Chapter 14 #2
“I was never of your world, Caroline,” she said. “My parents were no one, their parents were no one. Tenants who worked the land of families like yours. My father drank, my mother was miserable. And my uncle—”
She cut herself off because she’d never said what she was about to say to anyone in the world. She tried to never think of it, to never let those horrible memories break into her well-ordered life.
Caroline took her hand and lifted it to her chest. “Please breathe, Simone.”
Simone did as she’d been asked, for she realized she had stopped breathing. The action eased the sharpness a little and she gasped out, “They didn’t protect me from him. From what he did to me. When they found out, they blamed me. Called me a whore. So I ran away and became just that.”
Caroline’s gaze softened with understanding and heartbreak. “I’m so sorry.”
Simone wanted to tug her hand away but couldn’t find the strength.
“It happens. I was sixteen, running the street, using what had already been stolen against my will. I probably would have died that way, but I staggered into an arrangement with a solicitor who brought me to a Cyprian ball where I met an earl. He was obsessed and Simone Stanhope was born.” She shook her head and felt bitter when she added, “A glittering jewel in the crown of any man who fucked her.”
“You weren’t her before?”
“Simone, yes. Stanhope no. I created a new name, a new identity. A new life. By the time I was seventeen, I was in demand.”
Caroline brushed a hand across her cheek. “You were too young.”
“I was old enough. And after a while I even stopped hating it. I embraced what I’d become and who I could manipulate and what I could do as I built myself an empire on my back.” She said the words harshly and waited for Caroline to pull away, but she never did.
“Did you have a mentor like you were for my girls?” she asked.
“My first guide was a madam who took advantage. Who stole from me and didn’t care what was done to me as long as she was paid.” Simone shut her eyes briefly as she thought of that poxy bitch. How she had danced when she heard that crone was dead.
“And that’s why you helped them,” Caroline said.
Simone wrinkled her brow. She’d never put that thought together before. She’d helped Arabella and Evie and Julia and others like them because…because she had. She didn’t think about the whys. And now she could see how right Caroline was. “I suppose,” she admitted.
Caroline held her stare with unflinching one. As if none of the things Simone said had done anything to change her view of her. But how? How could that be possible?
“You are a good person.”
Simone barked out a laugh. “Not good, Caroline.”
“You are.” Caroline folded her arms and looked ready to fight over that fact. “You can put up any facade you like, but after all this time, I know what’s true.”
Simone pushed from the bed. She feared Caroline was right. Not about the being good part, she was very uncertain on that score. But that Caroline saw through her? That was beginning to ring very true.
“You see what I want you to see,” Simone whispered, pushing at the panic rising in her chest. “I could be good to you. So very good, Caroline. Let that be enough.”
She hoped she was putting on a sensual expression, but Caroline seemed unmoved by it if it was there.
She let out her breath like she was frustrated.
“I want you, Simone. I think the past few days have more than proven that. But I want more than your hands and lips and tongue. You can’t make me change my mind about that by dodging anything real that frightens you. ”
“Nothing frightens me,” Simone lied. “And you should change your mind if you’re so foolish as to want more than to let me into your bed. What do you think I am, Caroline? What do you think I could be to you?”
She shouldn’t have asked the question, it was too dangerous. But perhaps somewhere in her darkest, hidden soul she wanted to know the answer. She wanted to see Caroline’s mouth form the words even if they wouldn’t end up being anything but a confused lie.
“Everything, Simone,” Caroline said. “You could be everything to me.”
Simone’s legs buckled from the joy that statement tore through her.
Somehow she managed to stay upright, to not launch herself at Caroline and admit every ounce of love she felt coursing through her every time their eyes met.
But she knew that path. She’d seen others take it.
Caroline had already been ostracized to some level through her support of her nieces.
Through even a hint of friendship toward Simone.
If she moved even closer? If her circle began to believe they were more than acquaintances, more than friends?
She would be drummed out forever. In the end, Caroline might come to hate Simone because she’d lose far more than she gained from any further relationship than what they already had imprudently shared.
Simone loved her too much to watch her light go out.
To watch her love fade into regret. She’d allowed herself to pretend the past few days, to fold herself into a fantasy that could never be real.
At least not be real without being followed by pain and regret one day not too far in the future.
She refused to do that. Not to herself. Especially not to Caroline.
And that meant she had to do something terrible now to save them both from something far worse.
“Wh-what if I don’t—” She was choking on the words and cleared her throat. “What if I don’t want to be everything to you?”
Caroline’s face fell and the hurt in her eyes was unbearable even if it was necessary. “Are you trying to convince me you mean that?”
“I don’t have to convince you of anything, you’re not a fool. Your mind is merely confused by the last few days. Time away will make you remember where you belong.”
“If you think that, you don’t understand me at all.” Caroline let out a long sigh as she moved toward the dressing room. “But you wish me to leave, so I’ll go. For now.”
Even though Simone was manipulating this very response, even though she knew it was for the best, she wanted to tell Caroline not to go. To snatch her close and let herself collapse into her and never ever stop. But she shrugged instead. “I think it might be best.”
Caroline inclined her head and then turned and went into the dressing room. Simone sagged when she was left alone in her bedchamber and supported herself on the edge of the rumpled bed where she’d spent far too many days indulging in what could never be.
And now, no matter what Caroline said in the heat of this charged moment, Simone knew that time was likely over. And she mourned the loss even as she tried to recall how to put on a face of stone and a heart of steel.