The Captain's Courtesan

by Lucy Ashford

  ‘She should have thought of that before she married him,’ rapped back Alec. ‘Obviously his wealth distracted her from the practical realities of playing wife to a much older man.’

  Stephen drew in a hissed breath. ‘Now, look. As far as London society is concerned, I’m merely being the dutiful stepson by escorting her to her various engagements …’

  His voice faltered, because of the way Alec was gazing at him. ‘You won’t be escorting her anywhere in the foreseeable future—’ Alec pointed a finger at him, casually ‘—because she’s going to Hampshire with our father.’

  Stephen opened his mouth, then shut it again.

  ‘Oh, and there’s one more thing,’ went on Alec. ‘Why were you talking last night to the blonde whore who played Athena?’

  ‘Why? The usual reasons.’ Stephen’s lip curled. ‘So you noticed her, too, did you? Are you going back there tonight to tup the wench? I’d be interested to know what bedroom tricks she employs—’

  Stephen broke off, because his brother’s bunched fist was suddenly in front of his face. ‘Oh, Stephen,’ Alec said softly, ‘I’ve no intention of paying for anyone’s services. But I’ve another question. You paid those men to attack me last night at the Temple of Beauty, didn’t you? Why?’

  ‘I really don’t know what the hell you’re—’

  ‘Don’t waste your breath trying to deny it. Because I’m just longing for an excuse to give you the beating you deserve.’

  Stephen cowered away. ‘Not here. Not in our father’s house!’

  Then the door opened. And Susanna was there.

  Lady Aldchester, the former Contessa di Ascoli, was exquisite, everyone was agreed on that. Her origins were obscure—she had been born in England to an Italian mother and had married a Milanese count, considerably older than she.

  When he died in Italy two years ago his widow had decided to come to live in London, where she had made her entrance in considerable style. She had rented a fine house where she held glittering soirées with her mother, and soon half of London’s gentry were in love with her.

  Including his father.

  Now she looked from one to the other, lovely as ever, with her clouds of raven curls and her sultry dark-blue eyes. She was younger than both of them. Then she said, in her silken voice that bore the allure of her Italian heritage, ‘Stephen. Alec. I’ve just been told that your father is ill.’

  ‘It’s nothing serious,’ said Stephen. ‘Rest assured.’

  ‘I will go up, then, to see him …’

  Stephen strode forwards. ‘I will come with you.’

  ‘No. Best if I see him by myself.’

  Alec had already turned to go. But he became aware that she was following him out on to the palatial landing above the staircase, where they were, momentarily, alone. The faint scent of gardenias clung to her skin and hair.

  ‘Alec,’ she said, ‘my dear, please will you speak with me one moment before I go up to your father?’ Her delicate gloved fingers were touching his arm. ‘It’s been so long since we spoke. I’m sad, because you used to be at every society gathering. You are missed,’ she added softly.

  ‘Do you know,’ he said in a curt voice, ‘I find that London society doesn’t appeal to me very much at the moment. Susanna, my father wants to go to Carrfields.’

  The colour left her cheeks. ‘Carrfields! But he promised me—’

  ‘I take it,’ Alec cut in, ‘that you’ll go with him? Stephen, by the way, is staying in London.’

  She hesitated. Then, ‘Of course I will go.’

  With a tight bow, he turned to leave, but she caught again at his arm. ‘My dear, I so wish we could be friends again! And I’m sorry about the Bedford Street house. I told your father that my mother wished for a residence in London. But I didn’t realise you would be made homeless!’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ This time he couldn’t help the bitterness showing through. ‘Believe me, that’s the least of my worries.’

  Her eyes were clouded. ‘What can I do, to redeem myself?’ she murmured. ‘Alec, I am not happy, you must know that. I am not, if it’s of any consolation to you, in the slightest bit proud of myself.’

  ‘I think you know, Susanna, what you ought to do. Whether you do it or not is entirely up to you. You have a better side. Use it.’ Alec gave a curt bow and left.

  She watched him go down the vast staircase that swept to the entrance hall below. Stephen had come out of the drawing room and was looking at her.

  ‘Carrfields,’ he said. ‘How will you bear it?’

  ‘It seems,’ she answered, ‘as if I must.’

  And she went upstairs, to visit her husband.

  Shortly afterwards, Lord Stephen Maybury went back to his house in Brook Street and spoke to the man with the scarred forehead. ‘Well, Markin? Did you do as I ordered?’

  ‘Hire a couple of ruffians to wreck the printing press that produced that foul stuff about Lady Aldchester? Aye, my lord. And there’s more. The fair-haired piece from the Temple of Beauty that you asked me to follow last night—turns out she lives there, as well! She’s some kind of writer!’

  And Stephen’s narrow green eyes widened.

  He had been absolutely enraged to see the way Susanna looked at Alec out there on the landing. The way she had agreed, in spite of all her earlier protestations about hating the country, to go with his father to Carrfields.

  Was she tiring of her secret games with Stephen?

  Now, though, the blonde girl from the Temple of Beauty drove everything from his mind. If there was a connection, with the other one from three years ago, he needed to shut the girl up. And fast.

  Chapter Nine

  The next two weeks were blighted by the blustery rain of late March and the leaden skies reflected Helen’s mood of despair. ‘I’ll never feel safe again. Oh, Rosalie, who could have done such a thing?’

  ‘The constables are hunting the culprits,’ Rosalie soothed her as she brought her a cup of tea. ‘Why not start writing again? You have a gift for it and for teaching. I’ll never forget how you inspired us in the village school, about art and history. You opened up a new world to me, Helen.’

  Helen gave a glimmer of a smile. ‘You had a hunger for learning anyway. Every book I brought to you, you used to devour. When I took you all to that art gallery in Oxford, I could hardly tear you away!’

  ‘My father was an artist, remember?’ Rosalie sat down next to her on the little sofa. ‘I think I hoped there might be some paintings there by him. Of course, there weren’t. But I looked, and looked—so foolish of me!’

  Helen gazed at her. ‘Oh, I’d no idea … Rosalie, you must have missed him so!’

  ‘Always,’ said Rosalie quietly. ‘I was so young when he died. But I never forgot him.’ She tried to smile again. ‘Do you remember how on the way back from Oxford, I wouldn’t stop asking you questions about everything we’d seen? How you put up with me, I can’t imagine. Seriously, Helen, I know you feel dreadful, but how about writing again? Stories, poetry, anything!’

  Helen shook her head. ‘I worry far too much to write. I still feel as though I’m being watched.’

  Rosalie shivered, because sometimes she felt the same. But aloud she said resolutely, ‘Nonsense! Biddy’s brothers are close by, remember—and you have such loyal friends. Do please try to stop worrying.’

  ‘Oh, Rosalie. You are being so good to me.’

  ‘Not as good as you’ve been to me, Helen,’ answered Rosalie quietly.

  And she felt a liar and a hypocrite. All of this is my fault. I drew down the wrath of Alec Stewart upon you.

  The constables, she privately thought, would be doing very little about Helen’s wrecked press; you needed money and influence to stir the forces of law into action. Who else but Alec Stewart would have set his men to do this vile deed? He had left that note to warn Rosalie to be quiet about his exploitation of those poor soldiers. What would he do if he knew that Linette had whispered his name as she lay dying?
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  It was up to her to confront him. But how could she, secure as he was in his castle of rogues?

  At least Rosalie had been right to assure Helen that she did indeed have friends, because Francis Wheeldon, the kind churchwarden who lived in nearby St John’s Square, called round almost daily; one afternoon he asked Helen if she would write some articles about the history of Clerkenwell for the parish magazine.

  Rosalie had seen Helen’s face brighten with interest, and tactfully she had left them alone, taking Katy and Toby to the Green to play in the spring sunshine. She liked Francis. Quite a few years older than Helen, he lived with his spinster sister and was a scholarly, gentle man.

  Indeed, when Rosalie got back, Helen was looking almost happy and was already sitting at her writing desk.

  ‘So you managed to get rid of Mr Wheeldon at last?’ teased Rosalie gently.

  Helen turned with a smile. ‘Oh, yes. It’s a little embarrassing really, the way he fusses over me.’

  ‘He’s sweet. And he thinks a lot of you, Helen.’ ‘Nonsense!’ Helen was brisk again. ‘But, well, writing these articles about Clerkenwell will be interesting. Francis is so knowledgeable. And that reminds me, Rosalie—I hadn’t realised before, but Francis knows such a great deal about French history. So I mentioned your mother’s family—they owned property south of Paris, didn’t they?’

  Rosalie swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘They used to, but they lost everything in the Revolution and were scattered far and wide, my mother said.’

  ‘That’s what I told him. But Francis corresponds with a friend in Paris and he said he’d ask for any news. Isn’t that kind of him?’

  ‘Incredibly kind, yes.’ Rosalie was anxious not to dampen Helen’s enthusiasm. ‘And it’s so good to see you writing again!’

  Helen clapped her hand to her forehead. ‘Oh, Rosalie, that reminds me—will you do me a very big favour? I was asked to a poetry reading above Hatchard’s bookshop in Piccadilly tonight—they wanted me to write a review. But now I’d much rather get on with this, for Mr Wheeldon. I wonder, will you go instead?’

  Rosalie hesitated. Amateur poets did not always make for the jolliest of evenings.

  ‘Please,’ urged Helen. ‘I’d be so grateful!’

  ‘Of course I’ll go,’ Rosalie said swiftly. She owed Helen so very much.

  * * *

  But later, as she was upstairs preparing herself for a night of would-be versifiers communing effusively with nature, she was disturbed by a knock at the front door. She knew Biddy was in the kitchen giving the children their supper, and of Helen there was no sign; doubtless she was engrossed in her writing and deaf to the world. So Rosalie hurried downstairs to answer it—and found Sal, from the Temple of Beauty, wrapped in a hooded mantle against the cool March night. Rosalie flinched inwardly. The Temple of Beauty could only mean trouble. ‘Sal,’ she said. ‘This is a surprise. How did you find me?’

  ‘Caught sight of you earlier, gal, at the market in Cheapside!’ grinned Sal, hands on hips. ‘Then I simply asked around and tracked you down—a neighbourly visit, that’s all!’

  Rosalie nodded. ‘How is the Temple of Beauty?’

  ‘Put it this way, it’s not been the same since the night you were there. Remember that fight? Dr B.’s still got a black eye from it and Mrs B.’s given Charlotte the push, ‘cos she realised that same night what the pair of them was up to between the sheets! So the place has had a right old turning-over, though that wretched piano’s busted to bits, so it’s not all bad news.’

  Rosalie shivered slightly. ‘Dr Barnard’s not still after me, is he?’

  ‘For bein’ some sort of writer? Lord, no, he forgot that in all the trouble over Charlotte.’

  ‘And—you’ve not seen the Captain in there again?’

  She tried to make her question casual, but Sal arched one painted eyebrow. ‘Still hankering after him, gal? No, no sign of him. Forget his handsome face, that’s my advice.’ She peered inside the hallway. ‘Nice-lookin’ place. Stayin’ with family, are you? I remember you mentioned a sister to me.’

  Rosalie was puzzled. She didn’t think she’d mentioned Linette to anyone there. ‘I did have a sister, but she died.’

  ‘I’m sorry, gal, real sorry. Your only sister, was she?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well …’ Sal looked up and down the street and shrugged her shoulders ‘… just thought I’d call to see how you was and everything. You look mighty smart. All dressed up for something, or someone?’

  Rosalie glanced down at her serviceable blue gown and managed a smile. ‘Oh, it’s a poetry reading in Piccadilly, though to be honest, I’d much prefer to be indoors on a night like this.’

  Sal laughed. ‘Poetry. La-di-dah! Walkin’ there by yourself?’

  ‘I’ll take a hackney cab. But once I’m there I’m sure I’ll be perfectly safe among the poets!’

  ‘Well, I’m one of the Three Graces tonight at Dr B.’s, so I’ll be dressing up, too, but I shan’t be wearin’ as much as you. Just thought I’d see how you are, you know?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. My thanks for calling.’

  Rosalie watched Sal hurrying away as the cold wind whipped some rubbish down the street. With a catch in her throat, she remembered seeing Alec Stewart for the first time, lounging at the back of Dr Barnard’s hall. He’d quite simply taken her breath away. So stupid of her. She knew now that her judgement had been most terribly awry.

  Alec Stewart would be unaware that Linette had whispered his name to Rosalie as she lay dying. But surely, surely he realised she would guess instantly that he was the one behind the destruction of Helen’s press?

  No doubt he dismissed her as powerless, she thought bitterly. As he’d said, no magistrate would take seriously the word of a woman who’d appeared on stage at the Temple of Beauty. But she wouldn’t, she couldn’t let him get away with his crimes!

  Meanwhile—oh, Lord, she was going to be late for the poets.

  Sal pulled up her hood and hurried round the corner to where the man waited for her. She looked up at him defiantly. ‘She did have a sister. But she’s dead. That’s what you wanted to know, ain’t it?’

  ‘Dead! Are you quite sure?’

  ‘Sure as I’m standin’ here—look, am I gettin’ paid, or what?’

  ‘When you’ve earned it, slut,’ snarled the man. ‘Did you find out if she has any plans for the next few days?’

  Sal hesitated, then muttered, ‘She’ll be at some sort of poetry affair in Piccadilly tonight.’

  ‘Tonight …’

  ‘Remember, mister, you swore to me she’d come to no harm!’

  The man with the scar on his forehead pushed some coins into her palm with contempt. ‘Take your money, slut. And get out of here.’

  Sal gave a shudder of revulsion and ran off into the dark night. She could only pray that the girl would come to no harm …

  Rosalie smothered a yawn as she listened to yet another soulful poet describing in verse, to a hushed audience, the joys and agonies of the sensitive heart.

  Deciding that Lord Byron—whose Childe Harold she adored—would have given the fellow a crushing set-down, she edged her way to another part of the big reception room above the Piccadilly bookshop where food was being served. Heaping a plate with several small but delicious savoury patties, she found herself a chair in a quiet corner, pulled out her notebook and pencil and began to write.

  Tonight your fellow about town Ro Rowland took himself to a literary reception. Who, dear reader, would have guessed that so many London citizens long to express their innermost thoughts in verse? Who would dare to tell these would-be poets that their innermost thoughts are better kept precisely where they are?

  She chewed the end of her pencil, frowning as her mood darkened once more. Even if Helen were miraculously to get hold of another printing press, there would be no more Scribblers until Alec Stewart was dealt with …

  ‘I don’t believe it! My dear girl, wha
t on earth are you doing here?’ The voice came from behind her and she jumped up, quickly slipping her book and pencil into her reticule.

  It was Lord Stephen Maybury. Last time she’d seen him, at Dr Barnard’s, he’d had a heated argument with Alec Stewart. And of course Lord Maybury must still think she was one of Dr Barnard’s girls. Fiddlesticks. She swiftly composed herself. ‘Poetry happens to be an interest of mine, my lord!’ she answered lightly.

  He drew a little closer. ‘You don’t write the stuff, do you?’

  He was wearing a fine blue kerseymere tailcoat with a striped-silk waistcoat and a shirt with a high, starched collar. Rosalie stifled her instinctive dislike of fashionable men. ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I have no such talent.’

  ‘Thank God for that. But—’ she saw Lord Maybury was taking in her plain gown with its long sleeves and high neck ‘—this is rather a different setting from the place where we last met.’ He raised one questioning eyebrow.

  She ventured a smile. ‘I can see I must confess to you, my lord. In fact, I was only at Dr Barnard’s for one night …’

  ‘Ah.’ He was pulling up a chair and beckoned her to sit again. ‘Some kind of challenge?’

  She seized on that. ‘Yes. Yes, a challenge! We ladies like to wager occasionally, you know! Although—’ she leaned a fraction closer ‘—some of my more timid friends would be just a little shocked were they to hear of it, so I do hope that it will remain our secret!’

  His eyes had fastened on her wedding ring. ‘What about your husband? Would he be shocked, too?’

  She’d got into the habit of wearing the ring. So many people assumed Katy was hers that her story of widowhood protected them both. She pretended to dab at her eyes. ‘My husband sadly died some time ago, my lord.’

  ‘My dear,’ he said sympathetically, ‘you look scarcely old enough to be married, let alone bereaved. Tragic. Well, my lips are sealed about your little adventure at Dr Barnard’s. Indeed, I would not normally visit such a place myself, but certain—circumstances demanded it.’ He looked around. ‘I was, to be honest, about to leave here. Can’t stand much more of this drivel. However— if you were to keep me company for a while, it might be just tolerable. Would you care for a drink? Lemonade is your preference, I believe?’