The Ice Princess (5 page)

go back to being a common whore. Go back to suffering under strange men every night. No. Simply
no.
She could not do that again—which made her

appointment this morning even more urgent. Coral turned and fled down the Grotto's back staircase.

It was late by the time she returned that night. She crept up the back stairs of the Grotto. The cries of the merrymakers i n the front o f the building were

muted but quite discernible. She'd lived in this place for over two years, yet she felt none of the warmth one should when returning home. But then what

kind of fool expected the warmth of home from a brothel?

Coral paused outside the door to her room. It looked no different than it had this morning, but she sensed
he
was already here. She compressed her lips.

He
was occupying entirely too much of her thoughts. It wouldn't do. She was the madam of the most infamous brothel in London. She'd used and tossed

aside men much more powerful than he. She was
Aphrodite
. And after these seven days were up she'd never see him again in this lifetime.

She would be the one to use and forget, not he.

So she slipped her wrap from her shoulders, tugged her bodice a little lower, and tilted her chin as she opened the door to her little room. He sat at her

table, his long legs sprawled before him in perfect comfort, his eyes closed, his arms crossed over his chest as if he owned the room. The sight irritated

her beyond reason.

She shut the door behind her over-hard. "Good evening, Captain Wargate."

"Isaac," he drawled without opening his eyes. "And a good evening to you as wel , Coral."

She strol ed toward him, dropping her wrap on the bed as she passed it. His mere presence was an irritation, a prickling beneath her skin. What did he

want with her? What game was he playing?

"A gentleman would rise on the entrance of a lady," she said, sharper than she'd meant, but then he was wearing away the shell of her artifice. "Oh, but I

forgot, I'm not a lady am I?" She was by the dresser now and she twitched the mirror slightly to the left. "I'm a whore—a very, very high priced whore. And

yet you merely sit there and talk to me. Or play draughts. What kind of man wants to
talk
to a whore?" She flicked too jerkily at the miniature and it fel to

the floor with a clatter. She stared at it, blinking angrily.
Damn it!
Why couldn't she control her mouth with him?

From behind her he sighed. "Come sit down, Coral." She turned to him, folding her arms. "Why should I?" His wide mouth curved into a surprisingly sweet

smile, lighting his hawkish eyes and pressing a dimple into one hard cheek. He looked almost boyish. She did
not
want to be attracted to this man.

"Because I bought some meat pies for our supper."

He bent and picked up a cloth bag from his feet and took out a wrapped bundle. The moment he unfolded the bundle, the aroma of hot meat pies filled the

room, making her inhale deeply in appreciation.

She came to the table with il grace. "Why?"

"Why what?" he murmured without looking up from the task of placing the pies on two plates.

"Why bring me dinner?" She was honestly confused. She didn't know what this man wanted at al and the oddity of it kept her off balance.

"Because I'm hungry?" He produced a bottle of wine and poured two glasses.

"I told you, I don't drink with customers," she said as she sat. He pushed the wineglass toward her without speaking, only his black eyes gave ironic

chal enge.

She picked up the glass and took a sip defiantly.

A corner of his mouth twitched before he picked up his meat pie and bit into it. He closed his eyes for a moment, a look of near rapture crossing his face.

Coral felt her mouth go dry. What would it be like to be the cause of such

bliss?

To

drive

this

man—
Isaac
—to

rapture?

He opened his eyes and smiled at her, swal owing, his tanned throat working. "You have no idea how tasty a meat pie is after months at sea."

There were any number of ribald comments she could make to that, but simple curiosity won out. "Tel me."

"We start out with fresh meat and provisions, of course." He took a sip of his wine. "But they never last long. Then we're down to mealy biscuits mostly until

we make port again. Funny how each man takes it. Most simply soldier on, try not to think of better victuals."

"Most?" She poked at her pie with a fork. He'd set two out, though he was eating his own pie with his fingers.

He grunted. "I once had a first mate, name of Jones. He would talk on and on about food. Dishes his mother made. Favorite meals he'd had. The last

meal he'd eaten while on shore. He could wax eloquent about a joint of beef until you fair tasted the meat on your tongue." Coral raised her eyebrows,

smiling in spite of herself. "And how did your other sailors take this?"

"Not always wel ." He chuckled. "I once had to confine two sailors to the brig. I was afraid they'd murder Jones in his sleep." She laughed, the soft sound

surprising her. She looked down at her meat pie and took a bite. It was delicious, the gravy savory, the thick chunks of meat tender. "Jones is no longer

your first mate?" He didn't answer and she looked up. Isaac had stopped eating and was staring blindly down at the table.

"Isaac?"

He inhaled and glanced at her, his eyes empty. "No, Jones is no longer my first mate."

She made a practice of leading men on and then turning away. Of never asking too deep a question. Of never becoming involved. But not tonight. "What

happened to him?"

His brows knit as he stared down at his half-eaten meat pie. "We were in battle. A cannon blast caught him on the right arm, just below the shoulder. It

wasn't a single ball, but shrapnel—bits of sharp iron. His arm . . ." He swallowed, reaching for his wineglass, but he merely fingered the stem. "His arm

was destroyed. The sawbones tried to make a clean amputation, but the wound was very near the shoulder, and it wouldn't stop bleeding. W e buried

Jones at sea the next morning."

She bit her lip. For some reason the very stoicism of his recital made it al the more heart-wrenching. "I'm sorry."

He didn't seem to hear her. "It's strange. Sometimes the most ordinary of men, the ones smal in stature, the ones not outstanding in intel igence or good

humor, show the most extraordinary courage. He was awake the entire time, Jones was. Al that night with the screams of the other wounded around him

he merely lay there, his face white, a smal smile on his lips. After the sawbones cut into him, carved away the bits of flesh that hung from his shoulder;

after he said he could do no more, Jones looked at him and thanked him. And when I went to talk to him just before dawn, Jones tried to salute and told

me it'd been an honor to serve with me."

She looked at him helplessly. She knew how to give a man immeasurable pleasure, how to tease and flirt, how to bring a man so close to the brink he

literal y begged to be released, and yet she did not know how to comfort this one man.

"Isaac," she whispered.

He blinked and looked up. "Forgive me. This is not nice conversation for a supper table."

She felt a spurt of unaccountable anger and blurted, "But this is what I want to talk about. I want to know about you, about your ship and about your men. I

want to know
you
, Isaac."

Her rash words hung there in the air between them. She couldn't take them back, couldn't pretend she hadn't said them, so she stared at him defiantly. For

a moment he didn't move.

Then he leaned a little forward. "Take off your mask, Coral." She couldn't. She simply couldn't. If she removed her mask, he'd see what lay beneath, he'd

see everything she wanted to keep hidden. He'd see
her
. But oddly, her hands were moving of their own volition, pul ing free the ribbons at the back of her

head. She laid her golden mask on the table.

And looked at him.

Now one day a soldier came home from war to the village where he'd been
born. And after he'd greeted his mother and father, his sisters, and his old

grandmother, he looked around and exclaimed, "But where is Tom, my
younger brother? Will he not come and bid me welcome home?"
At this his

family sighed and looked at their toes until the grandmother spoke
for them all. "Alas! Poor Tom has been enchanted by the Ice Princess and
we've

never seen him since."

"Tut!" said the soldier to that. "Then I shall have to bring him home
again.”…

--from
The Ice Princess

When Isaac arrived the next night, Coral was sitting at the table, as regal as a queen. She was also wearing the golden mask. He waited until her maid

curtsied and left the room, and then he stalked toward her.

"Remove it, please."

She hesitated, but he stared at her in command. On this matter he would brook no retreat. Stil , he must've unconsciously held his breath as she raised

trembling fingers to undo the ties at the back of her head, for he exhaled as her mask fel and once again was caught by surprise. It wasn't her beauty that

was the surprise. He'd known, even before he'd seen her face last night—by the way she moved, by her confidence around men, by the fact that she'd

been very, very successful at her profession—that Coral Smythe was a beautiful woman. No, what took his breath away was her youth.

The Aphrodite of Aphrodite's Grotto couldn't be more than one and twenty.

Her complexion was fine and so pale it was nearly translucent, her lips were thin with a long sensuous curve to the slightly wider upper one. Her nose

straight and thin and delicate. And those eyes. Seen as they should be, with her entire face revealed, they were mesmerizing. Catgreen and tilted at the

corners as if some exotic ancestor had left their imprint on her countenance. She was fragile and brave and beautiful. And she was much too young.

Last night she'd requested—nay, demanded—he leave after she'd revealed herself to him. Last night he'd known her—and his—

emotions were too close to the surface. Last night he'd bowed to her near-hysterical entreaty and quickly withdrawn from her presence. Tonight he stood

firm and asked the question he suddenly knew he had to know.

"How did you come to be here?" His voice emerged rougher than he'd meant and he watched as her expression blanked. One slim hand reached for the

golden mask lying on the table before her, while the other flew to her right eye, as if to shield it.

"Dammit, don't." He pul ed out the other chair from the table and sat, reaching across the table and catching the hand that held the golden mask. "I'm

sorry."

She was silent, her back ramrod straight, but her gaze fixed on the table. She'd frozen at his touch, and he saw now that her hand hid a slight deformity on

her right eye. The lid of that eye drooped a little lower than the left and a smal white scar ran through the eyebrow. Isaac took a breath and tugged gently

on the hand he held. "Don't hide yourself again."

Her breath trembled.

"Please." He fought to keep his voice low, soothing. "I was merely surprised by your youth last night and again today." That prompted a harsh laugh from

her. "I'm four and twenty. How old did you think me, Captain?"

"Isaac," he chided absently. "I don't know. I know only that I thought you'd been a madam, had been doing . . . this"—he waved a hand vaguely—"for

years."

"You mean whoring myself," she said. The words should've been defiant—before the game of loo, the Aphrodite he'd known had taken every opportunity

to flaunt her profession especial y, it had seemed, to him.

But this was Coral now, not Aphrodite, and her words were soft and a little sad.

"I have been whoring myself for years. I had to when I first started. It was the only way to make enough money to feed myself and . . ." She paused and for

a moment he thought she wouldn't continue. Who was the other person she'd protected and provided for? A mother?

Dear God, a child?

He leaned forward. "Tel me."

Her fingers tightened about his hand almost painful y. "My elder sister took care of me when I was small. Both our parents were dead. She worked as a

maid—a good position—but when her employer let her go without reference she could find no other work."

She'd been staring at the table top, but now Coral raised those extraordinary green eyes to him. "She could've abandoned me. She could have sold me to

a whoremonger or as an indentured servant. Instead she walked the streets of London so that we both might have food to eat. For years she did this. But

when I grew old enough, after men started to notice me as wel . . ."

She stopped and he could see in her haunted eyes what she'd done. But he needed to hear her say it aloud. "What did you do?" She lifted her chin. "I

found the fanciest bawdy house I could and made a deal with the madam—she would sell my virginity to the highest bidder and I'd keep one fourth of the

money." He felt the tension in his muscles, almost painful across his chest and arms. He wanted to leap from his chair. To throw furniture and bel ow. To

smash in the face of that madam and the man who'd bought Coral and every other man or woman who'd used her in her life.

Instead he closed his eyes to keep his temper inside. "Did you work at the brothel after that?"

"For a while." Her voice was bleak. "I made more money at the brothel than my sister did on the streets. But then I found myself a protector." He looked at

her, hoping that her "protector" had been a kind man, but knowing that was unlikely.