“Ah, good eye,” Madame Mamie replied with a mercenary smile. “That one’s a virgin. Just arrived this morning. You’ll have to pay extra, of course, if she’s your choice.”
“Of course,” Adrian said, sauntering over and taking the girl by the hand. “Come with me, princess.”
The girl stared up at him, her gaze fixing upon his scars with obvious horror. “Not this one, ma’am,” she sobbed, digging in her heels. “He’s all burned—”
Madame Mamie slapped the girl hard across the face, stopping her flow of words. The woman towered over the girl, staring her down until the girl bit her lip and forced herself to look back at Adrian. “Begging your pardon, sir.”
Forcing his face into a mask of disinterest, Adrian turned and headed toward the upper floor, trusting that the girl would follow. Shame burned through him, incinerating the pleasure he’d felt with Vanessa. He’d foolishly allowed himself to believe that perhaps next time he would go to her without the mask, that they’d established enough trust and attraction between them that she might be able to see more than his scars.
The girl’s reaction had shaken him to the core. It wasn’t the first time a woman had turned away from him in disgust. It was, however, the first time someone he’d paid had done so.
“Third door to the left, sir,” the girl said tentatively from behind him as they reached the second-story landing.
He strode down the dimly lit hall, trying to commit the house’s layout to memory, forcing himself to push away the girl’s words. She didn’t know he was here to help her. The poor little thing was terrified. When he reached the door she’d indicated, he pushed it open, taking in the rumpled bed and smell of sex in the air.
“What’s your name?” he asked, as the door clicked quietly shut behind him.
“Bridget,” she answered reluctantly.
“How old are you?” He finally turned to look at her, careful to keep the scarred side of his face turned away.
She stared at her feet, refusing to look at him. “Ten.”
He sucked in a breath, but something sly in the curve of her mouth made him suddenly doubt her words. “Twelve is more like,” he told her. “But they told you to say ten, didn’t they? And that you are a virgin.”
Her cheeks stained red, but she didn’t deny it. The panic inside him subsided somewhat. When he’d thought she’d arrived that morning, he’d considered stealing her away tonight, even though that would jeopardize everything. If she disappeared after having spent the night with him, Roger would certainly put the pieces together, if he hadn’t already.
He walked over to the lone dirty window and stared down at the street below, carefully orienting himself to the location of Bridget’s room within the house. Then, with a tired sigh, he sat down at a small table beside the bed and pulled a deck of cards from his pocket. “Do you play hearts?”
She shook her head slowly, obviously confused.
“Well, if you promise not to tell that this is all we did, I’ll teach you.”
* * * *
ROGER STARED DOWN ATthe cowering young girl who sat in the chair in front of his desk, anger churning within him. He’d had Bridget brought to him the moment after his stepbrother left, but so far, the chit had refused to answer his questions about what had transpired between her and that scarred monster.
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” he said quietly. “If you don’t tell me what I need to know, things will go very badly for you.” He moved behind her and leaned down, grabbing her small breasts and squeezing tightly.
She cried out and clenched her hands tighter in her lap. “I don’t know what you want me to say, sir. He was just a regular bloke, ’cept for the scars.”
Now they were getting somewhere. He released her and strode back behind his desk. “Did he ask you questions? Did he request any specific sexual act? Answers, girl! I need answers.”
In the past year, the masked bandit Prometheus had grown more and more brazen, targeting Roger’s establishments far more frequently than any others. It had taken a while for Roger to see the pattern, but once he had, he’d become certain one of his stepbrothers was to blame.
At first, he’d been certain Lucien was behind it all, but the earl spent a lot of his time at his country seat, and the attacks had happened multiple times when reliable sources had claimed he was not in the city. Morgan, with his wife and family, did not seem plausible either. Morgan had far too much to lose to risk himself so recklessly.
Which only left Adrian.
So Roger had started tracking his brother’s visits to his establishments, and what he’d found had further convinced him.
“Did he play cards with you?” he asked, watching her closely. “Dice perhaps?”
Bridget flinched, and for the first time, her wide dark eyes locked with his. The truth was easy to see.
Adrian did not fuck these girls, which had made no sense to him at first until he’d realized Adrian only visited the whore houses to find likely candidates to rescue.
Well, he wasn’t getting this one. Disgusted with this girl for trying to protect Adrian, he bellowed for one of his enforcers. “Take her to my house on Bloomsbury Square,” he instructed.
