The Courtesan's Daughter (15 page)

“Pardon me?” Caro said, her mind still reeling with the combined assault of her mother and Anne.

Good, gentle Anne seemed to have grown a decidedly ruthless streak, doubtless as a result of spending time with Sophia and hearing her rather startling views about men. Caro was certain that her mother knew more than she did about practically everything and was equally certain that her mother didn’t know what she was talking about.

It made for a rather exhausting day.

“Oh, Caro,” Sophia said on an impatient sigh, “do try and keep up, will you? You have told Lord Ashdon, rightly, that he cannot see you until he produces a fine string of pearls. It will take him some time to find pearls. Most gentlemen, unless they have very generous mothers, cannot lay to hand fine jewelry of any sort. In short, Lord Ashdon is either going to be very busy trying to get his hands on a pearl necklace worthy of you, or he is rethinking the whole proposal. You, my darling, are going to remind him why finding pearls is necessary to his very life.”

“To his very life? That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?” Caro said.

“It is, isn’t it?” Sophia said, grinning. “Now, go and be dramatic, darling. Let Lord Ashdon find you. Encourage him in his hunger for you, a hunger which can only be fed by pearls.”

“Come along, Caro,” Anne said, rising to her feet. “Your mother is quite right. It is entirely the right move to remind Lord Ashdon of what he is missing.”

Caro stood, but she had the distinct feeling that this time it was Anne who, though she was talking about Lord Ashdon, was thinking of someone else entirely.

She really did need to learn how to keep up. Things, and people, were moving furiously.

Fourteen

IT was exactly the wrong time of day for strolling about Hyde Park, but that is what Caro and Anne, with two footmen in attendance shadowing their steps, found themselves doing. They looked quite fine doing it. They were dressed beautifully and Caro’s bonnet was particularly appealing, but they had no real destination and so their steps, as prettily as they were taken, faltered.

“I had no idea it was so difficult to walk when one has no destination in mind,” Caro said softly to Anne. “I feel a bit like a bird on a string.”

“We should have gone to Creed’s for a bit of fragrance.”

“Do you really think that Lord Ashdon is going to be loitering around a fragrance shop when he has pearls to buy?” Caro countered.

“Then we should go to a jeweler’s.”

“Too obvious,” Caro whispered. “I don’t think it works when the man
knows
you’re checking up on him.”

“I think you’re right,” Anne said softly. “Are you having fun?”

“Delicious fun,” Caro whispered back, grinning like a girl. And it was fun, hunting the town for the man she had set her eye upon. Her mother might be a bit of a lunatic, but she certainly knew how to have a good time and how to instruct others to do the same. It was a lovely quality to have in a mother.

And then, just ahead, she could see the distinctive form of Lord Ashdon coming toward her driving a splendid gig, which he obviously could ill afford, the sun at his back and his brown curls lit to dark gold.

“There he is!” Caro whispered, linking her arm through Anne’s as casually as possible. “Do you think he sees me … um, us?”

Anne laughed softly and said, “By the look on his face, I’m quite certain he does. ’Tis no wonder that man is an abysmal gambler, he wears every thought on his face.”

“Ssshh!” Caro commanded as she checked her posture and lifted her bust to its best advantage.

“Nicely done, Caro,” Anne whispered just before Lord Ashdon stopped his gig, descended, and made his bow.

“Lady Caroline, Mrs. Warren,” Ashdon said, sending a tiny thrill into the pit of Caro’s stomach at the mere sound of her name on his voice. “You are not where I expected you.”

“Lord Ashdon,” they said in unison, and then Caro said, “You had expectations of me, Lord Ashdon? I had no idea.”

Lord Ashdon stared at her, his expression solemn, his blue eyes shuttered. “You are wearing my pearls, Lady Caroline,” he said simply, his voice a tune of longing.

“I am,” she said softly in return, all thoughts of teasing him disappearing in the intensity of his gaze.

“They become you,” he said.

“You are pleased. I am glad,” she said.

Simple talk, nothing of wit or poetry, yet her heart drummed against her ribs and she felt herself falling into the blue enchantment of his eyes.

He smiled slowly and said, “I would see you draped in pearls, Lady Caroline, roped and tangled in pearls from your head to your knees.”

Her heart stopped banging against her ribs to knock against her knees. Anne cleared her throat and moved off a few paces, the footmen following her beckoning gesture.

“Pearls,” Ashdon continued. “My pearls wrapped around your naked body. Pearls sliding between your breasts, belted around your hips, cascading down the slope of your back.”

“Lord Ashdon,” she choked out, her heart hammering, “please. Stop.”

“I have finally rendered you speechless?” Ashdon grinned gently and said softly, “I had not thought it possible, Caro, and all it took was a king’s fortune in pearls.”

“Pearls of the imagination,” she said with a soft smile, teasing him.

“I have an active imagination, especially when I look at you.”

“Yes, I should say so.”

“Tell me, Caro, how long is your unbound hair? Will it cover the pearls of my imagination?”

“It covers my ears and would hide the pearls you gave me.”

“But will it hide the pearls I will give you? Strand upon strand, reaching down to your—”

“Lord Ashdon!”

“Breasts?” he said, in spite of her warning. Anne was looking at a particularly ordinary patch of grass. The footmen were talking quietly between themselves and taking turns looking at the horizon.

“Lord Ashdon,
really
!” she said, crossing her arms over her breasts to smother their sudden tingling.

“I must know, Caro. I must know how long the strand must be. I would not have you wear pearls that are hidden in the dark masses of your curls.”

“My hair is not curly,” she said, instantly regretting how prim she sounded.

“Wavy, then? And to your … shoulders?”

“Is this any way to talk?”

Ashdon shrugged and grinned. “I’m having a good time. You?”

“I think you enjoy tormenting me.”

“I think you’re right,” he said on a laugh. “Just answer my question. Let this one thing, the length of your hair, be something free of my imaginings. Please, Caro. Please.”

His voice, so solemn, so sweet, so sensuous, ripped past all her moral training and the rules of etiquette to impale her on desire. The desire to please him. The desire to best him. The desire to drive him mad.

“Please?” she echoed. “I cannot refuse you when you are so polite, so earnest, Lord Ashdon.” She leaned closer to him, caught the scent of him, felt her stomach drop another degree, and said as provocatively as she could, “My hair falls to my breasts, Lord Ashdon, where it curls most delicately. If you would give me pearls, which I surely hope you will, they must fall to here,” and she drew a seductive line across the tips of her breasts with a fingertip.

She had the exquisite pleasure of hearing Lord Ashdon groan.

“Oh, look,” Anne interrupted. “Is that not the Duke of Calbourne?”

It did look so, though why Calbourne should be walking about Hyde Park at this unfashionable time of day was beyond comprehension. Before she could gather her composure to greet the approaching Calbourne, Ashdon took her by the arm and said in an undertone, “And if I get you the pearls, what will you give me?”

“You will get to see me wear them.”

“As I see you in my imagination?”

Naked? Hardly.

“As far as they fall, then yes,” she said. He would never be able to afford a necklace of any length. Why, he would be doing well to afford her a pearl choker. She would be more than happy to show him her neck.

“As far as they fall,” he murmured, his blue eyes gleaming like a cat’s. “And will I get to touch you as far as they fall?”

A trickier proposition. She was not certain that she could trust Lord Ashdon to touch her neck without seducing her completely. In fact, she was completely certain that he would do just that, and that she would likely let him.

“Certainly,” she said, putting her trust in Ashdon’s poverty and abysmal skill at gambling.

“You are a sharp businesswoman, Lady Caroline,” he said, stepping away from her and looking for all the world like a gentleman of the best of manners. Liar. “I shall endeavor to meet your price. Most heartily endeavor. How shall I find you?”

Oh, this was tricky. He must continue to think that her mother was against all contact, when of course the very reverse was true. Deceit was such a nuisance, requiring so much planning and remembering.

“Find Anne, Mrs. Warren, and she will find me,” she said.

“Mrs. Warren? Yes, that will serve most well,” he said. It sounded suspicious to her, but in what regard she could not determine.

“A fine gathering!” the Duke of Calbourne said as he joined them. “Is there an occasion or am I just lucky?”

“Just lucky,” Ashdon said crisply.

“Lady Caroline,” Calbourne said on a bow. “Mrs. Warren. A man is lucky to fall upon two such lovely companions in his wanderings.”

“You wandered into Hyde Park?” Ashdon said. He was being somewhat rude and certainly abrupt. Caro could not think what was wrong with him, he’d been so pleasant just moments ago.

“Yes, I did,” Calbourne said with a cheerful grin.

He was such a jovial man, was Calbourne. Caro had always liked that about him. Pity that Ashdon was so severe in his aspect, though, to be honest, she found Ashdon’s severity rather beguiling. It made her want to make him laugh or make him angry or make him insane with desire, to just make him react, to break free of his solemn self-control in any way, for any cause. Well, no, truly, she wanted to be the cause. If she was going to lie to Ashdon, the least she must do was remain honest with herself.

“By way of White’s?” Ashdon asked with a bit of a scowl. Really, this was rude even for Ashdon and completely out of bounds, to question a duke that way.

“Why, yes, actually I did stop in at White’s for a bit. Seems I just missed you,” Calbourne said, staring at Ashdon in a quite friendly manner considering the severity of Ashdon’s tone. Sometimes, like now, Caro was not completely certain she wanted Ashdon for a husband; he could be quite grim when he felt like it, and he seemed to feel like it rather too often.

“Yes, it would seem,” Ashdon said. “How fortunate that you found me.”

“Yes, well,” Caro said firmly, “you can have him, your grace. Mrs. Warren and I simply must continue on or my mother will send the dogs out for us.”

“You have dogs, Lady Caroline?” Ashdon said stiffly.

“Figure of speech, Lord Ashdon. Purely symbolic. No need to fear getting your fine breeches snagged on a dog’s sharp tooth today.”

“Looks to be your lucky day as well, Ashdon,” Calbourne said softly, still grinning. “Lady Caroline, Mrs. Warren, good day to both.”

“Oh, and Mrs. Warren?” Ashdon said. Anne turned to face him, her expression just shy of outright laughter. “Lord Dutton asked me to send his compliments. I believe he intends to call later today.”

“Thank you, Lord Ashdon,” Anne said. “You are most kind to relay a message that could surely have been brought to the house in the usual manner.”

And with that, Anne walked on, forcing Caro to walk on with her, which is not to say she would have stayed. Lord Ashdon and his talk of pearls had played with her composure quite enough for one day. If he wanted to torment her further, he would just have to make an appointment.

It was with that thought that she put Lord Ashdon completely out of her thoughts for what had to have been a full two minutes.

 
“YOU can’t get her out of your thoughts, can you?” Calbourne said to Ashdon as they watched the women walk out of the park by way of Grosvenor Gate.

Ashdon thought about lying, but then decided that there was no point to it, not with Cal.

“No, I can’t,” he said. “Which works out very well, considering that it has become my duty to ruin her as thoroughly and quickly as possible.”

“Westlin’s idea?”

“Who else?”

“You are being unusually forthright, Ash. Things must be at a terrible state.”

“I suppose that depends on how you define terrible,” Ashdon said, staring after Caro until she was lost from view. “By Westlin’s compass, I am right on target. By my own, well, I’m not certain that I have a compass where Caroline Trevelyan is concerned.”

“You’re in love with her.” It was not a question.

“Don’t be absurd; I hardly know her,” Ashdon said sharply. “But I do know that she’s not the person my father thinks her to be, certainly not the kind of girl one goes about ruining for sport.”

“But this is about the mother, not the daughter, isn’t it?”

Ashdon nodded. “As to that, Lady Dalby isn’t quite what I expected either.”

“I gather that is the usual impression of her,” Cal said with a smile. “I’ve always found her to be both amusing and a bit frightening.”

“Where her daughter is concerned, frightening.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Ruin her,” Ashdon said softly. “What else is there for me to do?”

“There are quicker ways to ruin a girl than a chance meeting in Hyde Park,” Cal pointed out.

“Yes, there are,” Ashdon agreed. “The wrinkle is that I must make her ruination to be completely of her own devising, a case of blood will tell, that sort of thing. My father is quite firm about it. This idea of hers to become a courtesan fits right in, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Calbourne said as they walked the horses through the park. The sun was low and the wind was picking up. Abysmal time of day to be strolling about, but when did women and logic ever pair up? “And the pearls? He’s content to let you beggar the family to prove her bad blood?”