The Courtesan's Daughter (11 page)

“I’m … not quite certain,” Caro said as her mother stretched out her long legs atop the elegantly proportioned recamier positioned by the front bedroom windows. Not that anyone interesting would be out at this hour, but her mother liked to keep an eye on things.

“You’d best become certain, Caro,” Sophia said calmly.

“I know, Mother. I know. Everything is just so confused. I don’t quite know how I got to this moment.”

“You decided not to marry and to become a courtesan,” Sophia said softly and not unkindly.

“Yes, I remember deciding that. It seemed so sensible a decision at the time.”

“You mean in the safety of your home, surrounded by your loved ones?”

Caro looked at her mother and felt her eyes fill with tears. “Yes. Exactly.”

“Darling?” Sophia said. “Tell me honestly, do you like Lord Ashdon? ”

“Like him?” Caro said, her tears drying instantly. “I think he’s a horrible man. He’s intemperate and without manners and … just … horrible.”

“Yes, I quite agree with you, but that doesn’t quite answer, does it? Do you like him? Or let me ask instead, do you want him?”

It was miserable, what her mother was asking of her, to look inside her tumbled heart and try to see what lay hidden in its depths. She was seventeen, too young to be looking into something as darkly treacherous and unpredictable as a human heart.

But as she was looking, the face of Lord Ashdon, that handsome, sardonic, impossible face, looked back at her. Her heart turned on itself and she caught her breath.

“I do,” she said before she had quite got her breath back. “It’s shameful. He’s not the proper sort of man at all. But I do.”

Sophia smiled and said, “I have yet to meet a man who is the proper sort, darling. I think that man must be the invention of poets and playwrights.”

Yes, trust her mother to talk of poets and playwrights when her life was tumbled into the gutter. She had no husband, and no prospect of one, and the very man who had been purchased for her was now on an errand set to purchase her for himself and his debauched tendencies. Her heart did the impossible and dropped into her hips.

“Caro? Are you listening?”

“Oh, yes, Mother,” she said. She had not been listening. She had been listening to her heart, treacherous thing.

“Will you follow my instruction? Do everything exactly as I say?” Sophia asked.

Do everything her mother said? This was some parental trick, a lesson in obedience. What did Ashdon have to do with obeying her mother?

“I … I don’t see how you can help, Mother. Things have proceeded too far, too much has been said.”

“And let us not forget that slap,” Sophia said languidly.

Oh, Lord.

But he had earned that slap. Why did she want him, anyway?

To make him suffer? That was a good answer, and at least it had the benefit of being founded in pride. Better pride than wretched longing for a man who couldn’t say a civil word to her if ten thousand pounds depended on it.

“I don’t think it very wise of me to want him,” Caro gritted out as she paced the room.

“Wanting is seldom wise, but that doesn’t mean it has to be wrong,” Sophia said.

“That doesn’t make any sense, Mother.”

“Doesn’t it?” Sophia said with a gentle smile. “You slapped him, insulted him, and rejected him. Is he coming back?”

Caro stopped pacing and stared at her mother. “He said he would.”

“And is he bringing gifts? Something rare and costly?” Sophia asked, still smiling.

Caro found that she was smiling as well. “A pair of pearl earrings. I don’t see how he can get them.”

“But he will try, won’t he? You’re certain of that.”

That was the strange part; she was certain. She was almost certain that Lord Ashdon would stop just short of murder to present her with a pair of pearl earrings.

“I am,” Caro said in wonder. “I am certain of that.”

“As am I.”

“But why, Mother? I mostly hate him and he just might have cause to hate me in return. Why would he beggar himself to bring me a gift?”

Sophia stretched her arms over her head in a sinuous stretch. “Because he wants you, Caro, even if it is not very wise of him to do so. Now, will you do as I say, no arguments?”

“Why? ”

“So that you may have what you want, darling; Lord Ashdon for a husband.”

 
 
ANNE awoke at ten and knew whom she would marry. She had taken Lord Dutton’s measure, put him up against what she knew of Lord Staverton, and made her decision. It was obvious, really. She was appalled that she’d been blind to it for so long.

Lord Dutton was a rogue.

There, she’d admitted it. She felt immeasurably better.

She was no schoolgirl, far from it. She did not have Caroline’s excuse of innocent trust coupled with a strong habit of invulnerability. No, she had seen the world, too much of the world, at an uncomfortably close proximity. She understood men and she understood what they usually wanted; more, she understood their methods for achieving what they wanted.

Lord Dutton had treated her like very pretty wallpaper, seen once, admired, and then ignored. Until he had heard her confess to Caroline about her mother. Then, he had been all interest, all attention, all charm. So it always was at the start. It was at the finish that a woman had to be sharp and vigilant. Her mother had never learned that, but Anne had.

Anne was not her mother.

Anne, if she tried very, very diligently, might model herself after Sophia.

Sophia would not allow Lord Dutton to distract her. Sophia would see the future, and the future was Lord Staverton and a life as a viscountess. That was a future worth aiming for. Lord Dutton offered nothing, nothing beyond a smile and a torrid kiss.

It
had
been a torrid kiss.

As long as she was being honest, she should admit, at least to herself, that her husband had not been very accomplished as a kisser. He had had other qualities to be sure, but kissing had not been one of them. That was it exactly. He had not been a quality kisser.

She was
not
going to plan her future on the basis of a torrid and quite effective kiss.

She was not even going to speculate as to what kind of kisser Lord Staverton was going to prove. A woman could live without kisses, but what she could not live without was a solid roof over her head and a table full of food. Her mother had never learned that, either.

A scratch at the door that connected Caro’s room to hers interrupted her thoughts, and then Caro’s dark head poked around the corner.

“Oh, good. You’re awake. I have so much to tell you.”

“Yes,” Anne said, checking the mantel clock as she sat up fully in bed, “and you had best hurry since it’s just a bit more than an hour before you find yourself thrown upon the streets.”

“Oh, that,” Caro said, coming over to sit upon the foot of the bed. “My mother and I have come to terms. I am not to be thrown out. I am to marry instead.”

“I’m much relieved to hear it,” Anne said, though she felt a bit guilty for thinking of her own marital dilemma while Caro had faced being cast from her home. She was a selfish, self-serving woman and she must think more of others. And now that she had the problem of the tempting Lord Dutton settled, she would. “Are you to marry anyone I know?”

“Of course you know him,” Caro said. “I will marry Lord Ashdon. Who else?”

“Who else? Why, I would have thought
anyone
else. You refused him.”

“I changed my mind,” Caro said brightly.

“Why did you change your mind?”

“Well, as to that, I’m not quite certain,” Caro said, her smile faltering. “It might have been the cut of his blue waistcoat, or the way his hair sort of tumbles about his eyes. He has rather nice eyes, don’t you think?”

“They’re blue, aren’t they?”

“Definitely blue,” Caro said, staring up at the ceiling with a vacuous look on her face. “The most incredible shade of blue that I ever saw.”

Men with blue eyes ought to be outlawed. What color were Lord Staverton’s eyes? She was ashamed to admit that she had no idea; she tried very hard not to look at his wobbly eyes.

“I thought you told me that he had put you off blue eyes forever,” Anne said.

“Oh, Anne, try to keep up. That was
yesterday
,” Caro said artlessly.

Oh, Lord, Caro was going to marry a man she despised because she was taken by a pair of lovely blue eyes. Anne, unfortunately, knew exactly how that felt, only she was too experienced to fall completely. No, she had the wits and determination to pull herself out of the trap a pair of beguiling blue eyes could set.

“Caro, what has changed between yesterday and today?” Anne said.

“Well, for one, I slapped Lord Ashdon.”

“You what?”

“I slapped him,” Caro said somewhat proudly. “And he well deserved it, too.”

“Then why do you want to marry him? ”

“Because,” Caro said, grinning, “he wants me now.
Desperately.
”

“Because you slapped him?”

“I don’t know if it was
because
I slapped him, but it certainly didn’t hurt,” Caro said, still grinning like a besotted fool.

“Oh, Caro,” Anne said, “do you think you’re besotted by him?”

Never mind outlawing blue-eyed men; they ought to be hanged like thieves for stealing a woman’s future with a mere look.

“Anne, you’re missing the point entirely. I’m quite certain, in fact I shall know in less than an hour, that
he
is besotted with
me
. Isn’t it delicious?”

“Do you know, you sounded exactly like your mother just then,” Anne said, getting out of bed and pulling a shawl around her shoulders.

“Did I really?” Caro said, springing up behind her and practically dancing over to the window. There was nothing to see out the window but the mews behind the house. By the expression on Caro’s face, one would think she was surveying the splendor of Versailles. “How perfect.”

“Why shall you know in less than an hour?” Anne asked, ringing for the maid to brush out her hair.

“Because,” Caro said, still staring out the window, “I told him that he must bring me a pair of pearl earrings if he wants … you know.”

“You know … what? ”

“Oh,
Anne
!” Caro said, turning to face Anne, her dark eyes lit like lanterns. “If he wants
me
. What else?”

Anne sighed. What else, indeed?

 
 
ASHDON made his way from Westlin’s town house on Upper Grosvenor Street to Dalby’s house on Upper Brook Street by way of Grosvenor Square. He had hoped to avoid curious glances and malicious speculation that way; it proved a futile hope.

“Going back for more?” the Marquis of Dutton asked him after a quick bow of greeting.

Dutton was a bit younger, having come up to Eton as he and Calbourne were leaving it, their paths crossing but lightly in that final year. Ashdon did not know Lord Dutton beyond the gaming tables at White’s or the dining tables of the ton. All to say, he had no reason or desire to talk with Lord Dutton about the events of last evening, no matter that Dutton had been a witness to it all.

The Marquis of Dutton appeared to be the sort of man who was insensitive to any desires but his own.

“I am out taking the air,” Ashdon said. “Nothing more, Dutton.”

Dutton fell into step beside him, without invitation.

“The air is so much more delightful on Upper Brook Street, is it not? I find myself drawn there. I should say you feel the same tug.”

“You may say whatever you like, unfortunately,” Ashdon said stiffly.

“Come, come,” Dutton said. “We are men of a certain sophistication. Let us speak plainly.”

“I was under the impression that I was speaking plainly, but let me be more so. I do not desire a companion, Lord Dutton.”

“I could argue that,” Dutton murmured.

“You seem determined to argue, no matter the subject.”

“Do I? Perhaps it is merely that you are of an uncertain temper after last night’s events.”

“My temper is completely certain.”

“Then perhaps it is I who suffer. Shall we put it to the test? Gentleman Jackson’s ? ”

“Splendid. Two o’clock.”

“Because you are presently engaged?” Dutton pressed.

Ashdon said nothing. He was enjoying the early spring air and the anticipation of smashing his fist into Dutton’s rather pretty face at Gentleman Jackson’s boxing establishment. He’d been on edge since Westlin’s instruction that he ruin Caroline Trevelyan. A man didn’t go around ruining girls lightly, no matter who her mother happened to be. And, her slap notwithstanding, he rather liked Lady Caroline. In fact, he suspected he liked her rather more because of that slap. There was something very appealing about a woman who could take care of herself.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you veer toward the dour?” Dutton said, cutting into his thoughts.

“It’s been mentioned,” Ashdon said. Considering that Westlin was his father, he didn’t think it too unreasonable that he occasionally veered toward the dour. Given how his mother had spent the final years of her life, he thought the whole topic rather obvious. “Why are you pestering me, Dutton? We are not friends, and I don’t know you well enough to call you an enemy. Unless you were hoping to change that? ”

“Don’t be absurd,” Dutton said. “I don’t pester my enemies.”

“You are close to making a lie of that statement,” Ashdon said with a half smile. Really, it was becoming absolutely necessary that he bury his fist in something. “Until two?”

“And until then you will be at Lady Dalby’s, visiting her rambunctious daughter?”

“Lady Dalby’s daughter does not concern you, nor does my schedule,” Ashdon said, clutching his walking stick.

“And that answers all, doesn’t it?” Dutton said, smiling slowly. “But if you see the lovely Mrs. Warren, please give her my regards. I will drop in on her later today.”