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Pay it no heed,he chided himself as he turned to walk back out of the alley. He had only made it a few paces before he paused, wondering if he ought to go after her and ensure she was not accosted again. Yes, she had defied his warning not to use the alley, but vermin such as those two men did not learn lessons as quickly as they should, and if they spied the young woman on her own again, perhaps they would seek to finish what they had begun.
“Blast it,” he muttered, hesitating. She was a pretty creature, with soft curls that framed a heart-shaped face, concluding in a dainty chin. He had not been able to make out the color of her eyes, but the moonlight had tricked him into thinking they were golden. He had also noticed how that long, chestnut hair had been unbound and unhidden beneath any sort of obtrusive bonnet or bow, save for a thin strip of frayed ribbon around the center of her crown, which had seen better days.
She will be well enough,he tried to convince himself, though his mind lingered on the slenderness of her frame. She had already proven that she could not fight off the cretins of London’s underworld alone. If he walked away now, and something were to happen to her, would he be able to live with the guilt of it?
“My Lord!” she cried out, suddenly appearing out of nowhere, for she ought to have been halfway up the alley by now. Evidently, she had not expected to find him standing there, and was moving too fast to stop in time to avoid a collision. Tripping over her own feet, her palms landed firmly against his surprised chest, in order to keep her balance. Instinctively, his own arms shot out to catch her, pulling her into him before she could fall to the filthy ground. A second later, he pushed her away and yanked his hands back as though he had touched an open flame.
“You ought to watch where you tread, Miss,” he said coolly, trying to mask his astonishment. He would have preferred to fight an entire horde of ne’er-do-wells than to feel the weight of a woman against his body again—her soft curves were fitting against his firmer exterior like clasped hands.
His throat tightened as he felt the lingering prickle against his neck, where this stranger had gasped her feminine breath so close to his skin, and he could feel the imprints of her palms on his chest like the burning welts of fire-hot brands.
“I didn’t know you’d be here, My Lord. I thought you’d gone already,” she protested, her cheeks flushed beneath the solitary streetlamp that they stood beneath. Her eyes held his gaze with subtle defiance, and he finally saw their color. They were not gold, after all, but a greenish-amber that might have been described as hazel. And they bore a delicate almond shape, her lids smooth beneath two well-defined brows. It gave her a slightly exotic appearance, though he could not put an origin to it. She was, in a word, unique.
Her breath hitched as her head tilted closer to him, those almond eyes narrowing as she observed him. “I thought I was mistaken, but I’m not,” she whispered as if she were talking solely to herself. “Fascinating. I have never seen anything so remarkable.”
“Pardon?” He resisted the urge to step back, away from her scrutiny.
She blinked awkwardly and dropped her gaze entirely, no doubt realizing she had spoken aloud instead of within her own head. “It’s nothing, My Lord. I… occasionally forget that I should not say things out loud. But I truly thought you had gone already. I had second thoughts about using the back alley, with those vile individuals still out there. That is why I came back this way.”
She is unafraid of my eyes.Dorian did not know what to do with such information, for there were very few who could look at him without revulsion or terror. Indeed, he could only think of Hudson. For even when his mother and father had lived, he would often catch them staring at him as though they wondered if he had been replaced with a changeling at birth.
“Very well, then you should reach the street without further ado.” He gestured for her to keep moving, for her presence unnerved him. A curiosity, considering he was not afraid of anything except the continued endurance of living.
She dipped into what he presumed was meant to be a curtsey. “Thank you again for all you did for me, My Lord.” She paused. “My name is Rose Parker. I know you’re probably not interested in who I am, but I’d like my savior to know my name.”
She did not give him the opportunity to announce his own name, though he was not sure if he would have given it, even if she had. With another ungainly curtsey, she skirted around him and walked away toward the street.
Rose…It suited her, he thought. Especially when she had that faint hint of color in her cheeks. Though, he might have expected a much rougher name, considering her apparel and the frayed ribbon in her hair. To find a rose in London’s gray and dirty streets seemed rather like a dichotomy to him.
He followed a few steps behind her, as he was going in the same direction. With the judgment of his peerage, he noted the torn and muddied hem of her skirts and the lack of stockings beneath when her heel kicked up the edge a little too high. Her calves were entirely bare. They were pale and smooth, like the flat surface of a pitcher of cream, while her arms, bare from the edge of her capped sleeve to her fingertips, held a decidedly more olive tone, as though she had been out in the sun without a single care for freckles or browning.
Pull yourself together, man!He scolded himself, lifting his gaze to a more appropriate height. Blaming the lasting effects of the half bottle of brandy he had consumed, he strove to ignore her female figure as she walked ahead of him.
However, as she paused at the end of the alley, and he turned right to walk up toward the gambling hall without a word or a nod to her, he was surprised when she began to walk at his side, albeit a step behind him.
A few paces later, he stopped. “Why are you following me? I have nothing more to give you, Miss Parker. I told you, I came to your aid in order to teach those wretches a lesson. I did not rescue you for any other purpose, so if you believe you can extort me for more, you are sadly mistaken.”
Rose stared at him. “I don’t know what sort of woman you take me for, My Lord, but I don’t take advantage of anyone. I am not after more from you. I have given you my gratitude already.” She pointed up the street. “I was going to meet with my father when those men accosted me. He is at the gambling hall, and my destination is unchanged. I’m merely taking a safer route.”
Oh…He felt momentarily embarrassed that he had accused her of underhand intentions. Even now, he caught himself admiring the plump bow of her lips, the line of her collarbone, and the slenderness of her neck.
Is her bodice… ripped?He looked away sharply. The vermin from the alley must have torn her clothing when they tried to assault her. He had not noticed it before, as he had mistaken the fabric of her half-corset for that of her dress. Now, he realized there was a sizeable slash in the top layer, exposing a hint of those sacrosanct undergarments.
“I do not care for your story, Miss Parker,” he said curtly to hide his discomfort at the slight exposure. “You were foolish to walk alone down a darkened alley, but your reasons for doing so do not interest me. You are your father’s problem, not mine.”
Rose’s eyes narrowed to disapproving half-almonds. “I answered because you asked why I was following you.” Her tone held a note of bitterness. “I wished to clarify that I wasn’t.”
He shrugged, torn about telling her of her dress. “Then we have nothing more to say to one another.”
Her vocabulary is better than I would have thought.Most young women of her ilk struggled with even the most basic of words, and yet she used a more complicated lexicon with ease, though with some contractions that marked her out as being of the lower classes. It made him wonder if she had received some degree of education, though he did not ask her. He had already taken his stance of silence, and despite his curiosities and the slash in her dress, he could not reverse that.
Instead, they walked up the street together. Rose kept her head down, though Dorian could see the trace of anger in her clenched fists and the squaring of her shoulders.
I have upset her.The moonlight and the glow of flickering streetlamps fell across her chestnut hair, bringing out flecks of gold as it adorned her with an ethereal halo. It made him immediately uneasy, thinking of the female rider in his nightmares, graced with a similar halo. And yet, just as with her, he could not look away from Rose.
His flesh tingled with a forgotten heat that he had not felt in years, like the burn after a nettle sting, covering his entire body. His heart thudded harder in his chest until even breathing became a strangely arduous task. All because of the way her hair tumbled down to her chest, highlighting the rip in her dress, and the way her wrists looked so fragile, clasped in front of her abdomen. He knew he could snap them like twigs if he were to hold her too firmly.
That is why I cannot look at her this way… I would only break her if I were to have her, and I would not even know that I had done it.Desire was dangerous. And he had already ruined too many lives with his.
