Scandal by Pamela Britton Page A

him, jerk his arm toward her and say, “He’s with me.” To which Mr. Hemplewilt obligingly stepped around the tart, his hand going to his head as if about to tip a hat, only to drop back to his side when he realized he didn’t have one.
    “That woman propositioned me,” he said when they were on their way again.
    “Aye. Fancy that,” she said, walking away. The man couldn’t even foist off a decrepit old tart! How the blazes would he survive the evening?
    “You look concerned,” he said as they passed beneath a lamplighter lighting a wick.
    “I am worried for your safety,” she said, daring a glance up at him. He looked so handsome. So devilishly handsome this evening. Granted, he wore the same battered jacket he’d traded his own coat for, the same brown breeches and used half boots, but his clothing could not disguise the noble form beneath. Not now. Not ever.
    “Are you?” he asked, staring down at her.
    “You might get wounded.”
    “Would that matter?”
    She stopped. “Of course it would.”
    Someone jostled them, the crowded streets bothering Anna for the first time in a long while.
    “Would it, Anna?”
    And there was her name again, that soft, fluid name that sounded so elegant and pretty coming from his lips.
    “It would,” she said, looking into his green eyes.
    “You mean that, don’t you?” he asked softly.
    “Course I do.”
    And was it her imagination, or did his expression turn cynical? “Because in my experience, Anna, people will say and do a great deal to get what they want. You need my help this night, and yet I’ve a feeling you’d rather I not perform.”
    “I
would
rather you not perform,” she said, meaning it. Oh, goodness, she felt the oddest emotions course through her as she stared up at him. Curiosity. Excitement. Fear.
    “Thank you,” he said.
    “Thank you?” she asked, trying and failing to understand what it was he was thanking her for.
    “Thank you for caring about my welfare, Anna. It has been quite some time.”
    “Quite some time since what?”
    He looked away, but not before she saw a joyless look of acceptance quickly concealed behind his eyes. “Anyone cared for me, Anna. Just me, not… anything else.”
    She almost asked him what he meant, but just then he guided her forward, the crowd suddenly worse as they hit a main thoroughfare.
    Cared for me. Just me.
    Was it true? Did he have no one to care for him? And why did such a thought fill Anna with a sorrow?
    She shook her head, trying to sort out the emotions she felt as he held her arm, guided her through the streets on their way to Piccadilly Theatre. To perform. For her.
    The theater looked smaller on the outside than it did on the inside, Rein thought. Two stories made of gray stone, it had old boards for walls on the interior, a stage with candles across the front at one end.
    “Mr. Hemplewilt, please,” Anna said as the two of them entered. “Do not do this.”
    And even though she’d sunk back into the hood of her cloak—something she did frequently, Rein reasoned, as a way to avoid attention—he could still see the concern in her amber eyes as she glanced up at him. The light glowing from the candles in front was poor, but not that poor.
    “Anna, I have no choice.”
    “My canvas is not worth your life.”
    Rein felt that odd sense of wonder again, the wonder that came from knowing she cared for him despite not knowing who he truly was.
    “I shan’t lose my life,” he reassured her, asking a passerby for the person in charge of the performances. But she didn’t look convinced as he arranged things in the crowded theater, big bodies huddled next to small, thin next to well fed. Indeed, with each act that came off the stage, the crowd grew more and more riled, and Anna looked increasingly ill.
    “You’ll be on after this bloke,” said the little man who managed the stage. “The last to perform, too,” he added, “which is likely a good thing. They’re getting a bit