A Counterfeit Courtesan: The Shelley Sisters Book 3

by Michaels, Jess

  The second was his dismissive tone when he spoke of courtesans. After recent events, Juliana could easily imagine circumstances that would lead a lady to trade on her body for survival or even for mere pleasure. If that was the path, why shouldn’t a woman enjoy herself?

  “Excuse me,” she said as she turned away from the man with a sniff. “I think I shall seek company elsewhere.”

  “Wait,” said her companion, who seemed far less handsome now. “You did not even allow me to ask your price.”

  She straightened her shoulders. “There is no price high enough, sir. Good evening.”

  She pivoted then and stalked away, her heart pounding and her nerve sinking. God, but this was harder than she’d thought. One nice-looking person and he’d turned out to be an arse. And the only person who had really sparked her interest was…

  She stopped in the middle of the hall as her gaze swept across the parameter and fell on the very man her mind was about to conjure. Ellis Maitland. He was wearing a mask, the same one he had worn the night before. And just like before, she recognized him. She would have recognized that casual way he stood, the strength of his fingers around the drink in his hand. The smirk on his face as he watched the crowd like a wolf.

  That bastard.

  She pressed her lips together as hard as she could and began to stomp across the room toward him. But before she could reach him, another gentleman stepped up to speak to him. She hesitated because when Ellis looked at his new companion, his face lit up with joy. Love. Her heart skipped at the expression. It made the man who so confused her seem…younger. Less jaded.

  Who was this person who could change Ellis so much? As if in answer to her question, the newcomer turned slightly, and her breath caught. He had the same nose and jawline that Rook and Ellis shared. Another family member, it seemed. Another Maitland. He was younger than her, Juliana thought. With a bright, fresh-faced smile and an adoring gaze for Ellis. He was dressed well and had a confident air about him.

  They spoke for a few moments, their heads close together. Then the younger man clapped Ellis’s arm and headed off into the crowd. For a moment, Ellis only stared after him, his mouth a thin line. His gaze almost mournful, despite the mask. But then the expression was gone. Dragged back under the veneer he chose to show to the world. He straightened his shoulders and looked back over the crowd as if his relative had never approached.

  But she’d seen the pain there. She’d seen the connection and the heartache. And for a moment, she wanted to go to him and give…comfort. To take his hand and ask if she could soothe whatever fleeting pain he had allowed himself.

  “No,” she muttered, pushing those thoughts away. Ellis Maitland might indeed be capable of love, but he was also capable of worse. And that he’d come here, that he was still intruding into her own plans, was unfair. She couldn’t forget that.

  Her hands shook, but she shoved them behind her back as she continued on her path toward him. At last she stepped up to him. He looked over her in one sweeping glance, one much like the one the other gentleman had given her.

  Only when Maitland did it, her body reacted of its own will. Oh, she hated how treacherous her longing was. This was an enemy at her side, not a friend, damn it!

  “Leave me alone,” she growled past clenched teeth.

  He stared for another beat, and then he tilted his head back for a laugh that revealed straight, white teeth and very interesting cords of muscle along his neck that were normally covered by a cravat. There was no remnant of the emotion he’d shown when with his companion. As if he had never felt it at all.

  She blinked at how easily he covered himself. At how quickly he laughed at her. “Do not mock me.”

  He returned his gaze to her. “I would never, angel. I am laughing because you approached me. You must admit, the rules of leaving you alone are confusing at best.”

  She clenched her fists at her sides. He’d called her angel again. Damn him. “You’re following me, aren’t you? You’re here because I’m here.”

  A faint smile twitched at his lips, but then it faded, and he seemed to grow more serious. His gaze flitted to the crowd, watching where the other man had left moments before. “No. As much as I enjoy watching you, I’m here for a much darker purpose.”

  Her anger dissipated a fraction at those words. “What do you mean, a darker purpose?”

  He shrugged, and she noted the tension around his mouth as he did so. Pain. She recognized the expression as one of pain, a mirror of what she’d seen when he was standing with the other Maitland. She stepped closer, searching his gaze since she couldn’t see his face when it was obscured by the mask.

  “Were you shot?” she whispered.

  He jerked at the question, and for a moment, he seemed surprised. She was proud of that fact, more than she should be. This man was jaded—being able to surprise him was a boon.

  “You know the answer to that, I think,” he said. “You were there.”

  “I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t know,” she explained as her fingers fluttered up to touch her scarred cheek through the mask. “Until my family told me this afternoon. Ellis…”

  He turned his head. “You shouldn’t say my name, angel. I’m not worthy of that.”

  “You were shot protecting me,” she said, ignoring his admonishment.

  His mouth tightened. “I was shot because I failed at protecting you.”

  Her lips parted at the choked sound to his voice. True regret, not something put on. Or if it was, this man was an actor of the highest caliber. How could she even know the difference?

  “Is your wound healing?” she asked.

  He shifted as if the concern was uncomfortable to him. She wondered if no one cared about this man and his wellbeing. He’d once been close to Anne’s husband Rook, but she knew the two were estranged and had been for a long time, even before Anne’s marriage. There was this other family member, or who she assumed to be a family member. But their interaction had been brief, if warm.

  So was Ellis all alone in the world?

  “I’m fit as a fiddle, angel,” he drawled, and the genuine quality was gone now. He was back to the game. Back to being Handsome Ellis Maitland, a character, not a person. “Are you hoping to test that out?”

  Heat suffused her cheeks at the question, not even subtle in its double entendre. “You are so confounding,” she snapped.

  He smiled and a dimple popped in his cheek that she suddenly wanted to trace with her tongue. “Thank you, I do my best.”

  She huffed out a breath. “You say I shouldn’t be here, but then you try to seduce me.”

  “I don’t try to seduce, Juliana.” He drew out her name and inched forward, invading her space a fraction. She gasped at his body heat and the delicious leathery scent of him. “And you shouldn’t play with fire.”

  “What I do is none of your business,” she whispered. “I came here to tell you that, nothing more.”

  “You came here because you didn’t like how your encounter with that pup at the wall went,” he said, reaching out to catch an errant curl that had fallen from her bun between his fingers. He twisted it around his finger slowly and the gentle tug at her scalp made her catch her breath. “You came here because of your own dark purpose.”

  Her breath came short now and she glared up at him. “So you were watching me.”

  “If we’re in a room together, I’m watching you,” he whispered. “Am I wrong, Juliana?”

  She pursed her lips in frustration. Damn this man. “No, you’re not wrong. I approached that man along the wall, and he said something…something very rude to me.”

  “What did he say?” Ellis asked, his tone suddenly sharp as he jerked his gaze toward the young man she had approached what felt like an eternity ago.

  “Something about only courtesans coming here,” she said, shaking her head. “It was uncouth, nothing more.”

  “Ah, you didn’t like being compared to someone so low,” he said. “I u
nderstand.”

  “No!” she said, pulling back from him. “I didn’t like his implication that a lady cannot feel desire. Or that desire or the control of one’s own body and its needs is something to be considered low. I would never judge another woman for her life and her choices.”

  Ellis stared at her, his eyes wide beneath the mask. She felt trapped by that regard, sucked into blue depths that were brighter than the sea on a summer’s day, more pure than a cloudless sky, more hypnotic than a sapphire.

  He reached for her, and even though she knew she should, it was impossible to pull back. His hand closed around her forearm and he tugged her forward, closer and closer as he bent his dark head to hers.

  She found herself lifting to meet him, desperate for that moment when their lips were a millimeter apart. There he paused and drew a deep breath, like he was trying to take her in or perhaps slow himself down. If she feared he would withdraw, though, he did not. His free hand lifted to cup the back of her skull, lean fingers digging into the coiled mass of her hair, and then his lips brushed hers.

  She had somehow thought it would be rough when he kissed her, but it wasn’t. He was gentle, just gliding his lips back and forth against hers in a slow seduction. She sighed at the pressure, at the warmth of his mouth and his breath. His grip on her forearm tightened, and suddenly she was molded even tighter.

  Her softness seemed to tuck perfectly into every hard line of him, and they moaned together as the space between them vanished. When her lips parted, he traced them with his tongue, and gentle suddenly changed to something else.

  She opened without understanding and his tongue moved inside, probing her, tasting her. She gasped and suddenly her hands were gripping his lapels. Had she done that? She didn’t recall lifting or fisting the fabric in her hands, but here they were. She touched his tongue with hers.

  And the dam broke. He crushed her harder against him, his lips and tongue more insistent, his hands tugging slightly on her bun and mixing an odd and wonderful sensation of the slightest pain with the deepest pleasure.

  She wanted more. Even though she didn’t fully understand it. Even though every proper word that had ever been spoken to her by every stern lady screamed at her to pull away. To run before it was too late.

  She ignored it all.

  She didn’t want to run. She wanted to wrap herself around this man until this deep, throbbing ache inside of her was soothed. Until she didn’t feel so empty anymore. She would fill herself with him. She would drown if she had to.

  And just when she thought she might, just when she began to believe he might give her what she wanted, he pulled away. He steadied her before he backed up a long step, breaking all contact between them. Suddenly she heard the sounds in the room again, felt the eyes on them from those nearby who probably hoped for the same kind of show others were putting on.

  Ellis stared at her, silent, his expression inscrutable thanks to more than just the mask. He didn’t want her to know what he felt. What he wanted. Why he was playing a game with her.

  That thought made her anger return, and she lifted a shaking hand to her lips. They felt so hot. So full. She glared at him. “L-leave me alone,” she whispered, though there was no heat to the words. No truth.

  “You endanger yourself, Juliana,” he said.

  She folded her arms. “You endangered me.”

  His jaw set as if he was gritting his teeth and his gaze left hers at last. He nodded slowly. “I did do that, yes. And now I’m going to protect you.”

  “I don’t want that,” she said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “I don’t want anything you have to offer.”

  “Well, we both know that isn’t true,” he said with a half-smile. “We both know you want a great deal. You need even more.”

  She shook her head, hating that he could see through her. Hating that he could use her body and her heart against her. She stepped toward him. “Mr. Maitland—”

  He groaned and lifted a hand. “Don’t. You are testing something you don’t understand.” He sighed. “Now I’m taking you home.”

  Her lips parted in shock and she fought to find some way to deny him. Only he wouldn’t be denied. He reached for her hand, catching it in his as he started toward the door. And she followed, even though she kept telling herself to pull away. She followed, her heart throbbing faster, her body tingling with reaction and her soul longing for another kiss.

  Even though this man was everything she shouldn’t want.

  * * *

  Ellis looked across the carriage at Juliana. She was sitting ramrod straight, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze focused on him. She would have looked as proper as any well-bred lady should, were in not for the revealing dip of her gown’s neckline or the mask still on her face.

  Two things that made his half-hard cock twitch a little in his suddenly very snug trousers. The woman was a menace, plain and simple. And he’d never been able to resist one of those.

  This time he had to.

  He leaned forward. She stiffened but not in fear. Her hands clenched against her lap and her breath caught as he slipped a finger beneath her mask and pulled it away gently. He tossed it on the bench beside him and examined her again.

  Great God, but she was a beauty. It was funny because he’d met her sister Thomasina, though not exactly under the best of circumstances. And he’d used all his seductive powers on her sister Anne to try to save himself from the dangerous situation that now threatened them all. But even though both women shared Juliana’s face, he had never been drawn to either of them the way he was to her.

  He couldn’t stop looking at those eyes. A fascinating shade of green that reminded him of spring in the countryside. Someplace safe and warm. A place he didn’t belong and never would. But it was a place he wanted to belong to, especially when he was vulnerable. Unexpectedly seeing his brother Gabriel tonight at the Donville Masquerade…

  That made him vulnerable. He had gifted a membership to the club to his brother upon his eighteenth birthday. And though it was awkward to bump into Gabriel at that place of sin and seduction, he still loved talking to his brother. Having that all-too-brief connection before Gabriel went off to have a little fun.

  It might be the last time Ellis saw him. And that cut down to the bone. So, of course, Juliana Shelley would come up after that. Of course she would challenge him and surprise him and let him kiss her until the pain dulled and his blood roared in his ears. She made him forget.

  He had to remember now. He leaned back. “Why are you doing this?”

  She didn’t answer, but her fingers came up to trace the length of the scar across her cheek. He followed them in the dim light. She had only been injured a few weeks ago, so the damage was still dark red, and the skin around it was slightly puckered as it healed. It would heal, but she would always have a mark there.

  “Because you think you’re damaged,” he said when she didn’t fill the silence.

  She let out her breath slowly. “I know I am,” she corrected, her voice shaking. “And not just because of the scar.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “What does that mean?”

  She turned her face, looking out the window at the darkness outside. “Perhaps a man would have been able to overlook the scar, considering my dowry. But I was already on shaky ground socially. Being a triplet makes me and my sisters…oddities. And then you did what you did. You seduced Anne and she ran away. The scandal of her broken engagement and Thomasina marrying Harcourt in her stead…” She bent her head. “That is what damaged me most.”

  He clenched his jaw. “I never seduced Anne.”

  Her gaze flitted to him. “You convinced her she could love you so that she would go with you. You wanted to have leverage over Harcourt.”

  He couldn’t deny that, nor the guilt that slashed through him. “Yes. I thought Harcourt knew the location of this damned gem his brother and I stole. I knew a straight-laced fop like him would never give it to me outright, especially conside
ring his financial situation. I went back to what I know.”

  She shifted in her seat and her head bent. “Love games,” she whispered. “Seducing women for your own purposes.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I do, angel.”

  “What you’re trying to do with me,” she corrected. “Isn’t it? What is it you want, Ellis? Another way to get to Harcourt? Information you think I have? A way to punish Anne for choosing Rook over you?”

  His lips parted at the last suggestion. “I want to make it clear: I never wanted Anne. She was a way to get to Harcourt, plain and simple. I am happy for her and my cousin. I know Rook like the back of my own hand, and he adores her. They will make a happy life together. I feel no regret in anything to do with her except that so many were hurt by my actions.”

  He thought she smiled ever so slightly, but it was hard to tell in the dimness of the carriage.

  “At any rate,” she said, and sighed, “the scar is only a final straw in a long march to ruination for me. The only benefit is that at least the mark will help everyone tell me apart from Thomasina and Anne now as I labor for the rest of my life as my father’s secretary.”

  “Fucking fops,” Ellis growled, not even trying to tamp down the rage that lifted in his chest. “If those arses could look at you, scar or not, and not want you, they are fools.”

  She shrugged. “Then they are all fools. I assure you, no one wants me. That’s why I went to the Donville Masquerade. I know my future.” She looked out the window and her tone went faraway. “I just wanted a taste of something more before I surrender to it. Just like I told you that first night before I knew you were…you.”

  He clenched his jaw at how resigned she was, and although he’d never considered himself the kind of man to comfort or soothe, he couldn’t resist reaching out to take her hand. It was warm in his. So soft that he almost moaned at the feel of it. He lifted her fingers to his lips and brushed them ever so gently, and her gasp echoed in the quiet around them.

  “You asked me what I wanted a moment ago, what my game is,” he said, holding her gaze steady. “There is no game, not this time. I kissed you because I wanted just what you think you want. The difference is, I understand it.”