Chapter 4
Four
Silas’s promise proved just as unreliable as his friend had suspected, for it so happened that he saw Miss Williams less than an hour later.
He’d barely had the time to shave and slice himself some day-old bread for his breakfast when she rapped on his door, bold as brass. She had the audacity to widen her rich brown eyes in surprise when she found him standing on the other side. As if she were startled to find him in his own home.
“Good morning,” she said brightly.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“May I come in? I’d rather not say where anyone might hear us.”
Silas darted a glance to either side. Thomas hadn’t dared to come back downstairs since he’d been scared off, and Mr. Kurtz must still be sleeping, so there was no one around to catch them.
But he’d promised Williams he would stay away from his sister, and here she was making a liar out of Silas before the day was out. This cursed woman couldn’t seem to keep from landing him in trouble.
Deciding quickly, he took her by the wrist and pulled her inside, then slammed the door behind them. Better that the neighbors shouldn’t see her.
Miss Williams gave a little shriek at this rough treatment and stumbled on the hem of her gown. Before he’d had time to think about it, Silas set a hand on her waist to steady her.
They both froze. It brought the memory of their kiss flooding back, as strong as if she were still pressing her champagne lips against his. Silas’s heart was pounding a little faster as he released her and cleared his throat. What was wrong with him?
Miss Williams had turned a rather fetching shade of pink. “I brought you your money.” She thrust a fat envelope in the direction of his chest. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “You should really curse less. It’s very shocking to a lady.”
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind if I should meet one.
” Although the insult escaped his lips before he’d had much time to think about it, his irritation lessened as he took the envelope and peered at the stack of notes inside.
Was there really sixty pounds inside? That might not justify all the trouble she’d caused him, but it certainly lessened the sting.
“Excuse me!” Miss Williams’s cheeks went from pink to mottled red. “You’ve no right to speak to me that way.”
“And you’d no right to kiss me last night. You cost me my job and your brother’s trust. Besides which, it’s not very ladylike to pay me to compromise you and turn up at my home unchaperoned, now is it?”
“Well, no,” she was forced to admit. “I suppose not. And I am sorry about all that. But it was for a good cause.”
“Ruining your own life?” He raised an eyebrow.
He didn’t care what she did. Not really.
But he couldn’t entirely suppress a spark of curiosity.
There’d been real desperation in her eyes in the minutes before her disastrous decision.
And the way she’d spoken of her family… Well, Silas had meant it when he said he understood that part.
He might not know much about Miss Williams, but he understood the weight of her resentment. That restless burning that had her stalking her own downfall. If no one stopped this girl, she might come to real harm before she turned back.
“I call it an improvement,” she retorted. “No one will marry me now, which is exactly what I wanted. Sixty pounds well spent, I say.”
“Shh!” Silas darted forward to press his palm over Miss Williams’s mouth, as if there were some way to seal the words back in before the other boarders heard her. They’d seemed to be a good enough sort, but poverty made people desperate. Did the chit want to get herself robbed?
Her eyes widened in shock. Silas almost pulled away, but stopped himself. Why should he take care to keep from frightening her when she’d used him without a second thought last night? Someone certainly needed to stop her from getting into any more trouble.
A little scare might do her some good.
* * *
Hannah’s heart was pounding so hard she was sure Mr. Corbyn must hear it. Why did he keep touching her?
Yes, she had touched him first, if one counted yesterday. But that was then. This was now. She’d made an effort to be businesslike when she’d come over here.
The money would more than compensate for what she’d cost him, and then Hannah wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. Wouldn’t have to think about him ever again, in fact.
But every time Mr. Corbyn put his hands on Hannah’s person, the answering cry from her body made a liar of her.
He leaned in deliberately close when he covered her mouth, flooding the air she breathed with his scent.
Soap and clean linen, mixed with the background smells of the house—the smoky traces of tobacco and tallow candles.
“Don’t talk about how much you gave me,” he growled, his voice so low that she had to strain to hear it.
Gentle as a storm in the air. Though he didn’t touch her anywhere but her mouth, Hannah found herself unable to move a muscle.
“There are other boarders here. You have no way of knowing if one of them might be willing to slit your throat for that sort of money.”
He released her all at once. Hannah felt a little dizzy.
“You wouldn’t let anyone slit my throat,” she whispered, as much to reassure herself as for anything else. Surely this feeling was fear. That was why her hands shook and her heart raced.
But she didn’t think Mr. Corbyn would let any harm come to her. Not after how he’d reacted when he’d stumbled upon her crying in the office. Despite his rough manners, there was kindness in him.
“You don’t know that. You’ve only just met me.” He was stubborn, but she wasn’t fooled. The thought gave her the courage to press onward.
“Anyway, I need to talk about the money,” she added in a whisper, dropping her gaze to the open button at the collar of his shirt. It was easier to talk to the man if she didn’t look him in the eye. Like the sun, he was too dazzling for comfort. “I have to tell you something.”
Mr. Corbyn scowled at her.
She would take that as permission to keep talking. It was the best she was liable to get. “I had to take a pound from what I owed you to bribe our coachman to take me to the same address he brought Eli this morning. I didn’t know where you lived, you see, so it was the only way to get here.”
She hadn’t wanted to dip into the funds, but she’d turned all her pin money into chips at Bishop’s last night and she couldn’t very well ask her mother to give her more. The coachman had been quite reluctant until she’d plucked a note from the envelope for him.
“You didn’t need to tell me that,” Corbyn said curtly. “I don’t care about your missing pound.”
“But you might’ve thought that I was trying to cheat you!”
“You paid a man to kiss you in front of a room full of people and that’s what you’re worried about?”
His mouth was twisted in a crooked line, but his blue eyes were icy and aloof. If he found her amusing, it wasn’t complimentary.
This was so mortifying—to be overcome by the looks of a man who saw her as a mere annoyance. Even if she were going to leave in just a moment, Hannah would have preferred to swirl in and out with a worldly, seductive air and leave him longing for another kiss.
Now you’re being ridiculous, she scolded herself. Once was enough. You have no reason to kiss him again.
Except that Hannah found—to her horror—that she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it.
She’d hardly had the time to appreciate their kiss the first time.
It had been over before she’d even had a chance to figure out what she was doing.
When he’d leaned in to whisper his warning in her ear a minute ago, she’d suffered the most terrible longing to try again.
He didn’t even want to kiss you the first time, Hannah reminded herself firmly. She wasn’t the sort of lady who could inspire a man to passion. She never had been.
“What will you do now?” she asked, trying to turn the subject away from her blunders.
“I’ll start by getting you out of this house and back home to your brother, for one. Is your carriage waiting outside?”
It was, though Hannah was in no hurry to return to it. The only thing that awaited her at home was another scolding. “I meant for work. Perhaps I could help you find something, seeing as it’s my fault you lost your post.”
“I think I’ve had enough of your help.” The words made Hannah wince. “If your brother learns you were here, he’ll have my hide.”
Eli again. What had he said to Mr. Corbyn? She wished they would all stop interfering in her life.
“He’ll never learn of it,” she promised. “The coachman has as much to lose as I do if anyone finds out he brought me here in exchange for a bribe. He’ll tell them that he took me to call on some other ladies.”
Hannah had thought herself quite clever for having planned it all out so thoroughly, but Mr. Corbyn merely grunted. Never mind. She didn’t need his approval anyway. He was right; they were little more than strangers and she was making a fool of herself by lingering here.
She cast another glance about the boardinghouse, a sense of regret making her reluctant to say her goodbyes.
The surroundings seemed too shabby for a man as beautiful as Mr. Corbyn.
Grime and years of wear had turned the wood of the floorboards an ashy gray.
They matched the soot-stained walls. A heavy set of footsteps marched up the stairs, sending an ominous creaking through the beams of the roof above their heads, followed by a rapping on the door from the floor above them and the sound of a man’s voice.
How could Mr. Corbyn stand to hear every move his neighbors made? What had happened to drive him from his naval career and land him in such circumstances? It must have been a significant fall from what he’d hoped for. It would have driven Hannah mad to live in a place with so little privacy.