A Courtesan's Scandal

by Julia London

  They lay that way a few moments until Grayson smelled something odd. “What is burning?” he asked.

  Kate idly kissed his chest. And then gasped loudly. “The roast!” she cried, and began groping for her clothing, finding only her chemise and his coat handy, which she donned as she dashed from the room.

  Grayson remained behind at first, propped on one elbow, feeling a little unsteady. This was a profound night, one that transcended his previous experiences with women. He’d entered a realm of seductive pleasure he’d only brushed up against before. It was entirely different from anything he’d known with Diana, and as much as he didn’t want to compare the two women, he could scarcely avoid it.

  Naturally, it raised some very uncomfortable questions in his mind. With Diana, the act was always frenzied and quick, and he wasn’t certain they could ever relax enough to simply enjoy one another as completely, as wantonly, as he and Kate had done.

  Now, as he found his trousers and pulled them on, he wasn’t certain he even wanted to try.

  In Kate’s arms, he felt wholly satisfied but strangely vulnerable, as if he was wandering aimlessly down an unmarked path, uncertain of which way to turn, of what he was doing, of how to find his way back to the man he knew himself to be. He only knew that he did not know this uncertain man. He could not be this man, this man who was falling in love with a courtesan.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  When he’d dressed, Grayson followed the sounds to the small kitchen, carrying Kate’s gown and slippers.

  “It’s ruined,” she said, holding up a pan containing something that looked like a brick when he entered.

  “I am sorry,” he said uncertainly. She’d never looked more beautiful than she did now with her hair tangled about her shoulders, wearing a chemise and his very large coat.

  She put the pan aside, and with hands on hips, she surveyed the room. “I’ll make leek soup. Will that suit?” she asked hopefully.

  Grayson hesitated. He hadn’t intended to stay; he was expected at Mary’s at this very hour. He should go, he had to go before he caused any more damage than he’d already done. But looking at her now, his heart still beating strongly from their lovemaking, he heard himself say, “I adore leek soup.”

  Kate smiled with relief. “Perhaps we should …” She gestured between his coat and her gown, which Grayson held.

  “Perhaps we should,” he said sheepishly, and took the coat she’d slipped out of and handed her the gown. When she’d donned the gown, she presented her back to him as if that were perfectly natural. Grayson buttoned her up.

  As she prepared the hearth to make her soup, Grayson went out to his carriage and told his driver to come round for him at dawn. When he returned, he found Kate wearing an apron, her hair tied in a knot at her nape. She had several vegetables before her on a wooden table and looked charmingly domestic. Over her head hung a variety of pots and dried herbs and flowers.

  “Let me recall … leek. Two pounds of leeks, said Squeak. With four carrots said Harriet. And six potatoes said Ignacio, but don’t forget a dash of me, cried Marjoram and Rosemary.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s the recipe,” Kate said with a sheepish smile. “My mother taught me that song to remember the ingredients.” She picked up a knife and began to chop leeks.

  Grayson tried to imagine a small Kate helping her mother make soup. “How long did you say it had been since your mother died?”

  “Oh, she’s been gone quite a long time,” Kate said. “Perhaps as long as fourteen or fifteen years. I know that I was twelve years old when she died of consumption, for my birthday came just before her passing.”

  He thought that was an odd thing to say. She was uncertain how much time had passed since her mother had died? Or if her father lived?

  “It’s been quite a long time, but I still miss her terribly,” Kate added as she put the leeks in the kettle and started to slice another batch. “Is your mother in good health?” she asked curiously.

  “Ah, the dowager duchess of Darlington is very much alive and in good health, thank you.” Grayson chuckled.

  “You’re very fortunate, then,” she said as she gathered more potatoes from a small crate.

  Grayson swiped one of the pieces she’d cut. “Tell me about Mr. Digby and Mr. Butler.”

  “They are my friends,” she said, putting potatoes in the pot. “Mr. Digby and I have been very close for many years. He has helped me immeasurably.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, he taught me to read and to speak properly.”

  “He was your tutor?” Grayson asked, confused.

  Kate laughed. “I suppose one might call him that,” she said. “Digby was very honest with me from the beginning. He worked for Benoit Cousineau, as did I, in the cloth halls of St. Katharine’s. When Mr. Cousineau expressed a desire … a desire to have me,” she said, averting her gaze, “I refused. But Digby made me understand that if I didn’t give in to my lot, I would suffer far worse. And he was right, you know.”

  “How could you believe that he was right?” Grayson blurted, appalled.

  Kate looked at him with surprise. “It wasn’t as if I had a choice. I was not born to a life of privilege. I was on my own by the age of thirteen or fourteen. If I had not done as Mr. Cousineau wished, I would have found myself without honest employment. And had I lost gainful employment, I would have been forced to find another way to pay for my room. There are not many ways a young miss can earn a shilling, which Digby pointed out to me. He assured me I could make a far better and comfortable living as a courtesan.”

  Grayson gaped at her, shocked at how pragmatically she’d spoken. “Surely there was something you might have done.”

  She put down her knife. “What?” When he didn’t have an answer for her, she said, “I am not a proud courtesan, but I am a practical one. When Digby came to my rescue, my virtue had already been taken from me against my will. I have found it easier to go along willingly than to fight the inevitable.” She picked up the knife and began slicing potatoes.

  Grayson couldn’t speak for a moment. He tried very hard to imagine that the beautiful woman standing before him had risen from such base circumstances. He tried to imagine a girl—thirteen or fourteen years, by her own admission—making her way in what was clearly a cruel world. But he could only think of the enormous estate of Darlington Park and the idyllic childhood he’d known there. He couldn’t imagine himself at the age of thirteen having the wits about him to survive.

  “As for Aldous,” Kate said, smiling again, “he’d not like to hear you call him a butler. But it was unavoidable, I’m afraid. The agreement Benoit signed with the prince allows me a butler, a daily maid, and a daily cook. So Aldous became Mr. Butler. But I assure you, he does not fancy himself one,” she said with a laugh.

  “That is painfully obvious,” Grayson snorted. “What does he fancy himself?”

  “A bluecoat,” she said proudly. “He came ashore after one voyage and fell into a spot of trouble. Mr. Cousineau and I happened to witness it, and the ruffians might have killed him had we not intervened. Aldous was badly injured, however, so I had him brought to Digby. Together, we nursed him back to health.” She smiled as she put the potatoes in the soup pot. “I know he feels indebted to me, although he won’t own up to it. But I think he should live his own life again. He won’t hear of it—he thinks that would be disloyal to me. So he stays on, insists that he is quite happy, and that I need him about.”

  “I daresay you do,” Grayson grudgingly admitted, the night’s events still on his mind.

  “Do you know that he has been as far away as India?” Kate said, her eyes brightening with delight.

  Grayson was fascinated by Kate. As she recounted the tales of Aldous’s sea voyages, he thought of the first time he’d made her acquaintance. He’d assumed she’d chosen the path of a highly placed courtesan. As he’d come to know Kate better, he’d discovered she was warm and vibrant, and he�
��d thought that very pleasing in a beautiful woman. He could certainly understand why George found her so appealing.

  But now he was hearing of a woman who wasn’t entirely certain of her own age, of a life carved out of the crowded streets near the St. Katharine quay, of alliances with perhaps the only two men she’d ever known who didn’t exploit her.

  And he thought, with the smell of leek soup and the sound of her lovely laughter around him, that it was very odd the Duke of Darlington had never felt quite as comfortable with another person as he felt in this little kitchen with beautiful Kate.

  He was not alone in his marveling. Kate couldn’t keep from looking across the scarred wooden table to the man who’d just made passionate love to her. It seemed impossible that the Duke of Darlington, with his mussed hair, rumpled shirt, and neck cloth hanging loose down his chest, was eating a carrot in her kitchen beneath drying herbs and flowers.

  She could almost believe the faeries had whisked her away to a cottage in the woods.

  “What is that?” Grayson asked suddenly.

  Kate followed his gaze. He was looking at the marzipan skaters. “Oh … just something I made,” she said.

  His eyes widened. “You made this?” He got up from the table and moved to the sideboard where the marzipan scene had been placed. “This is remarkable,” he said. “I can’t begin to imagine how you did it.”

  “Oh, it is a trifling thing.” So trifling that she and Cecelia had spent hours yesterday making the little skater forms and filling them with the paste.

  Grayson picked up one of the skaters to have a closer look.

  “It … it is my fondest hope to own a bakery one day,” she said. “I’ve been saving money where I can and learning the art of making confections.”

  “A baker!” he exclaimed, casting a warm smile at her. “And how did you learn to do this?”

  “Trial and error,” she admitted. “Digby is a great help to me, of course. He samples everything and has a very fine palate.”

  Grayson laughed, his eyes shimmering. He seemed nothing like the man who had strode into her house a few weeks ago and looked at her with such contempt. “Digby is not the only one with a fine palate,” he said, and popped the skater he held into his mouth.

  Kate cried out and dropped her knife, hurrying to the sideboard to protect the rest of her marzipan skaters.

  Grayson grinned as he chewed. “Quite good.” He reached for another.

  “No!” she cried, and grabbed his wrist.

  “No?” he challenged her, his smiled broadening. “What, then, did you mean for these to be merely admired?” he asked, turning his hand and grabbing her wrist in kind, pulling her into his arms.

  “I thought you might at least admire them for a moment!”

  He smiled and bent his head dangerously close to hers. “I admire you, Kate Bergeron.” When he kissed her, Kate could feel herself melting all over again.

  They never ate the soup Kate had made. They retreated to her private rooms, where Grayson built a fire, and then they discovered each other again. When they had satisfied their physical craving for each other, Grayson insisted on hearing more of her upbringing. In turn, Kate wanted to know more of his life, his family, his ducal responsibilities.

  Grayson was circumspect about it. He spoke of his responsibilities overseeing a vast number of holdings on which so many of his family depended for their living. He talked of how his reputation as head of the family extended to them all, and the pressure to keep that reputation pristine for their sake. He said that to fall out of favor was to see business and social associations flutter away.

  He had indeed risked much to be with her, Kate realized.

  Nevertheless, it was a magical night, and one Kate never wanted to end. And as the first pink rays of light filtered into her room, Kate climbed on top of Grayson, pulling the thick counterpane up over her shoulders. He was sleeping, but when she kissed his bare chest, he smiled.

  “Good morning, Your Grace.”

  “Miss Bergeron,” he said with a yawn and a stroke of her hair, “how do you do?”

  “Have you seen the British museum at Montagu House?” she asked.

  He opened his eyes. “Pardon?”

  “I’ve never seen it. Digby said they have quite a lot of baubles from the South Seas. Aldous said the South Seas are filled with savages.”

  Grayson grinned and kissed her forehead. “A museum, Miss Bergeron? You wake with thoughts of baubles and savages? Surely something far more enjoyable comes to mind?”

  “That,” she said, with all the confidence of a courtesan, “never left my mind.”

  She kissed his chest again and moved down his body, wanting to do the same things to him that he’d done to her the night before. As she took him into her mouth and heard his groan of pleasure, she felt pleasure begin to swell in her body, too.

  Grayson left her shortly thereafter, but not before promising to meet her later. He declared he would not abide another day of her missing the South Sea exhibit.

  When he’d gone, Kate fairly floated about her house; she was all smiles and warmth as she cleaned up the debris in the drawing room before Amy arrived, but she was not so quick with the spoiled meat. Cecelia clucked her tongue when she saw it. “A bit of basting might have helped it,” she said as she tossed it out. “And the soup, miss! The fire’s gone cold!”

  Kate could only laugh.

  True to his word, Grayson met her that afternoon at Montagu House, where the treasures of the South Seas awaited them. They wandered about the museum, going far afield of the South Seas exhibit, observing antiquities and making up stories about them that had each other laughing like children, whispering like thieves.

  It was a brilliant afternoon, marred only slightly when Grayson happened to look up and see an acquaintance. He slyly walked away from Kate, putting several feet between them. It was quite awkward—the gentleman and his female companion clearly understood that she was with Grayson, however she was at such a distance from Grayson and the couple that Grayson was not pressed to introduce her.

  She said nothing of it, naturally, for she’d been trained to smile prettily and accept what was. Frankly, had she been walking with Benoit or the prince, she’d have no desire to meet any of their acquaintances. With Grayson, everything was different. But in that chance encounter, Kate understood that in spite of the intimacy between them, she was nothing to him. She was only a trinket, an exciting affair, and she could never hope to be more than that to him.

  She could dream of it, but she should not hope for it.

  After their visit to the museum, they took tea in a public house. Kate laughed as she recalled how she’d stood before a large pastoral painting, pretending to be part of it.

  “You looked entirely at home in the country, madam,” Grayson said of her pastoral pose.

  “Did I?” Kate had asked with delight. “A talent I did not know I possessed, for I have never been to the country.”

  Grayson stared at her.

  Kate laughed at his astonishment.

  “Do you mean to say that you have never been out of London?” he asked incredulously.

  “I have been out of London. I’ve been to Paris. But I’ve never been in the country, really. I know only what I have seen from the windows of a coach.”

  “That is something we must remedy straightaway. I cannot allow you to have lived six and twenty years—”

  “Or seven and twenty—”

  “—without having seen the beautiful countryside that is England. Not to mention that clean air does a body good. We are to the country, madam at this week’s end. I’ve a small property near Hadley Green, but it is a landscape so beautiful you will believe it is a glimpse of heaven.”

  Kate gasped with delight. “Digby will swoon with jealousy!”

  “Let him swoon, then, for I am taking you where you may be at your country leisure.”

  “Will we hunt?”

  “That depends. Can you shoot?” />
  “No.”

  “Then yes, we will hunt,” he said with a wink.

  She beamed with delight. She couldn’t imagine a finer outing. She couldn’t, for the life of her, conjure up an image of a hunting lodge, but it sounded terribly romantic and private. It sounded too good to be true.

  It was too good to be true, and that made Kate sober.

  “What is it?” Grayson asked.

  “I find it rather sad that it can only be a fantasy,” she admitted sheepishly.

  Grayson nodded and glanced down a moment. But when he looked up, his blue eyes were glittering with determination. “Perhaps it doesn’t have to be a fantasy.”

  Kate smiled. He did not. “That’s impossible,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “What of your duties?” she asked incredulously.

  He shrugged. “Perhaps my duties can take me to Hadley Green. I’ve not been in some time. It seems a review might be in order.”

  He was serious. Kate blinked. “But …” She glanced around them and leaned across the table. “What of the prince?” she whispered.

  “The prince,” Grayson said thoughtfully. He, too, glanced around them and shifted forward, speaking softly. “The prince might be persuaded that you have taken ill with a highly contagious ague.”

  “He’d send a physician.”

  “Not if he believed one had already seen you and declared you in need of bed rest and seclusion.”

  Could they possibly accomplish such a daring ruse? Part of Kate thrilled at the thought of going to the country with Grayson. Part of her felt sick. “I gave him my word,” she said reluctantly.

  “As did I. But we have broken our word, Kate. The betrayal has been done.”

  He was right. She’d broken her word and there was no reclaiming it. What did a few more days matter at this point? She’d spent a lifetime worrying about the future— could she not have this? A few days with Grayson? A trip to the country?

  Oh, but it was a dangerous game she was playing with her heart! Kate knew very well that for the first time in her blessed life, she was falling hard and fast into love. She was leaping off the precipice with abandon and soaring into the depths of it. It was ridiculous, ill advised, and so dangerous to her livelihood—yet once again, she could not seem to stop herself. She had no strength to deny herself this. God help her, but Grayson bewitched her, enchanted her, seduced her completely and she loved—adored—the feeling. The indescribably happy feeling of love.