by Laura Landon
“They know it, but we both know there’s more money in selling virgins.”
Hannah turned to look out the window. Below were the streets of London. This area wasn’t near Saint Giles or close to the slum area on the East End, but neither was it in the middle of Bond Street. She didn’t know why Skinner and the others took such an interest in her when she was so far from them. “We must have affected their profits lately more than I realized. How many girls have we rescued from their clutches?”
“Six in the last two weeks,” Dalia answered.
Hannah turned to look over her shoulder. “That many?”
“Yes. And Delores is out right now because she heard rumors that there’s another girl on the streets who needs our help.”
“She didn’t go alone, did she?”
“No. Humphrey went with her.”
Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. “Bring them up when they return.”
“I think we need to warn the other girls to be careful until this blows over,” Dalia said. “Flanks and Crusher aren’t brave enough to do anything that might draw attention to them, but Skinner’s another story. He’s a mean one.”
“Talk to everyone, Dalia. Tell them never to go out alone—always in pairs or even three. And to take one of the men with them.”
Dalia stood, but paused when there was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it,” she said and opened the door. “Hello, Martha,” she greeted one of the girls.
“Hello, Miss Dalia. I came to tell Miss Genevieve that Mr. Skinner is below. He’s demanding to see her.”
“He is, is he?” Dalia said.
The tone of Dalia’s voice indicated she intended to tell Martha to send him packing, but Hannah knew it was better to find out what he wanted—although she already knew what that probably was. “Show Mr. Skinner to the Lilac Room, Martha,” Hannah said. “Tell him I’ll be down momentarily.”
“Are you sure, Miss Genevieve?” Martha said with a worried frown on her face.
“Yes. I think it will be best to let Skinner have his say. Maybe I can prevent some of the trouble he intends to cause.”
“If you say so,” Martha said, then turned and left.
Dalia faced her. “Do you want me to come with you? I’m not sure it’s wise to meet with him alone.”
“No, I think he’ll reveal more if I’m alone. I don’t want him to think we’re ganging up on him.”
Dalia smiled. “But we are. We have been ever since we started rescuing girls from his grasp.” An admiring look filled Dalia’s eyes. “Can you believe that was almost twelve years ago? How many girls do you think we’ve saved from the life of hell he’d forced them to live?”
Hannah shook her head. “Hundreds, Dalia. And nearly that many babes.”
“Yes,” Dalia said on a sigh. “The babes.” Her eyes grew damp. “That’s what I’m happiest about, Hannah. The babes we’ve saved. They’d have died if we would not have rescued them and found homes for them.”
“Yes. Now it’s time for me to meet our enemy and see what threats he intends to make.”
“Just be careful,” Dalia said before she left the room.
“I will,” Hannah answered, but this was one meeting she wasn’t looking forward to. She followed Dalia down the hall, but took another set of stairs that led to the main part of the bordello. The part where Skinner was waiting for her.
She didn’t knock when she reached the door but opened it and stepped inside the room. The man standing on the opposite side turned to face her.
If Hannah hadn’t seen Skinner before, the long scar that ran down the side of his face would have frightened her. As it was, the evil glare in his eyes alarmed her. He was a man to be reckoned with—to be feared.
“What an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Skinner,” she said, entering the room. “Shall I ring for tea?”
“I doubt my presence is a pleasure, Madam Genevieve, and tea isn’t necessary. I won’t be staying that long.”
“As you wish.” She sat on the lilac settee and pointed to the chair opposite her. “Won’t you have a seat?”
He hesitated, then walked to the chair she’d indicated and sat.
“Now, what can I do for you, Mr. Skinner?”
“It’s not what you can do for me, but what I can do for you.”
“And what would that be?”
“If you stay out of my business, I might allow you to live a little longer.”
“My goodness,” she said, putting up a front of bravado, “you are very blunt.”
“I’ve found that’s the best way to be. It gets everything out in the open where there aren’t any misunderstandings.”
“And what exactly do you mean by ‘staying out of your business’?”
“You know what I mean. I’m talking about all the young fillies you and your girls are stealing from me.”
“Stealing? I can hardly steal something from you that you don’t own. And unless I’m mistaken, it’s illegal to own another human being in England.”
“You know what I mean, Madam—”
“Unfortunately, I do, Skinner. You want me to stop rescuing innocent young girls who fall into your clutches. You want me to allow you to continue to abuse and misuse children for your low-class clientele’s perverted pleasures. You want me to look the other way when young girls die because of the atrocious acts that are committed against them. And that,” she said, rising to her feet, “I refuse to do.”
The glare in his eyes turned deadly. “You’ll regret this.”
“No, Mr. Skinner. What I regret are the scores of innocent young girls I was unable to reach before you got them.”
He slowly rose to his feet but didn’t turn to leave. Instead, he stared at her for several long, chilling moments. “I’m going to enjoy making you regret your words. Enjoy it immensely.”
Hannah stormed past him and opened the door.
With a smile on his face, Skinner walked past her, but stopped before he reached the outside door. “You have a real fancy place here,” he said, letting his gaze lift to the ornate ceiling. “I’m going to enjoy taking it away from you.”
On trembling legs, Hannah walked past him and threw open the front door. “Get out.”
The sneering darkness in his eyes sent a wave of terror through her. She wanted to shift her gaze away from him but knew that would be a show of weakness.
Hannah hardened her glare. She tried to stand up to him with a sense of bravery far beyond what she felt. She knew she’d failed when the corners of Skinner’s mouth lifted as if he intended to laugh at her. But his murderous glee didn’t last long.
The malicious smirk on his face died when a low, angry voice spoke from behind them.
“I believe the lady asked you to leave.”
Hannah didn’t turn to the far corner behind her where the voice came from. She knew whose voice it was. She’d imagined hearing it every night since she’d left Caroline’s.
She gripped the doorknob to keep from sinking to the floor and held on tightly.
“It seems you always have a knight in shining armor nearby to come to your rescue, don’t you?” Skinner said as he walked past her and out the door. “But the day will come,” he said before he took the steps down, “when it will be just you and me, Genevieve. Just you and me.”
Hannah stared at Skinner as he mounted his carriage and sped away. But she didn’t feel safe even after he was out of sight. A larger danger waited for her inside her home. She turned and came face-to-face with the man who’d haunted her dreams every night for more than a month.
“Hello, Rafe.”
Chapter 9
Hannah stared at him from across the room. She was unable to move, barely able to breathe. He was every bit as handsome as he’d been the last time she’d seen him, every bit as stunning to look at. And yet…
There was something different about him. Something she couldn’t put her finger on. He somehow seemed harder. Darker. A distant figure that was almost unapproachable. I
t was as if he had aged several years in the month they’d been separated.
“May we talk?” he said, his tone more a demand than a request.
“Of course. Come with me.”
Hannah heard his footsteps behind her as she moved toward the Daffodil Room. When she arrived, she reached out her hand to open the door, but his arm reached around her and turned the knob first. With a push, he opened the door and she entered.
He followed.
“Please, be seated. I’ll ring for tea.”
He didn’t ask her not to, which meant he intended to drag this meeting out long enough to make it uncomfortable for her, long enough to give her the dressing-down he thought she deserved.
Perhaps she owed him a bit of retribution. But not too much. He wasn’t the only one who’d been deceived. She had too.
She rang for tea, then sat in a chair near him. From the hardness of his features, she could tell he did not intend to make this easy on her. Well, she told herself, she’d handled difficult men before. Although it had been a while and she was a bit out of practice, she could do it again.
“How have you been?” she asked when she was settled.
“Fine. And you?”
“Very good. Did you have business in London?”
“No. I came to see you.”
“Oh.”
“You left without saying good-bye.”
“I thought that was best—considering…”
“It wasn’t. I expected more from—”
He was interrupted by a soft knock. The door opened, and a maid brought in a tea tray and set it on the small table in front of Hannah. “Thank you, Livy.”
“You’re welcome, miss.”
Livy gave Rafe an appreciative glance, then bobbed a polite curtsy and left the room. They were alone again.
“Does she think I’m a…customer?”
Hannah wanted to smile, but the anger she heard in Rafe’s voice stopped her. “No. We’re not open for business yet.”
Hannah ignored the tightening in Rafe’s jaw and poured him a cup of tea, then handed it to him. He took it, but didn’t take a sip before he set it back on the table with a decided clash that caused the tea to slosh in the cup.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded. His voice was harsh. His tone strained with anger. The look in his eyes was as cold as steel.
She tried to hold her irritation to a minimum but failed. His question enraged her. “Tell you what, my lord? That I was leaving? That I was not Miss Hannah Bartlett, an innocent country miss who had grown up near Grace and Caroline, but was instead the infamous Madam Genevieve, a prostitute? That my father was the ill-reputed Baron Fentington? That the business I had to return to was a bordello? Or that in my other life I was a whore? Which ones of those questions are you angry that I didn’t answer? And I have a question of my own, Lord Rafe. Why didn’t you tell me you were a vicar?”
Hannah took advantage of Rafe’s stunned silence to continue. “A vicar, my lord. If it weren’t so unbelievably tragic, it would be funny. Let us hope your saintly parishioners never find out that you spent a week of your summer holiday with a whore.”
“Stop it! You’re not a whore!”
“But I am. That is what a man like you forced me to be. That is the only life a man of the cloth left me to live after he raped me.”
Hannah couldn’t stay seated. She couldn’t bear to stay where she was forced to look him in the eyes. She rose and walked to the other side of the room. “Why did you come here?”
For several long moments, she didn’t think he would answer. Then she heard the heavy sigh he breathed. “I couldn’t stay away. I tried. I thought if I drank enough, I’d forget the first time we met and the first time I kissed you.”
“Don’t,” Hannah ordered, but he either didn’t hear her or he chose not to.
“When that failed, I tried to work myself until I was so exhausted I didn’t even have the energy to think. But no matter how exhausted I was when I fell into bed, you wouldn’t let me sleep. I relived every conversation we had, remembered the way my flesh tingled every time I touched you, remembered how hard you tried not to laugh at some of the things I said, and the excitement I felt when you failed.”
“Don’t,” she said again.
“Did you think of me even once after you left? Were your dreams as consumed with me as mine were with you? Were you as afraid that you’d never see me again as I was that I’d never see you?”
Hannah turned to find him standing close behind her. She hadn’t heard him walk toward her, but how could she when the blood rushed inside her head so ferociously that the room could have exploded and she wouldn’t have heard it? “It doesn’t matter what I remember or miss or try to recall, Vicar. The truth is that you are a man of the cloth and I am a prostitute.”
“But you don’t have to continue what you’re doing. You can give it up. We could go away someplace where no one knows you and start a new life.”
She stared at him, unable to believe he’d just said what she’d heard. “I’m not a seamstress, who can pack up her bolts of materials and open a shop in another village. I’m a prostitute. My reputation will follow me wherever I go.”
“Then we’ll move. If you are discovered, we’ll go to another town where no one has ever heard of you and—”
“And what, my lord? How long will you be able to stand up in front of your congregation of saints and preach your sermons on righteousness and morality with a prostitute sitting in the front pew? How long before you realize you’re not only living a lie, but preaching one too?”
He didn’t move but lowered his gaze as if she’d opened his eyes and now he saw the ugly truth. “Go home, Vicar Waterford. Go back to your parishioners and forget you ever soiled yourself by associating with me.”
“I’m not sure I can, Hannah. I tried when you left, and failed. I can’t give you up.”
“You don’t have me, Rafe. You never did. I told you that from the start.”
Something akin to a smile lifted the corners of his mouth, but the sadness on his face told her the gesture wasn’t a smile. “You did, didn’t you?”
“Yes. We don’t have a future. And nothing we say or do will change that.”
Hannah watched him as he struggled to make a decision. Finally, he took a step away from her as if he needed to separate himself from her.
Hannah bit her bottom lip to keep her eyes from filling with tears and hoped he would leave before she embarrassed herself.
“Maybe we could—”
Hannah lifted her hand to stop his words. She heard the pain in his voice and recognized the hurt he felt. She felt the same pain. “You cannot afford to have anything to do with me,” she countered. “I’ll destroy you, and in the end, you will hate me.”
“No, I—”
“You will,” she interrupted with more force than she thought she was capable of.
He stared at her for several long, torturous seconds, then walked across the room and opened the door. “Why was that man threatening you?” he asked before he left.
“That man?” Hannah had to think a moment before she realized what he meant.
“The man you asked to leave.”
“Oh, him. It was nothing. Just a misunderstanding.”
“It sounded like more than a misunderstanding. Are you in trouble?”
Hannah shook her head. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Are you sure?”
She wanted him gone before she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. “Yes. Good-bye, Lord Rafe. Have a good life.”
He gave her a curt nod, then softly closed the door. And was gone.
Hannah sat on the nearest chair and let the tears fall. Because she couldn’t have stopped them if she’d tried. Her heart hurt too much.
Rafe forced the fresh air to fill his lungs as he stood outside Madam Genevieve’s bordello. He tried to order his feet to carry him away from her, but they wouldn’t obey. He felt as if an empty pit
had opened up in his chest and swallowed the heart he needed to exist.
He’d lost her again. Even though he’d known there would be numerous barriers they’d have to face, he had prayed that when she saw him, she’d be willing to undertake the challenges. Instead, she’d shown him how impossible a life with her would be.
For years he’d searched for just the right woman, a woman who’d match him as perfectly as Caroline matched Thomas. A woman who’d make his blood turn hot and his heart race.
When he’d met Hannah that first day by the stream, she’d caused all those things to happen—and more. There was something unique about her, something he’d searched for but hadn’t found in any of the women he’d met. Yet the more he pursued her, the harder she fought to separate herself from him. But once he kissed her, he knew it didn’t matter how hard she fought the feelings blossoming between them. He had no intention of ever letting her go.
Thomas once told him that he knew for sure after he’d kissed her that Caroline was the one woman in all the world he couldn’t live without. At the time, Rafe didn’t believe him. After all, he’d kissed scores of women, and although kissing a woman was a pleasant experience, there was nothing that mind-shattering in the experience. Now he knew how wrong he’d been.
The second he lifted his lips from Hannah’s, he knew what Thomas meant. He knew that this was the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. The minute he ended their first kiss, he wanted to kiss her again—and again. Until he’d found out the truth about Hannah’s past—her present.
The fact that she’d lived her life as a prostitute destroyed any hopes for a future with her. She was right. How could he preach morality and righteousness to a congregation of saints when the woman he brought into their midst was the blackest of all sinners? How could he look his parishioners in their eyes and tell them their shepherd was living with a woman who’d made her living lying with men to whom she wasn’t married? And yet…
How could he survive the rest of his life without her?
He stared at the entrance to the famous Madam Genevieve’s one last time, then turned to walk away from her. Perhaps in time he’d be able to convince himself that he was lucky to have escaped the embarrassment and humiliation of a relationship with her. Perhaps in time he’d realize that her past was too great a barrier for him to breach. And most of all, perhaps in time he wouldn’t be so desperate to discover a way for them to be together.
