THE VIKING AND THE COURTESAN

by Shehanne Moore

  She scanned the tall, elegantly appointed buildings, with their brightly lit entrances. Very well, his was a basement flat and probably rented—probably just lived in anyway, whether it was rented or not, in fact she wouldn’t put it an inch past him to have broken in—she still admired the glowing doorway, the pristine steps, his unspeakable nerve. And her stomach curdled that she admired it.

  The gate creaked open beneath her gloved hand. What was going to happen this evening was something she had never done before. Not even with him. Alexa and Chastity thought she had but that was what she led them to believe.

  The truth, the sorry truth of the matter was that even her own damned swine of a husband had found her sufficiently repulsive to refuse to add her to his bedpost notches. Then, of course, he had disappeared. What was she meant to do but swallow all curiosity, all desire, stay away from men? In fact, deny she was a woman in every regard? Seek solace with shoes?

  Well, so long as Cyril did not recognize her, she was about to find out. How difficult could this be?

  She grasped the bell pull dangling down above a neatly clipped rhododendron. The bell jangled and she took a deep breath to mask what rose in her chest. Then, hearing footsteps approach, she took several breaths. Obviously the answer to her question about difficulty was very.

  The instructions she gave to the women who would normally do this, were simple. Strictly Business kept it that way—business-like. Its employees were not sent to frolic. Thank goodness she had set that rule. Perhaps she knew nothing about what went on behind her back and perhaps her employees did frolic, that rule also meant he would not be looking for anything other than meaningless copulation.

  Her lack of experience would pass muster. It was all she required, especially when she wasn’t just here to discover what she had wanted to know all these years ago when she’d knocked on his bedroom door—what it was like to sleep with him. Well, she wasn’t, was she?

  The footfalls grew closer. She let go of the bell pull and tried to still the wild beat of her heart, the beat that sounded every bit as loud in her ears, as these footfalls, the ones that stopped suddenly on the other side of the door frame.

  The mahogany door creaked open.

  “Yes?”

  She squinted in the dim shaft of light. A small man stood there. Not that she expected Cyril to do anything so lowly as answer his own door, she still smothered the sigh of relief.

  “I’m here to meet with Lord Hepworth. Is he in?”

  Deliberately she lowered her voice. When Aunt Carter’s will was read she believed she had squeaked. Then she had almost fallen off the chair. There would be no repeat tonight. Tonight she would be all the things she had never been. Then, afterwards, when a few months had passed, she would present herself in society as his wife, his very pregnant wife.

  Divorce him? How could she possibly do that when they were obviously so happy together? Divorce her? Why, what kind of man would do that to a pregnant wife? Naturally she knew what she planned might not result in a pregnancy, which was why she needed a foundling. He could pay for that foundling too.

  The man’s shadowed eyes surveyed her for a moment. At least she thought they did, she was heavily veiled and the hallway was dark. Couldn’t Cy afford more than two candles, plus the one clutched by his butler? Or was the scene set for seduction? She would put nothing past him.

  “He is indeed at home. Your name, madam, that I may inform him who is doing him the honour of calling on him?”

  Malice fished in her reticule. Whatever card she produced hardly mattered, since none of these women actually existed, the girls always gave false identities. Another of her rules.

  “Here. You best keep it. Memorize it, if you are to be the witness.”

  A horrible thought. She had never done such a thing and now, not only was she about to, she was about to do in front of a witness. His butler in all probability. Her heart pounded. How could she have set such a clause? Her girls were courtesans, she wanted to think they didn’t mind. For the first time she realized it was a presumption too far. When she returned home she really must rethink that clause. Given the grin pasting the man’s sallow face, she wanted to rethink it now. She smoothed the front of her veil, a simple gesture designed to reassure herself she could do this, that his leer meant nothing. No doubt he was entertained and that was why his lips curved and he held the candlestick higher as he peered at what was written on the card. Then he peered at her.

  “‘Cantrell House. Every lady has a separate bed.’”

  Never mind the clause, how could she have given him that card from her days as a respectable woman, running a respectable house for fallen women? Another of her little ideas, one that had taken the last penny of Aunt Carter’s money, reducing her to forming Strictly Business instead. She shot out her hand and snatched it back. “My name is Ivy. Lady Ivy Pilkington. Kindly remember it.” She thrust the card back inside the reticule. “Now, if you don’t mind?”

  “Certainly.”

  He stepped back and she swept into the candlelit hall, sombre as she felt, in fact sombre as a tomb, a little musty smelling too. Dark cerise walls punctuated by the odd gold-framed print and heavy oak furniture. Tasteful—something she had never thought to say of Cyril—although equally, what did she really know of Cyril, or what his tastes were, except perhaps in women?

  The butler’s footfalls echoed across the chequered floor. “Lord Hepworth is waiting in the bedroom.”

  “Good.”

  It wasn’t but it didn’t stop her saying so. The butler had paused by a door at the very end of the hall and it seemed better to say so than appear discomfited, when she knew Cyril was on the other side of it. For the first time in several years she was about to see him. She smoothed her hand over the top of her head, tweaking a curl into place beneath her veil. Actually, her ability to speak when her hands shook was something she quite admired about herself. Not that she planned on speaking to Cyril exactly.

  The butler knocked then he pushed the door open slightly in advance of the voice from within saying. “Come.”

  A chill swept up her spine. What was it? Four years since she’d last heard that voice? Whatever it was exactly, the chill was something she must smother in order to cross the threshold of Cyril’s room. Something she must push all the way back down her spine again, or turn and walk from here. Give this to one of the girls, Alexa or Marie-Jane. And she couldn’t.

  He had a nice voice, rich and cultured, there had never been any denying that. It wasn’t what made her shiver. What made her shiver was the last time she had heard him say that word, come, then she’d stepped into that bedroom, where was it again, that inn in North Yorkshire? A stupid thing to think of now, that she hadn’t been nearly good enough for him, when she had, she absolutely had, and she had a room to enter.

  Inclining her head—it was better than gritting her teeth—she tightened her fingers on her reticule, and walked forward across the threshold. Tall, dishevelled, his dark hair spilling over the collar of his dressing gown—of course his jacket, his cravat, everything that could be removed had been, except for his boots and of course, his trousers. That was her first impression, the one that slammed into her even as she stood behind her veil, fighting for breath and regretting the sheer folly of coming here.

  As if to underline that fact the door clicked shut, mercifully with the damnably leering butler on the other side of it. Although now he was, she must consider what to say to the man lounging against the small oak desk opposite—Cyril never sat on chairs like ordinary men. Had she even thought to coach the women she paid, in such matters, the opening gambit, when they were going to sleep with a man? It came as another shock to her to acknowledge she hadn’t. What kind of employer was she?

  What kind of man was he that he didn’t look a day older than the rumpled, spoilt, arrogant—the indescribably sul
ky but picturesque—brat she had married five years ago. Of course, she’d been meant to reform him and she hadn’t. Maybe that was why.

  “It’s all right. I don’t bite, Miss—?”

  He, of course, was as damned impertinent as ever. Give with one hand, take with the other. Although if damned impertinence meant he spoke first, she would sooner he was damned impertinent. He gestured at the decanter standing on a silver tray to his left.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  A drink? Forcing herself to ignore the sudden pounding in her head—he always doused himself in cedarwood and it always played havoc with her sinuses—she raised her chin. She could have that brandy but in addition to all her other regrets, she regretted raising her chin and seeing further confirmation, as if it was needed, that his tall, lazily arrogant frame, lounging a few yards from where she stood, hadn’t changed either. That the short, tousled hair had a grey sheen was down to her veil obscuring her vision only.

  How was it, when the man lived to excess, there wasn’t even a wrinkle to mar his extraordinary good looks? At the age of twenty-seven? It wasn’t possible. Did he sup with the devil? Was he one of the undead? He was a little darker under the eyes, shadows to match their smudged, presently indiscernible colour perhaps, but that was all.

  “No. Thank you.” Somehow she managed to find her voice, to lower it too. “Strictly Business does not allow it, I’m afraid.”

  “Christ.” He sloshed the snifter of brandy down his throat. Then he gave a satisfied sigh. “They would get on well with my wife then.”

  Get on with his wife? She had never, so far as she could recollect, said a word about his drinking, which would be a matter of some concern for a wife, because she had never been his wife. Not as such anyway.

  She bit her tongue, her gaze wavering a little behind the veil’s gauzy constriction. To say even a word on the subject would not only give the game away, it would suggest she had wanted that right.

  Wanted that right? She supposed at the time she had been curious when he wasn’t just handsome, he was experienced. Once the first shock of Aunt Carter’s dictate had passed and she’d looked across the table the inn-keeper had set for supper, there had been a certain woeful stirring in certain woeful parts of herself. After all, she did resemble these other women who fell at regular intervals at his feet, threw themselves down so he could walk on them.

  At eighteen she’d been impoverished, a stranger to society, an orphan with one season to make an impact—such mounting pressure, she still woke up at night sweating about these awful potted plants she had spent it standing next to, people laughing behind their hands about her name—Malice? Looked it didn’t she? Her lack of fortune, how fanciful she was, imagine thinking anyone would marry her? As for her father? Did she even have one?

  Wasn’t the real truth that her mother had simply taken one look at her and cleared off to hide her moment of degeneracy? So, yes, if she was like these women, was it any wonder, when even a potted plant must consider the man before them? Even when that man had made her childhood a misery, despite Aunt Carter’s remonstrations, that made it all the more remarkable she’d saddled Malice with him? When her mother had flitted in and out of her childhood, appearing and disappearing at will, and Malice’s final, clear memory of her when Malice was ten years old, involved a gardener not the deathbed she’d hauled herself up from? Situation was a funny thing that way when you were placed in it.

  Malice’s new husband had looked indescribably handsome with his bottle green waistcoat spilling down his taupe trousers, his shirt open at the neck and his taupe jacket outlining his magnificent shoulders. At that point in the evening too he had not been rude, no doubt because he had the thought of the fortune he had just amassed to console him, not to mention the women waiting upstairs. So the thought of him making her his wife, that they might enjoy something of a marriage, was not unpleasant.

  It was why she’d found it hard when she raised her head there just now. This would be easier if he had lost some of his picturesque, good looks.

  “So, my lord, I take it you don’t like her then?”

  “Like her? S’truth if I could find the damned strumpet, I might. But I seem to have misplaced her.” He sloshed another snifter. “It’s a common hazard for a man of my standing with a woman like that.”

  A strumpet? Her? Well, that was certainly novel when the most she’d ever had between her legs was a pair of pantaloons, ladies’ones. Drawers in other words. Still she endeavoured to keep her lips curved. It was important she sounded as if she was smiling, not gritting her teeth in rage.

  “Did you ever . . .”

  She bit back the words. Asking him if he’d ever tried to find her was a folly on a par with coming here in the first place. Of course he was going to malign her. Hadn’t all the girls said as much, that men said all sorts of things because of course, they were greatly misunderstood. No doubt it was all her fault he’d gone into hiding for four years with Aunt Carter’s silver teapot and Malice’s twenty guineas. Probably he believed she’d deserted him and not the other way about.

  Why betray any kind of interest in herself when it was difficult enough to stand here? She didn’t want him looking too closely and seeing she wasn’t Ivy what’s-her-name—suddenly she couldn’t remember. Her mind was empty as her heart that this was how this man saw her and because she had not been able to divorce him, it was how all men saw her. “I mean, did you never think of divorcing her before that is? If she has been gone so long and is a woman of—”

  “Who me?” He huffed out an impatient breath. “Why should I when she took off and left me? On our wedding night no less.”

  “But I thought—that is Miss Mallender who runs Strictly Business . . .” Of course Malice never used her own name. “Miss Mallender—”

  “Mallender? Do you know that sounds like the kind of damned name my wife would invent to cover some equally damned misdemeanour? The woman was always an inveterate liar.”

  Malice fought down what sparked in her veins. As a child she’d had an imagination. Yes. Who wouldn’t? Reading was about as much as she was allowed to do at Aunt Carter’s. Playing in the woods, playing with the local children were things she’d had to lie about when she was barely let out of Aunt Carter’s sight, as if Aunt Carter wanted to keep her from the whole world for some very strange reason, as if she was going to vanish in a puff of smoke. Like mother, like daughter, when she thought about it, which she didn’t really. But misdemeanour? Invent?

  He gave a grunt. “Discusses my business with her workers, does she, this Miss Mallender?”

  “Not exactly. Miss Mallender has ethics. But obviously—”

  Another snifter of brandy made its way down his throat. “Christ, another one who’d get on with my wife. Yes.”

  She did her best not to recoil as he stood, moving away from the table.

  “No doubt Miss Mallender told you I did try to find her. And I begged her on bended knees. That was for my betrothed’s benefit. She has a lot of money. I don’t want to lose it.”

  Why wasn’t Malice shocked? Perhaps because she knew that Lady Grace was as likely to hold and keep this man as she herself had been. So? He needed money.

  It would be her pleasure to see he didn’t get it. Why should he? If he had come to her, once in these five years and asked her, she would have agreed to a divorce, for all they were so hard to obtain. That little flutter of uncertainty a second ago, was what it was—the stab of recognition anyone would experience seeing someone who had cast a giant shadow over their life. And he had certainly darkened hers.

  It didn’t matter how many times she looked in the mirror and told herself she was pleasing, her complexion fair—it wasn’t—her eyes bright, her figure slender; her figure, eyes and hair, hadn’t been anywhere pleasing enough to make him want her . . . when he wanted anything.
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  “Well, I am heartened to know you are prepared to go to such trouble.”

  His gaze swept over her. The whole length of her and she cursed herself for speaking so stupidly.

  “Hmm. I wouldn’t call it that. As for my wife, if I tell you her damned name was Malice, will that be enough to convince you of just how badly I need that divorce?”

  What a pig. It made her even more determined not to grant it.

  “You know, you remind me of someone, Miss—?”

  “Pilmer—ing—ton. Pilkington.”

  He frowned. “Which is it?”

  “Any.” It was, wasn’t it? After all she ran Strictly Business. She would see the court testimony was perfect, although running Strictly Business was furthest from her thoughts right now when her palms sweated, the midnight blue dress felt like a cage, and it was vital she retrieve this. “Who I am is not important.”

  “Well, I’m glad we’re agreed on that. But you’re not displeasing, so I will forgive your forward ways.”

  How magnanimous. If she threw the veil back, if she showed her face, the glint in his eyes would certainly vanish, but then she’d never accomplish what she came here to do.