The Courtesan's Daughter (28 page)

That part could have gone better.

“Let
go
!” she snapped, tugging on her wrists.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I think I rather like you at my feet, bare-breasted, manacled.”

For answer, she bit him on the knee.

He cursed even more roundly, adding in a few words she hadn’t heard before. He didn’t let go of her hands, and so she bit him again. Harder.

He let her go. She hurriedly planted herself on the squabs opposite him and, thinking it over rather quickly, let her bodice continue to gape around her rib cage, leaving her completely and scandalously exposed. She thought that last bit was something her mother might have done. Besides, he’d seen, touched, and tasted it all now anyway.

“Blast it, Caro! What the devil are you biting me for?”

She held out one arm in stiff command, directed right at his chest, but not actually touching him. She might be naïve, but she was not stupid.

“We are going to talk, Ash, and you are not going to kiss your way out of it!”

He studied her, studied her breasts, actually. She resisted the urge to cross her arms over them. She also resisted the urge to throw herself into his arms, but there was no reason for him to know anything about that.

“You know you’d rather my kisses than any conversation we could find between us,” he said in a hushed voice.

“If you try to kiss me, I’ll bite your lip,” she said coldly.

“Quite the little biter, aren’t you?” he said. “Definite possibilities there, if you learn some self-control.”

“I hardly think you are the person to lecture anyone on self-control!”

“At least I have all my clothes on,” he said, his voice smiling.

“Exactly my point. I am not the one who has done this … this … to me.
You
did it.”

“And rather proud of it, actually.” He was definitely grinning now. Stupid sot.

“It’s nothing to be proud of, but we’re not going to talk about that, and we’re not going to kiss, and you’re not to
touch
me until we get a few things settled between us before this coach arrives at Upper Brook Street.”

“You know, Caro, you really must learn not to assume so much.”

“What the devil does that mean?”

“Simply, what makes you so certain that my coach is taking you home?”

Her stomach sank to somewhere near her knees, but she wasn’t going to let him know that either. He already thought her laugh-ably innocent and unsophisticated. She was more than tired of that presumption. Being a virgin did not equal being gullible.

At least, she didn’t think it did.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said on a huff of disbelief. “Of course you’re taking me home. Where else would a—”

“A man who has paid for an up-and-coming courtesan go? Not to his home, certainly.”

“I wasn’t aware you had a home in town,” she said scathingly. “Not a home of your own at any rate.”

“Of course you weren’t aware of it. I keep it for nights such as this. And women such as you.”

“You mean women you’ve publicly pledged to marry?” she said chillingly. She was more than tired of his continual references to her brief and, yes, idiotic, plan to become a courtesan. “How delightful, Ashdon. You’ve bought me a house in Town. Or are we renting?”

“I thought it was
you
I was renting,” he said calmly.

How could he remain so calm? Weren’t her lovely breasts staring him, in a manner of speaking, in the face? Perhaps it was too dark for him to be fully devastated by the sight of her breasts as he had been in the Hyde House dressing room. Oh, for the illumination of even a single candle to help her along with the impossible Lord Ashdon.

“No matter where we are going, Lord Ashdon,” she said, “we are going to get a few things settled before we get there.”

“If we are going to talk, perhaps you should readjust your bodice. You look positively Amazonian sitting there, your dress collapsed around your waist.”

A positive sign, surely. He was distracted by her breasts. Of course, she was distracted by her breasts, exposed to his gaze as they were, his body just a foot from hers, her nipples throbbing and erect … but distractions were not going to stop her now. She was going to marry Ashdon, and he was going to cooperate about it.

“Oh? I hadn’t noticed,” she said, running the pearls through her fingers. He moaned softly, the sound coming from deep in his chest. Finally, she had Ashdon where she wanted him. About time, too.

“Stop touching those pearls, Caro, or you won’t be a virgin long,” he growled.

“Since we’re to be married soon, I won’t be a virgin long no matter what.”

“Is that an offer?”

“Absolutely not. I was merely pointing out the obvious.”

But she let the pearls drop to lie coldly against her breasts. Now that Ashdon was on his side of the coach and she on hers, she was becoming rather chilled. Best to get this negotiation done with quickly. She could hardly imagine a worse fate than a chest cough on her wedding night.

“Now then, Lord Ashdon, you have quite ruined me, in all ways, for any other man,” she said calmly. “You have declared your intention to marry me. Will you not marry me after all?”

“There is more to this than you imagine, Caro,” he said, dipping his head down, hiding the gleam of his blue eyes from her.

“I don’t think so, Ash,” she said. “I know there is some revenge between our parents meddling in our actions. I know that you might feel, however wrongly, that you should like your own revenge upon me. For wanting to be a courtesan. For not wanting to be your wife. But I have explained that, haven’t I? I wanted to be wanted. Don’t you want me, Ash? ”

“It’s more complicated—”

“Just answer me,” she interrupted. “One question at a time. Do you want me ? ”

“I want you,” he said, his voice like a wolf ’s growl. “Don’t pretend you don’t know that, Caro, not when you sit there like the most jaded seductress, mocking me, enticing me.”

“I sit here, dear Ash, with my breasts bared, because I know no such thing. I am well in over my head. I am using every card in my possession. Were I confident of anything, I would not sit here as I am.”

“Then cover yourself, Caro. God knows I can’t take much more.”

She couldn’t either. The desire to throw herself in the way of his hands was almost more than she could bear. Caro pulled up her sagging bodice and retied the string. But for the tear in the side seam, she looked almost presentable and she could enter the house without shame.

Unless, of course, one discounted the shameful fact that she arrived at home from within the dark and private and completely unchaperoned confines of Lord Ashdon’s coach. That bit would be somewhat difficult to downplay. All the more reason for her to marry Lord Ashdon at the earliest opportunity. Tomorrow ought to do nicely.

“I am covered, Lord Ashdon,” she said. “You can look now.”

“Caro, whatever made you think I had stopped looking?” he said. “I have looked and will look again, whenever the opportunity presents itself. And if it does not conveniently present itself, I will make my own opportunity. You were quite right about your breasts. They are lovely. Do your other parts compare as favorably?”

“Lord Ashdon! This is hardly an appropriate conversation for us to be engaging in!”

“You would prefer not to engage in conversation but in some other activity? I daresay I agree with that.”

“That is not at
all
what I am proposing,” she said stiffly. “You have the most determined talent for avoiding the point, which is,” she said quickly, when he took a breath to interrupt her, “that you have proposed marriage and I have accepted. When is the blessed event to occur? Given your preoccupation with my … parts, I would say that tomorrow would suit us both.”

A well of silence enveloped his side of the coach, like a tangible pall of misery. He was the most
emotional
man, first determined lust and then, quick as rising sparks, dejected gloom. It was going to take a very considerable amount of effort to stay abreast of his moods.

“You have an objection to tomorrow?” she said. “I know it will take a special license, but I believe my mother has—”

At that, he interrupted her by laughing. To say that Lord Ashdon suffered from an extremity of mood shifts was putting it delicately.

“Is something amusing?” she said.

“You are,” he said. “You are supremely amusing, Caro, the more so because you are so blind to it.”

“If this is an attempt at flattery, it is a failed attempt.”

“I do apologize,” he said, sounding anything but apologetic. She couldn’t help but return to her original supposition that Lord Ashdon was completely foxed.

“I do accept,” she said, sounding anything but accepting. “Now, shall we plan the wedding?”

Ashdon once again pushed his morose silence all over her wedding plans.

“Is there something you wish to say, Lord Ashdon? I would prefer it to this deafening silence,” she said.

“I’m taking you home, Caro,” he said softly.

“I was never in any doubt of that.”

“I’m taking you home and I shall do what I can to redeem your reputation, little enough as it may be, and I shall not see you again.”

This after she had let him see her bare breasts? He
was
foxed. And she was ruined, beyond repair or redemption.

“I’m sorry, but that will not do,” she said calmly, ignoring the pounding of her heart and the shortness of her breath. “I have been ruined, by you, Ash, and you shall make it right.”

“I’m trying to make it right, Caro,” he said under his breath.

“Marrying me will suffice.”

Again, his silence spoke for him. It was with the utmost irritation that she realized she was beginning to be able to read his silences.

“You are not going to marry me,” she said slowly. “You believe marrying me would serve me more ill than ruining me.”

“I do,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you, Caro. I don’t believe I ever did.”

“How reassuring,” she said stiffly, sniffing against the cold night air. It was
not
emotion that made her sniff and wipe discreetly at her eyes. All wild emotion resided within Lord Ashdon’s twisted heart, not her own. “If I may be so bold, why did you give me these pearls, Lord Ashdon? Why did you make a mockery of my good name in the Duke of Hyde’s dressing room? Why did you kiss me? Why did you … touch me?” she said, wiping the single rebellious line of tears running out of her right eye with brutal ruthlessness. No tears. Not now. Not ever. Not over this … miscalculation. “You have ruined me, Lord Ashdon. Was it not done willfully? ”

“You said you wanted to be a courtesan. You said you did not want to be my wife,” he said softly.

That again. She was not going to be distracted by that, not when it had taken place as long ago as yesterday. Not when everything had changed since then. Everything, it seemed, except Lord Ashdon.

“I have reversed both positions, Lord Ashdon. Did you fail to notice?”

“Some positions may not be so easily reversed.”

“Yet your heart is surely not to be counted among the constant and irreversible.”

“My heart has no part in this.”

Caroline snorted indelicately, crossing her arms over herself like a welcoming vise. “I quite agree. Your heart, surely, is to be discounted among all such conversations and considerations, Lord Ashdon. Your heart, if it beats at all, beats a false tempo.”

“Do not do this, Caro. Do not tear your heart up over this.”

“Do not worry about
my
heart, Lord Ashdon. It is well beyond your reach.”

“I will make it right. I swear it, Caro. I will right this wrong upon your name.”

“And how will you do that, Lord Ashdon? Will you take back your kisses? Your promises? Your pearls, at least those are easily returned.”

She lifted the pearls from over her head, and he barked at her, “Leave them! The pearls are yours, no matter what else. Wear them. I would that you would wear them every day of your life.”

“Which I’m certain you pray will be short indeed.”

“You want me to suffer,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, sniffing back her pointless tears, “I want you to suffer miserably. Can you do that, Lord Ashdon, or will you renege on that as well?”

He was silent, his favorite response.

It occurred to her, in that stilted silence, that she was mishandling him completely. Her mother would never engage in such dreary tactics. Her mother would entice and charm and cajole and, more importantly, her mother would get her way. Caro used Ashdon’s silence to rethink everything, trying to see the world and the men who galloped across it, from behind her mother’s eyes.

It was a remarkably insightful view.

The most important fact facing her was that she must get her way in this. Ashdon must marry her. She was ruined, yes, but she would only be completely ruined if Ashdon slipped the net. Married, the whole pearl escapade became an amusing story, the sort of story that enhanced a woman’s reputation instead of destroying it. With the proper handling, obviously. Caro had no doubt that her mother could manage the story. What was essential now was for her to manage Ashdon. He simply must be managed into marriage.

“You have me at my worst,” she said. “I apologize, Lord Ashdon, for my temper. Of course I will keep your pearls, as a remembrance of you. Each time I wear them and they fall upon my breasts, I will remember you … and your hands.”

Ashdon shifted his weight on the squabs and grumbled something. She took it for a good sign.

“I hope that when you see me wearing them about Town, you will remember as well, the fit of your hands … there, and the way I responded to you.” She paused and sighed seductively. When she heard him take a rattled breath, she added, “And, obviously, I will keep them because I have earned them.”