The Courtesan's Daughter (12 page)

“Best make it before two. You will hardly be in any condition to visit her after.”

“Confident,” Dutton proclaimed as they parted ways on the corner of Upper Brook Street and Park Street.

“Very,” Ashdon said under his breath, leaving Dutton behind him.

It was just eleven when he knocked at Lady Dalby’s door. Fredericks answered promptly, took his walking stick and hat, and announced him at the door to the yellow salon. The room was a study in elegant restraint. The walls were painted the color of the sun, the silk drapes and silk upholstery the exact same hue of vibrant yellow. Upon the mantel was a collection of Sevres porcelain in dark blue with a gold design. Lady Dalby wore white. She glistened like a teardrop in the sun.

“You are prompt,” she said with a smile.

“And you are waiting,” he replied. “What does it signify, Lady Dalby?”

“It signifies, Lord Ashdon, that much has changed since yesterday.”

Sophia invited him to sit. Ashdon moved a shield-back chair from against the wall to sit near her as she perched on the sofa.

“You were expecting my daughter, I believe,” she said. “My daughter is no longer available to you, Lord Ashdon.”

“Excuse me, Lady Dalby, but I thought we had reached an agreement. Your daughter proclaimed an interest in becoming a courtesan. Was not my assignment to turn her from that course?”

“Lord Ashdon, do not mistake me for a fool,” Sophia said softly, her manner as formal as a queen’s. “Did you think I would not see what all saw last night? You are as debauched as the rumors of you indicate. That you want my daughter, that you want to lead her in the paths of debauchery, is without question. One has only to see you with her to know how tempted she is by you.”

“Again, our agreement is plainly seen, Lady Dalby,” Ashdon protested, ignoring the surge he felt to hear that Caroline was affected by him. “How else to teach her that the way of the courtesan is not to be
her
path unless I show her the dark side of such arrangements?”

“My lord,” she said, “I am no fool. I have walked those dark paths. I know raw desire when it sits itself down in my salon.”

“And you have labeled me such?”

“For myself? No. But for Caroline, I am very much afraid so, Lord Ashdon.”

“I am much maligned, Lady Dalby.”

“Are you?” she said with a smile. “And what do you have in your pocket, Lord Ashdon? Not a fine pair of pearl earrings?”

Obviously, Caroline Trevelyan had the discretion of a parrot. He did not answer Lady Dalby’s question; whatever else he did, he would not be damned for a liar.

“Your silence speaks most clearly, Lord Ashdon,” Sophia said. “I would offer you refreshment, but I think it would be wiser if you did not stay. I do not wish to appear rude, but I must protect my daughter. I’m certain you understand.”

He most certainly did. He was being denied access to Caroline. How on earth was he going to satisfy his father’s wish that he ruin the girl if he could not get near her?

 
“THIS can’t be right,” Caro said from behind the closed doors of the white salon. “How can he be ruined by love if he can’t get near me?”

Fredericks, his ear to the closed door that led to the hall, said quietly, “Trust your mother. She’s a skilled woman, very wise in the way of things. All right, out you go now.” And he cracked open the door and shoved her through it, straight into the hall so that she almost bumped into Lord Ashdon.

Ashdon looked exceptionally well, a bit flustered, but her mother could do that to most anyone. Caro gave Ashdon her best seductive expression and tried to remember what her mother had said for her to do. Oh, it seemed such a bother. Why could she just not marry the man? He’d been paid for, hadn’t he?

“Oh, Lord Ashdon,” she said in a rushed whisper. “Things have gotten in a twist, haven’t they? Are you very put out? Have you given up entirely? Say you have not. Say you still … oh, I am ashamed to say it.” She had thrown in that last part. She supposed that her mother needn’t know
everything
.

“What would you have of me, Lady Caroline?” he said. He seemed quite flustered and angry; it was quite delightful. “I am on the list of forbidden items, particularly where you are concerned. I am no longer welcome here.”

“And I am forbidden to you, Lord Ashdon,” she said. “I suppose that is the end of it.”

“I suppose it is,” he said, staring down at her. He had the most mournful blue eyes, soulful and seductive. How many women had he ruined with those eyes? Though, of course, it was not with his eyes that a man ruined a girl of good family. “It is for the best, I’ll wager.”

“Yes, you and your wagering. Such a reliable measure of everything,” she said crisply. “I am so sorry to have wasted your morning, Lord Ashdon.”

“Your anger would be better served directed at yourself, Lady Caroline. I am not the one who revealed all to her mother. A little discretion, particularly in a courtesan, would be well advised in future.”

“Oh,
thank you
, Lord Ashdon,” she snapped. “How kind of you to teach me the details of debauchery. Do you know, I think I shall thank my mother. I had almost forgotten how ill-tempered you are and how poorly we get on.”

Ashdon took a step nearer, looming over her in a most predatory and masculine way. Her heart tripped and she held her breath involuntarily.

“I am only ill-tempered around you, Caro, and that is because I am ever thwarted.”

“A fine excuse, to blame me for your bad temper. And stop using my given name. You are too intimate.”

“No, Caro, that is the problem. Not intimate enough. Not nearly,” he whispered before taking her chin in his gloved hand and kissing her softly, despite the harsh words they had shared.

A coil of longing wound down into her heart and twisted itself around her spine. She leaned into him, into the warmth and length of him, letting thought fall from her as his mouth caressed hers, moist and compelling. He was such a hard man, hard and sullen and angry, and his kiss was so soft and pleading, so gentle and coaxing. It was nothing at all as she had expected and she was quite undone by it. She placed her hands on his chest, a gentle touch to find him, to keep him under her hand in some small way, and was rewarded by the feeling of his quickened breath and thundering heart. He was not unmoved by her. There was something, some longing, some tenderness, somewhere.

She heard Fredericks moving behind the door to the white salon and, understanding coming slowly and dimly, pushed against Ashdon’s fine coat and firm chest until the kiss was broken. As his lips left hers, he whispered, “Not enough.”

And she lost all direction, all counsel, and threw herself against him, winding her arms around his neck to pull him down to her mouth. Not enough. Yes, he had said it. It was not nearly enough.

The second kiss took her beyond thought, beyond London, beyond reason. She was caught in passion and she wanted to stay caught. Freedom from this would be punishment.

It was Ashdon who unwound her arms from around his neck, who disengaged her body from his, who pulled his mouth from hers. And it was Ashdon who looked down at her with his soulful blue eyes and said, “I must have you, Caro. Tell me what I must do.”

The wrong thing … he had said exactly the wrong thing.

The mist of passion fell from her like rain. She inhaled sharply, trying to find a breath in her that was not tinged with longing. She blinked, trying to remember what she was to say. Ashdon looked down at her, his hair tousled and glossy, his eyes riveting, his body … well, his body told the tale most well. The evidence of his passion was as clear as the spires of Westminster.

“I believe,” she said, shocked to hear the cracked passion in her voice. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I believe I said a pair of pearl earrings would be most appreciated.”

Something shuttered in Ashdon’s eyes, but he nodded and pulled from his coat pocket a pair of exquisite pearl earrings. They were clearly of the finest quality, quite large and lustrous and of an impressive size.

“You are too thoughtful,” she said, holding out her hand for the pearls. He dropped them into her hand as though they would burn him. “They are lovely. Thank you, Lord Ashdon.”

“What next, Lady Caroline?” he said curtly. “I am barred from the house, and you, you are not to leave it, are you? How will you pursue your path if you cannot leave your family home?”

“I am young, Lord Ashdon,” she said past the fist-sized lump in her throat, “but I am not a fool. Without the necessary funds, I cannot move out. Without the—”

“Necessary men,” he interrupted in a hoarse voice, “you cannot acquire the necessary funds. I quite understand.”

“I suspected you would,” she said softly, staring at his mouth, feeling her heart race.

“What is it you require of me, Caro?” he said.

“A necklace to match the pearls,” she said. “It would look most fine, do you not agree?”

“And what would I get for a string of pearls? A simple kiss seems hardly sufficient for so great a gift.”

“Bring me the necklace and find out,” she said, looking into his eyes.

“Not enough, Lady Caroline,” he said. “I require something a bit more definite.”

“More than a kiss,” she promised.

“How much more?” he murmured, his eyes raking her.

Caroline licked her lips and said, “How many pearls in the strand? I will not cheat you, Lord Ashdon.”

“Lady, that you will not,” he growled, turning abruptly and walking out. The door slammed behind him, the house trembling in response.

Fredericks opened the door to the white salon and Sophia opened the door to the yellow salon. They stood looking at her expectantly as she stood in quivering isolation in the foyer.

Caroline nodded and fought to right her breathing before she spoke. “It went as you said, down to the last.”

Sophia smiled and said, “Freddy, arrange for coffee, will you? We must plan the next assault.”

 
HE’D been assaulted. There was no other word for it. Assaulted by her beauty, by her bold schemes, and by her mouth. God, that mouth. Ashdon was a half mile down Park Lane before he got hold of himself, and his passion, and his anger. As to that, he could not fix upon which was greater, his passion or his anger. He did not suppose it mattered which, as long as he could find a nice, long string of pearls and choke Caroline Trevelyan with them.

Returning home to face his father was out of the question in his present state. Given his state of mind, there was one place perfectly suited to his temper: Gentleman Jackson’s. Pummeling something was the only solution to the problem of Caroline and even at that, he suspected it was but a temporary fix.

Thirteen

THE Marquis of Ruan stood in the corner of Gentleman Jackson’s boxing establishment, his face more in shadow than in light, and watched with increasing interest the behavior of Lord Ashdon. Naturally, he had heard the rumors, he and everyone else in London. The difference was that he had heard them from the Earl of Westlin, Lord Ashdon’s father, in a darkened corner at White’s. It was not that he and Westlin were friends; he supposed that Westlin did not have many friends, his character and general temper being what it was, not that Ruan held that against Westlin since he was a man not given to idle and superficial friendships either. He liked his own company perfectly well and found that he did not tire of it, as he did with so many others. Solitude was a pleasure when one liked the company.

What had prompted Westlin to establish a confidence between them he could only guess at, and his first guess landed him, poetically, at the feet of Sophia, Countess of Dalby. He was one of the many who did not know her but knew of her. It had been twenty years or more since she had toppled London on its back, again, poetically, and still the town could not get enough of her. Truth or fiction, it did not seem to matter. She was one of those few who excited comment and speculation by merely passing through a room. Westlin was a prime example; from what Ruan had deduced, Westlin had not been in the same room with Lady Dalby for years, and yet he was still frothing over her.

He’d like to meet the woman who could do that to a man.

And from what Westlin had told him, it looked as though the daughter possessed the same skill. One had only to study Lord Ashdon to see the proof of that. By all accounts, and Ruan was nothing if not thorough, Ashdon had been a completely normal man, given to normal impulses and giving into them in normal fashion, until he’d met Caroline Trevelyan.

He’d like to meet her, as well.

Watching Ashdon cheerfully pummeling the breadbasket of one of the club’s sparring partners was a lesson in the violent emotions provoked by either Sophia or Caroline. Or perhaps both. He really must find a way to meet the ladies so as to make his own judgment. Westlin seemed highly suspect as a witness as his language was particularly volatile and vengeful.

Frustrated lust could do that to a man.

Still, lust notwithstanding, he and Westlin had come to terms, albeit strange ones. Westlin would sell him a piece of particularly nice land that Ruan’s father had tried unsuccessfully to negotiate for for a full thirty years, if Ruan would keep him apprised of Ashdon’s progress with Sophia’s daughter. It seemed a simple enough arrangement, and certainly he was getting the most out of it. He had nothing to do but attend his regular functions and visit his normal haunts, but with a keener eye for what Lord Ashdon was about.

Westlin had explained it succinctly; Westlin could hardly keep tabs on Ashdon himself since it would be patently obvious to Ashdon that he was being watched and judged. Westlin could hardly buy surveillance on his son in his amorous pursuits as any man who could be bought to watch would hardly be welcomed into Gentleman Jackson’s for a bit of sparing or Angelo’s for a bit a fencing or White’s for a bit of gambling. All in all, it was light duty to fulfill his father’s dream.