The Courtesan's Secret

by Claudia Dain

  Horrid man to try and jangle her nerves even more than they already were. The noise of the party seemed to surround them, ready to burst in upon them.

  Blakesley did nothing.

  At first.

  She really should have just slapped him when she had the chance.

  “You know better how the world works, Louisa,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, yet as sharp as March wind. “You’ve been alone with a man and you’ve been kissed by him. No one will marry you now, unless it is I.”

  “No one will know,” she said stiffly. She hated it when Blakesley got like this, so sure of himself and so supremely sure of her.

  “Everyone will know and not because I will tell them. You look like a woman who’s been kissed and kissed hard. Did you think it would not show? Did you think I could touch you and not leave my mark on you?”

  “That sounds almost medieval,” she snapped, lifting her hands to straighten her gown and check her hair. All seemed to be perfectly in order, if one discounted the condition of her curls, which felt more than a little . . . fuzzy.

  “Does it?” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. Monster. “I suppose it does, yet it is true.”

  “I hardly think I should take your word for it,” she said, forcing her voice to a matching whisper. The voices all around them were quite close now and it was not at all amusing or pleasant to contemplate being found in such a compromising situation, even if it was with Blakesley.

  Surely, no one would imagine that she had surrendered to a few innocent kisses from Blakesley?

  Of course, she hadn’t actually surrendered so much as she’d attacked and the kisses hadn’t been exactly innocent. Not if she were any judge of innocence, which she might not actually be any longer.

  Oh, dear.

  Whyever had she thrown herself in the way of Blakesley’s arms? He clearly wondered the same thing for he said, “Why did you kiss me, Louisa? Why me?”

  She didn’t know what to say, so she was left with having to say the truth, bitter thing that it was.

  “I don’t know exactly, Blakes,” she said softly. “Perhaps because I felt . . . safe with you.”

  Blakesley laughed once, a harsh, short bark of laughter, and said, “Ever safe, ever constant Blakes,” he said. “I am not safe, Louisa. I am a man, like any other.”

  It was at that precise moment, a moment of raw reflection and confession, that the door from the drawing room into the dressing room swung open and Lord Dutton, of all people, stood with a throng of elegantly clad people at his back, throwing candlelight all over Louisa and Blakes and leaving them not one particle of comforting darkness to hide within.

  It might have been the first moment that Louisa actually found herself more than slightly annoyed with Dutton. Certainly, and this was for the first time, his arrival was unwelcome.

  Dutton’s magnificent eyes went from one of them to the other, his very elegant mouth opened in slack-jawed surprise. Blakesley’s many brothers pushed in behind him, scowling, and Sophia Dalby and Molly Hyde pushed in behind them. It really was most crowded and most, most humiliating.

  “What are you doing in here?” Dutton asked.

  “Hiding,” Blakesley answered cordially, standing next to Louisa and taking her arm in his as if they were walking in to tea.

  “What were you doing before that?” Iveston asked pleasantly, though curiously. Though, to judge by the gleam in his pale blue eyes, his curiosity may have been put on to please his mother, who looked anything but amused.

  “Kissing,” Blakesley said, again, oh so reasonably.

  Upon which Dutton’s gaze swung like a dagger to Louisa, who, having faced Melverley more than once since leaving the nursery, was up to the challenge. Oh, his look hurt her, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. She raised her chin and faced them all, including Molly. Molly’s gunmetal gaze returned fire without so much as blinking.

  Louisa dropped her gaze to the floor, but not before letting her glance slide over Sophia, who was smiling sociably at her.

  “Molly,” Sophia said sweetly, “I do believe you have the most scandalous dressing room in London. I simply must learn your secret.”

  Fifteen

  IT seemed that the Marquis of Dutton could not quite believe it. Well, they made a good pair in that, at least, for Louisa could not quite believe it herself.

  One would think that the party would have broken up, that, suffering from embarrassment of the worst sort, people would have scattered to the streets or at the very least, back to the dinner table.

  That is not at all what happened because, after all, this was the very cream of London Society and they, more than any other class, loved a good scandal. The proceedings, for that is exactly what it amounted to, some special ton brand of social justice, took place in the Duke of Hyde’s music room, which, as it was adjacent to the blue reception room, meant that every person who had no cause to be in the music room had their ears, shoulders, and noses pressed against the closed door in blatant and hilarious curiosity.

  Louisa knew this to be so because it had happened in exactly the same fashion when Caroline Trevelyan, not a week ago, had disgraced herself and been ruined first in the Hydes’ yellow drawing room and then in the Hydes’ dressing room. Louisa had, without qualm, been one of those many with her ear pressed to the door as negotiations were made.

  That the setting for her ruination was the same as Caroline’s, and that Sophia had been an active and present force in both, was beyond coincidence.

  Louisa knew that Sophia had a hand in her being ruined, she just knew it; unfortunately, she could not prove it. Also unfortunately, it wouldn’t help her now if she could prove it. She was ruined, and she would have to marry Blakes.

  As to that, Blakes didn’t look entirely pleased by the prospect, which was completely absurd as he had most definitely been pleased by the prospect of kissing her. She wasn’t a complete dolt. She knew what that particular bulge in his breeches meant and it was a bulge that had been most definitely pointing in her direction.

  In fact, it still was.

  “His feelings for you are more than a little obvious, are they not?” Sophia said quietly into the general noise of the room. “It’s rather adorable, isn’t it, how men just can’t seem to hide their attraction to a particular woman? Of course, the current state of men’s fashion does help so much in that regard. How else is a woman to know if her gown is of the right cut or her hair of the desired style? Men are so helpful in judging things of that sort, aren’t they?”

  “Exactly why are you here, Lady Dalby?” Louisa answered, avoiding the subject entirely, though she could not help it if her gaze went immediately to the appropriate, or inappropriate, region of every man in the room’s breeches.

  Dutton’s line was, as ever, unmoved. Now that she was ruined, she supposed she could admit to having studied that particular area whenever the opportunity arose, that is, whenever she was in the same room with him.

  Dutton was depressingly consistent in his lack of response and the maintenance of the perfect line of his leg.

  Now that she was ruined, she looked around the music room and saw that not only was Blakesley’s tailoring being put to the test, but also that of Mr. Grey, who had not relinquished his habit of staring at her whenever possible. And it always seemed to be possible.

  George Grey was in the room because Sophia had sweetly reminded Hyde that George was her escort for the evening, which made no sense at all, but which Hyde had accepted.

  Sophia was in the room as the direct result of Molly insisting she needed feminine support in this hour of her trial, the trial being obviously the inclusion of Louisa into her family.

  Amelia was in the room because Aunt Mary was in the room, and Aunt Mary said that, conditions at the house being what they clearly were, she was not going to leave her unchaperoned niece to the clearly careless structure of Hyde House. Aunt Mary was still deeply in her cups and, horrifyingly
, was determined to make things even worse than they currently were.

  If that were possible.

  Of course, Blakes was present, as well as all his brothers.

  Naturally, that provided some small measure of delight for Amelia as she could now appear virtuous and concerned in regards to and compared to her ruined cousin. Amelia, Louisa noted cynically, looked delightfully fresh and innocent and spectacularly virginal.

  Louisa had chanced a quick look in a mirror on her way to the music room and had been shocked to discover that she did not look fresh, innocent, or especially virginal. Her hair was tumbled and tossed, her mouth swollen and red, and her dress rumpled. The only thing she could say on her behalf, not that anyone cared to listen to her, was that she had not been tumbled and she had not been tossed. It didn’t appear to matter, details of that sort. She was still a virgin, but that apparently was far from sufficient.

  Blakesley had been right, though due to the crowd surrounding them and separating them, he didn’t have the chance to say so. He did, however, choose that exact moment to lift his eyebrows in a sort of superior smirk.

  “Lord Henry seems quite delighted by this turn of events,” Sophia said. “And so he should be.”

  Louisa could only stare at her in dumb disbelief.

  “He has managed things so well,” Sophia continued, “as it has been perfectly obvious to me that he has been quite completely enamored of you for at least a year and likely two, though as Caroline was at a particularly difficult stage two years past I am not at all confident of my powers of observation during that particular Season. Still, he is a most attractive man and has quite a nice estate in Wessex, I believe?”

  “Essex,” Louisa supplied, still in a droopy state of what she assumed was shock.

  “Ah, Essex, but am I not correct in that he has twenty thousand a year?”

  Louisa was not going to be so crass as to discuss Blakeley’s worth with Sophia, or to admit that she knew to the pound how much Blakesley was worth. Surely, those were the habits of a courtesan that Sophia had been unable or unwilling to discard on her marriage to Dalby.

  But it was twenty-three thousand a year, not twenty thousand.

  “I’m afraid he has not discussed that with me,” Louisa said, which was the entire truth and had the added benefit of being evasive. “He also never indicated to me any sort of . . . feeling.”

  Upon which, Sophia chuckled, which drew the express attention of all the Blakesley brothers, including Iveston, who showed . . . stirrings . . . below their waistcoats.

  This being ruined did open the door upon all sorts of observations and conversations. Certainly, Sophia would not be talking to her as she was now if her situation in Society had not changed drastically.

  She could only wonder how Melverley would take the news.

  She hoped it killed him. Slowly.

  “But, darling, of course he did,” Sophia said lightly, drawing Louisa off slightly behind the harp. “How else is a man of this town, this country, this century, to show you his regard if not to accompany you in your pursuit of another man of his acquaintance?”

  Louisa could feel herself blushing. Of course, there was that. She had suspected something, but not perhaps exactly this. Perhaps because it would have been a most inconvenient deduction, and she was all about doing what was most convenient for her. Certainly it had been convenient to have Blakesley’s help in determining Dutton’s next appearance. And certainly, she had never wanted to puzzle out his reasons for doing so.

  Because she was not a fool and because she would have seen the truth for what it was and then, because honor was not altogether absent in her, she would have been required to stop.

  Since none of that was an option that particularly appealed, she had not bothered to think of it at all. Life was so often more comfortable under those particular terms. She ought to know as she made something of a habit of it, which Eleanor was so quick to point out at every possible opportunity. Imp.

  “Naturally, it was different in my day,” Sophia went on, apparently completely unconcerned that she had launched into a soliloquy for a very unreceptive audience. “And, as you know, in my country. We are more direct there and, in that earlier, earthier generation, more . . . oh, perhaps the best word is forceful. Yes, forceful and direct, with none of this soft stepping and ‘by your leave’ which is so common today. Why, if Blakesley wanted you, why not—”

  “Simply grab me up and cart me off through the forest?” Louisa interrupted, angry on behalf of Blakes, her country, and her entire generation.

  “Well,” Sophia said, smiling, “yes. Why not?”

  “Because he is a gentleman!”

  “Darling, that gentleman ruined you.”

  “No, Lady Dalby, I ruined him! ’Twas I who kissed him! Soundly and often.”

  At which point, because Louisa was arguing rather more loudly than she had intended, in fact because she had not intended to argue at all, the entire room turned to look at her. Dutton included, though why Dutton was in the room she had not yet puzzled out.

  Into the startled silence that followed, all eyes eventually and almost poetically turned to consider Blakesley, who shrugged slightly and said evenly, “It’s true. She kissed me. Soundly and often.”

  Upon which, Dutton looked suspiciously close to fainting, which she couldn’t understand at all.

  “Well done, Louisa,” Sophia said into the pall that had settled upon them all. “It’s so nice to see that someone in this day and age has the fortitude to fight for what she wants.”

  By which she must have meant that Louisa had wanted Blakes, which was completely absurd as she had wanted Dutton completely, exclusively, and in the face of all opposition, though her only opposition had been Dutton’s rather marked lack of interest in her.

  “Who’s going to tell Melverley?” Molly said, still staring with extreme dislike at Louisa. Louisa, happily, was becoming immune to it.

  “Oh, let me,” Sophia said, stepping forward.

  “No, allow me,” Blakesley said. “I think you’ve done enough this evening, Lady Dalby.” And he had the oddest expression on his face, not exactly displeased, but entirely suspicious.

  “Have I?” Sophia said lightly. “I hardly noticed having done a thing. I think you must take the credit for this, Lord Henry.”

  “I thought we had determined that Lady Louisa was entirely responsible for this particular state of affairs,” Molly said grimly.

  Louisa was not at all certain she was going to enjoy having Molly Hyde for a mother-in-law.

  “I did help,” Blakes said in wry humor, upon which his brothers all laughed in that particular way men had of laughing at something completely unseemly, if not to say improper. She’d heard Melverley laugh in that fashion all her life. She had yet to develop an appreciation for it.

  “I’m quite certain you did,” Sophia said softly. “In fact, I’m not at all sure you didn’t manage this all quite beautifully, Lord Henry, to get exactly what you wanted.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Molly said stiffly, to be swiftly followed by the Duke of Hyde saying, “What’s that?”

  Sophia shrugged delicately. “I am surely not the only person in Town to have noticed that Lord Henry has exhibited a certain fascination for Lady Louisa.”

  “I certainly have,” Dutton said. “It’s surely been too obvious to miss, even to the casual observer and none here can claim to be casual.”

  Upon which everyone in the room turned to stare at Lord Dutton, the sons of Hyde with the most unfriendly expressions upon their various faces. Well, it was to be expected. It was surely a point of honor that their brother not be seen to be a fool for love, which is exactly how Dutton had made him appear.

  Of course, Louisa had not seen it, she most expressly had not seen it. She was so very good at not seeing those particular, uncomfortable things that she did not care to see. But this observation, made so publicly, did not put Blakes in at all a good light, and she simply could no
t allow it to stand. She was to be married to him, after all, and no husband of hers was going to be the subject of ridicule. No, the thing to do was to rescue Blakesley’s reputation as it was in the very act of being destroyed by Lord Dutton and to do it immediately.

  Let no one say from this point on that she was not going to be a good wife to Blakes. This act of personal heroism ought to silence any possible remarks on that immediately.

  Louisa looked at Molly.

  Molly looked right back at her.

  “I certainly noticed no such thing,” Louisa said. “Lord Henry has been nothing but kind to me, above reproach in all his dealings and in every conversation. He has been, and continues to be, a perfect gentleman.”

  “I certainly have no doubt of it,” Molly said the moment Louisa finished speaking, which, of course, once again implied that Louisa was entirely at fault for the entire kissing adventure.

  Which, actually, might have been true, but she didn’t care for it to be put forth so publicly. Things of this sort had a life of their own and she was not entirely certain that the echo of this night would not be ringing still when her own daughters made their entrance into Society, and then what was she to tell them? That she’d married their father because she’d cornered him in the yellow drawing room and kissed him senseless?

  No, that would never do.

  “Now, Molly,” Sophia said soothingly, “mothers simply don’t notice such things about their sons, nor should they, as a rule.”

  Because, of course, no one would ever believe that Sophia Dalby did not pay particular attention to the smallest detail regarding her own son, the Earl of Dalby. He was a man, wasn’t he? Sophia Dalby, as everyone knew, was something of an expert on men, though she hadn’t proved very helpful to Louisa in reacquiring her pearls. Blakes had done far more for her on that score.

  Louisa would likely end up married to the wrong man, that man being anyone not Dutton, but she would at least get her pearls back. If Blakes was correct about the particulars of the intemperate wager at White’s. She never had quite got the gist of that.