Courtesan's Kiss (15 page)

David gave him a nod, understanding why the thought of a week’s quarantine made the surgeon smile.

As much as he wanted to keep his headache a secret, David would tell the surgeon about it before he left the house whether Novins asked him or not.

David did not take the letter from Pennford to the study but carefully opened the seal while still in the kitchen. Lyn had not dated the letter and wrote with less than his usual care.

David picked up the second letter, already opened and refolded. He unfolded it, swore at the indecipherable scrawl, and dropped it back on the table. He would finish Lyn’s letter and then find his magnifying glass to help him decipher Thomas Sebold’s deplorable handwriting.

Hopefully David’s letter to the trustees would be well received, as well as the fact that Meryon himself supported the idea. Then he looked at the next sentence and winced.

David felt as though he spent most of his time trying to convince his brother to stop looking at how previous dukes had handled their responsibilities and move into the future. The duke might be far-thinking when it came to the well-being of the poor, but if an open mind involved anything mechanical, his brother still lived in the last century.

He began to mull over a reply.
The damn engine was invented before either one of us was born. More than two hundred are already in use. A steam engine will allow us to build a mill closer to the source of coal and save money and time
.

Oh, hell times ten, he would not waste his energy on a letter. They could discuss it, or argue it out, in person.

David shook off the disappointment and read the closing.

David understood his brother’s skepticism. Olivia had fallen in love with a man as unconventional as she was. For an Episcopal priest Garrett had some very eccentric beliefs.

The baskets sat on the table where the servants met for meals. He put them on a chair, out of sight, until he could ask Mrs. Cantwell who had sent them. He would tell her he wanted to send his thanks.

With only a little curiosity, David placed the note to Mia enclosed with his letter on the odd-shaped package awaiting her attention.

He scooped up Sebold’s letter and the satchel. With an “Ooof” at its weight, David lugged it into the study. Setting up his work here seemed the surest way to keep Mia from an examination of the shelves and their contents.

He glanced at the apparently innocent bindings marching along the shelves behind him, but did not touch a one. He had spent the whole of the previous day battling, then banishing, his own licentious imagination. Drawings of men and women in impossible poses would not help keep his thoughts under control at all.

With his back to the shelves he set the bag on the library table and remembered the time he had come into the room to find Jessup and another gentleman with two
women. His brother lived life on a scale that would kill him before he turned thirty.

That night cards and markers had been pushed off the table in favor of other pursuits. One of the women straddled his brother, her skirts raised and his pants obviously loosened. The other two watched with unconcealed excitement. David had left the room before any of them noticed him. Then David had left the house to stay at the inn, this being quite obviously a private party in which introducing a fifth would not be at all welcome.

Damn times six, everything in this house reminded him of sex, if not orgies, in some of which he’d participated. Of all the ungodly places to be trapped with a precocious virgin, Sandleton had to be the worst. In a brothel he could find relief elsewhere. In a convent he could spend hours on his knees in the chapel. Both were sure ways to come to terms with a weakness. Neither one was his first choice.

His headache reappeared, if it had ever truly evaporated, and David stared at the drawing of a steam engine, trying to bring it into proper focus. Damn it, this had better not be another symptom. He had no time for illness. He had too much to do.

First on the list was to read Sebold’s letter. David hunted for his magnifying glass. The man showed his birth in his crabbed scrawl and bad spelling. He put the glass over the letter and began to read.

“Lord David, your reesons for delaying our apointment, serves to convince me to find a new co-owner for the Manchester
project. I have formed a partnership with a banker who has helped me in the past. It has beceome clear to me that you are not interested in this project as seriously as is necessary.”
The letter went on but David did not have to read another word.

This quarantine could drive him mad if illness did not kill him. Less than sixty miles separated Sandleton from Manchester. Styal lay even closer.

If it weren’t for the damned quarantine he could ride there in less than a day and confront Sebold, try to convince him that the delay did not mean anything more than inconvenience.

David searched through the bag, relieved to see that Lyn had included the copy of the mill plans. He could find an engineer to amend these, substituting the newest steam engine. But that would mean nothing if he was not able to solve the biggest bar to success: funding.

With Sebold and his support gone it meant that all the money must come from the Meryon estate.

The enforced isolation of the quarantine at least presented the ideal opportunity to prepare proof that would convince Lyn and the trustees that a mill run by a steam engine was the way of the future.

Pulling a sheaf of papers from the satchel, David spread them out on the table that served as a desk.

“I beg your pardon, my lord.”

David had seen the surgeon hovering at the open door and ignored him as he did his best to work his brain around this change of plans.

“Come in, Novins, come in,” David said with as
much cordiality as he could muster. The health of his servants could be counted as even more important than the success of his plans. Not more bad news, he hoped.

“Thank you, sir.” Novins perched on the edge of the chair on the other side of the table. “I examined both of the patients and talked to Mrs. Cantwell and Basil. In some way things are improving. I will speak to Miss Castellano later but first I will ask you if you have any signs of illness.”

“A headache,” David admitted.

“Nothing else?”

David shook his head.

“Head pain can come from many things, my lord. Worry for others. Too much close work.” He nodded toward the papers spread out on the table. “What is that, my lord?” Novins asked with an air of sincere interest.

“A design for a cotton mill based on the Long Bank Mill in Styal near Manchester. I am considering building one.”

“I know it, the Long Bank Mill,” Mr. Novins said to their mutual surprise. “It’s less than a day’s travel from here.”

“Yes.” David nodded, pleased as could be that the man had not immediately implied that “going into trade” was beneath the son of a duke.

“Is this a joint venture?”

“Yes, and this quarantine is not advancing my efforts in any way. I thought to use these five days to learn all I can about the mill design.” As if he did not have it memorized already.

“And there is the most likely reason for your headache. Walk at least twice a day, at the coolest hour, and see if that eases the discomfort.”

“Then you do not think we are faced with some horrific contagion?”

“As to that, I am not a physician, trained in diagnosis, but a headache without any other accompanying complaints is not the way the illness started in the others.”

So at least he did not have some dreaded and so far nameless disease. Yet
.

“The prospect of this damn illness is like the sword of Damocles hanging over my head.” David’s headache worsened as he spoke, and it would not take a man of medicine to tell him that was from worry.

“Distract yourself with your plans, my lord. But do walk. I insist.”

David nodded.

“Let me tell you what I found upstairs and then I will speak to Miss Castellano. Mrs. Cantwell told me she last saw her in her bedchamber, reading.”

S
ITTING ON HER BED
, dressed only in her shift, Mia stared at the drawing. Could a woman really bend herself into that position? Would any woman, other than a courtesan, even want to have sex that way?

After studying it carefully for a full minute Mia pulled a pillow toward her and used it as the other half of the picture, the male half, and bent her body into as close an approximation of the position illustrated as she could. It was a challenge even for her agile body. The pillow pressed into her most sensitive spot, which, she had to admit, was feeling some arousal after spending the last hour looking at the drawings. With a gasp she pressed against the pillow for a moment and then tossed it to the floor.

She blushed, even though completely alone—but that position did have something to recommend it.

I will consider that a learning experience
. Jumping from the bed, she took a cold rag, pressed it against herself, and waited for the throbbing to abate. She knew self-pleasure was a sin in any religion, but she had just learned that it was a very tempting one, one that might be worth whatever penance was suggested. Unless one died from the pleasure and then it would be straight to hell. Did the Episcopal Church believe in confession? And, if they did not, then how did one atone for the occasional lapse?

She would ask Michael Garrett when she saw him next—though the idea of confessing this behavior to him would be more embarrassing than confiding in an anonymous priest.

Mia supposed a courtesan gave up all hope of salvation, unless in her old age she could use her wealth for good works and contrite acts.

What an amazing book
, she thought as she carefully smoothed the pages and closed it. Sliding it into the drawer next to her bed, she decided to explore the library further. Given what this house was used for there were bound to be other books like it.

The second book she had chosen at random was not nearly as scandalous, a collection of poems in a language she did not know. She wished she did. The illustrations were quite sensual, though not nearly as salacious as the drawings in the book she had hidden.

A scratch at the door made her jump, then scramble under the covers. “Yes,” she said, trying for a sleepy, half-dreaming tone.

“Miss Castellano? I am sorry to disturb you, but I
would like to speak with you in the main salon downstairs at your soonest convenience.”

Mr. Novins. He would not come in uninvited. She relaxed. “Yes, of course.” Then a horrible thought occurred to her. She jumped up from the bed, ran to the door, and opened it a crack. “Is everyone all right? Has Lord David taken ill?”