tightly around him, trying not to think of all the other women who’d been the recipient of his kisses and caresses. All the women who knew what it was like to feel his body move within them.
Those gray eyes searched hers for an interminable, probing moment. Then, gradually, a soft smile curved his lips before he brushed them across hers. “Such a fearsome little warrior. Who knew you possessed such a primitive side to your nature?”
Her eyes narrowed and she wiggled beneath him, attempting to slide away. “If a man had done the same to me, or I to him, wouldn’t you feel a little . . . primitive?”
“I would hunt him down and gut him,” he said on a series of tender kisses as he pulled her closer.
“Do you still see Mrs. Devons?”
He shook his head. “Our acquaintance, such as it was, came to an abrupt end, around three years ago when we bid our farewells. She left on the ferry for a continental tour. And before I left the wharf, I was attacked by two men and left for dead.”
Shifting her attention and concern to the more deadly crime against him, she touched the puckered scar between his ribs. She’d discovered this during these explorations, and looked at him inquiringly. “A projectile from a firearm?”
He nodded. “Pistol.”
Lifting herself up on her elbow, she pressed her lips there and lingered. “Did they try to rob you?”
His hand cruised lightly down her back and along her arms as if he couldn’t get enough of touching her. “No. The odd thing was, their only intent was to kill me. They’d said as much, wanting to make sure the deed was done.”