Star Crossed Seduction by Jenny Brown Page A

you as soon as he’d tired of you.”
    “He wouldn’t have done that. Whatever he did later, I know he loved me—at least for a while.”
    Becky’s eyes were full of pity. “Mother Bristwick offered him twenty pound for you, after you’d been with us that first year. He was tempted until I convinced him you’d earn him more on the prigging lay.”
    It took her several moments to get her breath back after that. Could she have really been that blind? The pain that seared her heart gave her the answer. She had wanted so much to believe in him. She’d given up so much to join him. It had been impossible to face the truth.
    “He was a charmer,” Becky said, relenting. “You weren’t the only blowen that fell for his rig. And I would ha’ told you he wasn’t dead if I could ha’. But I had no choice about it. You wouldn’t have been safe if you’d known. The Weaver was glad to have you carry on like he was dead as last week’s cod. Your weeping and wailing kept them off the scent—the conspirators he betrayed. The Weaver would have silenced anyone who let you know the truth.”
    “So Randall really was working for the Weaver—not for the cause of freedom.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
    “There was no blunt to be had, fighting for freedom.”
    Temperance threw herself down on the bed, unable to summon the strength to hold herself upright a moment longer. Her friend tried to draw her into a comforting embrace, but she pushed her away. “Does Clary know?”
    “No.”
    “It better stay that way. Because I’ll tell you this. If you let a word out to anyone else, I’ll go to the beak, I swear it, and tell him about every single thing you ever stole.”
    “You’d end up in the jug yourself, if you did that.”
    “Do you think I care?”
    “No, not now. But you’ll get over it. The bastard isn’t worth killing yourself for. We all learned that about him, every one of us girls in the gang. He was a flash man like the rest of ’em. He just had a better line of patter. He had us all thinking we were special to him—at first. That’s how they work. But you, being gently raised, you wouldn’t have known that.”
    Her expression softened. “Chin up, duck. You’ll get over it. You’re a game one, and you’re well shot of him. And don’t worry about the others knowing. I’ll keep my trap shut. You can trust me for that.”
    “I’ll never trust anyone again.”
    She stamped out of the room, slamming the door when she reached her own chamber. But as she tore off the fatal boy’s costume, she knew it was worse than that. It wasn’t others she would never trust again. It was herself.

Chapter 7
     
    W hen Temperance awoke the morning after the masquerade, the sight of the mourning gown that had absorbed so many of her tears, lying where she had folded it before donning her costume, brought back the whole humiliating business. She considered ripping it up and stuffing it into the fire, but to do so would only excite comment.
    She must give no hint that anything had changed. It would be too mortifying for anyone to know how badly she’d been taken in. She’d feed it to a bonfire when she left for America, which she would do, as soon as she could figure out how. Liberty beckoned her there, as it always had, but now there was something else. Once she got herself to those promised shores, she’d hunt that bastard down and show him he hadn’t got away with it.
    But, of course, he had. He’d played on her desire to believe in him and given her just enough encouragement to keep her from looking at what was right under her eyes. Becky had been trying to protect her when she pretended the others didn’t know how he’d taken her in. But they must have—just like they knew that Monty, the one-legged beggar, had a sound leg tucked inside his enormous breeches.
    Now she knew what lay behind the odd looks the other girls in the crew had given her over the years. She’d dismissed them as being due to