Page 30 of Cocky August Rake

Reginald glanced toward the door. The thought of walking through The Domus, meeting Malum’s employees—his employees for now—learning their names, allowing them to look at him with all their expectations and suspicions—did not appeal.

“You cannot simply stroll into my office and make demands whenever you please,” Reginald said.

Miss Darling’s brows lifted.

“I am the bloody captain of a ship. None of my men would dare enter my quarters without permission like you have.”

Then again, none of his men made his body tighten the way she did.

Something in her expression changed—the slightest fading of her smile.

Reginald felt an immediate, irritating stab of regret. He gestured toward the chair opposite his desk.

“Sit down.”

She glanced at the chair, then back at him. “You wish to talk?”

He had intended to establish rules. Boundaries. Some clear understanding of how the next thirty days would proceed.

But he had, in all fairness, agreed to learn more about the business his brother had handed him. He might as well begin—and get the matter over with as quickly as possible.

“Sit,” he repeated.

Miss Darling lowered herself into the chair.

Reginald settled behind the desk, putting its considerable width between them.

“Tell me more about the club.”

THE EDUCATION BEGINS

She folded her hands on her lap, her posture easy, though he suspected the stillness was more of a… readiness. She was prepared to argue. Prepared to be dismissed. Prepared, perhaps, to be hurt.

The thought sat poorly with him.

After just a moment, her mouth softened, although she wasn’t smiling. “The Domus is not a typical brothel.”

His jaw tightened at the word on her lips.

Though he had no right to object to her using it. He had called such places worse things in his own mind.

“Your men will learn that soon enough,” she continued, calmly. “And not all of what they will learn has to do with physical pleasure.”

He looked up, dubious already. “No?”

“No.” A faint, private amusement touched her expression. “Though I should not pretend pleasure is unimportant. It is merely not the entirety of it.”

“What else, then?”

“Habits,” she said. “Beliefs. Consideration.”

Reginald barely kept himself from letting out a laugh of disbelief.

But she continued. “Many of our gentlemen clients have never been taught to ask what a woman wants. They have only been taught what their money, rank, family, or marriage allows them to claim.”

“You’re telling me the women of The Domus disabuse such gentlemen of their entitlement?” Delusional.

“We try.” Her gaze held his. “Some so, in fact, leave with better habits than they brought. They learn that women are more than bodies made for a gentleman’s amusement. That we possess thoughts and opinions of our own. That we may be valued for more than a tumble.”