The Courtesan's Daughter

by Claudia Dain

“Yes, Mrs. Warren,” Fredericks said with the trace of a smile as he backed out of the room.

  It was absolutely delicious. Mrs. Warren, shunning Lord Dutton? How quickly would that bit of gossip travel through town?

  Louisa Kirkland looked ready to pop.

  “More tea, Lady Louisa?” Sophia asked leaning forward. “You look as though you could use some refreshment.”

  “I’m fine,” Louisa said crisply. “Thank you.”

  “I’m afraid we’ve kept you from an appointment, Mrs. Warren,” Lady Amelia said, while casting nervous glances at her cousin.

  “No, not at all,” Anne said silkily. “Lord Dutton, if you’ll excuse my saying so, can be a bit bold and rather a pest.”

  “A pest?” Lady Amelia squeaked.

  “A charming pest,” Anne said with a smile as she stirred her tea.

  Really, Caro had never seen Anne behave so ruthlessly. It was completely delightful. After all, Amelia Caversham had never bothered to come to call before Lord Ashdon had made an appearance on her doorstep, and everyone knew that the only reason Louisa Kirkland suffered Sophia Dalby was for a chance at the Marquis of Dutton. It was all too, too obvious. It was only fair that an obvious revenge be enjoyed by the women of Upper Brook Street.

  “I’m quite certain that Lord Dutton cannot enjoy being thought a pest,” Lady Louisa said, her tone definitely clipped. “He clearly has no idea that his companionship is not welcome to you, Mrs. Warren.”

  “I find that difficult to fathom, Lady Louisa,” Anne said softly as she stared Louisa Kirkland down, “as I have told him most directly that his attentions are not welcome, though I would certainly not imply that I have the right of refusal to the other women of this house. I speak only for myself.”

  “I find Lord Dutton a complete delight,” Sophia said brightly. “Don’t you, Lady Louisa?”

  Louisa, caught out, said stiffly, “He seems a pleasant man.”

  “I’ve always enjoyed his company,” Lady Amelia offered.

  “His uncle was a macaroni,” Mary, Lady Jordan offered in a loose grumble. “Shares that trait with him, I do suspect.”

  Since everyone in the room had spoken to Lord Dutton’s qualities, Caro felt the necessity of saying something of her own on the merits of the marquis.

  “I always thought him a bit spoiled,” she said, and when they all stared at her she added, “though it does not spoil his charm.”

  “Odd that you should mention being spoiled, Lady Caroline,” Louisa said, sitting up as straight as her spine would stretch. “It was extremely generous of Lord Ashdon to give you those earrings, wasn’t it? Especially as a marriage is not to take place. He did give them to you as an engagement gift, did he not?”

  Caro answered as easily as if she had been telling the truth. The situation called for nothing less than hearty deceit.

  “He did,” she said.

  “And he did not want them back when the arrangements were broken?” Louisa said.

  “On the contrary,” Caro said, making it up as she went, “he pressed these pearls into my hand and swore that, upon his very life, he would shower me with pearls until I changed my mind and accepted his offer. He was most ardent.”

  “And most convincing, I’ll wager,” Sophia said with a small smile.

  Caro blushed uncontrollably, which she suspected added to the impression that Ashdon was wooing her enthusiastically. Would it were so. As the situation stood, he was merely bargaining for a mistress. What the dolt didn’t seem to realize was that as a wife she would cost him far less than she was determined to extort as a courtesan.

  That was the strategy as her mother had explained it, and it had made an odd sort of sense at the time, when she was not face-to-face with Ashdon, in point of fact. Facing him left her bereft of plans and of breath and left with nothing beyond an urgent desire to throw herself against his long, delectable body. Ardent, indeed. Ardent was the least of it.

  “Upon his very life,” Amelia whispered, her look gone dreamy.

  “How dramatic,” Louisa said cynically.

  “Yes, wasn’t it?” Caro said sweetly.

  “By the sounds Lord Ashdon is making, I would wager that he and Lord Dutton are learning their lovemaking by the same book,” Anne said.

  Lady Louisa Kirkland dropped her spoon. It slipped onto her skirts and then tumbled to the floor where it gleamed like a weapon against the Turkey carpet, a traitor to her heart. It was in that moment that Caro felt complete sympathy for Louisa and forgave her all.

  The same could not be said for Anne.

  Fifteen

  “NOT at home?” Dutton said to Fredericks. “I bloody well know she is at home.”

  Fredericks, showing his American upbringing, shrugged. It was an entirely inappropriate response for a butler to make. Fredericks didn’t appear to care.

  “I’ll wait,” Dutton said stiffly.

  He was not accustomed to being kept waiting. Nor was he in the habit of being refused an audience, and certainly not by the widowed daughter of a failed courtesan. Especially as he knew that Anne Warren had been doe-eyed around him for months. She wanted to see him; he knew that. This was some womanish punishment for kissing her, a kiss he knew she had enjoyed. He was not accustomed to having his kisses repudiated either. Anne Warren certainly had a lot to learn about how to treat a man, and he was becoming more and more determined to be the man to teach her.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible, my lord,” Fredericks said.

  “Excuse me? Not possible?”

  “That’s right, my lord,” Fredericks said in his particularly annoying American accent. One would think that after two decades in the country the man could learn to speak in a civilized fashion. “Perhaps another time.”

  He was being shown the door? Never, since he had come of age and become the darling of the ton, had Edward Preston, Marquis of Dutton been shown anything less than enthusiastic hospitality. There was clearly some mistake afoot and he suspected it had Ashdon’s name all over it.

  He’d seen Ashdon and Calbourne in Hyde Park, seen them from a distance talking to Lady Caroline and Anne Warren, assumed that Ashdon was holding up his end of the bargain with Anne, and this was the result? Ashdon had mangled things badly, that was obvious. If this thing with Anne didn’t sit up and bark, and quickly, Ashdon could forget getting the pearls he needed to coax Caroline Trevelyan into his bed.

  How had such a simple exercise in seduction turned into such a tangle?

  No woman could walk a straight line into a man’s bed if her life depended upon it.

  “Good day, my lord,” Fredericks said, holding open the door. There was a footman on either side, flanking it. Fredericks, it seemed, was prepared for trouble. Ridiculous. Dutton had never in his life created a scene, and he wasn’t going to create one over a very average, ginger-haired woman of uncertain reputation.

  “I shall call at another, more convenient time,” Dutton said as he walked out, his gold-handled stick clicking arrogantly on the floor.

  “I’ll tell Mrs. Warren to expect you, my lord,” Fredericks said.

  Damn if Dutton didn’t hear a note of laughter in the man’s voice. Impertinent, improbable American. Sophia ought to get herself a new butler.

  THE moment that Lady Dalby’s butler closed the door after Lord Dutton, Louisa Kirkland made her excuses. The three women, with Lady Louisa in the lead, left the Dalby house as if they had wings. Whether they had found out what it was they had come to find was left to speculation. That they had found out more than they had intended was not.

  Anne could have danced for joy. From the look on Caro’s face, Caro was eager to dance right along with her.

  “They’ll be looking for Lord Dutton, of course,” Sophia said, looking out the front windows at the street. “If he’s fortunate, they won’t find him.”

  “Lord Dutton seems always to find fortune,” Caro said.

  “Yes,” Anne said with a smile. “He does, doesn’t he? One wonder
s how being denied what he wants will affect him.”

  Sophia burst out laughing and looking at Anne, said, “One wonders? Oh, come now, Anne. I don’t believe any of us need wonder that. I’m quite certain, and so are you, that he is quite put out.”

  “One hopes,” Anne said with a sly smile.

  “What have we got against Lord Dutton all of a sudden?” Caro said.

  “His good fortune, I should say,” Sophia said, still gazing at Anne.

  “And his never-ending expectation of it,” Anne finished.

  “Are you still interested in Lord Staverton?” Sophia asked, leaving the window to sit again on the sofa.

  “Yes, more than ever,” Anne said.

  Sophia nodded. “You will not regret it. Now, off with both of you. We’re to the Duke of Hyde’s assemblie. Absolutely everyone will be there. Look your best. This will be a very interesting evening, I promise you.”

  The problem was, that sounded more like a prediction than a promise.

  “YOU’LL be at Hyde’s tonight, of course. It looks to be an interesting gathering,” Sophia said to Lord Henry Blakesley in her white salon.

  “Is that why you asked me to come? To make certain I would be at my father’s entertainment tonight?”

  It was just on seven and all the good little girls and boys were tucked safely away, preparing for another evening’s round of fun. Sophia was not a good little girl, and she was wagering that Blakesley was not a good little boy. In fact, she was counting on it.

  “I enjoy your company, Lord Henry. I would have more of it,” she said, walking to the window and gazing out into the heavy twilight. It was a clear evening, the moon bright, a night for romance, if one believed that romance could be contained to a single kind of night. She knew otherwise.

  “Really?” Blakesley said, his golden eyebrows rising just slightly. “The word was that Richborough was your companion of choice.”

  “I am allowed but one?” she said, laughing. “But you misunderstand me, Lord Henry. I am not asking for myself.”

  “Who are you asking for, Lady Dalby?”

  “Why, for you and no one else.”

  “You’ll pardon me, but I’ve found that women don’t think of others. They are simply too busy thinking of themselves.”

  “You are speaking from personal experience, surely. And of Lady Louisa Kirkland,” she added softly.

  “I speak only of myself, Lady Dalby,” he answered just as softly, eyeing her like a particularly interesting snake. Wise Blakesley; he knew not to underestimate her. It was one of the reasons she liked him so well.

  “A man of restraint,” she murmured, letting her gaze travel the length of him. He was a tall man, lean and spare of frame. So many blond, blue-eyed men had a certain vacuous expression that displayed a sort of vapid hope that the world would treat them well; Blakesley had none of that look. He was cynical, sophisticated, and observant. And he was the son of a duke. Really, he could not have been more perfect. “I so like that in a man.”

  Blakesley bowed curtly in her direction and held his tongue. Yes, a man of rare restraint. He would serve very well.

  “Will I see you at Hyde’s?” she asked again.

  Blakesley nodded, studying her through narrowed eyes.

  “Do I frighten you, my lord?” she said on a trill of soft laughter.

  “Let us say instead that I am wary, as any man should be when Lady Sophia looks too closely.”

  “A compliment,” she said, walking toward him, her skirts rustling. “How lovely.”

  “Was it a compliment? I wasn’t certain,” he said, grinning slightly.

  Sophia laughed. “Oh, I do like you, Lord Henry. I think we shall get on very well. Now, how best can we serve each other?”

  “I can think of one way,” he said, letting his gaze travel over her. She smiled and let him look his fill; looking cost her nothing, and she had found that it usually increased her negotiating power.

  “And I can think of another way,” she said, sitting down on a settee covered in white velvet and trimmed with pale blue braid.

  “You and I are of an age, my lady,” he said.

  “Yet I have lived so much longer,” she said.

  “No, you only pretend you have.”

  “Pretend? You have not been listening carefully, Lord Henry. My reputation is built on solid foundations. Ask anyone, ask Richborough, if you doubt. Besides, this is still all of flattery. You and I both know who has engaged your interest. I love being flattered, but not when it is a blatant fiction.”

  “Lady Sophia, there is nothing fictional about my interest in you.”

  “Lord Henry, I applaud your chivalry. In the future, any rumors I hear of you being a cold man I will instantly decry. Now, shall we leave off flirtation and find in what way we may best serve each other?”

  “I’m listening,” he said, sitting on a chair opposite her.

  “I’ll be direct, shall I? The hour is late and we must still dress. My daughter has need of a strand of pearls.”

  Sophia paused. Blakesley crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair.

  “I’m still listening,” he said.

  “A rather long strand. In fact, the longer and more luxurious, the better.”

  “There’s nothing unusual in that, is there? Women usually want pearls, and the longer and more luxurious, the better. The question is why I should give Lady Caroline pearls.”

  “Because, Lord Henry, it will enrage Lady Louisa.”

  Blakesley uncrossed his legs and tipped the chair back so that it balanced on two legs and studied Sophia with cold and cynical eyes.

  “Should I want to enrage Lady Louisa?”

  “My dear Lord Henry,” Sophia drawled, “if you have to ask, you truly are an innocent.” She sighed and shifted her hips on the settee. “I suppose I should also mention that Lord Dutton might find it somewhat inconvenient if you were to give Caro pearls.”

  They stared at each other, the silence in the room full of weight and form, and then Blakesley said, “I’m still here, Lady Dalby.”

  Sophia smiled. Bless Fredericks for his weekly meetings with the other butlers in Town, otherwise, it might have taken her days instead of hours to find out that Dutton and Ashdon had worked out an arrangement.

  “I knew you and I would get on famously, Lord Henry. Now, the most immediate question is, can you have a pearl necklace ready by the time of Hyde’s assemblie?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “A long strand? Perhaps that lovely pearl necklace your mother used to wear?”

  “And if I give your daughter my mother’s necklace, what do I get in return?”

  “Why, you’ll get your necklace returned to you tomorrow, Lord Henry. This is no grab-and-run. This is for dramatic effect. You understand?”

  Blakesley grinned and nodded. “I think so. I’ll have the necklace, but I’ll pick the time. Agreed?”

  “Of course. You’re a man of the world. I was certain you’d know how to best manage it.”

  “Flattery again, Lady Dalby,” he said, shaking his head at her, smiling. “As fellow conspirators, I think honesty must rule between us.”

  “Then as fellow conspirators,” she said, holding out her hand for him to take, “to a successful drama.”

  Blakesley kissed her hand lightly and said with a wry smile, “I suppose I must go home and rehearse my lines.”

  “Lord Henry, you will never convince me that you don’t know your part by heart and have known it for a decade at least.”

  “Lady Dalby, you are entirely correct,” he said, grinning.

  Sixteen

  ABSOLUTELY everyone was at the Duke of Hyde’s magnificent house on Piccadilly, opposite Green Park. Everyone, that is, who was not at the Duke of Devonshire’s just down the road. Those who traveled in Devonshire’s circle, political and otherwise, did not travel in Hyde’s. Sophia’s choice had been made long ago. That the two houses were giving parties on the same night was in the same spi
rit of competition that had ruled them for decades.

  Everyone enjoyed it completely. What else was London but a mass of alliances and changing loyalties? Tonight would only be more of the same. It was the predictability of viciousness and ruination, of engagements and liaisons, of gossip and firsthand accounts that made the London Season a season worth its ruinous price.

  Ashdon, more aware than most of London’s ruinous cost, was still gaming at White’s when the assemblie at Hyde House formally began at nine. He had a pearl necklace to pay for, didn’t he? He wasn’t going to rely on Dutton, especially as he hadn’t heard a thing from him since their bout at Jackson’s. Talk was one thing, but a pearl necklace was quite another.