Gail Ranstrom

by The Courtesans Courtship

  “Thank you, my dear. But I do not have conversations with police or runners. Disaster always follows.”

  And that was the reason courtesans and prostitutes were such easy prey for unscrupulous men. Dianthe sighed. “Then tell me, Miss Tucker, and I shall tell Lord Morgan. ’E shall converse with the authorities. But we simply cannot do nothing.”

  “You are quite passionate about this, Miss Deauville.”

  “Stop him…” Nell had said. Dianthe fought back the horror of that night. She couldn’t give in to it now. “La justice tout est moi, Miss Tucker.”

  The woman’s demeanor changed just then and she shrugged indifferently. “Everything to you, eh? Very well. If I should learn anything, I shall tell you at once.” She was staring at a point over Dianthe’s left shoulder.

  She smiled and turned, thinking the woman had spotted Lord Geoffrey. Unfortunately, it was Mr. Munro who approached.

  “Ladies,” he acknowledged. “Where is Geoff this evening, Miss Deauville? He is usually hovering somewhere around, but I do not see him.”

  Dianthe tried to keep from looking disappointed, then hesitated, deciding it would not be wise to admit she was alone. “Temporarily engaged elsewhere. I expect that ’e will be along presently.”

  “Ah, well, he can have no objection if I keep you busy at the tables whilst you wait.” He took her arm and led her toward the hazard table, leaving a bewildered looking Miss Tucker in his wake.

  Remembering Geoffrey’s suspicions of his brother-in-law, Dianthe wondered if they could be true. What harm could a little gentle questioning do? She’d begin with a mixture of ignorance and guilelessness. “Mr. Munro, Miss Denton tells me that you are a widower. Then Lord Geoffrey said you were ’is former brother-in-law. Were you married to Lord Geoffrey’s sister?”

  He sighed deeply and squeezed her hand on his arm. “Yes. Dear Charlotte. How I miss her.”

  “Lord Geoffrey never speaks of it.”

  “Likely because he was not present when it happened. Yes, he had gone off on some business or another. I recall that she sent for him, but he never came. Mail was sporadic, you see. Perhaps he never got her letter.”

  Or got it too late? “Then she’d been ill?”

  There was a long pause, as if Munro was deciding what to tell her. “She’d been having fainting spells, as a result of her delicate condition. She’d never been a particularly graceful girl in the best of circumstances.”

  Not what Geoffrey had said. “An accident, oui?”

  Munro hung his head dramatically. “Tragic. Devastating. I was the first to find her. I doubt I shall ever recover—finding her there, at the bottom of the stairs. Awful.”

  “Oh, dear. You were not there at the time?”

  He shook his head. “I was in my library, tending to correspondence. I heard her scream, and then the tumble.”

  “Oh, you poor man! Were there no servants about?”

  “Alas, no. ’Twas the middle of the day. Everyone was engaged in their work. She’d been resting in her room and was coming down to find me.” He glanced sideways and Dianthe caught something speculative in his expression. He was trying to gauge her reaction.

  “And you ’ave not remarried,” she sighed. “You must be very lonely, Mr. Munro.”

  “Lonely, indeed, my dear. That is why I come out so often. Looking for companionship. Looking to bury my sorrows, if only for a moment.”

  Heavens! Was she supposed to offer herself? The man was using his wife’s death shamelessly. “I sincerely ’ope you will find everything you deserve, Mr. Munro.”

  He stopped in the center of the room and gave her a puzzled look. There was a hard glint in his eyes now.

  He reached out to touch the little bruise—love bite, Miss Osgood had called it—and he gave her a salacious smile. She loathed this part of her masquerade. That men—virtual strangers—felt free to touch her without her consent. It was a violation of her person and an assumption of familiarity. They assumed consent by her mere presence.

  “As Lord Geoffrey is not here, Miss Deauville, would you consider coming upstairs with me for a short period? You will be well compensated.”

  So he’d decided to make it a business transaction? “Mais non, Mr. Munro. Lord Geoffrey ’as required that I keep myself only for ’im. I could not dishonor ’im so.”

  “I’d never tell, Miss Deauville. And you will have a chance to make a tidy little sum on the side.”

  “Thank you for the compliment, sir, but no.”

  “I will be brief,” he said, unable to disguise the anger in his voice. His hand tightened on her arm, the fingers biting into her flesh. That small gesture told her all she needed to know about Munro’s true nature. He was not to be trusted.

  She glanced around the room for anyone who could help her. Alas, only Senor Ramirez, who had been watching them from nearby, caught her eye and came forward. “Munro, Miss Deauville,” he said, bowing sharply at the waist. “Are you sporting tonight?”

  A chill went up her spine. She knew he hadn’t meant games of chance.

  “We are going upstairs, Ramirez. Care to join us? Miss Deauville, being French, will surely know how to keep us amused.”

  “I am loath to refuse such a tempting offer, but…” Ramirez left the thought dangling and gave a continental shrug. “So you are no longer Morgan’s woman?”

  “I am, but Mr. Munro—” Her protest fell on deaf ears as Munro pulled her out of the salon to the mezzanine, with Senor Ramirez following. Munro intended to take her, use her, regardless of her refusal! She glanced around, her desperation rising, and saw Lord Lockwood coming up the stairs. Munro, she suspected, did not want a scene any more than she did, and she called to him.

  “There you are, Lord Lockwood! I thought you ’ad forgot your promise.”

  It took him only a fraction of a second to understand her predicament. He came to them and nodded to her companions while disengaging Munro’s hold on her. “How could I ever forget, Miss Deauville?”

  “Pardonnez-moi, Messieurs, but I ’ave a previous commitment.”

  As Lord Reginald led her away, he asked, “What was that about?”

  “Could you escort me downstairs and stand with me until a coach is summoned?” She bit her tongue when she realized she had forgotten her French accent in her eagerness to escape Mr. Munro.

  “Where’s Morgan?”

  “’E is out of town at the moment.”

  “Spare me the accent, Miss Deauville. I know you are not French. I haven’t the faintest notion what you are up to but be warned. Morgan is not easy to deceive, and will not like being played for a fool. And men like Munro and his foreign friend will look for opportunities to get you alone.” Lord Lockwood inclined his head toward that infernal love bite on her collarbone. “As you plainly have discovered.”

  She was speechless as he hurried her down the stairs and out to the street. He sent the doorman to hail a coach, and when they were alone again, she asked, “What are you going to do?”

  “Do? Why, nothing. Unless your purpose is to bilk Morgan or the others.”

  “I am not a…bilker, Lord Lockwood. And I am not playing Lord Geoffrey for a fool.”

  “See that you don’t. That would be an unwise endeavor. I would not like to think what he would do to you.”

  “He knows what I am about.”

  The coach arrived and Lord Lockwood handed her up and slammed the door. “Stay on Morgan’s good side, Miss Deauville. He has had enough trouble with women,” he called after her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Geoff swung his leg over the saddle and urged his horse to speed, leaving a disgruntled Harry Richardson to stare after him. He was well aware that Harry was not pleased, but someone had to stay in Dover and clean up the mess. They’d found no answers here—only more questions, a hard hunch and a tight ball of anxiety gnawing at Geoff’s innards.

  By the time he and Harry arrived in Dover yesterday to question the crew of the captured ship, the i
nsurrection was over. To a man, the prisoners had been killed and buried mere hours before. The commander of the garrison claimed that a simple misunderstanding in language had caused the riot, but from the description of events, Geoff surmised it had been more like suicide.

  He’d asked to see the prisoners’ effects and board the captured ship. The commander reported that the crew had thrown many items overboard before surrendering, rather than have them confiscated. Harry searched the vessel with his meticulous attention to detail and reported the results. Any item of a personal nature—letters, books, diaries, religious items and currency—were gone. There was nothing left to identify the origin or nationality of the ship. They’d sailed under a Spanish flag, but that was easy enough to come by.

  Geoff and Harry agreed that such odd circumstances could easily mean that the vessel was a spy ship. The commander had shrugged indifferently and concluded that they’d never know.

  But there was one thing that could betray the crew, even in death. Geoff demanded the soldiers exhume the prisoners’ bodies. To a man, they’d been circumcised. Lacking any known band of Jewish pirates, that left only one possibility.

  “Berbers,” Harry had muttered.

  But el-Daibul’s body hadn’t been among them. There was no trace of his distinctive long beard, the red-and-white checked kufiyah and the slash above the left eyebrow that Geoff had made years ago.

  The mere possibility that el-Daibul could be somewhere close at hand made his skin crawl. Geoff needed to get back to London, because if he’d come for Geoff, that’s where he’d be. But Geoff had learned from bitter experience that el-Daibul would not be satisfied with killing him. First he’d kill anyone Geoff loved, destroy anything that gave him pleasure. And that meant he had to stop el-Daibul before he found and destroyed Dianthe.

  He should have known better than to love her. Ruin always followed. It was no protection for her that he’d managed to keep from taking her virginity. He hadn’t left any part of her undiscovered to his touch, to his tongue, to all his senses. He’d been without conscience in the way he’d utterly seduced her, used her to slake his need for something good and untouched. For something he could hold in his heart and memory, if not his arms. Knowing her like that, and not having her in full, had been his punishment.

  But hardest of all, almost impossible—he’d have to stand by when Dianthe was finally acquitted of the murder charge, and watch while she found a proper husband, the sort she’d always wanted. He’d have to see her belonging to, possessed by, another man.

  He’d have to leave town to keep from doing murder.

  Dianthe had been so caught up in her investigation and Morgan’s insistence on fencing lessons, courtesan lessons, fittings and evenings spent traipsing about London that she forgot entirely about contacting Mr. Renquist and Madame Marie. They would be beside themselves by now.

  She opened the shop door to La Meilleure Robe and winced as the little bell rang. She glanced at her disguise in the foyer looking glass as she tugged her gloves off and removed her bonnet.

  “I am the most desirable woman in this room,” she recited by rote. “If I choose, I can give more pleasure than a man could bear. I am Salome, Delilah and Helen of Troy.”

  She turned around to find Madame Marie behind her, a look of pure astonishment on her face. “Salome?” the dressmaker asked as she closed the distance and pulled Dianthe into her arms, nearly weeping with relief. “Oh, chère! François ’as been looking for you for days! We thought…we feared you were in trouble and could not come to us. Where ’ave you been?” She dragged Dianthe to the back sitting room and closed the door.

  “I am so sorry, Madame,” Dianthe began, a rush of guilt sweeping over her. “I’ve been busy investigating. I didn’t think Mr. Renquist would have much to report. Has McHugh come to fetch me?”

  “Mais non, chère.” Marie turned and went back to the door. “Wait ’ere while I fetch François. ’E will be so relieved to see you.”

  Tears welled in Dianthe’s eyes and she wiped at them impatiently. She was not a schoolgirl. She should be strong in the face of adversity, and she was so tired of intrigue and drama.

  Geoffrey. She sighed. When had she started to care what he thought? She suspected it was sometime after the incident on Curzon Street. He’d always seemed so strong, so invulnerable, that she’d thought he hadn’t any feelings at all. But when he’d blurted that he couldn’t be trusted to protect her, she finally saw the depth of his emotions—a pain so deep that he’d shut everyone and everything out.

  Mr. Renquist hurried into the dressing room and closed the door. “Marie is with a client. She will be along in a moment. Where have you been, Miss Lovejoy? What the deuce have you been up to?”

  “It would be better if you didn’t know that, sir,” she said. “But please believe that I’ve been quite safe. I am sorry I haven’t been able to contact you before, but—”

  “Precisely why you must tell me now how to reach you when your sister arrives. We cannot have you floating about London with no means to find you.”

  “Afton is enceinte. McHugh will likely come alone.”

  “All the more reason to be able to find you. He is not a patient man. And there are things that could happen to an innocent girl.”

  She sank into a chair and shook her head. “I promised I would not divulge my whereabouts, Mr. Renquist. I could arrange to meet you each day, if you wish, but I simply cannot tell you where I am staying.”

  Mr. Renquist’s mouth tightened to a thin line. “Every day, Miss Lovejoy?”

  She nodded.

  He looked far from satisfied when he sat on the little fitting stool and regarded her somberly. “I have not had much success in the investigation, Miss Lovejoy. Everyone is suddenly close-mouthed about it. Little bits and pieces show up, but they all seem to incriminate you.”

  “You’ve heard that they found my calling card amongst Miss Brookes’s effects?”

  He nodded. “Where were you night before last?”

  Gambling, then in Geoffrey’s arms. “Why, sir? Is something wrong?”

  “Another courtesan was killed. A woman by the name of Elvina Gibson. Would you know anything about that?”

  “I heard about it. Do you think it has anything to do with Nell?”

  He nodded. “She’d been asking questions. And she was the last to admit having a conversation with Nell.”

  Dianthe suddenly remembered that Miss Denton had known about Elvina’s conversation with her cousin. “Have you interviewed Miss Denton, the woman from the funeral?”

  “I haven’t been able to find her.”

  “Something isn’t right.” Dianthe frowned. “Nell and Flora were best of friends. If Elvina was killed after talking to Nell, and Flora talked to Elvina, then Flora may be next. You must find her, Mr. Renquist, and warn her to leave town until this is over.”

  “Advice we’ve all tried to give you, Miss Lovejoy. It seems to me you know more than you should about the demimonde. And last time we were together, you were asking me questions about…” His eyes grew round and his eyebrows shot up. “Say you are not involved with those people.”

  “None of them know who I am. None but Flora, and she will not tell.”

  “Good God!” he exclaimed. “Have you gone mad? How will you ever explain this to your sister? To your suitors?” He groaned. “To McHugh.”

  “’Twas that or Newgate. They will not judge me, sir.”

  “Marie and I—”

  “For the last time, Mr. Renquist, I will not compromise anyone I care about, nor will I taint them with scandal or put them in conflict with their superiors. And that is an end to the subject.”

  He gave her a disgruntled look but took a different direction. “Our leads regarding Nell have revealed nothing. I will locate Miss Denton, and meantime I could turn my attention to Elvina Gibson. There may be something in her background or in her last days that will give us a clue if the two deaths are linked.”

  Diant
he sighed, glad she would not have to argue further. One tiny niggling thought had been troubling her since her conversation with Mr. Munro. “Have you also investigated Lord Geoffrey Morgan?”

  “Morgan? Yes. I wondered if he plays into this. He was in Vauxhall Gardens when you discovered Nell. He was at her funeral. And I learned Nell had been his mistress.”

  She had always known they had been involved but she hadn’t stopped to consider how that affected her. Geoffrey and…her cousin? Had he made love to Dianthe because he missed Nell? Could she bear to be a pale substitute in his eyes? But they’d been at odds of late. Miss Denton had said so. Lockwood, Munro and Mr. Renquist had all warned her of Morgan’s temper.

  “Do you think he is the murderer?”

  “I know he’s capable of it. I’ve had dealings with Morgan before—a case of Lady Annica’s several years ago. He’s a dangerous man, and involved in some very nefarious schemes. Anyone with a care to their life would do well to avoid him.”

  “Did you turn up anything specific?”

  “Only that he’s known for his coldness and detachment. And that he has a long fuse before he snaps. He’s never been known to harm a woman, but that does not mean he is not somehow involved.”

  “I see,” she said, a headache beginning to hammer at her temples. She couldn’t believe it, but caution and good sense warned her to be wary.

  “Why should it matter to you, Miss Lovejoy? You have nothing to do with Lord Morgan.”

  She looked down and fumbled with her reticule, hoping he wouldn’t notice she hadn’t answered his question.

  “Good God, Miss Lovejoy. Say you have not—”

  The door opened and Marie hurried in, looking harried and breathless. “Thank ’eavens I ’ave caught you before you left, chère.” She pulled an envelope from a pocket in the sewing smock she wore. “In case you need it.”

  Dianthe took the envelope and smiled. Cash. Dear practical Marie! Dianthe tucked it into her reticule and stood to leave. “Thank you, Madame. I shall pay you back every pence.”