Lord of Pleasure

by Delilah Marvelle

  Caldwell pointed at him. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ll have you know that this neighborhood is still very respectable.” He lowered his hand and coolly went on, “Though I should probably explain a few things before we go inside.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Caldwell cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “About a week ago, my uncle suggested I come here and meet with a renowned courtesan whom he felt could offer me a solution with regard to a problem I was having. Mind you, my uncle is madly in love with this woman and claims that no other person in all of England, or France for that matter, has more experience in matters of sex and relationships than she does. I was hesitant, but eventually met with her and found myself rather impressed by what she had to offer.”

  Alexander lowered his chin and continued to stare him down. The man wasn’t making any sense. At all. From his own experience, Miss Charlotte was hardly an expert. But that was beside the point. “And what exactly does any of this have to do with me? Or the wager, for that matter?”

  Caldwell leaned far forward and looked down at his gloved hands, keeping his gaze there. “I included this outing as part of my winnings knowing that most likely you wouldn’t come under any other circumstance.”

  “Hell, this really doesn’t sound promising.”

  Caldwell winced. “Yes, yes, I know. I…You see…she’s been assisting me. With a particular secret I’ve been keeping.”

  Alexander’s brows rose as he sat farther back against the seat of the carriage. Secrets were never a good thing. Especially if Caldwell intended to involve not only him in it but a courtesan. And not just any courtesan. But, apparently, the delectable Miss Charlotte. My, how he had misread that one. “And?” he impatiently prodded, sensing Caldwell would only continue speaking in these annoyingly cryptic sentences.

  “And,” Caldwell went on, “she suggested I bring you along. Seeing how it involves you.”

  Alexander pulled in his chin. Oh, bloody hang it, no. Considering how Caldwell’s own father, who loved both men and women alike, had died in a sexual escapade gone wrong, Caldwell’s little confession about a secret and how it somehow involved him and Miss Charlotte shouldn’t have surprised him. And yet it did. And how.

  As silence continued to hang thick between them, fury, unlike anything he’d ever felt in his entire life, seized Alexander. He could easily accept Caldwell having a taste for all things male—though not his things—but he hadn’t damn well saved Miss Charlotte from himself to merely pass her off to the likes of Caldwell, his uncle, and their so-called problems. Christ, the very thought of those two taking liberties with the poor woman made him want to up and—

  Alexander jumped up from his seat, raised a clamped fist, and punched Caldwell in the jaw, snapping his blond head back. Caldwell’s top hat flew off and tumbled to the side. Not feeling any better, Alexander hit him again. In the nose.

  “Oww!” Caldwell winced as he grabbed hold of both the side of his face and his nose. He glared up at Alexander as if he meant to return the favor. “Sod you! What the devil did you do that for?”

  Alexander towered over him and hissed out the remaining breath trapped in his lungs. “Aside from wanting to involve me in some Goddamn team sport, what sort of disgusting liberties are you and your uncle taking with this poor woman? The sort your father took with all of his flaps?”

  “What? No! Are you daft, man?” Caldwell shoved him hard, throwing him back onto the seat. He paused, then scowled as his tongue rolled around on the inside of his cheek. “Christ, I think I lost a tooth.” He searched the inside of his mouth with his tongue. “Ah, no. There it is.”

  A bright line of blood made its way from Caldwell’s nose down to his shaven chin. Caldwell frowned and swiped at the streak, smearing it. He noted the stain on the tips of his gray-gloved fingers and half nodded. “Thank you. I suppose I deserve this. Actually, no. I know I deserve this.”

  The bastard was actually admitting to wrongdoing. “So how long have you two been pumping her? And how many others have you involved?”

  Caldwell’s eyes widened. “Whomever are you referring to?” he cried in obvious bewilderment and horror.

  Oh, for God’s sake! “Her!” Alexander violently pointed to the townhouse beyond the carriage window, unable to say her name.

  Caldwell glanced toward the townhouse. He paused, let out a harsh laugh, then leaned over him, snapping back his own gloved fist. He shook it for emphasis. “You and your fancy ideas.”

  He lowered his fist and shook his head in disgust, swiping at his bloody nose again. “I’ll forgive you this once, Hawksford. But only because I had it coming. Now come along. We’re late.”

  “Late?” Alexander echoed.

  “Yes. Late. Follow me.” Snatching up his top hat from off the floor, Caldwell shoved open the door and without waiting for the steps to be unfolded jumped down and called out to his driver, “Two hours!”

  The man meant to call on Miss Charlotte for two hours? Yes, that could only mean one thing. And it was anything but respectable.

  Alexander narrowed his gaze as Caldwell marched up the stairs of number 11, smacked his top hat back onto his blond head, and twisted the door bell.

  The relentless bastard. He was not getting involved in whatever escapade the man had in mind. Although he was not about to let poor Miss Charlotte become a victim of it, either.

  Alexander launched himself out of the carriage and with only a few quick strides moved up the stairs. Just as he was about to grab the back of Caldwell’s coat and drag him back to the carriage where he belonged, the door swung open and the butler stepped out.

  Alexander froze and momentarily wondered how elaborate a scene he wanted to make in public.

  The butler blinked and stared at Caldwell for a prolonged moment. He cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Lord Caldwell, but there appears to be a bit of…” The butler gestured toward his own weathered and bulbous nose with his gloved finger. “Blood there.”

  Caldwell glared back at Alexander and yanked out a white handkerchief. He dabbed at the small line of blood, folded it back up, and stuffed it into his waistcoat pocket. “Yes. I’m afraid someone mistook me for the Marquis de Sade. Happens all the time. Even though the bastard has been dead since 1814.”

  Alexander rolled his eyes, knowing Caldwell was referring more to his own father than to de Sade. For as fate would have it, both deviants had died in the same exact year.

  In the end, perhaps he had overreacted. What did he care who Miss Charlotte associated with or why? He already had more than enough females in his life to worry about without adding one more to the list. And as for Caldwell needing to disclose his secret…uh, no.

  It was time to go.

  Alexander stepped up onto the landing beside Caldwell and clapped him gently on the back. “So sorry. I really should not have overreacted the way I did. And though I fully support whatever path you choose, with whichever sex you choose, I am simply not that sort of a friend, and I hope you understand.” He paused, quickly removed his hand, and pointed straight at the carriage behind them. “And I should go.”

  Caldwell jerked toward him, his expression lethally serious beneath the rim of his top hat. “Don’t flatter yourself, you asshole. Even if I was that sort—which I’m not—you’d hardly be worth my time. Now I’m asking you to be patient with regard to this situation. I know none of this makes sense. Hell, it still doesn’t make any sense to me, either. But it’s already complicated enough without you turning it into bleeding Waterloo.”

  Alexander’s brows rose. By God. What sort of trouble was the man in? Caldwell only referenced Waterloo when things were downright bad. That, coupled with the urgency in both Caldwell’s tone and dark eyes, was what ultimately kept Alexander from leaving. “All right. I’ll stay.”

  Caldwell hissed out a breath, withdrew his calling card from his breast pocket, and snapped it out toward the butler. “We’ve an appointment.”

  The portly, gray-haire
d man observed them rather dubiously from beneath the thick, fuzzy tufts of his brows, then reached out and took the card. After reading it, he glanced over at Alexander, then averted his gaze back to Caldwell.

  The servant cleared his throat again. Only this time a bit more theatrically. “I apologize, but the appointment is set for only one. No one else, no matter their esteemed lineage, is permitted to enter at this time.”

  “Mr. Hudson.” Caldwell stepped toward the butler. “Madame de Maitenon and I have an agreement. Surely, she must have informed you of it.”

  Alexander’s brows came together. Madame de Maitenon? Miss Charlotte wasn’t French, was she? He paused. What if Miss Charlotte no longer lived here? Actually, what if Miss Charlotte had never lived here? Oh hell. That would explain all the returned trunks. Aside from that corset he sent, that is. That thing somehow never did make it back.

  The butler glanced over his shoulder, toward the open door behind him, then quickly turned back to them, nobly setting his plump, aged chin. “Forgive me, Lord Caldwell, but I don’t recall a thing.” He lowered his chin down onto his stiff collar, grouping the loose folds of skin beneath his neck all into one, and whispered, “Though a few pounds might help.”

  “Pounds?” Caldwell muttered something beneath his breath, dug into his inner coat, and withdrew his leather satchel. “Whatever happened to a man asking for a shilling?” Yanking out several coins, Caldwell tucked the satchel back into his coat pocket and held out the coins for the man. “Here. Take it, you mercenary. We’ll talk about this later.”

  The butler paused, then brought up a gray-gloved hand and rubbed his fingers together. For more.

  Caldwell grumbled, “I must be mad,” then pulled out the satchel and shoved it all at the man. “Here, you bloody thimblerigger. Now let us in! Thanks to you, all of London already knows we’re here.”

  The butler tsked. “Such language.” The old man peered past them and toward the street. Seeing no one, he stuffed the leather satchel into the pocket of his dark blue livery. He then glanced expectantly at Alexander, turned up his palm, and held it out.

  Since when were cards collected at the door? Alexander hesitated and eyed Caldwell.

  Caldwell turned and delivered him a pointed stare.

  Alexander knew that look all too well. He called it the Waterloo stare. When a British soldier desperately needed Prussian reinforcement. And he, of course, was the Prussian reinforcement.

  Alexander blew out a breath, dug into his own breast pocket, and withdrew his calling card. “Exactly how much will it cost me to get in?”

  “Not a groat.” The butler plucked the card out of his hand and stepped back, opening the door all the way as he gestured for them to enter. “I was, after all, born a gentleman, with a prayer book in one hand and a drink in the other.”

  “Yes, and clearly the drinking hand is getting the better of you.” Alexander removed his hat and stepped in first. As if being first would somehow give him a claim to the mistress of the house. That is, if she even lived here anymore.

  He paused when he reached the middle of the hall foyer. The sweet smell of wine teased his heightened senses. The rich, playful scent did not match the memory of the simple penny soap he’d last breathed upon her skin. Whatever happened to Miss Charlotte? He didn’t know why, but his stomach actually sank at the thought that he had somehow failed her. Had left her to a fate she did not deserve.

  Caldwell paused beside him as the entrance door closed, darkening the quiet foyer. “You owe me money. Perhaps even a new nose.”

  “I owe you nothing. You’re fortunate I’m still standing here. This is what I call a true testament to our friendship.”

  “Yes, and I suppose I should expect a blow to my bollocks next.”

  A clock chimed thrice in the distance, somewhere upstairs, then clicked back into silence.

  Alexander slowly turned toward the adjoining room, not knowing what to expect next. He leveled his gaze at the room.

  A single piece of furniture, a gilded chair, was set in the middle of the parlor. And nothing else. There were no carpets or side tables or vases or lamps.

  Instead, the fuss had been put into the expanse of the brocaded, coral silk walls. Large, gold-framed paintings of Greece, the Parthenon, various Greek temples, as well as an array of naked Greek goddesses that ranged from Aphrodite to Athena, graced every inch of the walls.

  To be sure, it was a bleeding Greek temple.

  Alexander blinked as he stepped toward the room’s doorway, noting some of the other contents in the room. In particular, four life-size marble statues of well-muscled, nude men—with absolutely no fig leaves covering the lower regions. All of them had been strategically placed about the parlor.

  He honestly didn’t know what was more astounding, the nudity or the fact that fashion accessories had been strategically placed on every one of those statues so as to better emphasize their sculpted assets.

  One wore a beaver hat angled over his left eye. Another wore a silk red cravat meticulously tied mail-coach style about his neck. One had an unbuttoned evening waistcoat, displaying the well-defined muscles on his chest and stomach. And draped on the outstretched arm of the last of the four statues was an unlaced corset.

  Alexander squinted at the corset. Bone rot him, it was the one thing that had never been returned. The corset he’d bought from a shop for more money than he ought to have paid. The same corset he had then meticulously folded into a trunk, along with various other dresses and banknotes in a frenzied hope of saving Miss Charlotte’s virtue. What little good that did. The presence of that corset did mean one thing: That Miss Charlotte most certainly still lived here.

  The butler cleared his throat from behind. “Your hat, Lord Hawksford.”

  Alexander turned toward the servant and hesitated. He shouldn’t stay. He ought to leave. Before the last thread of reason he’d been clinging to snapped and sent him flying in a direction that he could not afford to go. And yet…

  He genuinely wanted to see her. Wanted to know what this was all about. For he refused to believe that the woman he had met and left on that doorstep would actually resort to this sort of life. Not with the sort of vicious pride she had.

  Alexander grudgingly handed over his hat and hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.

  The butler turned away and carefully positioned Alexander’s hat onto its own red velvet cushion which lay atop a walnut hall table just outside the parlor. Right beside Caldwell’s hat, which already sat on its own red velvet cushion.

  Alexander’s eyes suddenly widened. For there were not two, not three, but actually four red velvet cushions all sitting in a row. Confound it, how many other male hats had been here before his?

  The very thought of it made him want to growl. No. Not growl. Roar. For it appeared that the woman preferred to sell off her body rather than accept any of his gifts.

  The servant turned, then regally strode to the other side of the foyer. He removed one of five lit glass lanterns that were affixed to the left side of the corridor wall on brass hooks. With the lantern in hand, the man proceeded farther down the corridor, just past the stairs, and paused at what appeared to be a misplaced door in the wall.

  The butler opened the door wide, held out the lantern for them to take, and gestured toward the darkness. “Mind the step. The passageway will lead you to the other side, where you will be appropriately greeted by Harold.”

  Alexander glanced over at Caldwell, who had glanced over at him. “The other side of what?”

  Caldwell shrugged. “Hell if I know. Must be part of the school.”

  School? Alexander stepped by him and grabbed hold of his arm. “What do you mean? What school?”

  Caldwell winced but didn’t answer.

  Alexander leaned in toward him. “Caldwell, I swear to you that if you don’t tell me what this is all about, I’ll rope you naked to a tree in the middle of Hyde Park and sell tickets.” He delivered him a hard, pointed stare. “To love-sta
rved women bearing horse whips.”

  Caldwell shuddered and pulled away. Shaking his head, he reached into his inner vest pocket and yanked out a neatly folded cream-colored parchment. “With all of your new responsibilities this past year, I knew you wouldn’t come unless I manipulated our wager to my advantage.”

  Alexander pointed at him. “You son of a bitch. You cheated. Did you pay the woman to try to rape me, too?”

  Caldwell blew out a breath. “Hawksford, I only assisted in getting her into the house. The rest she willingly did all on her own, I assure you, and for it I apologize. Now I promise I’ll try to explain all of this later, but in the meantime, I beseech you to enroll. Here.” He shoved the parchment at him. “I’m in the last stage of enrolling myself.”

  Alexander paused, sensing Caldwell’s unease, then took the parchment and quickly unfolded it. He leveled the printed letters and read aloud. “Madame Thérèse’s School of Gallantry. All gentlemen welcome. Learn from the most celebrated demimondaine of France everything there is to know about…”

  He drew his brows together. Was he even reading any of this right? Well, yes. There it was. “Love and seduction. Only a limited amount of applications are being accepted at 11 Berwick Street. Discretion is guaranteed and”—He could barely finish the last word as the remnants of his patience completely dwindled—“advised.”

  Oh, he’d bloody advise the woman, all right. Was she mad, outright inviting all of London to her door like this?

  Alexander crushed the parchment in his fist at the realization that his oh so clever Miss Charlotte, who had so innocently and desperately propositioned him on the street, was now caressing the trousers off every man in London.

  He didn’t know why he felt so wounded. She wasn’t his mistress, and yet for some absurd reason he felt a horrid responsibility to actually do something.

  Which, of course, he wasn’t going to.

  “Your brain must be completely made out of cork if you think I’m going to attend such a thing. And with you.” Alexander shook his head and marched back toward the main entrance. “You and your bloody wagers and secrets and schools. I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.”