The Courtesan's Bed (15 page)

She stared at the burning candles by the bedside, their flickering flames mesmerizing her. True, she was with him now. But for how long?

Chapter Twelve

Darius had just finished dressing and was getting ready to meet Régine at three o'clock for a carriage ride through the Bois de Boulogne, when a barrage of loud, insistent knocking sent him hurrying to open his hotel-room door.

His father charged in and whirled around, bristling like an enraged wild boar. He glared at Darius, his gray eyes as dark as a November Surrey sky at dusk, his face as red as if he'd spent several hours in a steam bath.

He flung a newspaper at him. “You lied to me!”

The paper hit Darius in the chest. “And good afternoon to you.” He caught it before it could slide down to the floor.

Le Figaro.
He suspected Anatole Beaucaire's column was to blame for his sire's wrath. Sure enough. Blackwall had folded the paper so the column leaped off the page.

The patrons of Maxim's have wondered why Régine Laflamme's table was unoccupied last night. Truth of the matter is that a new gentleman has captured the heart of our Queen of Fire. Frenchmen will weep in their champagne when they learn that alas, he is no native Parisian, but from our rival England. I have met Darius Granger, the Earl of Clarridge, and am pleased to report that he is a charming, witty fellow, truly worthy of our queen. Mademoiselle Laflamme's table will once again be occupied, and all will rejoice.

Beaucaire had promised not to report that Luc Valendry had stolen Régine's money, but hadn't agreed to keep silent about her acquiring a new protector.

Now Darius wished he'd made the journalist promise not to report his name when he wrote of Régine.

“Well?” The marquess stood there belligerently with hands on his hips. “Is it true that you're her new paramour?”

Darius folded the paper and calmly set it on the nearest table. “Every word of it. Régine and I are lovers.” Several times over, as of last night.

“My own son. You sneaky little bastard. When I asked if you had found her, you looked me straight in the eye and denied it, and all the time you knew she was here in Paris.”

“I have my exceptional inquiry agent to thank for finding her before you did,” he said blandly.

“You knew I was looking for her, and you deliberately lied to me. You wanted her for yourself.”

“Guilty as charged. I've wanted her since I came home from Oxford and met her in Kate and Emma's schoolroom. Now she's mine.”

Wrath rolled off his father in waves. “Damn you! I saw her first.”

Darius tried to keep his own temper in check. “You forfeited any claim to her when you threw her away.”

“I deeply regret that now. I realized what a horrendous mistake I made. Where is she? I must go to her and explain, and make her see reason.”

Darius jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from strangling the man. “She wants nothing to do with you.”

“I was her first love. She will forgive me because I know she still cares for me.”

Did the man's audacity know no bounds? Darius studied his father in growing disgust. “Do you know what Regina has been doing since you betrayed her and your wife sent her packing?”

“This article implies she's a…a courtesan.”

“She's survived by selling herself to very wealthy men. And she's one of the most highly regarded and sought after grand horizontals in all of France.”

Blackwall's face fell, and he turned pale. “Penelope swore to me that Regina found another position as governess up in the wilds of Yorkshire. Besides, she's a respectable young lady of impeccable breeding. She'd never lower herself to be a—a common whore.”

“There is nothing common about her.” Darius made an exasperated noise. “Penelope lied to you.” And he told his father everything that had happened to Regina since his wife so heartlessly threw her out without a reference.

His father stared at him, slack-jawed and dumbfounded.

“I was right,” Darius said. “You didn't know, because you didn't care. You never thought about her at all until your wife died, did you, and now suddenly you want Régine back.” He rose, trying to keep from shaking. “Well, you can't have her, because she's mine now.”

“I screwed her first, Darius.”

He curled his lip in disdain. “You screwed her, and I make love to her. That's the difference between us.”

The marquess lowered his head, balled his hands into fists and took a threatening step forward.

Darius put his weight on the balls of his feet, ready to give his own father a good, sound thrashing. “Don't even think about taking a swing at me, old man.”

His father folded his arms across his chest, a sly look narrowing his eyes. “Why did you lie to me, son? Why didn't you tell me the truth right away, that you'd found her? I'll tell you why. You were afraid she still cared for me, and if I got her first, she would reject you.”

“Don't flatter yourself,” he scoffed. “You're her past, and I'm her present.” He smiled. “And her future. She made that quite clear last night.”

“We'll just see about that.”

Before Darius could say another word, his father stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

Darius waited until the echo died away, leaving deafening silence in its wake. “Selfish, thoughtless old prick.”

Penbry Granger, Marquess of Blackwall, thought of no one but himself. Not his son. Not his daughters. Not Régine. All that mattered was what he wanted. Always. He was a peer of the realm and could blithely waltz through life, scattering chaos in his wake without a second thought. Let someone else pick up the pieces. Consequences were for lesser mortals to suffer.

“Well, not this time, dear Father.”

Darius sat back down. Was his father right? Had he lied about Régine's whereabouts so he could get to her before the marquess? Did he fear she still had feelings for her charming seducer?

She couldn't still desire Blackwall, not after the way she'd made love to him last night with intensity and such abandon. He remembered those rose petals strewn around her bed, and the game she'd made of plucking them from his groin's curlies. He had stopped her from playing the game to completion because he was afraid the last petal she removed would be “he loves me not”, and that would've killed him.

He intended to be the victor in this war for Régine's heart.

He rose. Even though he wasn't due at her house for another hour, he had to get there before his father tracked her down. Blackwall would make a few inquiries of the hotel staff and grease a few palms with gold Louis until he got the information he sought.

Darius had to warn Régine before it was too late.

He stood on her stoop, looking right and left for any sign of his father as he rang the doorbell.

Molly answered it. “Why, Lord Clarridge…”

“I apologize for coming so early.”

She smiled and stood aside. “You're always welcome, sir, late or early.” She locked the door behind him. “I'm taking precautions in case Count Dragomilov shows up here again, demanding to see the mistress.”

“You're two women living alone. You can't be too careful with men like Dragomilov.” Or the Marquess of Blackwall.

“I'll tell her you're here.”

Régine was in her dressing room, sitting at her dressing table, putting on the same diamond earrings she'd worn to Maxim's. She turned on her bench and welcomed him with a warm smile as if he were not an hour early. “Darius.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “I couldn't stay away for one minute longer.”

She laughed in delight. “Charmingly done.”

He rocked back on his heels. “I have something to tell you, and it's rather upsetting.”

She raised one brow. “Oh?”

“My father's here. In Paris.”

She froze, the second earring halfway to her ear. Her eyes widened in disbelief and alarm. “Penbry?” The word stuck in her throat, for she coughed. “Here? In Paris?”

“He followed me from London and asked me if I'd found you. I told him I hadn't.”

“Then how did he find me?”

“You have your friend Beaucaire to thank for that.”

“Of course. Anatole's column. I haven't read it yet.” She appeared calm and self-possessed. “Dare I ask why your father is looking for me?” But her fingers trembled ever so slightly as she turned back to her mirror and set her second earring in her left earlobe. “Don't tell me he's looking for a new wife.”

Did she honestly believe his father was here to offer her marriage? Not the independent Régine, who controlled her own destiny.

“He says he still cares for you.” He watched her face's reflection. “I think he wants you for his mistress again.”

Anger now darkened her fair complexion and tightened her lips into a thin, bloodless line. “Still cares for me?” Her laugh was so brittle, one tap and it would shatter. “That is amusing, considering that he never cared for me in the first place.”

She rose and placed a hand on his arm. “I know he's your father, but kindly keep him away from me. I have no desire to become his mistress again, for all the jewels in Cartier's. I feel only contempt for him and fear what my reaction would be if I ever did see him.”

He squeezed her hand. “With good reason.”

“I assume he knows we're together now.”

“And he is not pleased.”

She flicked her fingers in a dismissive gesture. “His opinion is of no consequence to me.”

Darius raised her hand to his lips, needing to touch her, to feel reassured that his charming, determined father wasn't going to woo her away.

“Does he know what I am?” she asked.

“I told him. He was shocked.”

“Shocked! What a hypocrite. I had no choice, because of him.”

“In his defense, his wife told him you'd gotten another position as a governess.”

Régine rolled her eyes.

Molly popped her head into the doorway. “Miss, a Marquess of Blackwall is here, and he insists upon seeing you.”

Régine exchanged glances with Darius. “Best we get this over with.”

He nodded. “Otherwise you'll just be postponing the inevitable.”

“Show him to the drawing room,” she told Molly. “We'll be down in a moment.”

The moment Régine had yearned for had finally arrived.

When she'd first embarked on her new life as a courtesan, she dreamed of the day she would see Penbry Granger again. She would be wealthy and independent by that time, and when he laid eyes on her, he would desire her as badly as he had when she was a naïve young governess living under his roof.

She would have the ultimate revenge by denying him what he wanted most—her.

She and Darius walked downstairs together. “I'm with you because I wish to be, not to spite your father and have my ultimate revenge.”

“I know that.” He smiled. “You don't have a spiteful bone in your lovely body, Régine.”

Not spiteful perhaps, but vengeful.

Darius didn't know about all the nights she'd whipped Luc and imagined Penbry standing in his place, groaning and jerking in agony with every stroke of the lash, and how good she felt afterward. Cleansed. Redeemed. Made whole again.

They stopped before the closed drawing room door. Régine took a deep breath.

She gave a curt nod. Darius flung open the doors, and she took his arm and entered the drawing room.

Penbry was studying the Toulouse-Lautrec portrait of Odile just as his son had the first time he'd called on her. Then the marquess turned. He carried a tissue paper cone filled with perhaps two dozen white roses.

To her surprise and chagrin, he hadn't lost his hair, grown wiggly jowls or developed a paunch. He looked as handsome and devil-may-care as the first day she'd laid eyes on the dynamic master of Blackwall Manor. Those compelling gray eyes, lighter than his son's, still shone with youthful zest. And lust, judging by the way he was raking over every inch of her body, lingering on her breasts a fraction too long for politeness.

“Regina,” he said softly. “You're as beautiful as I remember.”

She didn't return his smile. “Blackwall. What an unpleasant surprise.”

He looked taken aback by the cool reception but recovered himself beautifully. He stepped forward. “These are for you. White roses. Your favorites.”

She regarded them with a disdain that she reserved for roadside weeds. “When men try to win my favor,” she drawled, “they usually give me diamonds.” She tapped one of her earrings so the stone swung and sparkled.

Penbry scowled and tossed the roses on a nearby chair. “And what did my son give you?”

Régine sat on the settee, and Darius stood off to the side, his arms crossed. She looked over at him and smiled. “An unusual jeweled crown and a very, very generous monthly allowance.”

Penbry took the chair across from her, placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “I'm so sorry things ended badly between us, Regina, and—”

“No one ever calls me Regina anymore, because that young woman no longer exists. My name is Régine now. Régine Laflamme.”

He looked irritated by the interruption. “Régine. I had to give you up. I had no choice. I was married, with two dear little girls.”

Suddenly, the grievous wrong Penbry had done to her no longer mattered. “I'm still puzzled as to why you're here.”

He stared deeply into her eyes. “I'm free now, Regina, and I want us to be together.”

She burst out laughing. “That is the most preposterous thing I've ever heard. I don't want you anymore, even if you offered to make me your marchioness. I pick my lovers very selectively and live my life as I please. And I choose to be with your son.”

“You're only with him to hurt me and have your revenge for what I did to you.”