Lady of Pleasure (28 page)

The dowager’s narrowed gaze met his from where she stood at the end of the corridor. She whipped a finger toward the open door. “For that girl to be walking away from you, Caldwell,” she said in a hardened and unforgiving tone, “means you have broken the last of not only her heart but her pride. Don’t
ever
call on our house again. If you need to see my son, see him outside the house. Do you understand? Move on. Because I will damn well ensure she does. In my opinion, Lord Gifford is twice the man you will ever be.” Sweeping away, she glared at him one last time and with a solid tug, slammed the door shut, leaving him in morbid silence.

Ronan stood there, his nausea returning. He stumbled toward the wall beside him and falling against it, slid down, down its length, letting the coin tinker out of his hand. Caroline, his sweet Caroline, had tried to kiss him, and he’d treated her as if she were Lady Stanbury in the flesh. He’d made her believe that what was sacred to her meant nothing to him. And even worse? He had almost forced himself on her like that bitch who had forced him.

He dug a fisted hand against his teeth in disbelief. He would never be the man Caroline wanted to be. He would always be…
this
. A superficial man incapable of professing love. He had never been in love. What was love? This? To be at wit’s end? To stagger without breath? To be unable to think or know what to do?

He needed help.

Or he’d lose her.

And he couldn’t.

He had already lost everything in his life.

He couldn’t lose the closest he had ever come to knowing happiness.

He couldn’t.

Evening

The Hughes estate

His uncle remained eerily quiet as the small clock on the marble mantle of the hearth ticked and ticked and ticked.

Ronan sat there, numb, rolling his ‘lucky’ sovereign between fingers and knuckles, and allowed everything he had said about Lady Stanbury, about Theodosia and about Caroline to penetrate not only his uncle’s mind but his life.

It was a lot for both of them to swallow.

Ronan let out a breath and shoved his coin back into his waistcoat pocket, not wanting to look at it anymore. It only reminded him of Caroline and how, for three years, she had carried it in honor of him, whilst he fucked another. It reminded him of how much he had failed Caroline. Not only as a man but as a…friend.

His uncle shifted and eyed him, his bushy brows coming together. He eventually broke the silence. “I understand why you didn’t go to your father when it happened. Believe me. You and he were never close. Especially after my sister died in that horrid, horrid event that changed our lives. But I wish you had come to me. For God’s sake, I wish you had told me about Lady Stanbury when it happened. I could have helped you. I could have done something.
Anything
.”
Ronan picked at the wool fabric of his trousers just above his own knee. Sometimes, just sometimes, he wished he would have been in that carriage with his mother that day. To spare him all of the misery he’d seen since that included his father staggering around senseless and Lady Stanbury riding him like the donkey that he was. “You were dealing with your own problems,” he muttered. “It was about the time you found out that sullied business with your wife. I didn’t want to add to your misery.”

His uncle rigidly pointed at him with the decanter of port he held. “Who was the one who paid for you to go to Eton?
Who
? Not your wastrel of a father who spent his money on everything but his son. I was the one. I was the one who paid for the things you needed.
Why
? Because you were the son I should have had. You were the son that goddamn wife of mine
refused
to give me because she was in love with some low-lying merchant son of a bitch I should have killed in a duel. Am I still bitter, despite the sixteen years that have long since passed? Yes. I am. Because she died giving birth to
his
bastard in
my
bed, and he lived. That son of a bitch lived. And it was anything but fair to her
or
me.”

Ronan sat there in angst. “I know.”

His uncle muttered something before saying, “And such is life. We all suffer in different ways. Some of us survive it and some of us don’t.” Hughes seethed out a breath not once but twice. Shaking his head, he trudged over to his writing desk on the other side of the room. “You want advice about how to go about telling Hawksford? And about how to win back your girl, Ronan?” With the hand that wasn’t holding the decanter of port, his uncle took up a folded, cream-colored parchment from off the writing desk and approached. He snapped it out. “Here. She can help. I know she will.”

“Who?” Ronan’s brows came together as he slipped the folded, cream-colored parchment from his uncle’s thick fingers. “What is this?”

His uncle settled back down in a chair beside him with a huff. Holding up the entire crystal decanter of port in salute, he yanked his coat away from his belly that pushed against his gray waistcoat and said, “Just read it.”

Ronan unfolded it. He leveled his gaze at the printed letters that read:

His brows flickered. What— Jesus. He didn’t need to learn how to seduce a woman. He needed to know how to keep one.

Ronan balled up the parchment with two mashes and whipped it back at his uncle, letting it bounce off the man’s booted feet. “You can be cruel and annoying sometimes, do you know that?”

His uncle, who sat beside him, took a long swig of port, causing the liquid to loudly slosh. He observed him over the ridge of the crystal decanter before lowering it to his knee. “You come to me asking for advice and I’m giving it to you. You can’t win back a woman you aren’t even capable of kissing. That, Ronan, isn’t normal. It isn’t fucking normal for a man to panic during a goddamn kiss. And I only know of one person capable of unraveling this. My Thérèse. What you just
whipped
at me happens to be one of the most exclusive invitations in London. Who better to give you advice than a courtesan? She deals with men from all walks of life on a regular basis and has seen it all. Hell, for all we know, she may have met a man like you.”

Christ. “So you’re suggesting that I go to this school?”

“Yes.”

“
Are you serious
?” Ronan echoed.

Hughes sighed. “She wants to help men like you, Ronan. Men who admit to having problems related to women. Men who will then be able to take her advice and make a better imprint on a society that doesn’t do much to tolerate
or
understand women. The idea is actually quite brilliant and one I fully support. She means to educate male perceptions about women that are usually brushed aside or kept quiet by society. She will be starting with a small group of men she is already in the process of personally selecting and plans to expand it from there. She will offer the first session May eleventh.”

Ronan’s lips parted. “So you expect me to go to a courtesan? For advice? Do you have any idea how wrong this all is?”

Hughes stared him down, his brown eyes sharpening. “Do you have a problem with the fact that she is a courtesan?”

“Yes, I do! I’m not interested in—”

“She fucks for money, Ronan, and has been doing it since she was fifteen. Which means you and she have a lot in common.”

Ronan felt the sting of those words and edged back into his chair. “I already know how to fuck, thank you,” he grouched. “I want to learn how to be…romantic. I want to be able to walk up to Caroline and make her knees wobble without even touching her. That is what I want.”

His uncle drank another swig of port. “You’re asking for a miracle.”

Ronan groaned and leaned far forward on his knees with his forearms. “I’m not going to some school for virgins.”

“
Ronan
.”

He stared down at the wood floor between his legs, annoyed.

“
Ronan
.” There was a creak of leather from his uncle’s seat. “Ey. Look at me.”
Ronan sighed and glanced up, meeting his uncle’s penetrating gaze. “What?”

Hughes leaned toward the side of his chair. Toward him. “Maybe it’s time you recognize that even at your level of experience with women, you don’t know shit. You may know where the tits are but you sure as hell don’t know what power that beats behind those tits. And that, my boy, is the problem. Women want more. Women
need
more. And you don’t have more. You have allowed Lady Stanbury to strip you of everything you are.”

Ronan gritted his teeth until he felt the building burn in his jaw.

Hughes tapped a thoughtful finger against the crystal decanter. “Nothing in life comes easy. I thought you surely understood that much given everything you went through with your prick of a father who died during a drunken, sadistic sexual escapade gone wrong instead of being sober and with you. Sometimes, we have to do things we don’t want to in the name of others. Sometimes, we have to swallow our pride in the name of others. Which means…you need to decide what matters most to you. Your pride or Caroline and whatever is left of your friendship with Hawksford. Because you
know
that man is going to hang you by more than the bollocks. Even if Caroline greets you with open arms.”

Ronan dug his fingers into the side of his head just thinking about it.

Using the tip of his boot, his uncle flicked the balled parchment on the floor, sending it skidding toward Ronan. “Go to Berwick Street tomorrow. I will let her know you’ll be calling and applying for the school.”

Ronan cringed at the thought of being surrounded by nineteen-year-old male virgins all eagerly sitting at desks with their writing boxes and quills in hand. Shoving himself up from the chair and onto his feet, Ronan was quiet for a long moment, remembering how Caroline’s face had twisted in anguish when she had told him that he was not the man she had fallen in love with. It was pride or Caroline. And he, Ronan Henry Dearborn, the fourth Marquis of Caldwell, was damn well choosing Caroline.

Ronan rubbed at his unshaven jaw and gestured toward the parchment that was still on the floor between their chairs. “Is she trustworthy?”

Lord Hughes snapped his gaze to meet his. “Yes.”

Ronan shook his head given what he was about to do. He bent over and snatched up the folded parchment from off the floor. Straightening, he awkwardly shoved the balled advertisement into the inner pocket of his coat, burying it deep so it wouldn’t fall out.

His uncle smiled. “Go. Get some sleep. I will send Thérèse a missive tonight, explaining the situation, and that you will be calling on her. The best time to call would be in the afternoon. I suggest you arrive at Berwick Street at exactly two. I will notify you if that hour changes.”

Ronan sighed, already exhausted. “Thank you. I’m uh…I’m going home.” He walked up to his uncle, leaned down and hooked an arm around the man’s neck. He lingered for a long moment, setting his chin against that gray head that was always there for him. “Aside from the fact that I am about to join a school for virgins, did I ever tell you how grateful I am knowing you are in my life? How grateful I have always been?”

His uncle reached up and patted the side of his face. “If that is your way of telling me that you love me, know that you don’t have to say it. I know. I’ve always known. Now off with you.”

Ronan smiled brokenly, released him and stepped back. Putting up a hand, he left, more than ready to become the man Caroline needed him to be.