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Warrington continued, ‘I’d get a bottle of brandy and shout for Broomer.’ He smiled. ‘Ben had sworn his friend could be more enjoyment than any Drury Lane performance. He spoke the truth. Broomer would come to the sitting room and spout tales left and right. Never asked a question of my life.’ He turned his head so she couldn’t see his expression. ‘Not even when I returned home one night with blood flowing down my back because a man I’d never seen before was waiting in the shadows to stab me.’
If he’d not moved slightly back, she might not have noticed the way a muscle flexed in his jaw. ‘Why would someone wish to kill you?’
‘Jealousy over my wife—though at that point she was dead and it didn’t matter. But she was carrying my babe when she died. Perhaps...he felt betrayed.’
The air was silent for a moment. She had to keep him talking. ‘Did Broomer go for the magistrate and a physician?’
Warrington shook his head. ‘Refused. Said all he’d ever known a magistrate to do was lock up people if somebody else caught them. Said all a physician could do was make people die faster or slower and with more pain. I cursed him, sacked him and thought I might as well die. I gave in and let him tend my back.’ He raised a brow. ‘Don’t ever plan a friendly chess game with him, either. He doesn’t like to drag them out. I believe he has three boards set up in his chamber and I suspect if he were to find an opponent he believes is truly worthy of his skills, he’d stop at nothing to cadge them into a game.’
He paused, the silence so soft she could hear the sounds of carriages from the street.
‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he told her. ‘I must arrange for a meeting concerning my voyage.’
Before he turned to leave, he looked at her, his voice thoughtful, and said, ‘I do not know what my brother sees in mermaids. Anyone would prefer a goddess over a sea creature. They’re much more enticing.’
Chapter Eleven
Warrington waited until the house became quiet and walked the hallway to Melina’s room.
Conflicting thoughts battered him. He’d meant to stay from her and he praised himself because he’d kept out of her bed. But now he stood at her doorway.
He raised his hand to knock, but then he stilled and let his hand fall to his side. Melina couldn’t refuse him. After all, he’d paid. And now he provided everything she needed and had ordered clothing for her.
The bed she slept in was soft, the pillows softer. The sheets even better. If she became warm, she could go to the sitting room, pull the bell for Broomer, and he would rise from his bed, ask her what she wanted and act as if he’d been waiting to be summoned, and go merrily back to his chamber after doing her bidding.
Or she could take a candle—not a tallow candle or a burning flame from whatever could be fashioned, but a beeswax candle—and peruse the collection of books in the library all the brothers had contributed to.
For the morning meal, Mrs Fountain would prepare her bread—hot, and dripping with butter—a rasher of bacon and chocolate, or tea, and even porridge, because Ben preferred the simple fare and Mrs Fountain always wished to please. If Melina were to ask for a different meal, Mrs Fountain would do all in her power to comply.
He doubted Melina would even suspect such luxuries were at her fingertips.
But she would know he was her benefactor and remember he was the man she gave her body to in exchange for passage. And now she lay in a room of his house, in comfort except for the hideous artwork, and she could not tell him not to lie with her.
Mrs Fountain or Broomer or the maids could say they had another position and leave. But Melina’s father had abandoned her once, was likely to do so again, and the woman had no one or anything else. His fists clenched at the unfairness.
Granted, the first night he’d taken her body in exchange for passage. He’d been rewarded by his own inner guilt. She’d been a virgin forced to sell her body or go to the Stephanos man she spoke of.
And Warrington had once felt forced, as well. Forced to remain in a marriage. Forced by his own beliefs not to take a lover. Forced by the insistence of his own body to return to his wife.
He turned, hoping Dane had added some interesting titles to the books, but his feet would not take him from Melina. He searched within himself, trying to understand his need to see her and wondering why he could not shut off the craving he felt.
A clunk. A thump. He stood outside Melina’s door and heard shuffling noises. Things being moved.
