It wasn't her beauty that was the surprise. He'd known, even before he'd seen her face last night—by the way she moved, by her confidence around men, by the fact that she'd been very, very successful at her profession—that Coral Smythe was a beautiful woman. No, what took his breath away was her youth.
The Aphrodite of Aphrodite's Grotto couldn't be more than one and twenty.
Her complexion was fine and so pale it was nearly translucent, her lips were thin with a long sensuous curve to the slightly wider upper one. Her nose straight and thin and delicate. And those eyes. Seen as they should be, with her entire face revealed, they were mesmerizing. Cat-green and tilted at the corners as if some exotic ancestor had left their imprint on her countenance. She was fragile and brave and beautiful.
And she was much too young.
Last night she'd requested—nay, demanded—he leave after she'd revealed herself to him. Last night he'd known her—and his—emotions were too close to the surface. Last night he'd bowed to her near-hysterical entreaty and quickly withdrawn from her presence.
Tonight he stood firm and asked the question he suddenly knew he had to know.
"How did you come to be here?" His voice emerged rougher than he'd meant and he watched as her expression blanked. One slim hand reached for the golden mask lying on the table before her, while the other flew to her right eye, as if to shield it.
"Dammit, don't." He pulled out the other chair from the table and sat, reaching across the table and catching the hand that held the golden mask. "I'm sorry."
She was silent, her back ramrod straight, but her gaze fixed on the table. She'd frozen at his touch, and he saw now that her hand hid a slight deformity on her right eye. The lid of that eye drooped a little lower than the left and a small white scar ran through the eyebrow.
Isaac took a breath and tugged gently on the hand he held. "Don't hide yourself again."
Her breath trembled.
"Please." He fought to keep his voice low, soothing. "I was merely surprised by your youth last night and again today."
That prompted a harsh laugh from her. "I'm four and twenty. How old did you think me, Captain?"
"Isaac," he chided absently. "I don't know. I know only that I thought you'd been a madam, had been doing . . . this"—he waved a hand vaguely—"for years."
"You mean whoring myself," she said. The words should've been defiant—before the game of loo, the Aphrodite he'd known had taken every opportunity to flaunt her profession especially, it had seemed, to him.
But this was Coral now, not Aphrodite, and her words were soft and a little sad.
"I have been whoring myself for years. I had to when I first started. It was the only way to make enough money to feed myself and . . ."
She paused and for a moment he thought she wouldn't continue. Who was the other person she'd protected and provided for? A mother? Dear God, a child?
He leaned forward. "Tell me."
Her fingers tightened about his hand almost painfully. "My elder sister took care of me when I was small. Both our parents were dead. She worked as a maid—a good position—but when her employer let her go without reference she could find no other work."
She'd been staring at the table top, but now Coral raised those extraordinary green eyes to him. "She could've abandoned me. She could have sold me to a whoremonger or as an indentured servant. Instead she walked the streets of London so that we both might have food to eat. For years she did this. But when I grew old enough, after men started to notice me as well . . ."
She stopped and he could see in her haunted eyes what she'd done.
But he needed to hear her say it aloud. "What did you do?"
She lifted her chin. "I found the fanciest bawdy house I could and made a deal with the madam—she would sell my virginity to the highest bidder and I'd keep one fourth of the money."
He felt the tension in his muscles, almost painful across his chest and arms. He wanted to leap from his chair. To throw furniture and bellow. To smash in the face of that madam and the man who'd bought Coral and every other man or woman who'd used her in her life.
Instead he closed his eyes to keep his temper inside. "Did you work at the brothel after that?"
"For a while." Her voice was bleak. "I made more money at the brothel than my sister did on the streets. But then I found myself a protector."
He looked at her, hoping that her "protector" had been a kind man, but knowing that was unlikely.
She stared at the table. "I was with him for almost a year before another man, a wealthy merchant, offered to keep me. In all I had five different protectors, each one more important and richer than the last, and I was able to tell my sister she need not walk the streets of London anymore. That she could retire from that life because I now had enough money to support us both."
She sounded proud, and he could understand now why she might be. "Why did you decide to come to Aphrodite's Grotto?"
He watched as her fingers brushed over the scar in her right eyebrow. "My last protector was a very jealous man. A woman—a rival of mine—told him I was seeing other men. He . . ." Her voice trailed away for a moment, and then she straightened and looked him in the eye defiantly. "He beat me. Quite badly, in fact. I thought he might kill me. After that I came to Aphrodite's Grotto. I'd rather be with a different man each night than let myself be under the power of one man."
He swallowed, beating down rage at the unknown man who had hurt her so. "And now?"
She attempted to withdraw her fingers, but he held tight. Damned if he'd let her retreat. "Now? Now I am the Aphrodite of the most infamous brothel in London, sir. What else do you think? "
He was in no mood for her teasing. "Do you whore yourself now?"
Her elegant head reared back and an ugly sneer twisted her lips. "Of course I—"
He shook their joined hands. "Cut line, Coral. Tell me the truth."
Something vulnerable flashed behind her eyes and he wondered if she'd dare tell him the truth.
Then she sighed, the sound weary and lost. "I haven't entertained a man in two years. I haven't had to—I am the Aphrodite."
"Except for me," he reminded her.
"Is that what I'm doing with you?" she cocked her head, a sad whimsical smile on her face. "Am I truly entertaining you?"
"I enjoy my time with you," he said carefully. This was new ground, fragile and uncertain. He didn't want to make a false move. Didn't want to destroy this new journey. "I like talking with you, like sitting here with you. In that way I am entertained. Whether or not I am like your customers in other ways as well, I don't know. I hope not. I hope this is something different and new for you, but I think that is for you to decide."