Free Lady of Pleasure by Delilah Marvelle

since I last saw her. I hardly recognized her.” He probably shouldn’t say more than that.
    “Hard to believe, isn’t it? Men are lining up at all hours of the day.”
    “Are they?” Ronan shifted against the leather cushion of the seat, irked to know he not only wasn’t the only man who thought Caroline was attractive but that she was actually old enough to…bed and wed a man.
    He needed to get a hold of himself. It was wrong thinking of her in that way. He cleared his throat. “How have you been?”
    Hawksford shrugged. “I’ve been better. With my newfound role as earl, I had to swear off women, late nights and parties. So regrettably, you and I won’t be doing much of that anymore. After the name my father made for himself, I decided it was best to dedicate my time to being an exemplary leader for my sisters.”
    Ronan tsked. “I hate to tell you, old boy, but it’s a touch too late for that. You’ve already done everything you shouldn’t.”
“Yes, well, a man can try.” He paused, pensively looking off to the side. “I did meet this one woman, though. God did she ever make me want to reconsider my entire life.”
    Ronan had only ever seen that hazy look once before. Years and years ago. “Are we talking marriage here?”
    Hawksford’s gaze snapped to his. “Don’t be stupid.” Leaning forward in the chair, Hawksford confided, “I’ll have you know, the woman propositioned me – me – from a hackney on the street. In broad daylight. She didn’t even look the sort, either. She was dressed in this—this…mourning garb and had the face of an angel about to deliver Jesus himself. I didn’t know what to make of it.”
    “So what happened?”
    Falling back against the chair, Hawksford hit the arm of the chair with a fist. “I escorted her home.”
    “And?”
    “And nothing.”
    “As in nothing ?”
    “As in absolutely nothing .” Hawksford puffed out a breath. “Now I’m smacking myself knowing I should have at least kissed her. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so restless.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s like I’m losing myself to this thing called respectability.” Hawksford stared. “Speaking of respectable, you wouldn’t happen to know of any good men on the market, would you?”
    Ronan smirked. That was rather random. “Why? Are you looking?”
    Hawksford swiped an agitated hand toward him and glared. “No, you knothead. I’m trying to make a decent match for Caroline. I want her off my hands by the end of the Season. The girl is too much work. She wags her tongue at me all the bloody time, and doesn’t want to go to half the places I tell her to. The only thing she does enjoy about the Season is riding out on Rotten Row. Annoyingly, the ton has actually been twitching and calling her old because she turns twenty this summer. She wouldn’t have started so late, but we were all in mourning this time last year so it was out of the question.”
    Ronan shifted in his seat again. Whoever thought that thirteen-year-old girl he’d met in the library would have caught up to him by being almost twenty? It was unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable. And to think. She still had his ‘lucky’ sovereign.
    Hawksford squinted. “Are you all right?”
    Ronan glanced toward him. “Yes. Why?”
    “You’re unusually quiet. And only women ever make you quiet. Do you want to talk about it?”
    “No.”
    Even though Hawksford was his closest friend, there were many things Hawksford didn’t know and would never know. Like how he took money from women in return for certain favors. And how he’d been doing it since he was fourteen.
    Once upon a time, he had felt shame in it. The older he got, however, the more he realized he wasn’t the one who ought to be shamed by what he was doing, but rather, the women who were coming to him in the name of pleasure. It eventually turned into a way of life in which he only dealt with women who paid to be in his life.
    Everything else was a waste of