A Night Without Stars Read online

  Bruises healed. With time, the angry colors slowly faded until it was if they’d never been there at all. But words…cruel, callous, vicious words stayed with a person.

  Maybe not right on the surface. If one was lucky, the sting of them would fade as bruises did. But they would never disappear completely. For once spoken, a word could never be erased. And it was those words, those horrible words, awful, gut-wrenching words, that Lilly feared the most.

  Words that were only a memory away.

  ‘You’re pathetic.’ Doyle’s cold eyes swept dispassionately over her as she laid in a trembling heap on top of their bed, her eyes glassy with tears and her hands pressed to her cheek, the skin beneath flushed a deep, angry red. ‘Stop caterwauling. You sound like a damn cat in heat.’

  ‘You – you hit me.’ It wasn’t the first time he’d lost his temper and struck out with his fists, but he’d promised – had sworn up and down on his dear mother’s grave – it would never happen again.

  ‘I know.’ He raked a hand through his brown hair. ‘I’m sorry, Lilly. I shouldn’t have raised my hand.’ His lips thinned. ‘But you know what happens when you provoke me. You think by now you’d know better to mind your tongue when I’m in a mood.’

  She did know better. But as of late he was always in a mood and no matter what she said or did, she couldn’t seem to appease him.

  ‘All I asked was if there was any money left for food.’ Her slender fingers dug into the sheets, anchoring herself to the bed. ‘We haven’t eaten in two days–’

  ‘I know how long it’s been,’ he snapped, and she cowered when he advanced a step, his face as dark as the storm clouds brewing outside the window of their pitifully small, rat-infested flat. ‘Where do you think I was all night? Trying to win back our money while you lazed around doing nothing’.

  Her shoulders stiffened. ‘That’s not fair, Doyle. I’ve been trying to find work–’

  ‘And have you found any?’ he jeered.

  ‘Not yet, but–’

  ‘Of course you haven’t.’ He dismissed the countless miles she’d walked and the doors she’d knocked on and the people she’d talked to – the people she’d begged – with a careless flick of his wrist. ‘Because you have no skills, Lilly. In or out of the bedroom’. His eyes rolled when fresh tears brimmed on her lashes. ‘If I knew you were this hopeless I never would have brought you to London.’

  He’d walked out the door a few days later and never returned, leaving her with bills she couldn’t pay and rent she couldn’t afford. Hopeless, homeless, and hungry, she’d taken to the streets…and eventually found her way to the Mermaid.

  If only she had listened to her parents when Doyle first came to call! They’d known from the first moment they met him that he wasn’t to be trusted. But she’d been young, and headstrong, and desperate to discover what life was like outside of Blooming Glen. So she’d learned the hard way what happened when a naïve innocent gave her heart to a rake.

  It was a lesson she did not care to repeat…and one she couldn’t help but think about as she glanced down at Bran’s large hand covering her smaller one. His thumb brushed across her knuckles, the rough pad slowly tracing each peak and valley.

  “Where did ye go, love?” he asked quietly.

  “To a place I don’t care to visit ever again.” She tried to pull her hand away but his grip tightened. For an instant he held her place, those perceptive blue eyes searching hers for all of the secrets she was desperately hiding before he sighed and stood up, his long, sinewy arms stretching up towards the ceiling.

  His shirt lifted, exposing several inches of bronzed skin and a line of hair that started beneath his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his trousers. She swallowed convulsively as she imagined where that hair led. She’d never much enjoyed touching Doyle down there, but again she wondered if it wouldn’t be different with Bran.

  Would he be a careless lover, or a considerate one? Would she wish for it to hurry up and be over, or will it to last for hours and hours? Would he use his mouth and hands to caress every inch of her body until she was moaning his name, or simply take what he wanted and roll away?

  “–is a heavy burden to carry, love. You’d do better to let it go.”

  “I…What?” Realizing he’d been speaking while she’d been openly staring, Lilly blinked and forcibly dragged her gaze up from his muscular abdomen. “I’m sorry. I – I must have been daydreaming. I didn’t hear what you said.”

  One side of his mouth lifted in a knowing smirk. “Is that what ye call it? Daydreaming?”

  “Yes.” Her hands fluttered down into her lap where they twisted into an anxious knot of frayed nerves and suppressed sexual desire. “It is a poor habit of mine. I apologize.”

  “Yer speech is different than it was in the Mermaid.” His head canted to the side. “Ye speak like a fancy highborn lady.”

  “I’m not,” she said quickly. “A lady, that is. But when I was working I thought it best to talk like the other girls so as not to draw attention to myself.”

  “So ye weren’t born in London?”

  “No. I was raised in a tiny village two days from here. I’m certain you’ve never heard of it.”

  “Yer probably right, seeing as I’ve never left the city.”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “You’ve never left London?”

  “Why would I, when I’ve everything I need right here? Food. Entertainment.” His eyes gleamed. “Beautiful women.”

  “Yes, well, I...um…thank you for breakfast. And for letting me stay the night.” And for making me think about kisses and lovemaking and all sorts of naughty things I have absolutely no business thinking about. “But I really should be going.”

  “Have ye ever been to Hyde Park?” He stepped behind her to pull back her chair as she stood up.

  “Have I…?” Puzzled by the unexpected question, she flicked a startled glance at him over her shoulder only to discover he was standing so close they were all but touching. One inadvertent step back and she would be in his arms, her head resting against his chin, her spine curving into his chest, her bottom pressing against…oh. Was it her imagination, or had that part of his body just gotten a tiny bit bigger?

  Eyes wide, she whipped her head back around and drew in a deep breath as a wave of heat trickled between her breasts. Filled with blood and desire, her nipples puckered and swelled against her bodice, a wickedly foreign sensation that had her squirming in place.

  Crossing her arms tightly over her chest in an awkward attempt to conceal her budding arousal, she quickly fled to the other side of the table and plunked herself down in Bran’s chair.

  Heavens! What was wrong with her? She’d never had these...feelings with Doyle before, or any other man for that matter. It reminded her of when she’d caught fever as a child. She had gone to bed perfectly fine only to wake with blotchy red skin, a perspiring brow, and aching limbs. The change had been bewildering, especially to a young girl of seven years, and it was no less confusing now.

  “Cat got yer tongue, love?” Bran asked, and Lilly blushed when she realized he was still waiting for an answer to his question.

  Right.

  Hyde Park.

  “No, I-I’ve never been.” But she’d always wanted to go. In fact, it was the very first place she’d wanted to visit when she and Doyle first arrived in London. He’d promised they would take a carriage ride down one of the winding paths, but of course they never had. “Maybe someday,” she said softly, an unmistakable touch of wistfulness in her voice.

  “Why not today?” he said with a dazzling smile she was helpless to resist.

  “I...I suppose that would be all right.” Lilly knew she would have been much better served to go immediately to the antiques store Juliet had told her about and ask for a job, but she really did want to see Hyde Park and besides, what was a few more hours in Bran’s company? It wasn’t as if she was going to fall head over heels in love with him in one afternoon. He may have l
ooked and acted like Prince Charming, but if she’d learned anything over the past two years it was that while princes made perfectly suitable bedtime reading material, they were notoriously underwhelming in real life.

  “Excellent.” Bran’s smile deepened into a grin. “I’ll send the maid in with a change of clothes.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that.” She worried her bottom lip, as uncomfortable with charity as she was with the sticky residue of heat clinging to the inside of her thighs. “My dress will be perfectly fine-”

  “I wouldn’t ask a beggar to wear that sorry excuse for a pile of rags.” His eyes flashed a deep, tumultuous blue. “And I won’t have ye reminded of that bloody tavern ever again. Jules has more dresses than she knows what to do with, although God knows why when she’s happiest traipsing about in trousers. She won’t mind ye borrowing one. In fact, I’m sure she would insist on it.”

  “Still, I don’t-”

  “Accepting kindness doesn’t have to be a sign of weakness, love. Sometimes it can be someone’s greatest source of strength.”

  At his words, so gently spoken, Lilly felt a crack in the wall she’d built around her heart. It was followed by another, and another. Warmth seeped between the cracks, shining light on a part of her soul that had been dark and dormant for far too long.

  Unable to speak past the painful lump that had gathered in her throat, she simply nodded and Bran, understanding far more than she wished he would, walked quietly out of the room.

  Oh Lilly, she thought as the door closed and tears born of hope and despair gathered in her eyes. What on earth have you gotten yourself into?

  Chapter Six

  Seeing Hyde Park through Lilly’s eyes was like seeing it for the first time.

  As their rented curricle trotted leisurely down a winding, tree-lined path, she constantly turned this way and that, her brilliant violet eyes reflecting a child’s delight in everything they passed, no matter how small or insignificant it seemed to Bran.

  A gnarled, twisted dogwood in full bloom was regarded as a thing of wonder. Two ducks waddling down towards one of the park’s many ponds were cheered. She stared open-mouthed at a gleaming black barouche with a duke’s gold insignia, and couldn’t quite contain her gasp of excitement when a doe bounded across the lane right in front of them.

  “It’s all so beautiful.” A contented smile curving her perfect pink lips, Lilly leaned back with a blissful sigh and, closing her eyes, tipped her face to the sky. “Don’t you think so, Bran?”

  “Aye,” he agreed, although he wasn’t looking at the scenery.

  Dappled sunlight danced across the light dusting of freckles on Lilly’s nose and made her hair glisten like spun gold. A loose tendril clinging teasingly to her exposed collarbone drew his gaze down to her bosom. Framed in scalloped white lace her breasts were pretty as a picture and his hands tightened on the reins, inadvertently causing the team of matching bays to toss their heads as he imagined burrowing his head between those two sweet globes.

  She was as fetching a lass as he’d ever seen. A truly natural beauty, in every sense of the word. There was nothing artificial about her. Nothing portrayed or contrived. Her innocence was as refreshing as a cool misting rain after a hot summer’s day and he wanted nothing more than to drench himself in her. But it was because of her innocence that he held himself back. As loathe as he was to admit it, Jules had been right. Lilly was nothing like the women he usually consorted with and he needed to be careful with her, both physically and emotionally

  He’d seen the flash of torment in her eyes during breakfast. Someone had hurt her. Badly. Were it in his power, he would have erased the pain from her past. Barring that, he could only vow to protect her in the present.

  Even if that meant protecting her from himself.

  “It’s hard to imagine we’re still in London.” Lilly opened her eyes. Somewhere between the dogwood and the ducks she’d lost her nervous stutter and the tension in her shoulders had finally eased, affording Bran a rare glimpse at the carefree girl she must have been before St. Giles had sank its vicious claws into her tender flesh.

  It was impossible to live in the East End and not put up some kind of armor. Without it, a person wouldn’t last more than fortnight and Lilly, for all that she appeared delicate and malleable, had managed to survive a lot longer than most women in her position would have. But surviving wasn’t living, and if there was anyone who deserved to live their life to its fullest it was Lilly.

  She deserved silk on her skin and sunshine on her face. Ribbons in her hair and jewels on her fingers. And if there was anyone who knew jewels, it was him.

  Amethyst to match her eyes, he mused, slanting a sideways glance in her direction. She’d twisted away from him, her small hands clinging to the side of the curricle as they sailed past a trio of ladies carrying lace-trimmed parasols. And diamonds to complement her porcelain skin. A necklace, perhaps. Three tiers of glittering diamonds with an amethyst pendant resting at the apex of those lovely breasts.

  And nothing else.

  Sensing his stare – if not his lascivious thoughts – Lilly turned back to face him, hands settling gracefully in her lap. Were it not for her lack of gloves and the curling tendrils of hair that had escaped her hastily composed coiffure she would have looked no different from the ladies they’d just passed. Her refined features, coupled with her svelte frame and quiet manner, could have easily adorned any drawing room in Grosvenor Square. To know that such rare beauty had been wasted on a bunch of drunken sailors and wastrels was enough to make Bran’s blood boil. She never should have had to step within one mile of The Lusty Mermaid, and if it were up to him she never would again.

  “Do you come here often?” she asked.

  “To the park?” As they approached a steep turn he pulled back on the reins and the bays slowed to an animated walk, their iron shoes striking the hard stone in a steady rhythm. “Ye know, I can’t remember the last time.” One side of his mouth quirked in a wicked half grin. “Although I’m certain I’ve never ridden in a carriage with such sweet company.”

  “Is this how you charm all of your women?” For once she didn’t blush and look away, but instead met his gaze with a challenging lift of one finely arched brow. “By making them believe they’re the prettiest, most stunning female you’ve ever met?”

  “Aye,” he admitted shamelessly.

  “I thought as much.”

  “But in your case it’s true. It is,” he insisted when she gave an indelicate snort. “I wouldn’t lie, lass. Not to ye. ‘Tis true I’ve spent time with women who were more…generously endowed…but not a single one of them had your grace and natural beauty.”

  She shook her head in bemusement. “I’m just a serving wench.”

  “Ye were a serving wench,” he corrected. “But that’s what ye did, it wasn’t who ye were.”

  “There’s nothing special about me, Bran.” Like an icy breeze sweeping in from the north, her voice grew cold and hard. “I would prefer if you not pretend as if there was. I know exactly what I am, and your empty flattery is not going to change that.” Lips pursed, she turned away from him to stare blankly at a small pond, her shoulders as stiff and rigid as he’d ever seen them.

  Who the devil hurt ye so badly? The sharp demand was on the tip of his tongue but he swallowed it back, knowing it was neither the time nor the place. When Lilly trusted him she would reveal the ghosts that haunted her. Then and only then he could send every last bloody one of them straight to hell.

  Lilly hadn’t meant to snap at Bran. Truly she hadn’t. But when he’d begun to compliment her she’d been brought right back to Blooming Glen when Doyle had so effortlessly managed to snare her in his intricate web of endless praise and she, silly, wide-eyed lamb that she’d been, had let him lead her straight to slaughter.

  He’d called her beautiful as well. ‘The most beautiful woman I have ever laid my eyes upon. This little village doesn’t deserve you, Lilly. You’re destined for g
reat things. Come with me to London. Let me show you what dreams await.’

  Their miserably tiny flat was hardly the thing of dreams, but by the time she realized how expertly she’d been duped it was too late. Doyle had gambled away all of her money and left her to fend for herself in a city she knew nothing about with people who would gladly sell their mother for a few pence.

  But she’d managed. Against all odds, she’d found a job. Maybe it wasn’t the best job, but it kept a roof over her head and food in her belly. Most importantly, she’d learned how to fend for herself. And she wasn’t about to waste all of that hard won knowledge on another rake, no matter how charming or handsome he was.

  “Could you take me to the corner of Fleet and West Broad, please?” she asked without turning her head. Every time she looked at Bran she found herself falling deeper into his penetrating gaze and it was becoming harder and harder to pull herself back out. “Juliet said there was a man there who might be able to offer me work.”

  “Aye, Jules mentioned she was going to speak to Yeti for ye.” The lane straightened out as they approached a small hill and Bran clucked his tongue, urging the team into a trot. “Good man, Yeti. One o’ the best. He taught Jules and I everything we know.”

  Startled, Lilly forgot she was supposed to be looking away from Bran and instead turned in her seat to stare straight at him, violet eyes wide and wary. “You mean he’s a thief, too?”

  Bran’s frown made her realize she’d spoken quite loudly, having raised her voice to be heard above the bouncing carriage and jingling harnesses. “Have a care, love,” he chided gently. “We’re not in St. Giles anymore.”

  “I’m sorry.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “I didn’t mean–”