Chapter Four
“Good heavens. What is happening?” Hannah asked after the butler roused her from her bed by knocking repeatedly on her bedroom door. She tied the sash of her wrapper then followed him downstairs to the short entry hall.
“I couldn’t say, Miss Ulrich. There was an insistent rapping on the door a quarter of an hour past. A closed carriage pulled away with a crest in gold that I couldn’t catch, but there was this man passed out on the steps. I brought him in since it is raining, yet I don’t know what to do with him.”
“So I can surmise.” With some trepidation, she peered down at the crumpled form of the man, but with his greatcoat and crushed top hat as well as his raggedy hair, she couldn’t determine if she knew him. Had he been a former client?
“Shall I have him tossed into the gutter? He looks like rubbish.”
She frowned at the butler. “If we do that, he’ll be robbed or wander off or even killed.
” The greatcoat seemed to be well-tailored, as did the beaver brimmed top hat.
“I don’t think he’s indigent.” When she prodded his leg with the toe of her slipper, he groaned but didn’t otherwise move or open his eyes.
“Mr. Franklin, why don’t you summon a footman then get this man up into one of the bedrooms?
Yes, he is in a sorry state, but perhaps he’s merely down on his luck.
” There were bruises forming on his face.
“We’ll clean him up, let him have a good night’s sleep, and then send him on his way tomorrow morning. ”
“You are more benevolent than I am, miss,” the butler said with a sniff.
“Everyone deserves a second chance. You, of all people, should live by this theory.” She moved out of the way when a footman came to help.
Three years ago, she’d taken Mr. Franklin in when he’d tried to rob her one afternoon when she’d been coming home from a tea house. When she’d heard his story, she’d invited him to consider the position, for her previous butler had retired due to old age.
“Of course. I will never forget your kindness.” Franklin nodded.
Between him and the footman, they quickly moved the stranger up to the third level and onto the bed in the smallest bedroom.
There were only three bedrooms in her townhouse.
She owned the suite, but the other two? They were where she entertained clients, for she refused to allow any of those men access to her private quarters. “What now?”
“Have a maid bring up a basin of warm water along with a sponge and a bar of soap. Also, cold cuts, bread, cheese, and a pot of tea. He’s in a sorry state, but I’ll wager he’ll need sustenance when he wakes.
” After approaching the bed, she brushed the shock of hair that had fallen over his brow, then she gasped. “Oh.”
The butler frowned while the footman left, presumably to summon a maid. “Do you know this man?”
All her servants had been sworn to secrecy, and she paid them well to ensure that, which was why she gave them leave to refer to her by her real surname.
“Yes,” she managed to breathe as she peered down into his face.
His eyelashes lay like dark crescents against his pale cheeks, but those cheekbones, those chiseled lips, the cut of his jaw were unmistakable, for his every feature had been etched into her memory years ago.
Marred as they were by bruises and a slight cut on one cheek, he was still quite attractive. “Yes, I do know him.”
Evan.
He was older now, a bit rougher, but this was the man who’d ruined her life, the man who had left her alone to battle everything alone.
“He is a member of the beau monde. I met him once during one of my later Seasons.” There was no point in revealing his true identity or how she knew him until she could talk with him, and even she didn’t know if she wished to do that.
Opening those boxes to her past would be asking her to relive all those things again. And it seemed far too long ago.
I don’t wish to feel anything. Not anymore.
“Ah.” Thank goodness Franklin didn’t say anything further. Instead, he moved to the foot of the bed and began the task of removing the captain’s boots. “We should at least make him comfortable.”
“I appreciate that.” She kept her focus on Evan’s face while the butler worked.
He’d been missing for nearly ten years, but she had no idea if his half-brother had tried to locate him in those intervening years.
That she’d gleaned from gossiping with Lady Catherine the other day.
“What has happened to you?” she whispered while moving his top hat to the bureau then she helped Franklin take off the greatcoat.
Recently as well as in the past that kept him away.
“Shall I strip him down, my lady?”
“Perhaps, but leave his breeches on for his dignity. It will make sponge bathing him easier, for it seems he’s had quite the time of it already tonight if the bruises are any indication.”
As the butler worked, he said, “He’s a drunk.”
That very well may be so. “Can you blame him? It has been a trying year.” She quickly lit a candle in a brass holder that rested on the bedside table. Immediately, shadows jumped along the walls and a pool of golden light spilled over the captain’s body, giving him a softer look.
A maid came into the room followed by a footman with the requested supplies.
“Thank you. Just put everything on the trunk.” She pointed to the stout piece of furniture made from walnut wood. “Then you may all retire for the night. I’ll see to this man’s care.”
Franklin frowned. “What if he should wake?”
Hannah shrugged. “Then we shall sort everything out at that time.”
The maid cast a lingering glance at the captain. “Are you certain you don’t wish for assistance? He might be a wild one when not asleep.”
Oh, he is beyond wicked, or at least he was when I knew him.
Aloud, Hannah said, “I will be fine, but if it relives your worry, I will ring if I need help.” Why was he here at all?
And why, after ten years, had he suddenly remembered her?
Damn her curiosity and compassion. It had always been her downfall, and one of the reasons her clients tended to talk half the time she was with them instead of purely using her for bed sport.
Once the servants exited the room, Hannah set to work.
After she retrieved the basin, she set it on the bed next to his still body then she wet the sea sponge, wrung it out, and began bathing his right arm and hand.
The knuckles were bloodied, which meant he’d been in a fight recently.
Moving over his chest and abdomen, she noted a few scars and a jagged one that went across his belly.
A bruise also formed there, confirming the fight theory.
Afterward, she cleaned his other arm and hand.
Callouses on his palm spoke to hard labor or some sort of outdoor work he often indulged in.
However, his form was still as mouth-watering as it had been when she’d known him ten years ago. Perhaps even more so since he’d been in the Navy longer.
After dampening a rag the maid had included, Hannah carefully wiped the blood from his face, drew it gently over his lips, his brow, his chin, and then guided the cloth down his neck.
“Why are you here, Evan?”
He didn’t answer, but one of his eyelids flickered. Unfortunately, he didn’t wake.
Once she’d finished with the sponge bath, she carried the basin to the bureau and gently set it down on top. Then she returned to the bed where he lay much like she’d left him.
“Why did you have to arrive on my doorstep to throw my life into upheaval?”
As she spoke, she rested a hand on his chest, drew a fingertip through the mat of brown hair there, and when the muscles of his abdomen slightly rippled, she caught her breath.
Clearly, he wasn’t so deeply unconscious that his body couldn’t react to her touch.
A terribly naughty thought formed in her mind.
Could she? Should she? While staring down at him, she tugged at the sash until her robe gaped open, then she let it slide from her shoulders to puddle on the floor.
“Perhaps you’ll serve a purpose after all, and you owe me that, besides,” she said to him in a whispered voice. Again, she danced her fingers lightly down his chest to his abdomen. His muscles twitched, and she allowed herself a small smile. “I’m not the same woman I was when you abandoned me.”
Her grin faded while she manipulated the buttons of his frontfalls.
Once the panel fell open and his semi-erect member tumbled out, she moistened her lips.
“But perhaps I’m still enough of the same, for you manage to tempt me into sin and scandal.
” If she could tease him into a full erection, could she take shameless advantage of him merely for her own release?
Awareness of him as a man—as a vehicle for pleasure—rippled over her skin and zipped through her body as if she’d been struck by lightning. Shoving all other thoughts from her mind, Hannah manipulated his member. As she did so, it grew longer and thicker.
Does his body, at least, remember me?
When his shaft was quite hard, she glanced at his face, but his eyes remained closed. “Enjoy this, Captain, even if you think you’re dreaming.” Because once he left tomorrow, she would evict him from her mind yet again. This night was an aberration, nothing more.
With anticipation warring alongside wariness, Hannah continued to stroke the length of him, being sure to add twists and light squeezes as she worked.
When she licked the head of his member then took him into her mouth, she fondled his firm stones, held them in her hand while proceeding to suck him off.
Dear God, how well she remembered learning how to do this to him, for she’d received all her carnal tutelage from him alone. The raw scent of man mingled with the notes of his signature cologne—orange, cedarwood, and tobacco. It was a heady combination indeed.
And she needed this for herself, to say goodbye to him and have the closure she was denied ten years ago.