Unclaimed (Turner #2)(13)
She had been awfully, horribly wrong.
It had taken her months to recover from her illness. Back then, it had only been the physician’s commands that had made her take her medicine, choke down a few spoonfuls of gruel. Amalie, her dearest friend, had come over daily and forced her to care for herself. Even now, she still had to remind herself to eat.
That was what had decided Jessica on this particular course of action.
Jessica knew what happened to courtesans who ceased to care for themselves. She had seen it too many times in the years she’d been in London. When a woman stopped caring, she no longer took pains to choose her next protector. One mistake—one man who liked hurting his mistress a little too well, one fellow who managed to hide a bawdy-house disease—that was all it took. Soon, the emptiness in a woman’s heart grew to encompass her eyes.
She’d seen women take to gin or opium within months of making that first mistake. From there, it was nothing but a long, slow slide into the grave.
In her first year in this life, when Jessica had been young and naive, she’d told herself it wasn’t so bad, being a courtesan.
It hadn’t been what she’d dreamed of, but she’d embraced her survival with open arms. And she’d discovered that the scandalous Jess Farleigh enjoyed freedoms that the gently bred Jessica Carlisle dared not contemplate. During the days, she could think about commerce, manage business accounts, talk with her fellow courtesans about the things that happened between men and women. And the nights…she’d wanted to forget what she’d lost, and so she’d thrown herself into the evenings with abandon. At first, it had seemed one endless soiree, where men tripped over themselves to give her what she wanted.
In the years that followed, she’d learned that the glittering finery was a trap, that the soiree was not endless. It eroded you, piece by irrevocable piece. It made a mockery of love, and if you did not look after your heart with a ferocious care, you’d find, bit by bit, that you’d traded it for silk ribbons and baubles on gold chains. It took only one mistake to turn a cosseted courtesan into an empty-eyed whore, willing to do anything to forget what men had made of her. Jessica had watched it happen far too often.
The successful courtesan, Jessica had learned, had much in common with the successful gamester. The trick of winning was knowing when to leave the table. Anyone who stayed past her time lost. She lost everything.
Jessica pulled her shift off her shoulders and hung it to dry before the fire. The carpet was thick beneath her feet—warmer than the stockings she removed and placed on a chair to dry. The fire flickered against her skin. She was sure the flames radiated heat. But she no longer felt it. She no longer felt anything.
Sir Mark was supposed to be her final throw of the dice. She’d wagered her reserves on him. And she’d misjudged him—had let her cynicism do all the thinking for her. She had never imagined that his belief was real, that he would give up an opportunity to slake his lust. Principles had never mattered, not with the men she’d known.
She’d made a mistake—and one she could ill afford.
It wasn’t money she was fighting for—not truly. It was all the things money could buy: the opportunity to escape her past, to have a cottage in a quiet village. To feel the sun against her face as warmth, instead of a cold, pale light. She wasn’t going to be one of those women—the dim-eyed cousins of courtesans—giving up her soul to strangers nightly against a cold stone wall, just so she could purchase the gin she needed to forget.
No. After all these years, she was going to do what she did best. She was going to survive.
And so it didn’t matter that he’d locked her in this room. That his eyes had narrowed in distrust. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have a whore’s chance in heaven of convincing him to smile at her again. She was going to seduce Sir Mark. She was going to get her fifteen hundred pounds. She was going to find a nice cottage in a tiny village, she and Amalie, and together they would finally be able to let go of everything that had come before.
She had to sell her body one last time, but this time, she wasn’t trading it for anything less than her heart. Nobody—nothing—not a locked door, nor even the great weight of Sir Mark’s morals—would stop her.
She even thought she knew how to do it. She’d mistaken him once. She’d not do it again.
This time, she had to tell him the truth.
THE RAIN HAD STOPPED, and Jessica’s clothing had dried by the time he came for her. His knock sounded twice on the door, echoing ominously.
“Come in.”
A silence.
“It’s safe,” she added. And it was safe. For him. She sat, demurely dressed, before the fire. There would be no more mistakes. She couldn’t afford a single one.
The key scraped in the lock. He opened the door a few inches. His face was obscured by the shadows in the hall. “The weather should hold,” he said to the window near her, “long enough for you to make your way home. I would have offered you tea, but…” He trailed off with a shrug that had more to do with explanation than apology for his lack of hospitality.
She wouldn’t have taken tea in any event.
“Let me show you out.” He turned his back to her, and she stood. Her muscles twinged, sore, as if she’d run a great distance. Sitting and waiting for him had been arduous enough. His shoulders were rigid as he walked, at odds with the fluidity of his gait. At the front door, he fumbled for the handle.