The Illicit Love of a Courtesan

by Jane Lark

  “Robert!” Edward pushed to his feet, sending his chair backwards, as he leaned onto the table facing his brother. “You’ve had your fun, now…”

  “Sit down, Ed.” Robert lifted a hand. “You’re too bloody sensitive. You know I’m only doing it to rile you. Will you never cease biting?”

  “Edward,” Ellen whispered quietly.

  Her tone chastised him, and when he glanced at her he received a quelling look, obviously calling for his temperance. A footman was already in motion to lift his chair. With a sigh Edward sat.

  “What you are doing, Robert, is insulting my wife. Don’t.” Tossing his brother a disparaging glare, Edward picked up his glass and sipped his wine.

  “Well then,” Robert continued, spinning the stem of his glass in his fingers while Davis dished up the various elements of dinner. “What of you, Ellen? Is Pembroke really your father? I can hardly imagine how you came to be in your prior circumstance if that is the case.”

  “Yes, Pembroke is her father, and her circumstances are none of your damned business,” Edward responded, leaning back while a footman filled his plate.

  “The woman may speak for herself I am sure, Ed, and as she is my sister-in-law, as head of the family I think her circumstances are my concern, especially, if the two of you wish to live here.”

  “The more you talk the more you put me off the idea.” Edward addressed the answer to his dinner, picking up his knife and fork.

  “So what was Pembroke doing here anyway? I assume he cannot be best pleased to have a daughter who’s a…”

  “Stop!” Edward barked, still focusing on his food and not his brother.

  “My father came for my son,” Ellen answered, cutting into their argument. Edward’s gaze reached to her. Of course her steel-like armour was fully in place. Her fingers reached for her glass as though the whole affair had meant nothing to her. This was the woman he’d first met. He heard Robert choke on his mouthful, and watched in amusement as Robert reached for his drink.

  “A son?” He spoke at length. The words full of astonishment.

  “From my first marriage.” Ellen set down her glass without looking at Rob and returned her attention to her dinner.

  “Your first marriage?” Robert echoed.

  “To Lord Paul Harding, a Captain in the 52nd Oxfordshire Regiment. He died at Waterloo. That was how I came to be alone. We had eloped. My father did not wish me to marry the sixth son of an Earl. It was not even that a military income was not enough; it was simply a matter of pedigree. Nothing but a Duke would do for me you see, my Lord.” Edward watched as Ellen borrowed his brother’s mocking expression and tone. “Even you would be beneath his exacting standards, Lord Barrington. My father will have nothing to do with me, but my son is his heir.”

  “His heir?” again Robert repeated.

  “Yes,” Ellen responded, taking a cut of meat to her mouth.

  Edward’s eyes left his wife as he sensed Robert turn to him. “You are in trouble then little brother, crossing Pembroke was not advisable. Did you have the boy here?”

  Edward didn’t answer but turned back to his food.

  “I will take that as a yes then. And I presume Pembroke has him now. Well that is a turn up, husband and father all in one hit. It’s a good thing then that I got Gainsborough off your back.”

  Edward set his cutlery down. He did not want to rise to this, he knew Robert enjoyed baiting, it may be a game, but Edward couldn’t help himself. “What exactly did you do, Rob?”

  “Ah, and now he wishes to speak. See, Ellen, I have at last found a subject that interests him.” Robert’s gaze shifted from Ellen to him, with a taunting look. “I made certain he would not follow, that was all.”

  “How?” The single word echoed about the otherwise silent room, while the two footmen and Davis stood back, expressionless, supposedly blind and deaf.

  “Let us say,” pausing, Robert picked up his wine, drank it and then held out the glass for a refill. Edward waited, knowing Robert itched to have him chase. The smile Robert cast on Edward as he looked back, said it all. Edward heard the unspoken words, aren’t you dying to know, “I made the man a proposition he could not refuse.”

  Edward’s patience broke. “Which was?” he ground out.

  “To leave you alone or to face me at dawn.”

  “You did not.”

  “Of course not, the man’s a coward.”

  Turning back to his meal, Edward suddenly found that his appetite had fled. “You did not need to do that.”

  “Why, because it might mean you were beholden to me instead of the other way about?”

  Glancing at his brother, Edward faced a look of iron. He’d not seen that determined expression on Robert’s face for a long time; not since they had raced each other or wrestled as children. “Why?” Edward responded, harshly. “Because it was not your battle and you had no need to get involved.”

  “But, as I thought I explained, it is my business, Ed. I am head of the family. What you do reflects on me and you are my responsibility.”

  “Funny, you have never cared before.” Edward leaned back and indicated for a footman, to take the half full plate away.

  “Well I care now.”

  Robert did not often get angry. He’d many weaknesses but anger was not one of them. Anger was Edward’s flaw. His heart thumped as he watched his brother. Robert was angry.

  “Forget the rest, Davis, the staff can have it,” Robert barked. “Just pour the port.”

  Edward looked at Ellen; she was blushing and silent, looking at her plate. She hadn’t eaten much. She definitely did not like the turn the conversation had taken, but he wanted to know what his brother had done.

  “What happened with Gainsborough?” Edward pushed, as the footmen moved about them to clear the table.

  “I did not go looking for him. He came looking for you.” Robert progressed, holding Edward’s gaze with an accessing look. “First his bullyboys knocked at the house, and then they came to White’s after Rupert, to find out where you had gone. I was not about to let the man harass us, was I? Nor did I like the idea that he should chase after you. So I faced him off, not in the seedy little club you favoured but in White’s. He soon backed down. He said I had misunderstood the situation. He was merely looking for you to close some business deal, or some such nonsense. The man’s ridiculous. Anyway the outcome is he will not be bothering you. But Pembroke, Ed?” Tutting, Robert raised the glass Davis had just filled and looked across its rim at Edward. “He is not a man to make your enemy. That was a little foolish.”

  “It was hardly planned,” Edward answered, glancing at Ellen, who looked at him. Her eyes showed discomfort and perhaps a desire to be anywhere else but in this room.

  “No? Now there is the rub.” Robert continued. “I cannot make out how my pragmatic brother, who thinks through everything before he takes a step, is suddenly barrelling off with Gainsborough’s—”

  Edward’s hand curled into a fist and slammed onto the table, visually telling Robert to cease insulting Ellen. She jumped and Davis chose the moment to leave, clicking the door shut behind him. Edward breathed deeply and scowled at his brother while Robert merely skipped the offensive word and carried on with a smirk.

  “—in the middle of the night. But then she is pretty. I can see that.” He spoke as though Ellen was not there, offering her nothing but disrespect.

  “That’s enough, Robert,” Edward warned and looked at Ellen. “Ellen?” The question asked her if she wished to leave, but Robert progressed before she could answer.

  “Very well, then instead tell me what you plan to do?” Edward watched Robert lean back, grip his glass by the bowl and swill his port, smirking while he waited for an answer.

  “I have not decided.” Edward answered, wishing he had the power to ignore his brother’s taunts, Robert obviously enjoyed prodding. It made Edward feel like a damned puppet the way Robert could pull his strings. And what he had intended to do before his bro
ther returned was ask for a job, but at this particular moment the request stuck in his throat.

  “Will you stay then?”

  “Do you want me here?”

  “What are you asking me to do, beg? I can get along without you if I must.”

  “I know you can. That was why I left,” Edward answered, his eyes fixing on the glinting dark ruby red liquor in his glass as he lifted it to his lips.

  “You need not have done so.” He glanced up as Robert’s voice sobered. Robert had arched one eyebrow, implying, so why did you? Edward looked back at his glass and said nothing. He did not wish to have this conversation.

  “I’ll tell you why you really left,” Robert continued. “Because I put your bloody nose out of joint by coming back, that is why. What did you expect me to do, leave you to play Earl until I died? I cannot help it that I was born first.”

  His brother’s statement was unjust. It irritated Edward, and his anger and voice rose in consequence. “I don’t care about that.”

  “No, then what do you care for, Ed? Because you make me feel like a damn leper and I am struggling to understand it.”

  Ellen coughed, artificially. They both ignored her.

  “I did not ask for the responsibility. You left me no choice but to take it on. You were not here.”

  “Ah, so that is the rub then, that I left the burden on you.”

  “That is not it at all.”

  “Then what is? I would have to be blind not to see that you have an intense dislike of me.”

  “How may I dislike you? I hardly know you? We have not seen each other since school.”

  Keeping his gaze on his glass, immersed in thoughts he did not care to face, Edward heard his brother sit forward in his chair.

  “This ends now, Ed.”

  Edward looked at him. Robert was looking at Ellen, “She is a whore.” It was a direct insult and Ellen held his gaze, her chin lifted, defiance glinting in her eyes.

  Edward rose. He’d had enough of this. “She is my wife,” he clipped out. “Ellen.” Lifting his hand, he urged her to come to him.

  “And before that Gainsborough’s mistress.” Robert barked, rising too, his gaze turning to Edward. “For God sake, Ed, you have to divorce her. She is using you. Rupert is right, it is too great a scandal and it affects the whole family. What of our cousin, Rowena? This will affect her too.”

  Edward’s brow furrowed in astonishment. No. He lifted his hand higher, calling Ellen to him. No, he was not listening to this. He did not care for Robert’s opinion. He was not letting his family interfere and he was certainly not letting Ellen go.

  She rose and moved to his side.

  He gripped her hand in silent reassurance and faced his brother. “No, Robert.” Before turning to Ellen and saying, “The air is stale in here, we’re leaving.”

  He walked away then, pulling her after him, without any idea in what direction he led.

  “You’re a fool,” Robert called, as they left the room.

  “Where are we going?” Ellen whispered, her fingers clinging on to Edward’s as he strode out of the dining room. She was struggling to keep his pace, so he narrowed his stride, but he could not reduce his speed. Striding across the hall he headed towards the family wing opposite

  “Somewhere he’s unlikely to follow.” Edward carried on along the hallway only stopping when they reached the end. There he opened the door of a small sitting-room. It had once been his mother’s personal space. It was unlit, dark, bar the bluish-silver moonlight casting shadows from the open curtains. Drawing Ellen in, he left the door ajar and let a little light spill from the distant hall.

  Ellen thought the room lifeless and forgotten, as though it had been left untouched for years, lonely. Three single chairs sat in a triangle about the empty fire-grate, and in one corner of the room stood a pianoforte. She freed her hand from Edward’s, walked across the room and ran her fingers over the polished mahogany. It was beautiful.

  “Do you know how to play that thing?” Edward asked, still standing at the door.

  Ellen looked back. His face was in shadow, all she could see was his silhouette against the light from the hall. But even her husband’s silhouette was magnificent. The familiar pain of acknowledged love swelled in her chest. What had she done to deserve this man defending her?

  “Your brother is right.”

  “What?” he questioned in an astonished voice.

  “My father can make your life hell if he chooses. The ripple of it would run through your whole family. Would you really risk that for me? If you said I lied to you, you could have a divorce.”

  He’d crossed the room in a second and his hand was at her neck, pulling her close, his thumb beneath her jaw. His brow rested onto hers, his breath brushed her face. He smelt of the richness of port—sweet, warm and intoxicating. She longed to close the distance and kiss him but she had to give him the chance to walk away. He must know exactly what he had agreed to in that small church when he’d married her now—what he’d said ‘I will’ to.

  “I will not give you up,” he whispered tipping her face upwards with his thumb so her mouth was just below his own.

  “I would not hold it against you. You’ve done enough for me, Edward.”

  “I will never do enough for you, Ellen. We are in this together. I am not walking away from you. Get this into your pretty head, sweetheart, please.”

  Her chest tightened so much it was hard to breathe as her fingers reached for the solid rock that was Edward, resting on his midriff. “I don’t want to be the reason your family falls apart, Edward.”

  “Ellen,” his thumb brushed the sensitive skin beneath her jaw, “you are my family, you and John. You come before my brother. When we have John back we will make a new life, somewhere else, just the three of us, as we were. We could go to America if you wish? Your father will not find us there.”

  She didn’t speak, just stood before him, breathing in the breath he breathed out.

  “Ellen, what do you say?”

  “Yes.” A breathless whisper left her lips and then his mouth descended to hers. The kiss felt endless, earth shuddering, as though the two of them were lost in time and she knew she would never doubt his commitment again.

  “Do you want something to drink?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “A glass of good champagne then, to celebrate fetching John back and our future.”

  She smiled.

  “I’ll go and find Davis, get him to bring it and a candelabrum along. Perhaps you could play for me, I would like to hear it?” Smiling, he glanced at the pianoforte. Then his lips brushed hers once more before he let her go, stepped back and turned away.

  He was humming a hymn they’d sung that morning in church as he walked from the room. Smiling to herself, Ellen turned, and sweeping her dress beneath her she sat on the stool before the pianoforte. She lifted the lid covering the ivory keys carefully and brushed her fingers across them, not playing but revering the beautiful instrument. She had not touched a pianoforte since she’d married Paul. One finger pressed down forming a single note. It was tuned. She played a second and a third, her fingers finding their path from memory, without thought.

  The sound of a song her mother had taught her rang throughout the room. Ellen shut her eyes and let it flow through her. She loved music, playing had never been a chore to her. And she was so absorbed in it she only knew someone else was in the room when a hand settled on her shoulder.

  She turned, half jumping out of her skin, and then stood. It was not Edward she faced but his brother. “Lord Barrington?” He’d shut the door. “Edward will be back in a moment.” Her heart thumped. Fear beating hard inside her.

  “He’s gone downstairs,” The Earl answered. Inoffensive words but his tone set goosebumps tingling across her skin.

  “I just wondered, what you—” His gaze held hers, his eyes dark and his hand lifted.

  “Don’t do this,” she urged, cutting over his words as he
r fingers pressed against his chest. She leaned back as he leaned forward, but he didn’t stop.

  “No,” she forced, her palms pressing harder against his chest, as his hands touched her waist and slid upwards.

  “Leave me alone!” She begged and ordered. Why was he doing this?

  He just smiled. His eyes were as hard as flint.

  “Get off me!”

  Fisting her hands she struck his shoulders and his head, frantically fighting his descent as his weight forced her back, coming down on her. Her bottom pressed onto the pianoforte’s keys and they made a sound, a mix of uncoordinated notes as his fingers covered her breast.

  “Get off me!”

  With a low growl, he taunted, “Wouldn’t you rather have the elder brother than the younger? Think how much more you can gain from me?”

  Ellen opened her mouth to scream, but the sound was smothered by the sudden pressure of his lips. Pinned beneath him, his hand gripping her breast and pressing her back, she couldn’t move. But she wasn’t going to let this happen. Her fingers clawed to gain a grip on his hair and pulled and her teeth bit his lip.

  Then suddenly, his pressure was gone, lifted from her.

  “Edward.” She voiced his name on a sob of relief, half cry, half shout.

  He’d gripped the Earl’s arm, pulled him off and thrust him aside. Edward held out his hand to her. She didn’t take it. She hugged him fiercely, clinging to his offered safety, embracing his midriff, her cheek pressing against his chest.

  “What the hell were you doing?” Edward shouted across her head.

  “Merely testing—on your behalf, I might add. Don’t you want to know if she’s loyal?” She looked back, not letting go of Edward. The Earl’s fingers touched the blood on his lip as he climbed to his feet.

  Edward’s body was braced with a violent anger, all his muscles were taut.

  The Earl laughed.

  Did the man have a death wish?

  Edward moved like a striking lion, slipping from her grip. His brother toppled back against the wall, letting it take his weight. “I don’t want a fight with you.” He held up his open palms.

  “God, I should knock you senseless!” Edward bellowed, chest heaving, and hands curled to fists, while she clung to his coat from behind as though she could hold him back.