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“Such a shame no one is around to witness us.” He took a moment to commit her face to memory. Each moment with her felt like it could have been their last. He didn’t know why it mattered—for fear of losing money?
For fear of losing her company.
“Tell me what I must do to ease your burden.”
The order seemed to shake her as if she couldn’t imagine a world in which Benjamin would ever offer her his help. It stung a little, but he was quick to brush it away as she spoke anew.
“You can do nothing for me. My life is ruinous by my own hand.” The words were frail as she uttered them, deceptively soft.
“I find it hard to believe you could be an agent of ruin.”
“You do not know me, that is why.”
Against all his better judgment, knowing full well this moment was not theirs, that it wasn’t right—that at any moment their plan could be brought to fruition and they could be compromised—he reached out with his thumb and forefinger and seized her chin. Her lips parted in surprise, and he breathed in whatever trace of Charlotte they had let slip.
“I’d like to know you,” was all he could say first. “I’d like to know you very much.”
She dropped her gaze to his lips, which almost drove him to madness. “Not if you knew what I had done,” she confessed, her voice thick with wet emotion.
“If telling me would ease your burden, I’d like to know.”
It seemed inconceivable for a woman like Charlotte to have erred so terribly it might consume her. There was too much goodness in her. He thought of all the evil at which an angel might play out of boredom and poor judgment, until his body coiled tight with knowing… and guilt.
“Two months ago, I fled my home.” She was speaking, but he could barely hear it. He didn’t want to hear it; he didn’t deserve to. “I fled my home in the dark of night, and I was robbed—punished for my foolishness. It pushed my father over the edge of his sanity. It broke my sister’s heart.” She shook her head and began to cry, and Benjamin drew her in close, his hand slipping from her chin to grab at the back of her neck until their foreheads connected.
“Don’t—“
“It was the worst thing I have ever done. The worst thing I could imagine doing. I would ratherdiethan hurt them again—better they mourn the good Fitzroy daughter they knew than suffer the sinner I have become.”
“Charlotte,please. You needn’t—“
“I want tosin.” Her breath was hot against his face, and he opened his mouth to taste it—bitter lemonade. “I want to sin withyou.”
She reached up and cupped his face, dancing with him as she tried to kiss him. He could not let her, not while his heart was filled with self-loathing so strong it felt like drowning. She believed herself a daemon for his past crime, and now, by his presence—he would not bring her dark, errant dreams of sin to life.
“We mustn't, Charlotte—” He tried to protest, a ghost of himself, but her lips brushed against his jaw. He had to graze his knuckle against the rough stone of the fountain to stop from consigning her to hell. She was so close, and she wantedhim.
And it would be the worst thing I ever did if I let myself have her.
A drop of blood fell into the clear pool of the fountain’s water where the skin at his knuckle had torn open.
“Charlotte,” he breathed, and the word was more a plea than a name. Her thumb was on his lip, waiting. Benjamin closed his eyes. “I need to leave London.”
Fire turned to ice as she drew away from him. Her fingers drifted slowly from his cheeks like tears as she regarded him.Betrayed, he read in her eyes,You have betrayed me.“I do not… understand.” Her voice was rasped with repressed lust, and he only loathed himself more for it.
He grabbed one of her hands and held it close. Ever since the Richmond soirée, he had known the moment would come. He had expected their ruse to be long over by then; he had expected her not to care even if shehadfound out of his departure.
With his Captain in London, with Charlotte just within reach, he could not allow himself to indulge their fantasy for pleasure, only purpose. His past would condemn them both, more than she knew, if the man were to catch wind of his whereabouts.
“Benjamin—“
“The Captain who attended your father’s party… his name is Harper. I told you that he led me to crime, but for all our costumes, he is no more a respectable soldier than I am a poet.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “And if he were to find out who I am, he would blackmail the both of us. You say you lead a life of sin, but at least it is alife, Charlotte. He would take that from you and more.”
When he opened his eyes, she was not frightened as he expected but defiant. “No, I do not believe it. He could not touch us—“
“But hecouldbecause he takes pleasure in misery. And I will not let him have you.”
He pulled away, feeling without a body for having lost her touch. Feeling even worse for having lied to heragain. Because it was not blackmail Benjamin Fletcher feared from Captain Harper.
