A Pregnant Courtesan for the Rake

by Diane Gaston

  ‘Your husband?’ He walked over to her, crouching down so that she could look directly at him. ‘Your husband is dead, is he not?’

  She nodded.

  He searched her face with his green eyes, so piercing framed by his dark skin. ‘Why did you think I was your husband?’

  Her brows knitted. All she truly remembered was being terrified that this time he would beat her to death. ‘I thought you were going to hit me.’

  Understanding suddenly filled his eyes. ‘Your husband hit you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  One of his arms wrapped around her shoulder. ‘Come. Let us sit in a more comfortable place.’

  She let him help her rise and he led her to the sofa in her sitting room—where her distorted memory had begun. Where he had been so angry with her.

  She wrapped the blanket more tightly around her and tucked her feet beneath her. She was shaking, but not from the cold.

  He left the room, but returned immediately, carrying the tea tray from the bedroom into the sitting room. He fixed another cup of tea for her and handed her the cup before settling in a chair.

  ‘Tell me about your husband hitting you,’ he said.

  She stared into her teacup. He’d not asked her why Duncan had hit her. To ask her why would have assumed she’d done something to deserve it. Which she once thought she had. It had taken her many months of freedom from him for her to realise he would have beaten her no matter what she’d done.

  ‘He was charming at first. All charisma and solicitude. The first person I truly believed loved me.’ She paused. ‘But I was wrong. First he merely complained. Scolded me for something I’d done. Or neglected to do. One day I answered impudently and he hit me. Across the face. After that, he hit me often.’

  He stared at the floor, but his whole body tensed and she sensed anger in him. Finally he looked up at her. ‘Why did you not leave him?’

  ‘How could I?’ That trapped feeling came back to her. ‘We’d left Brussels, marching to France. I had no money. I knew no one.’

  ‘Why not tell his commanders?’

  ‘Duncan would have killed me!’ She hugged herself. ‘He told me so. Eventually he would have killed me anyway. I was merely fortunate that he was killed first.’

  He stared at the floor again. ‘How many times?’

  ‘How many times did he hit me?’ And throw her across the room? And choke her? Goodness. She’d lost count. ‘Most of the year we were married.’

  The disillusionment hit her again. She’d been so convinced that Duncan loved her like no one else ever had. After all, he’d been the kindest, most devoted suitor a girl could want. She’d searched her mind over and over. Had she missed something? How could she have been so thoroughly duped? There had been no love. It had all been a hoax. How could she ever believe in love again? How could she know a man would not change, would not hit her?

  She’d been right to fear Oliver. He’d been angry at her. He’d seized her arm. She had only his word for it that he would not have hit her. He might hit her now if she piqued his anger, but she was not in a panic now, like before, and he deserved an explanation.

  Not that he would believe it.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Shall I tell you about Madame Coquette?’

  He glanced up at her, but his sympathetic expression disappeared.

  And her nerves fired again.

  She pressed her belly again.

  Please move, petit bébé.

  She must not be distracted. ‘I was widowed in Paris. I was alone. No one would hire an Englishwoman for any respectable position. I had no money, no food and was in imminent danger of losing my room. I went to the Palais-Royal...and...and there I met Vincent—’

  ‘Your protector?’ His voice was grim.

  ‘Yes. But not in the way you mean. Vincent preferred men.’ It had been a shock to learn of Vincent’s preferences, but she quickly became used to it. He was not so very different for it. ‘He helped me, though. He taught me to be a hostess and he invented Madame Coquette.’

  ‘The most desirable courtesan in Paris,’ he said scathingly.

  She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Madame Coquette never bedded anyone.’

  He gave a derisive laugh.

  She went on, even though she had little hope he would believe her. ‘Madame Coquette was paid for her time, not for bedding. She never promised to bed the men, only to consider it. But Madame Coquette always found some fault in the men and would not bed them. She did, however, promise to tell everyone they were wonderful lovers so they could save face. That was how her reputation was built. No man ever wanted to admit he was the one she’d refused, so they boasted about her and she went along with it.’

  He gaped at her. ‘You expect me to believe this?’

  She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. ‘No. I expect nothing.’ She had learned from Duncan to expect nothing.

  A part of her yearned for more from Oliver, but that was folly, too, was it not?

  She drank her tea.

  ‘Why would a man not demand his money back?’ he asked.

  She set down the cup. ‘The agreement was very clear. Madame Coquette promised her time, not her favours, but that is not why. No man wanted his friends to know that Madame Coquette did not want to bed him.’

  His brow creased. At least he seemed to be considering what she said. ‘That was enough?’

  She rearranged the blanket around her. ‘Such is a man’s vanity.’

  His mouth twitched.

  She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘I am not proud of this, Oliver, but I did not starve.’ And she’d tried to make certain her street urchins did not starve. ‘Really, though, the men were mere victims of their own vanity. They thought it fine to pay money to bed a woman. And most of them left a wife at home to do so.’ She pulled up her knees and rested her head on them. ‘At least I was not at their mercy.’ She sighed.

  ‘Did no man protest?’ he asked.

  ‘Take me by force, do you mean?’ she responded. ‘Only one. The flash man had to intervene. That became the end of the game, though. I was discharged. By then I knew I was with child, so it would have been only a matter of time before I would have had to leave.’

  ‘How long did you get away with this?’

  Was he believing her?

  ‘Almost a year. I always knew it would end, though. It always surprised me that the men did not complain to the club owner. When he learned I was not bedding the men, he tossed me out.’

  He looked at her with scepticism. ‘You say you did not bed the men—’

  She interrupted. ‘I did not want to bed them. The idea was repugnant to me.’

  In a swift movement, he leaned towards her. ‘But you bedded me.’

  She gave a cry and flinched, curling up into a ball and turning away from him.

  He reached out a hand, but she tried to back farther away.

  ‘I will not hit you,’ he said in a soft voice.

  She realised as much this time, but her body had reacted on its own.

  He leaned back again, but she still trembled.

  ‘Why did you bed me, Cecilia?’ he asked in that soft, calm voice that helped quell her fears.

  She could barely look at him. ‘I wanted to bed you.’

  His expression turned sceptical again.

  How could she explain? ‘In Paris, we were having such a lovely day. I wanted to pretend a little longer.’

  ‘Pretend?’ He crossed his arms over his chest.

  ‘It wasn’t real, was it? That lovely day we shared? It was like a dream. I wanted the dream to last longer. I wanted to pretend for merely one day that love existed and I was worthy of it.’

  ‘But you left,’ he accused. ‘I would have delayed my depar
ture. We could have had many days.’

  ‘No!’ She hadn’t meant to speak so sharply. ‘No,’ she said more mildly.

  At the time it had taken all of her courage to trust in that one whole day.

  ‘I—I left before everything changed.’ Before he changed. ‘Every good thing changes.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Oliver gazed at her wrapped in a blanket, hair tumbled down to her shoulders, the very picture of vulnerability. How difficult it was to believe she could have worked in a brothel. Or that any man would hit her with his fist.

  His head was still swimming. It was hard to fit the pieces of the day’s events together, learning she was a courtesan who did not bed her patrons. A manipulator of men.

  A victim of an abusive husband.

  He did not doubt her husband hit her. Her terror had been too real. No wonder she’d seen through Flo’s excuses; Cecilia had already lived through it.

  He had a strong impulse to touch her. Not only touch her, but enfold her in his arms and tell her he’d make everything all right again.

  He resisted, still reeling from all she’d withheld from him.

  ‘Has the baby moved yet?’ he asked.

  She placed her palm against her abdomen and shook her head.

  Had her frenzy injured the baby? If so, Oliver was to blame. That idea sickened him.

  He rose to put more coal on the fire, to keep the room warm for her. The light from the fireplace made her face glow with golden beauty. He remembered in Paris in his room that same glow on her face.

  These weeks she’d lived with him, she’d been different people. One guarded and remote and untrusting. Another the seductive Coquette who could easily have passed as the most desirable courtesan in Paris. Now, though, sad and vulnerable, she seemed the Cecilia of Paris.

  ‘I do not have anything left to say,’ she told him. ‘You know everything now.’

  He doubted that.

  She lay back on the sofa. ‘I want to rest for a little while. You do not have to stay. I—I’m not cold any longer. I’m not ill. I’ll ready myself for bed in a little while. Mary is not waiting on me tonight.’

  Oliver had given his valet a long leave to visit family. The Irwins and Mary would stay out late.

  ‘Will you eat dinner?’ Cook had left food for them.

  She rearranged her blanket. ‘No, I want to sleep.’

  She clearly did not want him to stay.

  He’d endured many rejections in his life, but none wounded him to the quick like this one. She did not want him.

  ‘I’ll say goodnight, then,’ he rasped, placing her teacup on the tray and carrying it out with him.

  Once in the kitchen, he spooned out some mutton stew Cook had left on the hearth. He sat at the kitchen table, dipping pieces of bread in his stew until it had cooled enough to eat with a spoon and fork.

  The house seemed deadly quiet. Another night he might have gone out seeking some kind of entertainment. He could not remember when he’d last been alone in the house.

  Of course, he was not alone, but Cecilia was as distant as Paris.

  Memories came back to him as they inevitably did when he was alone. Another kitchen smelling much different from this one, a kitchen filled with the scents of exotic spices. He remembered sitting on rich carpets to taste spiced stews made with meat, cream, vegetables, fruit and nuts poured over rice. He could hear his mother saying, ‘Eat more, pyaare bête. Grow strong.’

  He rose and strode to the wine cellar, selecting a bottle of brandy. Finding a glass, he carried both with him to his bedchamber, sat in his comfortable upholstered chair and drank.

  The brandy warmed his throat and spread heat throughout his body. He’d still been cold, he realised. No wonder. His feet were bare and the banyan did little more than cover him up.

  His thoughts drifted back to Cecilia. He went over her story and her telling of it. He supposed he could verify it. He could send someone to the club where she’d worked, perhaps find this Vincent she spoke of. Would that help him believe the baby was his?

  But what did any of it matter? She did not want him.

  He started to pour another glass of brandy, but put the bottle aside. Drinking was not the answer. Nothing would stop the whirling thoughts in his mind, especially the one thought he most guarded against.

  He loved her.

  He loved her more than any other woman he’d been with. He cared about her future and the future of her child. He never wished her to again experience the terror she’d experienced today.

  He heard a door slam and the sound of pounding feet. The door to his bedchamber opened and Cecilia burst in. He jumped to his feet and she ran directly to him.

  ‘The baby moved!’ She ran into his arms and he held her. ‘Oh, Oliver. The baby moved. I didn’t hurt the baby.’

  Neither had he. He thanked God for that.

  ‘I’m delighted,’ he murmured. ‘Delighted.’

  She pulled away enough to look up at him, smiling. How rare it was for him to see her smile so genuinely, he realised. He wanted to keep her smiling. He wanted to make her happy.

  The nightdress she wore was a mere thin layer of cloth, like his banyan, so thin it was as if they were skin to skin. Still, the cloth seemed too great a barrier. His desire for her, held back so long because of the even greater barriers of mistrust and suspicion, slammed into him. He loved her and he wanted—needed—to join with her.

  But he held back.

  The decision must be hers alone. Like it had been in Paris.

  Her smile faded, but she continued to stare at him. His arousal was painfully acute, but he held himself in check. Through the thin material of her nightdress she must have felt it.

  She pressed against him more tightly, rubbing against him. He held his breath to maintain control over himself. She rose on tiptoe so that her lips were mere inches from his, but she looked into his eyes.

  ‘Would—would you despise it if we made love?’ she asked.

  Joy burst inside him. He smiled. ‘I believe I might be able to tolerate it.’

  He took possession of her lips like a man greedy for gold. He poured his need for her into the kiss, as well as his realisation that he wanted her in his life for ever.

  Oliver picked her up and carried her to his bed. When he set her down, she pulled his head towards hers and placed her lips on his again.

  The kiss set his body aflame, but he banked his desire and waited to see what she wanted. If a kiss was all she desired, a kiss would be what she’d have. But she broke away long enough to remove her nightdress. Only then did Oliver throw off his banyan. He climbed onto the bed and lay next to her, waiting again to have this lovemaking proceed exactly as she wished. She sat up only to lean down for another kiss. He could not help himself. He lifted her on top of him, but she did not resist. She straddled him and positioned herself to ease him inside her.

  He guided her, lifting her on his erection and feeling himself slip inside her. This joining was more than pleasure—this joining was a connection, a belonging to another. This joining banished loneliness.

  His need grew even more acute. Still, he strained to hold back, but she took pity on him. She began the primitive rhythm for which he yearned. They moved together with Cecilia setting the pace, moving gradually faster and faster as his need grew stronger. Emotions swirled inside him, his genuine love for her swelled like the urging of his body.

  Thought fled and sensation took over with each stroke. Only the quickness of their breath filled the air. His need grew stronger and stronger still until he thought he’d perish if this exquisite agony did not reach its apex soon.

  Suddenly she cried out and writhed above him. A guttural sound escaped his lips and he erupted inside her, spilling his seed and slaking this intense
hunger for her. Their climax held them suspended in this ecstasy, lasting longer than any he could remember.

  Because he shared it with her, he thought.

  She slid to his side and lay next to him, one leg still wrapped around him.

  ‘Cecilia,’ he murmured. It was as much as he could manage.

  He cared so much for her, could he really burden her with the realisation of his love for her? As in their lovemaking, should he wait for her to show him what she wanted, what she could safely handle?

  He felt her withdraw suddenly, slipping her leg away, crossing her arms over her chest, no longer touching him.

  ‘You must think me wanton,’ she said.

  He rose on one elbow so he could look her in the eye. ‘There is something between us, Cecilia. That is what I think. It was there in Paris and is here now.’

  Her forehead creased in concentration. ‘I do not understand it. But yes, there is something.’

  He dared to draw a finger gently down her cheek. ‘I love you, Cecilia. I want us always to be together.’

  Her head whipped away from his touch. ‘No!’ Her eyes turned panicked. ‘No, Oliver. Do not say it!’

  He felt the distance between them grow once more. He wanted desperately to stop it, to stop the loneliness that would return in its wake.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, trying not to sound desolate. ‘That is what I feel. What I want. I mean no pressure. You must decide what you want.’

  She sat up and hugged her knees. ‘I don’t want to try to understand it. Or to decide. I merely wish to enjoy it. Enjoy being with you. For the time we have.’

  He’d said words similar to this many times to other women. Enjoy it while it lasts, knowing he did not wish the liaison to last. She was reminding him that she would leave him.

  If he could, would he take another month, another week, or even a day with his mother? He’d take even an instant.

  He carefully reached out and touched Cecilia’s hair, stroking it with his fingers. ‘Very well. Let us enjoy this while it lasts.’

  He had no other choice.

  * * *

  Cecilia lifted her head and gazed into his eyes, his lovely green eyes. They could do this, could they not? Enjoy each other for a little while?