She paused. She was a ruined lady, was she not? What was the point in following society’s rules if you had already broken some of the most important ones?
“Two miles is not far. Can we walk instead of taking the carriage?”
“Two miles is quite the distance,” he protested, stepping away from the carriage and joining her in talking to the horses.
“Josiah, I have been cooped up for too long, trapped inside. I want to stretch my legs. The carriage is wonderful, but—”
“And I got it out for you,” he interrupted, petting the other horse.
She laughed. “I am not blind. I can see the two footmen and three stable boys.”
“Ah, I am caught in the act,” he said with a wry smile. “I must admit, I would not know the first thing about getting a carriage ready. I asked…my friend to send some men from the house.”
The livery was not one she recognized, but she knew enough about the history of heraldry to discern one thing.
“You have some important friends, Josiah,” she said with an eyebrow raised. “If I am not much mistaken, it is an earl’s livery.”
“How do you know that?”
His response was quick, and she cursed herself silently for once again speaking without thinking. How many years had she managed at Madam’s without anyone guessing what sort of life she had lived before she came there? How was she supposed to protect her family’s reputation if she kept letting things like that slip?
All that mattered was her family. They must never know, never bear the shame of knowing what had happened to her.
In a nonchalant voice, she said, “What? Oh, everyone knows about livery, Josiah. Were you not taught it?” Without waiting for a response and hoping beyond hope this would distract him, she started walking out of the stable yard, straight toward the sun. “Is this the right way?”
Josiah was grinning when he caught her, and she snorted with laughter. In his arms was a large wicker basket, and by the way, he was leaning as he carried it, the thing was undoubtedly quite heavy.
“I do apologize. I had completely forgotten someone would have to carry the picnic basket!”
Josiah smiled ruefully. “I wish I could.”
“I shall make you an offer,” she said, looking out at the beautiful green countryside scattered with sheep and trees. “If you carry it on our way there, I will carry it on the way back.”
Any response he made was lost under her laughter at her own jest.
“Hannah, I love the way you laugh.”
She did not say anything. The moment, innocent as it was, felt uncomfortable.
This was precisely what a married couple would do. Wake in the morning in each other’s arms, tease each other as they dressed, go for a walk in the sunshine…
Perhaps this is what her life would have been like if it had not taken a different turn three years ago.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a figure standing on the crest of the hill. She stopped in her tracks. She knew the figure too well.
“Andrews,” she breathed.
Josiah stopped beside her, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’d know that man anywhere. I suppose Madam was less trusting than I thought—he is watching us.”
It was an unwelcome reminder in the midst of all this happiness. She was still very much a prisoner.
Josiah was now examining her features with concern. “Let us go back to the lodge house. There is a pretty enough garden, and we will still be outside. Come, Hannah.”
He turned and started back. She followed him, but not before she took another long look at the figure watching them from a distance. She had been a fool to think she could ever truly escape. This three-day adventure with Josiah, wonderful as it was, was just a reprieve.
Tightness spread across her chest, and she attempted to distract herself with questions. He answered every query readily enough without concern, and she began to relax.
She had never been able to tell the time by the sun, something her brother John had mastered when still a boy, but her legs felt wonderfully stretched for the first time in years, and as they walked back into the courtyard by the stables, Josiah still followed with the heavy basket in his arms.
“I beg of you, let us make our picnic spot,” came his voice as she reached the gate into the gardens. “This basket grows heavier, and if we do not stop soon, I will be forced to eat all its contents.”
The garden was exquisite, full of fragrant flowers.
“I told you I would carry it back,” she said lightly. “Truly, I do not know what all the fuss is about!”
Josiah placed the basket down and looked her full in the face. “Hannah, it will be empty then!”
She laughed and leaned forward to kiss him. He welcomed it, instantly pulling her into his arms, and when they eventually broke apart, he had a very different hunger in his eyes.
“Food first,” she said, and he chuckled and pulled open the wicker basket to bring out a blanket.
As he took out more and more food—far more than the basket looked able to hold—she could not stop looking at the beauty of the place. A skylark was singing, and crickets played their tune in the grass.
“I have never seen a more beautiful spot in all my life,” she said softly.
Josiah shrugged. “’Tis funny, I barely see it anymore. I suppose that is what happens when you know somewhere so well.”
She frowned. “How? Do you live near here?”
“I—I visit my friend often,” he said. “Here, would you like an apple?”
She knew not to push him on the subject. So much of what they said to each other was wrapped up in secrets.
But as she took the apple, an idea sparked in her mind. Was it possible there was no friend? That, in fact, this was the estate to which Josiah belonged as a park manager?
That would explain how he was able to visit her so frequently, as he was so close. It would explain how he was easily given permission to use the lodge and order about the stable boys. It might even explain why he was unable to come and visit her last week. Did not any servant, no matter how important, have duties to attend to?
“Is the countryside like this where you grew up?” he asked.
“Like this? Oh, no. This place is nothing like the town where…” Honora’s voice trailed off. Once again, she spoke so unguardedly! What was it about this man that prompted her to pour out tidbits of her secret life without any thought for the consequences?
Her discomfort must have been obvious, for he said smoothly, “Is it the sort of place where you would like to live?”
She did not answer immediately, but instead, looked out and watched a pair of swallows soar along the ground.
“Yes,” she said eventually. “But though this place is truly beautiful, I would like to see more of the world. Travel, perhaps, to Europe. Maybe as far as Greece and Egypt. The ancient civilizations.”
She shared her desire nervously, with the knowledge she would never achieve it. She would not even see Bath again, let alone London. Madam’s house was to be all she saw until she was unable to sell her body—and after that, she had not dared to think.
But Josiah had not noticed her darkening thoughts. “Really? Is that what you want, to go on a grand tour and see the world?”
What did it matter? It would never happen. “Yes. What do you want?”
Josiah bit into an apple before he responded. “If you had asked me that question six months ago, I believe I would have given you a similar answer. But now…now my thoughts dwell not on adventures outside, but adventures at home.”
Her eyes widened, and he laughed.
“I mean having a home—building one, creating a home rather than just living in one that someone else made. Creating it with someone. Building a family together.”
A strange feeling, an ache, started in her heart and moved down her entire body. Hope, perhaps? Hope that his dream would include her, that she would be the o
ne he chose to make a home with?
Foolish woman, what are you thinking? She could never have that life. She was a courtesan.
“Tell me. Why did your expression fall?”
She blinked, then forced herself to smile. “’Tis nothing.”
“Anything that stops you from smiling is not nothing,” said Josiah. “I think we are beyond the stage of secrets. At least about how you feel.”
She sighed. He was too good to her, and it would all come crashing down in tears at some point. But not now.
“Josiah, any hope I once had of my home is over,” she said with no blame in her words, just explanation. “And more than that, I have no idea what I will do when I am too old to entertain gentlemen.”
Even if I wish, Honora added silently, it could be solved by you. Her heart yearned for him even though she knew she could never have him in that way.
Did he see her thoughts? Did he hear the words she was not speaking? It was impossible to tell, but Josiah had a serious smile on his face.
“There is no reason why things may not change in the future,” he said softly as a skylark danced above their heads. “Perhaps, one day, a gentleman will be able to…to give you a different future.”
His head had dropped, and he spoke the last few words to the blanket. Honora flushed. Could he mean himself? But it would be almost impossible. A gentleman had to be rich to buy a girl from Madam, and she had seen it only once. An exiled dux from France had taken a fancy to a slip of a girl and paid over two hundred guineas for her.
Two hundred guineas! She could turn tricks with gentlemen for a lifetime before she even saw that sort of money. Josiah had money, that was certain, but that sort of coinage?
Honora leaned forward and kissed him hard on the mouth. “I have changed my mind.”
Josiah looked groggy from the kiss. “What?”
She grinned, reveling in the glorious sunshine and the wonderful day she was having. What a gift he had given her—what a gift she would never be able to repay. “I have decided I have changed my mind. I do not want to carry the picnic basket home.”
He laughed, his dark hair falling over his eyes. “I should have known—but I will allow it for one more kiss.”
Honora put her plate down and moved toward him. Under this summer sky, she could ignore reality for one more kiss.
Chapter Twelve
“Hannah. It is time.”
Josiah’s voice was swallowed by the growing dark, echoing strangely around Oak Avenue Lodge.
A voice called back from the open front door, which spilled golden light onto the cobbles.
“No, thank you.”
Night had fallen more quickly than they had realized, and before they knew it, the small clock above the mantelpiece in the drawing room chimed six o’clock.
“I promised,” he called back, holding back his pain. “I gave my word.”
And by God, would he like to break it. Standing by the carriage with the door open, he looked at the figure standing in the doorway, hair billowing out around her shoulders, caught by the light breeze.
He did not want to take her back. He did not want to leave. But he had promised Madam he would have Hannah back by nightfall on the third day, and as he could barely make out a few yards before him, that was now.
The Earl of Chester could not, would not be called into a court of law to explain why he had stolen away a courtesan.
He must ignore the stabs of icy pain shooting into his heart. How could he leave the place where they had been so happy together?
Memories from the last three days rushed through his mind, making love together for the first time and seeing that look of shock on her face as she experienced pleasure, true pleasure for the first time. The picnic in the garden, getting caught today in the rain and stripping off their wet clothes, not bothering to get dressed again, just staying inside the warm house, enjoying each other’s bodies.
But the rain had stopped, and it was time to leave.
He walked into the darkness until Hannah’s face was clearer. She looked anguished, as though she was physically wounded.
Taking her hands in his, he murmured, “Come on, love?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Josiah, this…this place is the happiest I have ever been in my life. Why would I want to leave it?”
Resisting the urge to march her straight back into the lodge and barricade it against Madam, Andrews, this magistrate, and all the others, he tried to ignore his breaking heart and leaned down to kiss her tenderly.
“You must remember,” he said quietly, trying to keep his voice level, “happiness is not here in the Oak Avenue Lodge but wherever we are. Whenever we are together, we will experience the same bliss as this, the same togetherness. And I will be back to visit you, perhaps even more often than twice a week, if I can manage it. We will still have each other.”
She was gripping his hands as though they were an anchor, keeping her steady in a rolling sea.
Josiah swallowed. He was not just some self-respecting man. He was the Earl of Chester, with all the duties and responsibilities of nobility, and one of those was to marry well—and to sire sons. He could no more dishonor his agreement with Madam than rescind his title.
Hannah could not know that, of course. She could not possibly know the pressure that would soon be on him, not know it would be impossible for him to appear in society with a wife on his arm no one had ever heard of—or worse, knew her true story.
She dropped his hands but only to fling her own around his neck and cling to him. Desire welled in Josiah’s loins and heart, but it was not purely a lustful feeling. The need to love her, protect her, was twinned with the desire to bed her every night of his life.
Could he have imagined feeling this way for a courtesan? But Hannah was not common. Josiah breathed in the scent of her hair, felt the softness of her skin, and brought his arms around her. There was something rare about her.
She was much more than her situation. It was clear, no matter how much she attempted to hide it, that she had not been raised for this life. But what could he do?
He could not make her his wife, for certain. It would be beyond the realm of any lord, let alone an earl with a reputation to protect. Even Harry would agree with him.
But perhaps, if he were careful about it, he could purchase her from Madam—make Hannah his mistress.
Oak Avenue Lodge was barely used, now old Mr. O’Donnell had died. It had been easy enough to keep her here for a few days, and so what if a few stable boys caught sight of her? Did not every nobleman have a mistress? Several, sometimes, one in Bath and one in London for starters. Why not him? Why not Hannah?
“What are you thinking, Josiah?”
Brought back to earth with a bump, he hurriedly smiled to remove whatever look on his face had betrayed him to his clever companion. The last thing he wanted was to get her hopes up too early. A conversation with Madam was needed, for a start, and he could not imagine how much she would attempt to rob him.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “We will be back, and then I will visit again before you know it. Trust me, Hannah.”
And she did trust him. Why? Josiah still did not understand it as he led her back to the carriage. She knew as little about him as he knew about her. Not every woman would have been so sanguine about being taken off in a carriage by a relative stranger.
He helped her into the barouche and smiled. She was not a stranger. She was an enigma, certainly, but no stranger. He knew her better than anyone alive.
As he pulled himself into the barouche and picked up the reins, she turned in her seat to stare at the lodge for as long as she could. When it disappeared into the night, she turned back around, took Josiah’s arm, and sighed.
“You make me so happy,” she whispered.
If Josiah had thought his heart had suffered pain before, he was wrong. It was now broken.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, allowing his voice to be full of the emotions he
felt. “Why do we not just turn this carriage around and run away together—how far can Madam look, really?”
She laughed bitterly and gripped his arm. “Oh, Josiah. If only it were that simple. I know the threat Madam has over you—that magistrate is a loyal customer, and I would not be surprised if he followed through on her threat. Do you think I could live with myself if you ended up in prison because of me? And you have not even considered what could happen to me.”
It was strange to have the tables turned. Josiah had always been the intelligent one, the one who spotted the problems and the opportunities. Harry, Devonshire, neither of them were backward, but Josiah was quick. But he had not even considered consequences to Hannah.
“What do you mean?”
She paused, evidently struggling to find the words. When she eventually did speak, it was in a tone barely audible above the clattering of the carriage.
“It was a year ago, I think. Time gets confusing when you never see the sunlight and days merge into nights. She did not have a gentleman like…like you. She wanted to leave, she was tired of her life, and she thought, if she could just get away, then that life would stay behind.”
Josiah’s shoulders stiffened. He did not need to hear the end of this tale, for the way she was speaking, told him it did not end well.
“So, she ran,” Hannah continued softly, her grip on his arm lessening but her hand still in his. “Perhaps if she had kept going and not stopped for a rest, things would have been different. But she did, and Andrews caught her and dragged her back. We all heard…heard the screams when they beat her.”
Josiah’s stomach turned. It was one thing to bed a woman for money, but to beat her? Beat her for wanting to leave?
She was speaking with pain in her voice. “They locked her in that room, and she was never allowed out. One night she disappeared. I do not know what happened to her, whether she escaped or was taken somewhere.”
He focused on the horses ahead of him, trying to prevent himself from vomiting. How had he been so naïve? Had he honestly thought all the girls at Madam’s were there willingly, that they liked being there? He had seen the boarded windows, Andrews at the door, the way Hannah had been so surprised to be taken outside for their first carriage ride.
Always the Courtesan (Never the Bride Book 3) Page 10