The Courtesan's Daughter

Table of Contents

“Claudia Dain’s emotionally charged writing and riveting characters will take your breath away.”

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bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries

 
 
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bestselling author Connie Brockway

 
 
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“Dain is a talented writer who knows her craft.”
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THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 
Copyright © 2007 by Claudia Welch

 
All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

eISBN : 978-1-436-27106-6

I. Title.
PS3604.A348C68 2007
813’.6—dc22
2007016861

 

 

One

 
“I am not certain it has ever been said before, but I believe you play too hard, too long, and too often,” Caroline Trevelyan said to her mother, the Countess of Dalby.

It was an hour past dawn and not at all unusual for Sophia Dalby to return home from an evening’s entertainment at that time of morning, which certainly did not help the situation, the situation being that Caroline was in need of a proper husband. Her mother’s entertainment choices, and the hour in which she ended them, were not helping. Then again, it was perhaps wishful thinking that anything her mother did or did not do would help at this late stage of things.

“Darling, that sounds positively wicked and is, I am quite certain, completely untrue,” Sophia said, pressing the cold compress over her eyes as she reclined on her velvet-draped bed. “It certainly is unlikely that anyone could be said to play
too
hard, though I was hardly at play last night. I was working as ever on your behalf, Caro, so I would appreciate a bit more appreciation. It’s exhausting work, scouring London for a suitable husband. Man’s work, really. Your father died most inopportunely.”

“Mother, Father died seven years ago.”

“Death is always inopportune, is it not?” Sophia answered on a sigh. “He could have managed this husband hunt so much more efficiently than I.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Caro said wryly, lifting the cold cloth over her mother’s eyes to replace it with another, fresher compress. “Just where are you hunting? ”

“Oh, the usual places.”

“Usual to whom?” Caro said sarcastically.

“Darling, my head. I really am most exhausted.”

“You do know that I would prefer not to marry a man given to excessive gaming.”

“Even if he wins?” Sophia said, the barest smile revealed beneath the cloth.

Caroline took the compress away from her mother with a grunt of annoyance and said, “It is statistically impossible to always win.”

“I know nothing of statistics, darling, but fortune can swing most regularly in a predetermined direction. Some people, the fortunate few, are regularly favored by fortune. Why should they be the subject of scorn simply because of an accident of birth?”

“Nevertheless, I would not choose to live that sort of life,” Caro pronounced regally.

Sophia kept her eyes closed and took a deep breath; her dressing gown gaped open to reveal the curved shape of smooth white breasts. Impossible on a woman in her thirties, but that was Sophia Dalby, the epitome of impossibility. No wonder she favored a reliance on fortune; fortune had served her so very well.

“Let us review,” Sophia said, her arms folded in repose across her waist. “You will not marry a man past fifty. You will not marry a man you do not know. You will not marry a man toward whom you feel no ardent longings, which I completely agree with, by the way. I felt
most
ardently for your father.”

“Yes, thank you, Mother. That’s sufficient.”

“Speaking of sufficiency,” Sophia said, her eyes still closed against the morning light dappling the parquet floors of her bedroom, “though you have yet to mention it, I assume that you would prefer a man of sufficient wealth to sustain you. I can assure you that, while other qualities might distract or titillate, a healthy fortune is the most lasting of a man’s good qualities. In sufficient quantities, even a man of fifty who is a complete stranger can become sufficiently attractive to merit consideration.”

“Mother,” Caro said, standing up and walking to the open window, which she closed with a snap, “love cannot be bought.”

“Caro,” Sophia said, opening her eyes to stare in amusement at her daughter, “don’t be absurd.
Everything
can be bought. It is merely a matter of price.”

“Then let me rephrase.
I
cannot be bought.”

Sophia only smiled and closed her eyes again.

“You don’t believe me,” Caro said.

“I believe you are very young and very naïve,” Sophia said, “for which I am usually very thankful. Yet in this case”—Sophia shrugged—“let me do the bargaining, darling. I’m more attuned to it.”

“Bargaining? It shall require bargaining to snare a husband for me?” Caro said.

At that, Sophia opened her eyes and sat up, her back resting against the burled walnut headboard. “Snare? Such an unpleasant word. You are a perfectly lovely seventeen-year-old girl who has had the benefit of a careful education and a sheltered upbringing, which was not by accident, I assure you. You are possessed of physical beauty, good health, and a more than sufficient dowry; few other qualities are considered when making a successful matrimonial match.”

“And as to bargaining?”

“Caro, life is composed of one bargain after another. Trust me to arrange the best match possible.”

Caro smiled and nodded, willing the conversation to an end, forcing her mind to ignore what had not been said and what could never be said.

There was one other quality that any man of merit and position would want in a wife, and that quality was pedigree. A good, respectable, honorable family name, coupled with an unimpeachable family history was what was lacking. And it was lacking because of Sophia.

Sophia, the Countess of Dalby, had been the most infamous courtesan in London almost twenty years ago, until she had snared, by popular report, the devilishly wild Stuart Trevelyan, Earl of Dalby, and seduced him into marrying her. Caroline was the fruit of that scandalous union; John Markham, her older brother by one year, the first fruit.

Twenty years had not dimmed the rumors about Sophia, most probably because twenty years had not dimmed Sophia’s charms.

Twenty years, and Caro did not have a hope of making any kind of respectable marriage, no matter how perfect her deportment, her beauty, or her fortune.

It was most disheartening, especially since she could hardly confide the reason for her lack of hope to her mother.

“You do trust me, don’t you, Caro?” Sophia asked, holding out her slim, white hand for her daughter to grasp. “You do know that I will arrange an acceptable match for you?”

Caro held her mother’s hand lightly and smiled down at her. She
did
look exhausted.

“I know you will do whatever you must.”

“And that I will succeed,” Sophia added with a smile.

“And that you will succeed,” Caro said with an answering smile as she told the most gracious of lies to her mother. It was hardly likely that her mother would succeed in this most delicate of tasks.

Most disheartening.

Two

“SHE still believes she will manage it,” Caro said softly, gazing out the window.

The sun, such as it was, was full up and the pigeons cooing noisily. Caro found it a singularly depressing sound.

“She just might,” Anne said as she poured out the morning chocolate from her perch by the fireplace.

Caro turned and considered her friend, who, though widowed at the ridiculous age of eighteen, after having been married to her husband for only eight months, was still of a rosy frame of mind about the world in general and Sophia in particular.

“You don’t think so. Not truly,” Caro said.

Caroline Trevelyan was not of a rosy frame of mind about the world, her mother, or her situation. She chose to think of herself as a woman of a sensible aspect, not given to idle thoughts or romanticism. Her mother would have been forced to agree, if she could be forced to anything, which was doubtful.

“I do think so,” Anne said. “She is of a most determined nature, and she has the weight of experience on her side.”

“It is her weight of experience which is the problem.”

Anne smiled and handed Caro her cup. “And yet it did not stop her from making a good match. Your father was besotted.”

“It was an intemperate match,” Caro said.

“And your father was besotted,” Anne said with a grin.

“And my father was besotted,” Caro reluctantly agreed.

“The same could happen to you and for you. You are your mother’s daughter.”