Unclaimed (Turner #2)(61)

Her muscles ached from the train ride. She’d not thought it would be so strenuous to simply sit in one place—but the car had rocked back and forth in an ungentle, insistent rhythm, and the strangeness of the noise had kept her from nodding off. It had given her time to think. By the time she’d reached London, she had known how to proceed.

She was going to do what she always did. She was going to survive.

The curtains in Mr. Parret’s room were thrown back to show a dark London street. Maybe it was not the room that was muted. Maybe it was her.

“Oh, my.”

Jessica turned at the words. A young girl stood behind her, one hand on the door frame.

“Are you a lady?” the child asked.

The girl was undoubtedly Parret’s offspring. On her, those weedy features had muted into delicate femininity. Nigel Parret hadn’t been lying about having a beautiful daughter.

“No,” Jessica said, “I’m not a lady.”

The girl’s eyes widened, and she took a step forward. “But you cannot be a gentleman!” she exclaimed. “And you don’t look like a maid.”

The girl was maybe four years of age—a bit younger than Jessica’s sister, Ellen, had been when Jessica left home. Clearly not of an age to learn the various sordid distinctions among women.

“Belinda!” Mr. Parret’s voice interrupted from the hall. “Sweetheart, where is your governess? How many times must I tell you, you’re not to disturb my guests?”

“Miss Horace fell asleep.”

Parret turned the corner and lifted his daughter into his arms. “Very well, then. I’ll just—”

He stopped, looking at Jessica. “Ah,” he said, the good cheer vanishing from his voice. “You. You’re the one who had me sent out of Shepton Mallet. You’ve cost me a pretty penny, you know. Reporteress.”

Perhaps that was what she’d become, over the course of one train ride. A reporteress. Jessica simply inclined her head to him.

“I knew it.” Parret’s arms clasped his daughter, and he half turned from Jessica, as if to shield young Belinda from the horror of a woman with a vocation. “Have you come to gloat, then? You had the exclusive interview. These last days, since Sir Mark tossed me out on my ear, I’ve had precious little to write about. I suppose you’re very happy indeed.”

“No, I’m not happy,” Jessica said. “But it happens that I came to sell you a story. I’ve written it partway already.”

“Oh, and now you’ll come crawling to me.” He snorted. “And why should I do business with you?”

“Because otherwise I shall go to your competitors. They haven’t your reputation for the truth, but in a pinch—”

“Go! Why should I care?”

In response, Jessica reached up and undid the simple chain at her neck. The unwieldy pendant that hung on its end emerged from between her br**sts. She set it atop the papers she’d brought.

Mr. Parret stared at the item she’d placed in front of him.

It was, of course, Mark’s ring. The onyx in its center winked up at her.

Slowly, Mr. Parret set his daughter on the floor. “Belinda,” he said quietly, “go find your governess.”

“But I want to hear about the lady.”

“Go. Now.”

He waited until she’d disappeared. Then he walked forward, slowly, and picked up the ring. He dangled it from its chain, turning it from side to side. “Well,” he said softly. “One of the complexions that could be put on the matter I observed in Shepton Mallet was…precisely this. I didn’t want to think it. After all, I don’t want to ruin Sir Mark’s reputation.”

No. Jessica had thought long and hard about her options. There were only so many ways she could find money, and she wasn’t going to—she couldn’t—sell herself again. But even if she wasn’t selling her body, she could still sell her integrity.

You have an odd sort of integrity to you, he’d told her once. Maybe…maybe after this was all said and done, she could have her security and her integrity, all at the same time.

“I think,” Parret said, settling into a chair, “that you need to tell me your tale.”

Jessica took a deep breath. “It began,” she said, “when I met Sir Mark in Shepton Mallet. I had come there, you see, with the express purpose of seducing him…” The story she conveyed was mostly truthful. It required only a few alterations to change the entire tenor of it. She spoke, and Parret listened, nodding intently. When she was done, he picked up the pages she’d scrawled that morning and read through them.

“You write well,” he said in surprised tones, as he turned over the first page.

“For a courtesan, you mean?”

“For a woman.” He spoke absently, his fingers drumming against the table. He turned another page. “For that matter,” he said, “you write well for a man.”

Jessica searched for an appropriate response. Her mind covered everything from sarcasm to outrage. Finally, she settled on the simplest reaction. “Thank you,” she said graciously.

When Parret reached the end, he looked up. His mouth was set in a grim line beneath the ragged line of his mustache. “I don’t think this will work,” he told her.