Gail Ranstrom

by The Courtesans Courtship

  The men turned to watch her. Dianthe bowed her head and kept her veil in place. She could feel their eyes boring through her, and she prayed she would not be recognized.

  A few moments later, the minister entered and faced the meager congregation. She had never attended actual funeral services before, as Aunt Henrietta believed that gently reared females were too delicate for such disturbing events. In her entire life, Dianthe had only visited her father’s and mother’s graves in Wiltshire once, and gone to her aunt’s grave. That was the extent of her experience with death rituals, so she watched the proceedings carefully.

  Prayers were said, then a short, impersonal eulogy that revealed little about the woman they were about to bury. The cleric alluded to Nell’s profession only when he made the point that “even those who had fallen were beloved of Christ.” Then an actual rite for the dead was read. Though the men bowed their heads at prayers, she could not detect any sign of genuine grief from their posture or bearing. Except Lord Geoffrey Morgan.

  He had entered late and taken a seat near the front. His face was tense though composed. Dianthe knew him well enough to recognize the way he registered distress. His lips were drawn thin and his complexion was pale. She thought a little better of him for being here and for feeling grief or compassion for Nell Brookes.

  Dianthe, too, was deeply touched, and wiped impatiently at the hot tears seeping down her face. She could not forget the beautiful young woman lying forever still inside the narrow coffin. Did no one but she lament the dreadful circumstances that had brought Nell to such a pass? Then the other woman began weeping, too, and Dianthe wondered if she could be Nell’s mother or sister.

  After a shockingly brief time, the funeral was over. The woman stood and hurried out of the church, and Dianthe followed, hoping Mr. Renquist would at least learn the names of the men in attendance.

  “Miss!” she called as the woman reached the street.

  The dark-cloaked form missed a step but did not turn or stop.

  Dianthe hurried after her, raising her umbrella against the steady drizzle. “Miss! Please, spare me a minute!”

  This time the woman stopped but did not turn. When Dianthe came abreast of her and raised her veil, the woman gasped. “You must be Miss Lovejoy. Everyone is talking. You do look like Nell.” She resumed walking and spoke in a soft voice. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk about Miss Brookes,” she answered.

  “Walk with me, then. I do not wish to be seen here—or with you.”

  “Why?”

  “For the same reason there are so few people at Nell’s funeral. We cannot afford to be associated with murders, nor to be questioned by the authorities. Were our names, or those of our clients, made public…well, you can imagine the scandal.”

  Dianthe matched her stride. “Are you Miss Brookes’s sister?”

  “Nell had no family. Or none that she spoke of.”

  “A friend, then?”

  There was a hesitation, then she murmured, “Yes.”

  Dianthe’s curiosity spiked. The woman was lovely, despite the drab colors she wore, and she used cosmetics—something Dianthe and her friends would never do. Was she a member of the demimonde? “You have me at a disadvantage, miss. You appear to know me, yet I do not know you.”

  “Yes, I know you. You are accused of Nell’s murder.”

  Lord! She could feel her reputation slipping away. “Miss Brookes had been stabbed when I found her.”

  “I never believed you had anything to do with it. The police are fools to think so.”

  “I want to find out who the real murderer is.”

  “Because it will clear you,” the woman concluded in a cynical tone.

  “I want to see justice done. Whoever did this to Nell should pay for it. Please help me find her killer. I just want to ask a few questions. Will you tell me your name?”

  There was a long silence before the woman spoke again. “My name is Flora Denton.”

  “Thank you, Miss Denton. How long have you known Miss Brookes?”

  “Since I arrived in London. For a few months we…worked at the same establishment. She was my dearest friend.” She turned and regarded Dianthe through dark eyes. “I heard people talking about how closely you resemble her. Your hair and eyes are nearly the same, and the shape of your face and figure, but you haven’t her sophistication.”

  “Where did you hear all this, Miss Denton? The murder was only three days ago.”

  She nodded. “The police have been by to search Nell’s rooms and belongings. The gentlemen talk. Nell’s favorites have come to pay their respects and to comfort one another.”

  For some inexplicable reason, Dianthe was pleased by the thought that Nell’s lovers mourned her. “Were there many?”

  Miss Denton gave a short laugh. “Yes. Too many. For one of us, very few.”

  “One of you?” Dianthe asked.

  “The demimonde, Miss Lovejoy. The half-world of London, or the shadow world, as your kind would call it. The part proper ladies like you do not even speak of.”

  Dianthe walked along for moment, not knowing how to reply to such a statement.

  “Have I shocked you, Miss Lovejoy?”

  “No, Miss Denton. My family was impoverished and I have occasionally thought that, but for the grace of family who cared for us, my sister and I might have fallen into a similar fate.” She recalled Squire Daniels in Little Upton, who had offered to buy her a small cottage in exchange for her “company.” She would have had to be a great deal more desperate to accept that offer.

  “We are courtesans, Miss Lovejoy, not prostitutes. Many of us have several lovers, some have only one at a time. But we say who, and when, and where, unlike our poorer sisters. Nor do we sell our wares on the street.”

  Dianthe nodded, understanding that explanation. “Did Miss Brookes have many, few, or one?”

  “A few.”

  “How many?”

  “It varied from time to time.”

  “Had she recently argued with any of them?”

  “I see where you are going with this, and I would like to help you. But I am afraid I cannot.”

  “But why?”

  “Miss Lovejoy,” she said as she increased the length of her stride, “I do not even wish to be seen in your company. Indiscretion and women who talk out of turn are frowned upon in my business. Should it be known that I have shared any sort of information with a woman of the ton, I would find it very difficult to earn a living. My gentlemen would withdraw their patronage, and I would find myself on the streets in short order.”

  Dianthe caught up to her and entreated, “Just tell me the names of her protectors. I shall question them myself.”

  “Miss Lovejoy, are you not sensible to the difficulty of what you have taken on? Do you really think men of the ton will discuss their affairs with you? The very thought is absurdly naive. And Nell’s other friends will not be as forthcoming as I have been.”

  Her spirits plummeted. “Then how will I ever discover what happened to Miss Brookes?”

  Flora Denton stopped and turned to face her. She laughed and shook her head. “That will never happen, Miss Lovejoy. Give it up. You would have to be one of us.”

  Mouth agape, Dianthe watched the woman lose herself in the crowded market at Covent Garden. One of them?

  Mr. Renquist was waiting on the street outside St. Martins Church by the time she made her way back. He looked anxious and heaved a sigh of relief when he saw her. “I wondered where you had got to, Miss Lovejoy. I do not know how to find you. Where are you staying?”

  An impression of Lord Geoffrey’s flashing smile passed through her head and she shuddered at what Mr. Renquist would say about her choice of lodgings. “It would be best if you do not know that, Mr. Renquist. Then it will not be a conflict for you.”

  “It is already a conflict,” he grumbled. “I should be hauling you before a magistrate this very minute.”

  She winced, knowing Mr. R
enquist was compromising his job every moment he spent with her.

  “I recognized three or four of the men, Miss Lovejoy. The others should not be hard to find.”

  “Is it usual for such funerals to be so…small?”

  “No one wants to be associated with a murder—at least until after it has been solved. Most of the men who attend upon the demimonde could not withstand the scrutiny.”

  Dianthe’s frustration mounted. “Then how shall we ever solve this?”

  “The truth has a way of coming out, miss. In its own sweet time.”

  “I do not have time, Mr. Renquist. I could hang before the truth is known.”

  Renquist gave her a sober nod. “Yes, I can see the problem, miss. And that is the very thing I am trying to prevent.”

  She sighed as Flora Denton’s words rang in her head. You would have to be one of us.

  Geoff paced the small rented room above the tavern in Whitefriars while Sir Harry scratched a few lines on a piece of paper. “Anyone else?”

  “Edgerton’s cub,” Geoff told him. “I heard he was pursuing Nell but that she’d told him to come back when he inherited.”

  “That was cold.”

  “Nell could be cold. I imagine we would be, too, if our survival depended upon it. It wasn’t a courtship, for God’s sake, it was a business arrangement.”

  Sir Harry nodded. “That’s it, then? I thought you said there’d been a dozen men in attendance. I’ve only got six names.”

  “I will investigate the others, Harry. Apart from the six I just gave you, there are myself, two women, and a man I suspect was sent by Bow Street.”

  “And the women?”

  “Veiled. One, I think, was Flora Denton, Nell’s friend.”

  “And the other?”

  Geoff hesitated. Even though she’d been shrouded and veiled, he’d recognized the set of Miss Lovejoy’s shoulders, the slender lines of her form, the grace with which she moved. He wasn’t certain he wanted to bring her name into this.

  Even while he’d been angry to find her at the funeral, he had to admire her ingenuity. He wasn’t particularly concerned that Flora had given her any information. No, Flora Denton was too canny for that. She knew discretion was her only choice. Now, almost certainly, the little dilettante would be flummoxed. She’d give up and sit quietly until someone from her family arrived to handle the matter for her. She had neither the experience nor the grit for more.

  “The other woman?” Harry prompted again. “Did you recognize her?”

  “I’ll take care of it, Harry. You follow up on the men.”

  “Men? That’s a waste of my talents, Morgan. Trying to regain your reputation as a lady’s man?”

  Geoff raised an eyebrow, remembering the days when he’d been known as the “Sheikh.” He’d had a way with women then, and a lighter heart and readier smile. And a much greater tolerance for social games and feminine wiles.

  And, blast it all, he was about to pay for those days by having to keep a closer eye on the Lovejoy girl.

  Late the following afternoon, Dianthe slipped quietly in the door of La Meilleure Robe and reached up to silence the little shop bell. She did not want Madame Marie’s clients looking into the corridor to see who had come in. The ladies would be waiting for her in the large fitting room in the back, so she hurried along the dark corridor and rapped twice before entering.

  “Dianthe!” Sarah exclaimed. “Thank heavens you’ve come. We feared something had happened to you.”

  “This arrangement really is not satisfactory,” Lady Annica pronounced. “What if we’d needed to contact you, Dianthe? What if you hadn’t been able to come? How would we have known where—oh! That reminds me. I have a letter from Afton for you. Mr. Thayer brought it by this morning. It was posted before your troubles, dear.”

  Dianthe tucked the letter into her reticule. Thank heavens the ladies were there—Sarah, Annica and Charity. She removed her gloves and sat on one of the stools used for marking hems. “If you knew where I was staying, you could hardly plead ignorance if the police had come, could you?”

  The ladies exchanged a telling glance.

  “They did come, did they not?” she guessed, a knot tightening in her stomach.

  “Well, yes,” Charity admitted. “And I confess that it was a relief not to lie. My husband would have known it immediately.”

  Dianthe glanced at Annica and Sarah, and they nodded in admission. So, it was official. The authorities were in pursuit of her. But first things first. “I am sorry I was late, but I didn’t get much sleep last night. In fact, I only dozed off near dawn.”

  “If you are not sleeping—”

  “It is not because of my bed or accommodations. I am quite comfortable, but I ache to be doing something, and that makes me restless.”

  Sarah sat forward. “Mr. Renquist told us that you went to Miss Brookes’s funeral yesterday. Are you mad, Dianthe? What if you’d been seen? You could have been thrown in jail!”

  Dianthe remembered the funeral attendees who had watched her every move. “I wore a veil and only spoke with a friend of Miss Brookes’s, but she would not tell me anything. She is suspicious of me. Of anyone, in fact. She said that her income depends upon her discretion.”

  “Oh! I had not thought of that!” Charity said. “Men—husbands and fathers—would not want their loved ones to know what they have been doing. And with whom.”

  “All the same, a number of them were at the church. Mr. Renquist has their names and will be questioning them.”

  Annica sighed. “This is apt to be a lengthy process. I would feel better if we knew how you were situated, Dianthe. I cannot bear to think of what hardships you may be enduring just to remain out of sight.”

  Hardships? She was living in the veritable lap of luxury. She could not imagine what Lord Morgan had told the servants, but her every whim, her slightest wish, was catered to as if she were a visiting dignitary. “I am quite comfortable. Please do not give it a second thought.”

  “Are you protecting your reputation, Dianthe?”

  “I…am doing what needs to be done. I know that you, too, have run grave risks to accomplish your goals, and I am not taking unreasonable risks.” She’d known from the moment she’d decided not to taint her friends with her problem that she was risking her reputation—if, indeed, she had one left. What else could she do? Drag them down into ignominy with her? Never!

  Annica frowned. “I do not like this the least little bit, Dianthe. You should come to one of us at once.”

  She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, ready for battle. “My reputation is the least of my problems. It is already in shreds. Confess! What is the on dit concerning me?”

  Another awkward pause told Dianthe almost all she needed to know. “How bad is it?”

  “People hush when we enter a room, as it is known that we are friends,” Sarah admitted. “My brother, Reginald, told me this morning that…that there is an order sworn to apprehend you. The only question people are asking is why you did it.”

  Dianthe sighed deeply. Well, she had suspected as much. Gossip hates a void, and she’d become the juiciest topic yet in the slow summer months when most of the ton had retired to the country.

  “Auberville is trying to persuade the authorities otherwise,” Annica said. “He provided them with a letter you had written me some time ago, so that they could compare your handwriting with the handwriting on the note found at the scene. It did not match, of course, but that did little to convince them. Auberville says there is some other piece of evidence they have against you, but he would not tell me what it was.”

  “I cannot imagine what it could be. That was the only time I’d ever seen Miss Brookes.”

  “That is what we tried to tell them,” Annica said. “But there is speculation now that there was some sort of secret connection that has been kept from common knowledge. I cannot imagine what but, given the girl’s occupation, I shudder to imagine what is being said.”
<
br />   Dianthe took a deep breath and braced herself. “The point now is that…well, I’ve become fodder for the gossip mills.”

  “Whatever is whispered behind fans can be overcome when the truth is out, my dear,” Charity said.

  “Doubtful,” Dianthe murmured. “Once something like this is whispered, one cannot reclaim a spotless reputation. I only hope the truth will redeem the portion my friends and family have lost.”

  “Drats!” Annica cursed. “This is so unfair! All you did was stop to help someone you thought was ill.”

  “And I’d do it again,” Dianthe admitted. “So there is no use in agonizing over this. I simply wanted to know if there was any advantage in coming forward.”

  “No!” the ladies exclaimed in one voice.

  Sarah stood and began to pace circles around the small room. “My husband says you should not have hidden. He says they—the police—have likely taken that as an indication of guilt. But it is too late to undo that now.”

  Then it was even worse than she’d suspected. “I doubt I will be going out much. The risk of recognition is too great.”

  “Disguise,” Sarah said.

  “Or go out only after dark,” Annica advised.

  Dianthe donned her bonnet and gave them an uncertain smile. If she went forward with her new plan, and if she could conquer her fears, she would be doing both.

  Chapter Four

  Dianthe curled up in the overstuffed chair in her room and unfolded Afton’s letter. She wanted to read slowly and savor every word. The letter had been written weeks ago and would be full of ordinary news and everyday observations. Oh, how she longed for something ordinary.

  She took a sip of her tea and began reading.

  My dearest little sister,

  I write to you with some good news and some of a curious nature. First the good news. I am bearing a little McHugh. I have known for quite some time but have delayed telling anyone until I was certain all was well. Rob is completely overjoyed. I have never seen him so doting. We expect the blessed event to occur just before the New Year.