Promise by K.J. Jackson

Author:K.J. Jackson [Jackson, K.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-11T18:00:00+00:00

~~~

“We will go to the Pink Filly tomorrow night. I am sorry your sister was not at the Oak’s Pleasure.”

Talia jumped, looking across to Fletch in the low lantern light of the carriage.

After she had checked the last rooms on the third floor, they had said very little as she had disappeared out the back of the brothel, and he had followed her, ushering her through the shadows to the carriage a block away.

She shifted on the carriage bench, nodding quickly, her gaze dropping to the dark blue cushion next to his right leg.

“What is amiss, Talia? It is more than your sister—you left me in that room with hardly a word and now you are avoiding me. You are not one to usually do so.”

Her eyes stayed on the cushion, replaying in her mind the scene in the brothel room with Fletch. Maybe she misunderstood all of it. Maybe he had other reasons.

Or maybe she was very right about his opinion of her.

“Talia?”

Her gaze skittered up to him. “Why do you pull away—out of me? The first few times I did not think on it. I thought that was how you liked to…finish.” Talia could feel her cheeks starting to burn, a hot flush blanketing her neck. “But I know. I have seen it in the brothels. That is what they do to avoid becoming with child—have the men finish outside of the women.”

Fletch straightened on his bench. “Talia, you are making assumptions.”

She shook her head. “I thought you wanted to satisfy your aunt with our union.”

“I did.”

“Yet you do not want me to be with child?”

His fingers ran through his hair, mussing it wild. He sighed. “No.”

“No? But why?”

Fletch’s jaw clamped shut, and he looked away from her, staring at an upper corner of the carriage.

Talia’s gut sank. “Is it because of where I have been? What I done? What I have witnessed? I have ruined myself and I am beneath you.”

She stared at him, stared at his eyes, waiting for the slightest twitch, the slightest blink to tell her she was wrong. Tell her she was imagining all of her worries.

He said nothing, his eyes trained on the dark corner.

The silent rejection blasted her, struck her deep in her chest, a brick of humiliation that threatened the very air she breathed.

Her chin dropped, her look landing on her lap as she tried to control her breathing, tried to control the panic threatening to seize her body.

What had she done? Married a man that thought so little of her, he could not taint himself with her blood?

The panic snaked around her belly, squeezing. It moved to her chest, cutting her breath. No. Not now. Her hands clamped together in her lap, fighting the fear gripping her. She could not break. Not now. Not in front of him.

He would see how his rejection affected her, and she could not allow that.

If he did not think she was worthy of him, then she sure as hell would not let him have the satisfaction of seeing her falter at the news.

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