AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What sort of man do you think I am?” asked Percy with a snort of disgust. “I may be jaded, old friend, but I’m not one of that sort. But you sound as though you’ve experienced the place firsthand.” He sat down and lifted an expectant brow.
“Yes. I’ve been there. Once. I was invited along once by one of my fellows at university.” Being young and randy, he’d accepted on a lark, thinking it a grand adventure. But what he saw and heard there had sickened him. In the end, he’d paid the poor girl selected for him without utilizing her services and had never returned. In fact, the experience had put him off brothels entirely.
“You look as if you need another drink,” said Percy, topping off his glass for him.
“Thanks,” he answered, downing the liquor.
Boucher’s was the most infamous whorehouse in all of London. For a price, the proprietress offered her clientele a variety of forbidden perversions—and the security of complete confidentiality. Anyone wishing to enter the premises had to be an established client or personally escorted by one, and patrons often wore masks to protect their identity.
It was a miracle Fairford had been caught.
“What is the plan now?” asked Percy. “Nothing of your French intrigue seems to have turned up—I don’t suppose the king will care that the man is frequenting a whorehouse?”
Henry coughed and cleared his throat. “For the time being, we wait for more information—and make certain he doesn’t make any progress with Sabrina. Now that we know where he’s been spending his time, it is vital that his suit fails.”
“My, my, how the delinquent have reformed,” teased his friend. “What is it about this woman that has you suddenly donning a halo and wings?”
“I told you, I wish to protect her. Her mother and mine were close friends, and I’ve known her since she was a child.”
“Is that your only justification?” asked Percy with a piercing gaze. “She certainly isn’t a child now. Surely she can—”
“It’s all the justification I need,” Henry cut in, fixing him with a hard stare. “She has no father to look out for her, and Fairford has recently informed me of his intent to court her. I cannot in good conscience allow her to marry him if he frequents that place.”
A shrug lifted his friend’s shoulders. “Very well, if you say so. I take it this means the rumors of your pursuit of her are greatly exaggerated?”
“She continues to hold a grudge against me for my having courted her sister Eugenia, who was in love with someone else at the time. I was perceived as an enemy to her sibling’s happiness,” Henry told him, hoping to close the subject. “She hated me so much that she once put a live serpent in my pocket.”
Percy’s brows rose in surprise, and he burst into laughter. “I like her! Tell me more about this virago.”
Relieved to be back on safer ground, Henry gladly obliged. God knew he had enough Sabrina stories to keep his friend laughing for at least a solid hour. Hopefully, Percy would forget his astute suspicions and let the matter of his motivations for seeking to discredit Fairford lie unexplored.
It was purely out of desperation that Sabrina finally decided to confront Montgomery. If Fairford was ignoring her in favor of Miss Bidewell, it could only be due to his interference. At the Wilbourne picnic, she worked up her courage and asked Montgomery to escort her to the pond to see the swans.
“I’ve asked you repeatedly to leave me alone,” she said once they were out of earshot. “I’m asking you one final time to stop harassing me.”
His lips twisted. “You’d do well to rethink your decision to bag Fairford. Whatever his interest in you, I can guarantee it isn’t to your good.”
“And yours is? You’ve all but driven me to Bedlam!”
“Such was not my inten—”
She rounded on him. “Your intentions seem to be misplaced frequently. Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. “Why can you not simply leave me in peace?”
“Because I have no peace without you.”
The softly spoken words stopped her in her tracks. A surge of desire rocketed through her.
No. To give in would be to lose herself.
“You have deluded yourself into believing you love me,” she said at last. “But the truth, if you will only admit it, is that you are”—she took a deep breath and admitted it—“we are attracted to one another. That is all. And attraction is the last thing one should base a marriage upon.”
“You are indeed lovely,” he agreed, the corner of his mouth lifting a little. “But that isn’t what draws me to you. It’s what’s inside you. I know the real Sabrina you try so hard to hide. You’ve shown her to me, whether or not such was your intent.”
“When?” she squeaked.
“Your dealings with Chadwick have been most telling. I know you never intended to hurt him. I know you feel terrible for having done so. I could see it in your face that night at my sister’s party.”
“You are correct in that I regret my part in his pain,” she replied. “But none of that would have happened had you done as I have repeatedly asked.”
