by Christi Caldwell, Eva Devon, Elizabeth Essex, Anthea Lawson
“I got pregnant,” she replied bluntly. “No one wants a mistress who cannot control her own body.” Her shoulders straightened. “And then I committed the second worst sin. I kept my baby.” She cast Charlotte a rueful look. “Once I was no longer a desirable catch, I had to be much less choosy about who I accepted as clients.”
Charlotte swallowed. Of course, the “protectors” had become far less protective. A woman in her mother’s shoes was not elegant, but desperate. Guilt snaked through her.
Her mother’s gaze unfocused. “I didn’t want a four-year-old knowing words like ‘courtesan’ or ‘protector,’ so I spoke in code as best I could. Instead of sexual favors, I offered bedtime stories. Instead of paying clients, a dìonadair would visit.”
“Dìonadair,” Charlotte whispered. “I thought it was his name.”
Her mother laughed without humor. “It was everyone’s name. I picked each man’s best characteristics, and those were the stories I told you. One day, Dìonadair would be a gallant rake, who always invited the wallflowers to dance. Another day, Dìonadair would be a great scholar, with the finest scientific mind in all of England.”
“I meant…I meant my father,” Charlotte explained through her scratchy throat. “I thought the Duke of Courteland’s name was Dìonadair.”
“The Duke of—How do you know that?” Her mother shot up straight, eyes wild. “Who told you his name?”
“Not him.” Charlotte’s voice grew thick. “He’s dead.”
“Oh, love.” Her mother fell to her knees before Charlotte and took her hands. “You were so angry with me for not giving you a father. You thought I didn’t know who it was. But I always knew. It was better that you never meet. He wouldn’t have been what you wanted.”
Charlotte’s mouth flattened. She and her father should have been given the choice to decide that for themselves. But they’d never had a chance.
Her mother gazed up at her, eyes pleading. “I grew up without love. Without a mother or a father. When I left the orphanage, no one cared. No one missed me. I didn’t want that for you.” She gripped Charlotte’s hands. “I didn’t want to give you a father who didn’t care. I wanted to give you a mother who did. I never wanted you to doubt for a single moment that the one parent you do have loves you with all her soul.”
Charlotte’s anger began to dissipate. She supposed sometimes there were no good choices.
Her mother sighed. “I would do anything for you, love. I have done. More than I care for you to know. When you left, I felt like the sun had been ripped from the sky. I didn’t just miss you; I mourned. I knew you were never coming back. Who would want a whore for a mother?” Her mouth twisted in self-deprecation. “All I wanted to be was a good parent. All I ever was, was a disappointment. To us both.” Her eyes shimmered. “No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I loved you, I had failed you from the moment of your birth.”
Charlotte’s throat grew thick. Her mother’s only wish had been for her daughter to love her. To accept her. Her stomach twisted. The very things she herself had longed to receive, she had withheld from her own mother. Shame filled her.
She slid off the couch and into her mother’s arms.
“I do love you,” she confessed as she buried her face in her mother’s hair and held on for dear life. “You’re why I came home.”
Chapter 19
It was four o’clock in the afternoon by the time Anthony realized he had spent all day with a courtesan, doing things no man of his acquaintance had ever done before: discussing the impact of her profession on her life and her child, and complimenting her on what a splendid individual her daughter had grown up to be.
Charlotte glanced his way as he returned his pocket watch to his waistcoat. “Is it time?”
He hated to break up their reunion. “If you’d still like to make the other appointment.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “We desperately need the money. I cannot let my name become synonymous with someone who doesn’t keep her word. Although I suppose that’s an improvement over—” She winced and color bloomed in her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t mean…”
Miss Devon shook her head, her tone rueful. “We have both said plenty we didn’t mean. I do understand.”
“There’s a lady who wishes me to intervene in some row between her servants. It sounds preposterous, but she’s willing to pay me for my insight into the minds of the lower classes.” Charlotte pushed to her feet. “Who knew a humble upbringing would one day be considered ‘expert knowledge?’”
Miss Devon rose to walk them to the door. “Will you come back someday? When you’re not as busy?”
“I shall,” Charlotte promised, her smile shy. “Very soon.”
Anthony kissed his mother-in-law’s hand, then led his wife to the street. Hailing a hack took much longer than he had anticipated.
After glimpsing him check his pocket watch for what must have been the tenth time, Charlotte lifted a wry shoulder. “Fares are less plentiful, and less desirable, this far from Mayfair.”
He blinked, startled to realize how dramatically one’s address changed one’s perception of how the world worked. He gazed at the endless rows of houses just like Charlotte’s. How many of their inhabitants were used to waiting for hackney cabs that never came? The lower classes had far fewer opportunities in countless ways…regardless of the size of their pocketbooks.
Once they were finally inside a hack, he put his arm around his wife and held her close.
She snuggled into his side. “When I return from Lady Roundtree’s, I’ll give you my jewelry. You will be able to bargain a better price with a pawnbroker than I would.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. Your rubies remind you of your father.”
“Not anymore.” Her mouth tightened. “Now they symbolize my mother, and her innumerable sacrifices for me.”
He frowned. “Then why would you want to give them away?”
“Because she’s not the only one who can make a sacrifice for someone she cares about.” Charlotte’s eyes didn’t leave his. “Promise me you’ll sell them.”
Warmth filled his heart as he gazed down at her upturned face. Handing over her most valuable possession wasn’t just a sacrifice. It was trust. She was placing her faith in him not to take the money and gamble it away. She believed he was worth the risk.
He set his jaw with determination. Charlotte was also worth sacrifice. If there was any way to stay out of prison without selling her sole heirloom, he was determined to find it.
Yet she was right. Times were desperate. A pawnbroker’s money wouldn’t solve the matter entirely, but it would help make the balance owed less terrifying.
“I promise we’ll sell your jewels only as a last resort.” He would strip nothing from her if it could be helped. “They mean too much to you for me to pawn them without knowing if I’ll be able to earn them back someday.”
Her solemn blue eyes stared up at him for a long moment before she sighed and returned her head to its resting place against his shoulder.
He pressed a kiss to her hair, in awe that, of all the women who he might have found himself involuntarily engaged to, this was the one he’d been fortunate enough to capture.
What she perceived as her greatest flaw—being born the child of a courtesan—didn’t bear the least reflection on her own character. He didn’t care a fig about her past, or the reputation of her family members. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel that she needed to be someone she was not. Her mother was a delight, and loved Charlotte exactly as she was. So did Anthony.
He froze. Good Lord. He loved her.
A rueful laugh rumbled within him at the thought of an inveterate rogue falling in love with his own wife. Served him right. Now he just had to deserve the trust she’d placed in him. He leaned his cheek against the top of her head.
When the hack turned onto his parents’ road, Lady Roundtree’s extravagant coach-and-four was already waiting for Charlotte at t
he corner. Anthony instructed the jarvey to pull alongside.
“You’ll do splendidly,” he assured his wife as he handed her from one carriage to the other. “All that’s required is your mind.”
“I’ll try not to lose it on the way to Roundtree Manor,” she said wryly.
Anthony grinned. He doubted the baroness had enough brains to note the difference. “Just remember—no matter what price she offers, ask for double.”
After the coach-and-four drove away, the hack’s jarvey looked down from his perch “Be needing my services for anything else?”
Anthony reached into his pocket for a coin. “No, I—”
“There you are!” came a rough voice from behind Anthony’s shoulder. “We been waiting at your door for an hour.”
Full of dread, he turned to see the two ruffians who had confronted him at the Kitty and Cock Inn. He tipped his hat. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. How may I be of service?”
“You can give Gideon back his blunt.”
“I am making great strides toward that task.” Anthony hoped his cheerful smile masked the lie. “Didn’t you gentlemen say I was entitled to a fortnight’s grace period?”
“Was.” The first ruffian bared his jagged teeth. “Better hurry. You’ve less than a week to make good.”
“This oughta help motivate you.” The pockmarked ruffian shoved a folded document at Anthony’s chest.
He smoothed open the parchment as if it contained nothing more urgent than a request from his grandmother to visit her for tea.
It did not.
Fear gripped him when he saw the stamp on the bottom of the parchment. The document was a summons to surrender his money or his person four days hence. This was it. There was no way out.
“Superb,” he assured them. “Who doesn’t love an invitation? I shall be certain to note the date in my diary.”
“See that you do.” Pockmark’s eyes were cold.
Broken Tooth smirked. “You don’t want us to have to escort you there.”
An understatement. Anthony hoped his hands didn’t shake as he folded the parchment. Devil take it! He had to think of something.
Once the ruffians departed, the jarvey glanced down at Anthony with a far less congenial expression. “Got that farthing you owe me, mate?”
“Two of them.” He tossed up the coins and leaped back inside the cab. “Drive me to the Cloven Hoof, please.”
The jarvey sent him a doubtful glance. “The gaming hell?”
Anthony grimly gazed out the window. “The very one.”
He and Maxwell Gideon had once been friends. In fact, when Anthony had first discovered Gideon had become the owner of Anthony’s IOUs to save him from other gamblers’ wrath, he’d believed the man had done him a great favor. Certainly a friend would be more understanding of the vagaries of good fortune. Particularly a man who ran a vice parlor of his own.
But Anthony had been wrong. About everything.
Not just wrong… He had been foolhardy. Immature. Careless. But he wasn’t that man anymore. He was happy to take responsibility. Proud to, in fact.
He just needed more than four short days to do so.
The hack dropped him off at the Cloven Hoof’s main entrance. The nondescript building didn’t look like much from the outside, with its dark windows and old brick. But it was the one gaming establishment in London that still opened its doors to Anthony Fairfax.
He hoped.
Head held high and an easy smile plastered on his face, he strode up to the door and gave the coded knock.
To his immense relief, he recognized the enforcer who cracked open the door. “Vigo.”
The burly enforcer inclined his head. “Fairfax.”
“I’ve come to see Gideon.”
“Got an appointment?”
“Ask him.”
Vigo shut the door without further comment.
His nerves sizzling with unease, Anthony laced his hands behind his back to wait.
This would work. Six o’clock in the evening was far too early for the Cloven Hoof to be crowded. Gideon had to see him.
Whether Anthony could convince him to call off his hounds was another matter entirely.
The door swung open and Vigo motioned him inside. “He’s in the back.”
With a smile far more carefree than Anthony’s churning gut would indicate, he crossed the threshold into the gaming hell.
Low-hung chandeliers illuminated rows of worn tables surrounded by clumps of bright-eyed gentlemen. Dice clattered across hazard tables, followed by the whoops or cries of the spectators. Cards flew across felt green Faro tables before the banker gathered the chips. In every corner was a different game. A different opportunity to win big—or to lose it all.
Anthony’s blood sang from his proximity to the gaming tables.
“Fairfax,” Mr. York called out. “Knew you’d be back. Care to roll the dice with me?”
Anthony’s heart raced at the thought. Every particle of his body longed to do just that. Roll the dice. Play the cards. Make the wagers. But those days were done.
“Some other time,” he called back. “I’m just here to see Gideon.”
“Fairfax not gamble?” came a disbelieving cackle from a vingt-et-un table. “The end times are upon us.”
Anthony sent a quelling scowl in the direction of the voice, until he realized the speaker was Phineas Mapleton, an insufferable gossip not even worth the effort required to frown at him.
“If you’re not going to wager,” came a low voice in the opposite direction, “perhaps you’ll have a drink with us.”
Anthony turned to see the Duke of Lambley sharing a table with the penniless marquess Lord Hawkridge. Anthony had never pictured those two as friends. He supposed one never knew who the other guests were at Lambley’s infamous masquerade parties.
“I’ll stop once I’ve spoken to Gideon,” he promised, “but I can’t stay long. I’ve a wife to get home to now.”
“A what?” Whistles and good-natured ribbing filled the air. “What kind of woman would leg-shackle herself to you, Fairfax? You win her at the tables?”
“As it happens, the lady won me,” he hedged, correctly anticipating the wild laughter and thumps on his shoulder. He raised his voice. “Besides being able to sweep the floor with any of you, Mrs. Fairfax has made quite a name for herself in the arena of advice-giving. If you’ve a sibling or wife or parent in need of a good dose of common sense, my wife’s ability to convince featherbrains to make logical choices is second to none.”
“Explains you not gambling, I’d wager.” Mr. York grinned. “Lord knows you aren’t smart enough to walk away on your own.”
Anthony smiled back. “And here you stand, holding dice in your palm, further making your point.”
“Is she the one who helped Leticia Podmore hire her new governess?” Lord Hawkridge asked.
“The very one.” Anthony frowned in surprise. “How did you hear of that?”
The marquess pulled a face. “My aunt shares her book club. Apparently Mrs. Podmore was too busy boasting about her new governess to pay much attention to dissecting Radcliffe’s latest gothic novel.”
“Then you understand the level of skill and patience required of Mrs. Fairfax,” Anthony replied. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve an appointment to keep.”
Before anyone else could waylay him with talk of women or wagers, he strode to the rear office and stepped inside.
Gideon sat behind a large mahogany desk, reviewing a stack of paper. Inky black hair fell into equally dark eyes. An unfashionable hint of whiskers shadowed the line of his jaw.
He was at the gaming hell at least twelve hours a day, overseeing everything from each ha’penny in the till to the upkeep on the worn green baize of the Faro tables.
Anthony took a seat opposite the desk and removed his hat. “Your ruffians came to call.”
Gideon glanced up. “The lads mentioned they saw you in Scotland.”
“And outside my pare
nts’ home, just a few moments ago.”
“Clever.” Gideon leaned back in his chair. “I’ll have to increase their salaries.”
“Why are you doing this?” Anthony’s fingers clenched his hat. “I could have sworn we were friends.”
“I’d like to think we still are.” Gideon gazed back at him blandly. “However, I didn’t create your debts. You did. Their uncertain nature was causing mistrust and discontent in my gaming hell. I fixed it. Now you owe the debt to me.”
“I’m working on it.” Anthony tried to keep the desperation from his tone and manner. “I’ve managed to earn a percentage of what I owe, and could gather enough to repay at least a quarter of the balance by tomorrow. But it will take months to save this kind of blunt. Not four days.”
“You’re earning funds,” Gideon repeated with obvious interest. “And saving. How unlike you.”
“Twenty-five percent,” Anthony said. “I can give you twenty-five percent tomorrow, and another twenty-five percent…a month from now.”
Gideon nodded slowly. “What date did it have on the document my employees delivered?”
Anthony pulled the folded parchment from his waistcoat pocket with trembling fingers. “Monday.”
“Then I’ll see you on Monday.” Gideon returned his attention to the stacks of paper on his desk. “Bring one hundred percent.”
Chapter 20
Anthony stormed out of Gideon’s office and back into the gaming area. Instead of seeming as nostalgic and cheerful as they had moments ago, the candlelit card tables softened by cigar smoke and desperation were now darkly inviting.
He could never earn back the money in time doing anything respectable. But if he could only win one good wager…
“Fairfax,” rumbled a voice from the corner. “Still have time for that drink?”
“Lambley.” Anthony blinked. He had forgotten about the duke. The allure of the gambling tables had that effect on him. “I have never been in more dire need of strong wine and good company. But not here. I can’t…I have to get out.”
“Very well.” The duke rose to his feet. “I possess far better vintages in my own cellar.”