A Courtesan's Scandal

by Julia London

  “All right,” she said, her voice catching a little.

  Grayson’s eyes narrowed. “Are you entirely certain?”

  She nodded.

  He reached across the table and took her hand. They made plans. Kate would meet him at Charing Cross, at an old inn and post station there. They’d be gone only a few days, leaving at week’s end.

  Duty called Grayson away after their tea. He sent her home in a hired hackney, and Kate’s pulse pounded with exhilaration the entire drive home.

  Digby came calling shortly after Kate arrived home, irate that he’d been duped. “Fleming!” he spat, pacing before the hearth in the salon. “He’ll not keep me from a fair living!”

  Kate did not tell Digby about Fleming’s attack—it would only have enraged him further, and she was too anxious to have an irate Digby about. As Digby went on about his useless journey, and the poor fare he’d been made to suffer, Kate nodded and fed him freshly baked muffins … but she could think of little besides Grayson.

  Grayson. Her mind’s eye was filled with the way he’d looked as he’d held himself above her, of the desire in his eyes. She remembered how he’d sighed with pleasure as she moved on him, riding a crest to another glorious physical climax. She thought of his low laugh, and when his dark blue eyes were trained on her, how they had the power to make her feel weightless. Angelic. Another sort of woman altogether.

  Aldous returned late that evening looking quite fatigued. He asked Kate nothing and offered nothing, either. Kate smiled at him as he stalked through the foyer and up the stairs. “Good night, Aldous,” she called lightly after him.

  Her response was the closing of his door.

  At noon the next day, when Kate heard someone at the door, her heart began to race. She hurried to the top of the stairs, still fastening her gown. She squatted down behind the banister to have a look as Aldous opened the door. It was a messenger!

  When Aldous had shut the door Kate ran down the stairs, almost colliding with him in her eagerness to receive the message.

  With a fatherly frown, Aldous handed her the folded vellum.

  She grinned as she took it from him, but then she noticed the seal. “Oh,” she said, her smile disappearing. It was from the prince.

  “Mind you have a care, Kate,” Aldous said as he began to walk away. “Angering the prince won’t do you any good. You’ll not want to be out on your arse at this time of year, aye?”

  Kate made a face at his back, then opened the vellum.

  My love, my dearest, the prince wrote. I count the hours and minutes until you are mine, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Kate skimmed the note, then folded it and put it in her pocket. She didn’t want love letters from George. She wanted love letters from Grayson.

  God help her, but she had to be very careful.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Responsibility kept Grayson from Kate, but his thoughts were never far from her. He made several calls with Merrick in defense of the abolition bill, and was surprised by some of the resistance they were facing.

  “You would put legitimate men out of their livelihood, Your Grace,” Lord Bradenton insisted when they called on him one afternoon. “My wife’s brother has a stake in a trading company and he assures me that they are handling the Negroes as humanely as might reasonably be expected.”

  “Humanely?” Merrick bristled. “I have seen these slave ships, sir, and it is not humane to force the Africans to live in a space no larger than a coffin for three months! It is the height of degradation and cruelty.”

  Bradenton looked extremely uncomfortable. “What would you have me tell my wife’s brother, my lord?” he said hotly to Merrick. “That because you think it inhumane, he should lose his livelihood?”

  Fortunately, Merrick and Grayson found support in other quarters, some of which surprised Grayson. Lord Townshend had long been an ardent supporter of the British slave trade, but he’d had a change of heart recently. He’d traveled back from the West Indies on a slave ship and whatever he had seen had changed him profoundly. “Please tell me how I may help,” he’d said.

  In addition to working with Merrick and helping other members of his large family with financial, social, and personal matters, Grayson hosted a luncheon for the Ladies Beneficent Society, which his mother and sisters had arranged with the goal of displaying several debutantes before him.

  The debutantes paraded about the room in their winter finery. He could scarcely keep their names in his head. Miss Keystone, Miss Shetland, Miss Brooks. Miss Augusta Fellows, who was very friendly. It seemed to Grayson that every lady at the luncheon thought it a foregone conclusion that he would find her irresistible and offer for her this Season. But he could think of no one but Kate. The debutantes’ shining faces began to blur after an hour, and before the luncheon was served, they all began to look like Diana, all looking at him as if he were the means to their end, as if he were the savior.

  Not one of them looked at him the way Kate looked at him—with no expectations, with not the slightest bit of anxiety. She looked at him as if she genuinely enjoyed his company.

  Not that Grayson believed Diana didn’t enjoy his company, but theirs was an anxious affair. Perhaps that is what had attracted him to her in part in the beginning. Now, it felt tiresome. He pondered if this was a new feeling, one that had come on suddenly, as suddenly as his feelings for Kate had come on him, or if it had been creeping into his consciousness for a time now?

  Nevertheless, when Diana sent a second note begging him to come to her, he sent back his affirmative reply out of a sense of respect and responsibility. But he did something else first—he paid a call to the Prince of Wales.

  George was happy to see him. He was in a room devoted to his thousands of wooden soldiers, with which he liked to stage mock battles. He was aligning his cavalry when Grayson was shown in. “Christie!” he said happily. “It is a delight to see you!”

  They chatted about the news around town. George asked if he’d heard from Lambourne, against whom he held a very firm grudge. Grayson assured him he hadn’t. They spoke of the Delicate Investigation, with George professing once again he felt certain the king would see reason and proceed with the Parliamentary divorce. “Very soon this ugly business shall be done and I can follow my heart’s true inclinations,” he’d said.

  “By the bye,” Grayson said as casually as he could, “I thought you should know that our mutual friend has been brought to bed by an ague.”

  “What?” George said, his head coming up. “When? How serious is it?”

  Grayson felt entirely ill with his lie. But his desire to be with Kate was inexplicably stronger than his desire to be the man he’d been raised to be—trustworthy, forthright, dependable. Honest. “It is a winter ague, nothing more,” he said, glancing at the window. “The physician proclaims that she will be good as new in a matter of days, but that she should keep to her bed and rest.”

  “I will go to her—”

  “I’d not, were I you, Your Highness,” he said. “It is highly contagious.”

  “Oh,” George said.

  “Perhaps a gift of some sort might cheer her?” Grayson suggested. What was he doing? Who had he suddenly become? He was not only lying to the prince, he was building upon his lie, engaging in fraud.

  “Yes, of course,” the prince said. “Books. Bedridden people enjoy books. Do you think she reads French?”

  George scarcely knew Kate at all. He knew only of her beauty, he wanted only to bed the beauty, and somehow, that helped Grayson to reason that what he was doing was not entirely evil. “No, I think not.”

  “Fashion plates, then,” George decided. “How long must I stay away?”

  “A week to be entirely safe.”

  George seemed to accept that and turned the conversation to another subject. Grayson left a bit later, uncomfortable with his newfound treachery and feelings of guilt.

  He was resolved, therefore, to be completely honest with Diana. But when Millie opene
d the door onto the mews and showed him inside, he felt awkward.

  Millie moved silently ahead, leading him up a familiar path to Diana’s suite of rooms. She knocked three times on Diana’s door and opened it. Grayson walked across the threshold; Diana was standing before the hearth wearing a chemise and a dressing gown, her dark hair hanging in a tail down her back. When Millie shut the door behind Grayson, Diana rushed to him, throwing her arms around him, kissing him ardently.

  Grayson kissed her, too, but he didn’t realize he was setting her back until she gasped softly and tossed her head back to look up at him. Her blue eyes were filled with hurt. “Darling, what is wrong? Have I displeased you?”

  “No,” he said, quickly shaking his head. “No, no I … I beg your pardon, Diana.” He took her hand in his and kissed her knuckles.

  Diana blinked. She looked down at her hand. “I don’t understand,” she said simply, then abruptly yanked her hand free of his. “I’ve not seen you alone in nearly a month, and this is how you greet me?”

  “I am aware—”

  “No, no, you are not aware, Grayson! If you were aware, you would have come to me! You’ve not been away from me as long as this since the beginning!”

  “Diana!” he said sternly. “You know that things have happened beyond our control. You were not expecting Charles to return to London—”

  “He’s in Bath for days now, and this is the first you come to me!”

  Grayson frowned at her. She was furious with him and still, Grayson could say nothing to comfort her. He didn’t know what to say. For the second time today, he felt guilty. He could not recall another time in his life he’d felt guilt, save those first days with Diana, when he’d understood he was cuckolding Eustis. But then he’d managed to alleviate his guilt with the knowledge that among the haut ton, affairs were more the rule than the exception, particularly when marital unions were made for the purpose of shoring up rank and privilege as opposed to true feelings of love. Of course love happened, but often it did not, and it was quite common for one to take a lover.

  Even Eustis had had his dalliances here and there, and everyone knew it.

  But now Grayson was faced with a deeper guilt. He’d betrayed Diana. It was not something he would ever have thought himself capable of, yet … yet there was Kate. There was something different about Kate, something about her that drove him to do things he never thought he’d do.

  Grayson had wronged Diana, and he knew in that moment that their liaison had come to an end. He hadn’t understood or perhaps admitted it to himself until this moment, but it was very clear to him now.

  He suspected Diana knew it, too, for her shoulders sagged. “Is it she?”

  Grayson couldn’t own to anything about which he wasn’t entirely certain himself. He didn’t know the depth of his feeling for Kate, precisely, but that he desired her. Madly.

  “Will you at least be honest with me?”

  “Diana, darling … perhaps some time apart has given us both a moment to reflect—”

  “Don’t,” she said, throwing up a hand. “Don’t do this, Grayson. Is what we’ve shared over the last year as fragile as this? Can it not endure a slight absence before it grows brittle?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

  Diana pressed her lips together. Her eyes filled with tears. “She is a courtesan.”

  He couldn’t bear to see the pain in his lover’s eyes and reached for her, but Diana drew back, just out of his reach. “Whatever has come of us, at least tell me you are not leaving me for her!”

  “Calm yourself—”

  “I could tell the prince, you know,” Diana snapped. “I could tell him that you have taken his mistress as your own.”

  “You are jumping to conclusions. If you attempt something so foolish, you risk letting your sins be made public.”

  “Do you not see she is a whore?” Diana asked plaintively. “Do you honestly believe your family will stand for your association with that woman?”

  Grayson unthinkingly clenched his fist in an effort to maintain his calm. “You are overstepping your bounds, madam.”

  “You cannot have her!” Diana said heedlessly. “She is a whore!”

  His blood began to thrum in his veins. He didn’t want to leave like this, but he feared what he might say. He turned away, intending to leave.

  “Grayson!” Diana cried when she realized what he meant to do. “Grayson, please!”

  He hesitated; she was crying now, and he was responsible for her tears. “Diana,” he said, turning round to her.

  “Please don’t do this,” she begged him. “Please don’t end it, Grayson! You know how unhappy I am in my marriage—you are my one happiness!”

  It pained him to see her so woeful, and it distressed him that he was unable to say what she needed him to say. He’d never really thought how their affair would end; he’d not planned for it. But he’d never wanted this. He walked back to where Diana stood and laid his palm against her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into it, then covered his hand with hers.

  “Don’t be so sad, love,” Grayson said. “We both knew it would end one day. How could it not?” He kissed her tenderly. When he lifted his head, Diana drew a shaky breath and moved away, putting her back to him. She stood at her hearth, holding herself tightly, staring into the flames.

  Grayson went out quietly, closing the door behind him, taking the stairs two at a time.

  He strode down the street through a cold rain, an inexplicable anger swelling with each step he took.

  He was angry was with himself first and foremost. He had crossed some invisible line with his personal morals. He had always been the one his close acquaintances counted on to be reasoned in his thinking, to be morally upright in his deeds, to be a pillar of propriety. And with the exception of his dalliance with Diana, he was those things.

  But this fascination, this obsession he’d developed for Kate was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He was doing things that were beyond him. Deceptions, deceits—he was compromising who he was for the sake of desire.

  Or was it possible his feelings for Kate were quite real? Was it possible he had found that elusive feeling of love with the one woman in all of England who was as wrong for him as wrong could be?

  Diana sobbed for a half hour before she picked herself up and washed her face. By then, grief had given way to a soul-consuming anger. How dare Grayson cast her aside for little more than a common whore?

  She tightened the belt of her dressing gown and angrily yanked on the bell pull.

  A few minutes later, Millie appeared, looking fatigued. “Aye, mu’um?”

  Diana motioned for her to come in. She wiped the stray tears from her cheeks and walked to her wardrobe and threw open the doors. As Millie curiously looked on, Diana fell to her knees and rummaged in the very back of the wardrobe until she found a beaded reticule. She came to her feet. “There is a woman, a courtesan,” she said bitterly as she opened the reticule. “Her name is Katharine Bergeron. I want to know everything there is to know about her. Everything.” She removed several notes from the reticule, which she thrust at Millie. “Find out everything you can.”

  Millie’s eyes widened with surprise. “And how am I to do this, then?” she scoffed, eyeing the notes. “What do I know of courtesans?”

  “Come now, Millie,” Diana said angrily as she grabbed Millie’s hand and shoved the notes into her palm and curled her fingers around it. “Surely you have a brother or a cousin or some such person who can find out a thing or two about Katharine Bergeron! She is an infamous courtesan! She was in the employ of Mr. Cousineau, the cloth merchant. You might start there. He is very well known about Mayfair.”

  Millie stared at the notes in her hand. “There must be twenty pounds here,” she said.

  “And there will be twenty pounds more if you can bring me information I might use, do you understand?”

  Millie glanced up at Diana. A dark smile turned up one corne
r of her mouth. “I understand.”

  “Good,” Diana said sharply, and gestured to the door. “Now make haste. I need information about the whore as soon as possible.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  This is madness!” Digby blustered the morning Kate packed a portmanteau for her trip to the country. “Have you the slightest idea of the sort of trouble you are courting?”

  “I have a fair idea, yes,” she said evenly. She held up a brown brocade gown. Digby was no help at all when it came to proper clothing for hunting lodges—he’d never seen one. “I’ve never heard anything more dreadful than the words hunting and lodge put together,” he’d said.

  Kate picked up a dark blue woolen cloak. “Do you think it’s as cold in the country as it is in town?”

  “Colder,” Aldous said, walking unannounced into their midst. “And you’ll not have need of fancy gowns.” His pronouncement drew curious looks from both Kate and Digby. Aldous frowned. “What, did you think I was born at sea, then? A little Moses drifting across the North Sea? No, I hail from Bedfordshire, which is quite full of hunting lodges and all of them little more than piles of stones. Were I you, I’d take along some fur-lined drawers.”

  “Pity I do not possess a pair,” Kate muttered.

  “Digby’s right, Kate,” Aldous added. “You ought not to go off with the duke, not if you want to keep your place here.”

  Kate sighed impatiently and twirled around to her wardrobe, turning her back on both men. “Thank you, gentlemen, you’ve both made it abominably clear—”