Page 49 of The Thorn and the Rose

“What does that mean? Stop talking in riddles, curse you. I’ll have an explanation this time. I’m not leaving until I get one.”

She let out a breath of outrage, eyes flashing with anger, and his breath caught at the sight. Despite his annoyance and frustration with her, this woman stirred his blood. Seeing her now, flushed with fury, the desire to tear him down to size shining in her eyes, made an odd sensation lurch in his chest. Lord, but she was magnificent, and he wanted her. He wanted her badly, far more than he’d realised.

“How dare you,” she said, her usually soft voice vibrating with suppressed rage. “How dare you march into this house and… and make demands of me!”

“You made demands of me,” he shot back, his own temper rising now. “You asked me to take you to Gillmont, which I did. You kissed me like… like it meant something, dammit, and then you vanished into thin air. Why, Marie… or should I say, Miss Fortesque. Why did you do that? What was the purpose? Did you just wish to make a fool of me?”

She stared at him, cheeks flushed, though whether with shame or anger he could not tell.

“As if I could! And the purpose was to bring you and your kind to justice. I was going to sell the story to a newspaper so the world could see you all for the wicked creatures you are,” she said bitterly, the words falling from her mouth as if they tasted vile. “But there is no justice when you are male and wealthy and titled. The blame would have fallen on those who already bore it, with yet another heaping of shame and censure atop the rest, and I realised I could not be responsible for that.”

Thorn stared at her, utterly bewildered by the vitriolic attack. He shook his head and let out a breath. This was getting them nowhere, but he’d meant what he said, he wasn’t leaving until he understood what was going on. Not taking his eyes off her, for he did not trust her an inch, he tossed his hat onto the bed and, discovering there was not another stick of furniture in the room, sat down on it.

“Marie,” he began, dredging up every last vestige of patience and reminding himself that this woman clearly believed he was guilty of something despicable. She had little reason to trust him, so he must try to give her a reason. If she would let him.

“Miss Fortesque,” she reminded him tersely.

“I beg your pardon,” he said through clenched teeth. “Please, Miss Fortesque, explain what you mean by that. Who would suffer shame and censure?”

“More shame, more censure,” she shot back at him. “Those poor women at Gillmont and their children. You and your friends’ bastards, cast aside and forgotten. Just because you’ve not yet added a child to the numbers does not absolve you of guilt, you know. I suppose you think you do right by them, putting them all together in a hidden away place. At least you support them, I suppose. It’s more than many men would do, I grant you. Yet to use the place like your own personal—”

“Marie!” Thorn had shot to his feet, fists clenched, shocked and outraged by what she had believed of him and his friends.

“I suggest you hold your tongue before you say something you regret.”

She snorted at that. “The truth is not always pretty, is it, my lord? Does it shame you to hear it?”

“No, damn you. But then you are a very long way from the truth.”

“You have a reasonable explanation for that place, then?” she said scornfully, her arms crossed forcefully across her middle. Her stance tightened the worn fabric across her breasts, highlighting too vividly the fact it was entirely unsuitable for the chill temperature in this house, which was little different from out of doors. Her nipples tented the fabric, the sunlight that glowed behind her revealing the silhouette of shapely legs as it illuminated the thin, white cotton.

“I do,” he said coolly, reminding himself forcefully that they had hidden Gillmont for precisely this reason. People would always assume the worst. “Do you wish to hear it?”

Marie flushed, putting up her chin. “Go on,” she said, and though the words were terse, her voice quavered with emotion, and she could not hide the hopeful look in her eyes.

His anger dissipated, his indignation set aside in the light of that look. She wanted to believe him, wanted to believe he was innocent of wrongdoing. The tension singing through him eased, and he sat back down again, gesturing for her to join him. She shook her head but edged a little closer. Unable to bear seeing her so cold—it was distracting, for one thing—Thorn got up and tugged a blanket from the bed. Going to her, he tucked it around her shoulders.

“That’s no way to go about the house. It’s colder in here than it is outside,” he scolded gently.

She flushed and tugged the blanket closer around her, rather to his regret.

He considered his words, wondering where to begin. “You know, of course, about The Sons of Hades, a sporting club created by spoiled, wealthy young men with too much time on their hands,” he said with a smile. “It’s probably just as bad as you think at its worst, but it’s also a place that does a bit of good in the world. One of those things is Gillmont, though we did not set out to create the place as it now appears.”

Tentatively she moved to the bed, perching on the edge of the mattress, as far from him as she could get.

“We don’t like all the club members or know them all intimately. It is a business, after all. If they meet the criteria, we’ll give them a chance to join. A few years ago, one such man, a new member, was overheard laughing about some poor girl he’d got with child, and how he’d turned her off. I’ll not tell you what he said, but I suspect you can imagine it was not pretty.”

“What happened?” Marie asked, and Thorn studied her, thinking perhaps she had stopped judging him so harshly and was listening.

“We decided he needed teaching a lesson, one he would not forget,” he said grimly. “Once that lesson had been delivered, we found out who the girl was and where to find her. Of course, once we’d found her, we had no idea what to do with her.”

“I should think not,” Marie said with a hesitant smile, and he returned the expression, relieved she was hearing him out.

“One of our friends, Mr Weston, came up with the idea of the house, a place where women like that could be safe, their children too. A story he’d heard of another girl in a similar situation had troubled him, and he’d been trying to think of a way to help. Soon enough, we discovered there were several desperate cases almost upon our doorsteps—none of which were our doing,” he added, his tone severe.

“How can you be so sure?”

Thorn took a breath, realising she was not accusing him, but asking a sincere question.