Piper felt her face go hot. “Excuse me?”
“You’re hiding, Piper. You don’t want a man to see how lovely you are. You make no effort to showcase your beauty.”
That made Piper laugh. “Showcase? What am I—an ancient Peruvian wedding vase? A Cadillac Seville?”
Brenna shook her head, looking quite serious. “You’re hiding behind your incredibly large brain, Piper. You always have. Your intellect is your armor. And frankly, your choice of clothes and shoes seal the deal. You might as well wear a sandwich board that reads, MOVE ALONG—NOTHING TO SEE HERE.”
Piper scowled. “There is nothing wrong with my shoes. They support my natural arch.”
Brenna didn’t take the bait. Instead, she eyed Piper up and down. “And that dress you’re wearing looks like it should have the words YUKON GOLD stamped on the front.”
“Oh, really?” Piper tightened her crossed arms. “Well, at least I can sleep at night knowing it wasn’t manufactured in some Bangladeshi sweatshop by a starving grandmother earning slave wages.”
Brenna glared at her. “It’s possible to be globally aware and dress well at the same time.”
Piper didn’t reply. This argument was pointless.
Brenna sighed. “So here’s the deal, Piper. From what I can tell from this first volume, it looks like Ophelia had a mentor, a woman she trusted to help her get where she wanted to go.”
“The Swan.”
“Yes. She was a successful courtesan living the life Ophelia wanted. The Swan was elegant, independent, beautiful, and, from what I’ve seen of her, damn smart.” Brenna patted the stack of copied pages in her lap.
“What are you proposing?”
Brenna tipped her head and smiled softly. “I don’t want to be unkind.”
“Too late,” Piper snapped.
“I just want you to be happy, sweetie,” Brenna said. “And you’re not.”
That was it. Piper had had enough. “Let yourself out,” she said, jumping from the sofa. She bolted toward her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
Four
Piper hurled herself face-first onto the bedspread and growled her rage into the mattress. Who the hell did Brenna think she was? She’d thought Brenna was her friend! But what kind of friend intentionally hurts you like that? Brenna had no right to force her to confront the truth about her life. It was her life! She could live it however she wished—in denial, in fear, in hiding—or in a potato sack!
Or not at all!
There was a knock at the door.
“Go away!” Piper moaned into the bedspread.
“I just want to read you something.”
“No.” Piper raised her head. “Leave me alone! I don’t want to be some kind of science experiment!”
“It’s from Volume Two,” Brenna said.
“Whatever it is, I’ve read it a million times. Now go!”
“But have you ever really listened to it? Do you get what Ophelia is telling you?”
“She’s not telling me anything!” Piper yelled. “She’s dead!”
“Fine. But when this girl was alive, she was alive.”
Piper grabbed a tissue from her nightstand and blew her nose. Brenna must have misinterpreted this act of personal hygiene for her cue, because she began to read.
I walked boldly in the new flesh born from Sir’s wicked lessons, and my every motion captivated the men around me. I felt sensually naked in my revealing gown, yet the power of my laugh, of my smile, of the way I stroked my fingers artfully down my neck intoxicated me!
Piper shut her eyes. “Oh, for the love of God,” she mumbled.
Brenna continued.
I had expanded into every inch of my flesh, inhabiting my entire body, mind and soul. I was now deliciously familiar with every inch of my skin. The walls around my most secret thoughts had been stormed and I knew my own darkness and felt no shame. I answered to no one and nothing but my own dreams and desires and wildest fantasies.
Piper stood up. She sniffed. She took a few steps toward her closed bedroom door.
I could scarcely remember the girl who had locked herself away in fear. I was now the artist of my own fate and I would paint it in blinding colors. The Blackbird had wings. Poor naïve, powerless Ophelia Harrington was no more.
I did not miss her.
Piper flung open the door. When she spoke, she heard her voice shake with anger. “You want me to enroll in the Ophelia Harrington School for Sluts, where you’ll be the Swan to my Blackbird? Is Mick going to be my Sir?”
Brenna pursed her lips. “The advice in these journals is timeless, Piper. The human spirit—not to mention the human sexual response—hasn’t changed much in two hundred years. What worked for Ophelia in 1813 will work for you today.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that you use this volume as a guide to self-discovery, and if you manage to learn a little something about how to seduce Mick Malloy along the way, then hey—great. Though I have no idea where a girl can get a peacock feather in this town.” Brenna smiled.
Piper didn’t find it amusing.
“We’ll take a two-pronged approach,” Brenna said, grasping Piper’s hand and dragging her back to the sofa. She patted the cushion and got them settled. “The Seven Sins of the Courtesan will become the guidebook for exploring your inner sexuality. I’ll handle your outer metamorphosis. You’ll find that one will facilitate the other.”
Piper laughed bitterly. “What, you’re going to give me pop quizzes in the morning and let me borrow your slinky dresses at night? How about your high-heeled boots that do nothing but cut off the blood to your toes?”
Brenna shook her head soberly. “Your feet are too small for my boots and your ta-tas would pop the seams on my dresses.”
Piper blinked in surprise. Her feet were daintier than Brenna’s? Her body was more voluptuous? But how could that be?
“I can help you if you’ll let me. Hair, makeup, fashion—attitude!” Brenna smiled. “God, Piper! For ten years now I’ve been dying to do this, but I never thought the time was right or that you’d be even slightly open to the idea. Until right this second.”
Piper sat frozen on the sofa, her chest flooding with heat and her limbs tingling with life. Everything Brenna had said was true. Piper had been in hiding. She’d been afraid of what she might find, how she might be forced to face who she was deep down—a sexual being, a woman who really, really wanted a man. But not just any man. She wanted Mick Malloy. She always had.
And now she was turning thirty.
Fine. Fine. Fine! She was open to the idea. She admitted it. Ophelia Harrington’s diaries had kicked down the padlocked door to that part of her, and when the door opened, Mick stood waiting. Brenna was merely offering to drag her over the threshold.
“We’ll take it slow,” her best friend said, smiling. “If anything makes you uncomfortable, we’ll adjust the plan.”
Piper squinted at her. “You already have a plan? It’s barely been an hour.”
Brenna laughed. “I’ve had a plan from the first day I met you.”
“I feel cheap.”
Both of them burst out laughing, and Brenna brought her forehead to Piper’s. They smiled at each other.
“We’ll start tomorrow.”
“I have to work tomorrow.”
“Maybe you’ve got a horrible case of salmonella.”
“Maybe botulism.”
“No! Ink poisoning. We don’t even have to lie!”
They laughed louder, then Piper felt herself collapse into Brenna’s arms, where she began to sniffle.
“It’s going to be okay, Pipes,” Brenna whispered.
Piper nodded through her tear-damp hiccups.
“But here’s the thing.” Brenna gently pushed Piper away to gaze seriously into her face. “Once you know what’s possible for you, you can never go into hiding again. So you have to be sure.”
Piper’s spine straightened. Those were the
exact words Sir had spoken to the Blackbird, just before he patted her bottom and sent her out into the world.
She took a huge breath and pointed her chin high. She hiccupped just once more. It was the strangest thing, but it felt as if Ophelia herself were whispering the words needed directly into her ear.
“I know what I want,” Piper said. “I want to start living.”
It took another couple hours to get Brenna out of her apartment, but the two of them had accomplished quite a bit in that time. First, Piper e-mailed in sick for the rest of the week. Then Brenna began calling in favors from adoring men in a variety of disciplines—hair stylists, dermatologists, personal shoppers, dentists, and ophthalmologists. Before she knew it, Piper had her whole week of vixenification mapped out for her. If what Brenna said were true, she would emerge from her cocoon next week, not a Blackbird, but a butterfly.
Eventually, Piper found herself tucked in between her sheets, Miss Meade curled into a ball at her ankles. As exhausted as she was, she was aware of something tugging at her mind. It was the memory of something Ophelia had written. Piper knew she had to read it once more before she fell asleep.
She wouldn’t lie to herself. This had nothing to do with scholarship and everything to do with preparing herself for what lay ahead.
Piper found the passage almost immediately.
I felt the bindings of my life slip away. My body grew light and my pulse quickened. I breathed as if I had never breathed before.
The dizzying expanse of a limitless future stretched before me. The possibilities, the pitfalls, the delights and the dangers. I cannot do it, I thought. I am afraid. I am weak. I will not survive fluttering on the tip of a limb in the midst of a storm.
Then it struck me that although it was possible that I might perish in the wild ride upon the winds of change, it was a dead surety that I would expire sooner in my sheltered cage.
Without having had nearly as much fun.
Five
London, 1813
In the odiously decorated dining room of my odious relations
I, Ophelia Harrington, am not usually an impulsive person. In fact, I pride myself on my logic and forethought.
All of which made it very difficult to understand why I’d just thrown a platter of beef across the dining room.
Every person present, both those at the table and those serving them, stood frozen in shock at my actions. Every eye followed the brown, oily juices as they dripped down over the patterned wallpaper. One last slice of beef, more stubborn than the rest, finally gave up its grip. It slithered down the wall to join the others now jumbled on the floor amid the shards of blue-patterned china.
That was going to leave a stain.
I bit my lower lip, trying to keep the hysterical laughter hidden deep where it belonged. Then, pair by pair, all eyes turned back to stare at me. The giddy explosion of absurdity faded, leaving me with nothing in my belly but fury and a little nauseous regret.
I lifted my chin and gazed back at my aunt and uncle. Uncle Webster’s jowly face was growing redder by the moment. He tossed his napkin down onto his plate in disgust. “Ungrateful girl!” He stood, then turned his glare upon his wife. “She’s your responsibility. You talk some sense into her! I’m going to my club, where the food stays on the table and not on the bloody wall!”
With a last growl at the forlorn pile of juicy rare beef on the carpet, Uncle Webster strode from the room.
Aunt Beryl fixed me with a baleful gaze. “Idiot child!”
I folded my shaking hands before me and tried to keep my fair skin from blushing with shame. It was no use, of course, but I refused to give my flaming cheeks any notice.
“Aunt, I am not a child. I am eighteen and I am legally allowed to choose my own husband.” Or not at all, but best not to say that out loud. Boiled potatoes might not be much of a dinner without the beef, but they would make handy projectiles and I had never seen my aunt so enraged.
Her cold eyes narrowed. “You are our ward. You will do as you are told and you will wed Lord Malcolm Ashford!”
“But I do not know him!”
My aunt waved a hand in dismissal. “Everyone knows him. He’s rich and well-born and his holdings will turn your uncle’s business prospects around by summer’s end!”
The truth was out. My belly chilled at that pragmatic reasoning. There would be no appealing to my guardians’ finer feelings, not where Uncle Webster’s business was involved. My uncle liked to think of himself as a gentleman, but he had invested every penny of his expectations in trade, hoping to make himself wealthy as well. Aunt Beryl kept a fine and impressive home, at least to the outside observer, but she ran it on a narrow budget. Her industry would have been admirable if not for the fact that it was spent entirely on keeping up appearances in Society. Furthermore, she and Uncle Webster were unkind and exacting employers who paid their staff late if at all.
It was probably a good thing that my own small inheritance was untouchable by anyone but myself.
Unless I wed. In which case it would of course become the property of my husband.
But if this suitor was so very wealthy, what did he need with my poor little six hundred pounds? That would scarcely run a grand house for a year!
“Aunt, don’t you think I should at least meet him first? After all, I am English, not some daughter of India! No one here weds sight unseen!”
Aunt Beryl, who couldn’t find India on a map, scowled blackly. She did not appreciate having her ignorance pointed out to her.
I worried. My relatives were not highly educated people, at least not by my standards. They knew nothing of the world past their social ambitions and the acquisition of wealth. There was no philosophy spoken in these halls, nor any intellectual conversation at all! Gossip and trade were the only approved topics, and neither interested me whatsoever.
How could they ever understand that I had dreams of a much larger sort of life?
* * *
Later that evening, having locked myself away in my room, I dug out my hidden trove of sweets for my dinner. However, I could scarcely touch them for the roiling in my belly.
Instead, I paced my chamber in fury and the beginnings of serious fear. Could I truly be so helpless? I had never thought of myself so, yet in this new world, my world since the passing of my beloved parents two years past, I was no one. I had a pretty face and a figure somewhat more bountiful than was fashionable. My mind meant nothing in the ranking of my value.
So this was all that I was to them, a commodity in their hands, a mere offering to be sacrificed on the altar of their social greed.
I ached for my parents, for the love and support and respect I had always known.
They were not here. They would never be here again. I was entirely alone.
“A commitment once made cannot be broken, sir!”
The gruff voice from down on the lawn drew me to my window. Bracing my hands upon the sill, I leaned as far out as I could. Below me, on the walk up to the steps of the house, I could see a man, large and looming, facing down my shorter, stouter uncle.
The stranger continued, his tone arch and scathing. Although his hat shielded his features, I hated him quite completely for his voice alone. “I do not understand your difficulty, Harrington. I made careful selection based on appearance and associations. I told you what I wanted. You promised to deliver her, willing and happy, to my hand. I have already spoken to the bishop. I was prepared to post the banns in a matter of weeks!”
My breath left me. Weeks?
“You have to give us more time!” Uncle Webster insisted. “The girl will soon come around. I shall make sure of it!”
That voice again, clipped and scornful: “Can you not keep your own house, sir? I must wonder at your inability to manage such a simple transaction.”
I closed my eyes against the blow. Transaction.
If I had held any romantic hope that this fellow actually loved me from afar, this cleared up that little misconception q
uite nicely. I was a purchase. I was a horse added to his stables, a painting added to his gallery. I was a thing, to be bought and sold.
There were more words between them but with their voices lowered in more peaceful consultation, I could not hear them, no matter how I dangled my upper body from the window. Agreeing on the price, perhaps? Asking for the groom to check my teeth? Would I be weighed and measured, placed on the scales opposite a pile of gold?
Helpless fury overwhelmed me. I ought not to be in this position! My parents would be appalled and revolted if they lived. Of course, if they lived, then I would not reside in this house with these people who thought I should behave like an ordinary girl.
I knew what my relations wanted of me, but I had not been brought up to be obedient and unthinking. My mother, an unrepentant bluestocking, had wed quite late to a quiet bookish man, a philosopher and scholar, who found her unconventional notions delightful and stimulating. I was raised on freedom of thought and lively debate. If I wished to refuse my supper and only eat my cake, I might be allowed if I was able to put forth a case convincing enough to either make my parents laugh or even to begin a discussion between them so distracting that they took no notice of my sugar-coated fingertips.
Perhaps it was no mystery that my relatives found me to be foreign and bizarre. Now, alone in my room, alone in my heart, even I wavered. I did not fit in to this world. I did not understand why I should hide behind my fan. I could not conceive of shutting my lips and closing my mind.
Perhaps there was something wrong with me, not with them. I seemed to be the only one who did not wish to play by these rules …
Or was I?
There were women in the world, beautiful, elegant creatures who slipped through the rigid stratifications of Society like silk-clad wraiths. They had no husbands, no fathers, no high-handed uncles who sought to twist their lives into restrictive knots.
The first time I ever saw the Swan was at Mrs. H____’s musicale. It was quite an eclectic gathering, daringly including those who were rising in Society as well as those who fell just a bit outside it. To welcome a notorious courtesan to one’s home was entirely outré.
A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man Page 5