A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(73)

“It was what your mother wanted. Before she died, she made her wishes clear. You were clever, and everyone could see it. She’d read about Margate in some subscription magazine and knew they took in foundlings. She wanted you sent to that school.”

“But I wasn’t?”

He shook his head. “After Ellie Rose died—”

“Why can’t I remember her?” she interrupted, distressed. “I remember you now, in little bits and pieces. But no matter how I search my brain, I still have nothing of her.”

“Perhaps you’ll recall more, in time. It’s not your fault. We had to stay out of our mothers’ way, for the most part. Else we would have been branded as troublesome, and landed ourselves on the streets. Anyhow, after your mother died, weeks passed. Then months. I knew they never meant to send you to that school. They never meant to let you go at all. They would have kept you there, made you one of them far too soon. For God’s sake, they were already teaching you the song.” His stomach turned, just thinking of it.

“They taught me the song?”

“The place . . .” He blew out his breath. He hated telling her these sordid details, but they’d come this far. She needed to know everything. “It was an opera house, mainly, with music and dancing girls cavorting on stage. But all manner of other things went on abovestairs. They named it the Hothouse, and all the dancers were called ‘blossoms.’ ”

“Like Ellie Rose,” she said, understanding. “Instead of Elinor Haverford.”

“Lily Belle. Pansy Shaw. Molly Thorne.” He winced. “That verse you remember . . . it’s what they sang for the gentlemen at the start of every performance.”

“So they were teaching me . . .”

“To be part of it, yes. They’d dress you up like a doll, push you out on the stage. At first, just as a poppet to sing and smile for the crowd. But the devil only knew how long it would take, before they wanted something more of you.”

“Oh.” As his meaning sank in, her face twisted. “Oh, God. That’s horrible.”

“I know it’s horrible. I know. That’s why I had to take you out of that place. That’s why I never wanted you to hear this.” He ran a hand through his hair in agitation. “Katie, don’t ask me about it anymore.”

“All right. We’ll speak of other things.” She reached for his right wrist. “How is your arm healing?”

“It’s better. Still clumsy, but improved. If I ever did save your life, I think you returned the favor that afternoon. We’re even now.”

“I doubt that.” Her fingers found their way to the border of his open collar. She pulled the gaping shirtfront to the side, exposing the hardened surface of his chest.

She stroked her fingertips over the most prominent of his tattoos. He sucked in his breath, trying not to let her touch affect him. Too late. His groin was already rock hard. So disgusting. So wrong, that he should be aroused by her, so soon after relating that tale.

“These make me so curious,” she whispered. “Where did you get them?”

“Different places,” he answered dismissively. “None of them worth your notice.”

“But I want to know.”

She pulled away from his embrace. A fresh gleam of determination lit her eyes. She ran her hand down his shirtfront, then gathered the linen hem and began hiking it, exposing his belly.

His abdominal muscles flinched and went rigid. “What are you doing?”

“Won’t you call me Katie? I like it when you do. Something about your voice when you say it, in that low, dangerous growl.” She gathered the folds of his shirt in both hands now and raised it.

“Katie . . .” he groaned.

She smiled. “Yes. Like that. It makes me warm and tingly all over. Now raise your arms.”

He could deny her nothing, and she knew it. She meant to make use of it.

She drew the gathered shirt over his head and down his arms, then cast it gently aside. Swiveling her body, she angled to face him. Her gaze roamed over his bared chest, and the look in her eyes was a mix of fascination and fear. He felt the urge to hide the truth, the unpleasantness. But it was better that she see this and understand.

She said, “Tell me.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Which was the first?”

“This one.” He turned his shoulder to her, to point out the small rose inked there.

“How did you get it?”

“After I left London—”

“With me. After you left London with me, and delivered me to Margate.”

“Yes.” He swallowed. “I couldn’t go back to the Hothouse, of course. Even if I’d wished to return, and I didn’t. I roamed the countryside, doing odd work here and there, but mostly sleeping in haystacks and living off what small game I could snare. I found I had a knack for it, the coursing. It was as if I lived so wild, I developed an animal way of thinking. I sensed where the hare would be before it appeared, knew which direction it would flee. And the open land and fresh air . . . I think it did me good, after all those years of London soot. I was a dirty, scraggly thing, but I think those months were the closest to happiness I ever came.

“I fell in with a poaching gang, once winter arrived. I brought them game to sell, they made sure I had a barn to sleep in and a warm coat and boots. This mark”—he rubbed the crudely drawn flower—“was how the members knew one another. No names.”