The Rake's Inherited Courtesan

by Anne Lethbridge

  The desire to plant his knuckles in Garth’s leering face made Christopher clench his fists. He took a deep breath to steady himself, nodded and sauntered off to find his hat and coat. He needed to talk to Miss Boisette about her smile.

  Tonight.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘C ome in,’ Sylvia called out at the rap on her chamber door. At last, the scullery maid with her supper. The only sure way to prevent another encounter with Lord Stanford. She hastened to clear the clutter from the writing desk.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Boisette.’

  She jerked around, hand at her throat.

  Christopher. Why now, after avoiding her all week? ‘Mr Evernden. I’m sorry, I thought you were Lucy with the tea tray.’

  His shoulders spanned the doorway of her small chamber. ‘I am sorry to disappoint.’ The corners of his eyes crinkled as a charming smile curved his lips, the reserve of the past few days replaced by an expression of warm appreciation.

  Awareness of his maleness, his aura of controlled strength, unfurled in a strangely pleasant flitter in her stomach. Warmth rushed up her body to heat her face. She retreated. ‘It is no disappointment. Indeed, I had wanted to seek your advice.’

  ‘Good. I wanted to talk to you.’ He strolled to the bed and with a sigh slouched back against the headboard. His weight dipped into the cream cotton bedspread as he hitched up one long leg.

  Her breath caught in her throat. He looked so comfortable, so right, on her bed. The last place she ever expected to see him. The flitter turned into the wild beating of a bird trying to escape.

  He grinned. ‘Won’t you sit down?’ He seemed unusually relaxed.

  The straight-backed wooden chair at the writing desk offered safety and distance. After turning it to face him, she perched on its edge.

  ‘I expected to find you in the drawing room,’ he said. ‘I hope we haven’t made you feel so unwelcome you feel obliged to hide up here in the evening.’

  Unable to voice her real reason, she avoided his frank gaze and gestured to the bedside table. ‘I borrowed a book from Hookham’s and hoped to finish it before I leave.’

  ‘You are leaving, then?’ His voice held regret.

  She clenched her hands in her lap. ‘I have been offered a position.’

  He nodded. ‘So I understand.’

  The quiet murmur and calm expression gave her courage to go on. ‘The family lives in Wiltshire. There are four children, all rather young. I’m not sure it is exactly what I had hoped for and yet Lady Stanford is convinced it is the best offer I am likely to receive, given my lack of experience.’

  The candle beside the bed bronzed the plains and valleys of his angled face and flickered in his eyes as he shot her a quizzical look. ‘You are asking my opinion?’

  A tremor shook her hands and she fingered her locket. ‘It sounds foolish to hesitate, I know.’ She attempted a bright smile. ‘My only other option is to visit a friend in Paris.’ She’d written to Denise, but she hated the thought of returning to France. ‘I’m sure your mother is right. It is the best solution.’

  His voice lowered, thickened. ‘There is another option.’

  She’d half-expected this, half-dreaded the thought of refusing him. Her hands trembled. Unable to bear the tension of waiting for the words she despaired to hear, she rose and went to the window. Lamps twinkled along the street like diamonds on a necklace. ‘What option?’

  The bed squeaked, then a wall of heat shimmered at her back. His hands, large, warm, dropped to her shoulders. His face, reflected ghostly in the glass, bent close to her cheek. ‘Stay with me.’ His breath tickled her ear.

  At least he had the courage to ask for what he wanted. She could say nothing. Since the moment they had met, she’d denied and resisted his pull. She turned in his arms. Brandy scented his breath and mingled with sandalwood and musky male, a heady combination.

  For long moments, she savoured the feel of him close, the correct words refusing to form in her mind, let alone on her tongue. ‘I must not,’ she forced out.

  His gaze lowered to her mouth and his head angled down. ‘You must not or you do not want to?’

  She stared at his full, sensual lips, glimpsed the dappled forest green of his eyes. Oh, she wanted, but not what he had to offer. He’d splintered the wall of ice around her heart, exposing it, vulnerable and raw, to his power to wound.

  The heartbreak in her mother’s eyes grazed her memory. ‘I think it is best if you leave.’ The words tore her in two.

  ‘Don’t think,’ he murmured and captured her mouth with his.

  The warm, moist touch of his lips branded her mouth. Shock waves of shivering heat tore through her chest and settled deep in the pit of her stomach.

  Drowning in her blood’s molten heat, she clung to his solid form, melted against his hard body, her arms inching around his neck without permission. A hard thigh pressed between her legs and she angled her hips into it. Urgent need pulsed deep in her core.

  His heart hammered against her chest. She yearned to open to him, to trust him. Insidious need had softened her heart and weakened her will. He had slipped past her guard.

  Her lips parted and his tongue teased at the corners, plundered her mouth, drove her to a need so great, she arched her back. His hands ran over her shoulders and down her spine, lighting fires of longing. Her body cried yes in sly encouragement.

  A small sound escaped her throat.

  He cupped her buttocks and pulled her hard against the ridge of his arousal with a soft groan.

  By all the saints, he wanted her, Christopher acknowledged. She haunted his dreams. Warm and soft in his arms, she felt right, perfect in fact.

  Damn Garth and his hints. Had she yielded to him? The thought crashed over him like cold surf. He broke the kiss and closed his eyes against the demands of his body. If he didn’t stop now, he’d take her right here, under his mother’s roof, and be damned.

  Breath rasping in his throat, he grasped her shoulders and stepped back. Her beautiful blue eyes, hazy with passion, stared up at him; her lips rosy and moist from his kiss called him back. He would not share her. ‘I have a small house in Kent, less than a day’s drive from town. We can live there. I can stay at Grillon’s when I have business in London.’

  Sorrow shadowed her face and her gaze dropped to the floor.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  A brittle laugh broke the silence ‘I thank you for your flattering offer, but I find I must decline.’

  She made it sound as though he’d handed her a bouquet of poisonous weeds. Clearly, he’d missed something along the way. Damn the brandy he’d drunk. He recalled Garth’s mocking words. She must want more. ‘You will find me generous and, when we part, I promise you will never have to worry about money again.’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  The flat-out rejection hurt more than he wanted to acknowledge. ‘It can’t be worse than playing nursemaid to a pack of unruly brats.’

  She raised a brow. ‘I disagree.’

  An impression of tears in her crystalline eye panicked him. He never panicked. Damn drinking too much and damn her. One moment she played the Jezebel, the next her repertoire consisted of untouchable ice maiden. He didn’t like either role.

  ‘Oh, come on. We both know you are no gently bred female straight from the schoolroom.’

  She averted her gaze. ‘I am not interested.’

  Suspicion roiled through his gut. Garth had been just a little too smug. The demon leaped out of the abyss in his mind and into his mouth. ‘If you are seeking a man with a title, I can assure you my brother’s no green ’un to be taken in by that lovely face of yours.’

  Her head jerked around. Shock, dismay and something far worse mirrored in her gaze. Guilt.

  Hemmed in by the small chamber, he paced around the foot of the bed, logic slipping beyond the grip of his hazy mind.

  She shrank back as he swung around to face her.

  ‘Don’t give me that innocent look,�
� he said. ‘I saw your true colours in Dover. And I saw the way you smiled at my brother, while all I see are cold stares.’

  Her face became wooden, her eyes remote. He’d hit a nerve.

  With shock, Sylvia heard the slur in his words and saw the way he rocked on his feet. He was drunk. She’d been so pleased to see him, she hadn’t noticed. She swallowed. Men in their cups were hard to manage. Strong and heavy and mean.

  He rubbed a hand over his chin. ‘Sylvia. Don’t hold out for Garth.’ His tone held a warning. ‘He knows I have first option.’

  She gasped. They’d bargained for her between them. She eased around him and pulled open the door. ‘I want neither of you and you, sir, are sotted. You will oblige me by leaving immediately.’

  He stared at her, stark disbelief in his face, then his lip curled in a sneer. ‘Oh, so now you play the prim and proper lady again.’ He laughed, low and bitter. ‘Well, let me tell you, mademoiselle, don’t hold out for marriage. Even Garth knows better than that.’

  Lord Stanford’s proposal sprang into her mind and heat scalded her cheeks. Men only wanted beautiful women for one thing, and when they were satisfied they cast them aside.

  How had she ever thought she could trust Christopher? Her throat burned with unshed tears; tremors shook her body. ‘Get out. I have no more interest in you than I have in your brother.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t know what game you are playing, but the sooner you find yourself a place away from this family, the better for all of us. I knew what you were the moment I set eyes on you.’

  Her heart bled from his unjust words, but she would not let him see how he had wounded her. Shattered pride would not allow it. ‘Oh, and what is that?’

  ‘A trollop.’

  Bloodless, her heart shrank into a cold hard lump. The need to fight back, to wound him in return, straightened her spine. ‘And Lord Stanford is exceptionally generous, I’m told, and very charming.’

  A shadow darkened his eyes from green to brown. ‘Then I wish you good luck.’ He walked past her and closed the door with a violent softness.

  It was the worst day of her life. First the incident with the carriage, then the awful Elston woman had offered her hard work for little pay and now Christopher had shown exactly what he thought of her. He hadn’t wanted to kiss her; he had done it to prove she was the same as her mother. And she was. Just as weak and wanting.

  Damn him to hell. Sylvia buried her face in her pillow and sobbed. And damn Mrs Elston and damn Lord Stanford. To the devil with them all. She dashed away the hot tears running down her face.

  Merde. She would not turn herself into a drudge for a woman she could only describe as a harridan for the sake of respectability.

  In her dreams, she had seen a different life, a comfortable home, laughing children, a man who would smile at her over his newspaper each morning with love and respect in his eyes. That dream would never be hers. She’d always known it. No decent man would marry her knowing her background and the sordid truth of her life in Paris.

  Christopher Evernden and respectability were out of her reach.

  …the sooner you find yourself a place away from this family, the better for all of us. Wasn’t this what she wanted in the first place? To disgust him, so he would let her go? Then why this hollow sensation of loss? She rolled over on her back and stared at the sloping ceiling. Surely she had not expected him to be different? A pang twisted her heart. How foolish. How weak. She had actually started to trust him. Now she must get as far from him as possible.

  She’d take up Denise’s offer and join her in Paris. First thing in the morning she’d leave for the coast.

  Christopher pressed his shaking fingers against his thumping temple and cursed the brandy he had drunk after leaving Sylvia last night. Self-disgust gnawed at his entrails.

  He strode across the library to the fireplace and pulled the bell again. Where the bloody hell was Sylvia? It didn’t take this long to find someone in this damned town house. At well past noon, she should be up and downstairs. It was bad enough that he had to face her to apologise without hanging around thinking about it.

  ‘Kit, old chap,’ Garth said, breezing in and picking up a newspaper. He glanced at the headlines as he spoke. ‘If you want to make Darbys’ place by nightfall, shouldn’t you be on your way?’

  In his black riding coat, skintight buff riding breeches and wearing his usual cynical expression, Garth epitomised the noble English rake about town.

  Christopher nodded, then flinched at the pain the movement caused inside his skull.

  Garth slouched into an armchair by the fireplace and turned to the racing page. ‘Well?’

  He didn’t need Garth’s sharp eyes focussed on him. He’d never hear the last of it if Garth learned what ten kinds of idiot he’d been last night. He glared at Garth. ‘Well what?’

  ‘Why are you still hanging about here?’

  All he wanted to do was apologise to Sylvia and get out of London. The hurt in her eyes had floated before his face from the moment he’d opened his eyes, like an accusing Banquo’s ghost. Shakespeare certainly knew how to portray a guilty conscience.

  And why the hell was Garth so interested in his movements? For months, Garth hadn’t spent any time in Mount Street, until this week. It all came back to the same thing. Miss Boisette. He glowered. ‘I need to speak to Miss Boisette before I leave.’

  Garth looked up from his paper. ‘Actually, I rather wanted to talk to you about that young lady. Something rather untoward happened yesterday.’

  Untoward? Bloody hell. She’d told Garth about his behaviour last night. Christopher strode to the window and looked out. Bright daylight burned red-hot needles into the backs of his eyes. His brother’s flailing tongue could hardly make him feel any worse than he did, but he deserved it.

  ‘Yes,’ Garth continued, ‘she really shouldn’t be out on the streets on her own. She’s far too lovely for her own safety.’

  Christopher swung around and grabbed at the curtain as a wave of giddiness made the room pitch worse than a galleon in a hurricane. He took a deep breath to steady himself. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Frowning, Garth eyed him up and down. ‘Are you all right, Kit?’

  Oh God, not more brotherly concern. ‘Yes. It’s just a headache.’

  A slow smile spread over Garth’s face. ‘You young idiot, you’re jug-bitten.’

  ‘What about Miss Boisette?’

  Garth tossed the newspaper on the table beside him and stretched out his long legs. ‘It was the oddest thing. A footman was pressing her to get into a carriage when I came along.’

  ‘Whose carriage?’

  ‘I didn’t see the man inside, though she said there was one.’

  The hairs on the back of his neck rose. Surely this couldn’t have anything to do with the earlier attempt to abduct her? Could it? ‘A case of mistaken identity?’

  Garth looked unconvinced. ‘She said so, but the lackey was pressing her pretty hard, I thought, and she looked terrified.’

  ‘Why didn’t you mention this last night?’

  ‘I forgot.’

  ‘Bloody hell. It can’t be a coincidence.’

  Garth shot a piercing glance from under his brows. ‘’Fess up.’

  ‘It’s not the first time there has been an attempt to abduct her. Someone tried to kidnap her from the Bird in Hand the night we stayed there.’

  Garth’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. ‘Something you failed to mention.’

  ‘I thought it was a random attack. Some Mohawk looking for a ransom.’

  ‘Who knew you were there?’

  ‘That’s just it, no one as far as I know.’ Christopher strode to the chair opposite Garth and dropped into it. ‘Unless we were followed from Tunbridge Wells. There was some god-awful dandy at the Sussex Hotel. I just didn’t think anything of it.’ Mentally, Christopher reviewed the scene in Tunbridge Wells. He’d been so embarrassed; he’d put it out o
f his mind. He groaned.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There was another man in the lobby that day, a dingy fellow in the shadows behind her. A man very like the stranger at the bar in the Bird in Hand later that evening. He could have followed us. I didn’t recall seeing him at the Sussex until right now.’

  ‘No real reason to, I suppose.’ Garth frowned. ‘Who would want to kidnap a poverty-stricken female like Sylvia Boisette?’

  Christopher raised his gaze to meet Garth’s puzzled expression. ‘Uncle John said she is the daughter of an English duke by a Parisian prostitute. He’d been trying to prove her claim.’

  Garth whistled through his teeth. ‘Which duke? Not one of the Prince’s brothers, I hope?’

  ‘He didn’t provide the name. But it doesn’t make any sense that he would want to harm Sylvia. Half the nobility have by-blows scattered around England. What difference would one from Paris make?’

  Garth stilled. After a moment’s hesitation, he shook his head. ‘There’s been some public mutterings about the morals of the nobility since the French Revolution, especially Prinny. It’s not had much of an effect. The only duke I know who might have anything to lose is Huntingdon. He’s supporting the introduction of a bill against prostitution.’

  ‘How would you know? I didn’t think you cared for politics.’

  Garth brushed the question away with an impatient gesture. ‘Huntingdon has all the passion of a crusader. I heard him speak in the House a few weeks ago. The man positively frothed at the mouth.’

  The radicals would certainly have a field day if Sylvia proved to be the daughter of such a moralistic Tory, but she had been explicit in her uninterest about her father.

  Christopher frowned. Where the hell was she?

  ‘Mr Evernden.’ The butler hovered in the doorway, offering a silver tray with his nose so elevated he might have been holding a week-old chamber pot. ‘The young person is not in the house, sir. One of the footmen recalls seeing her depart early this morning. I found these on the hall table.’