The Captain's Courtesan

by Lucy Ashford

  It was because Rosalie still struck him as Stephen’s victim, rather than his whore. And—though he despised himself for this—because he found her irresistible. He’d been fool enough to kiss her twice and both those kisses had been delicious. She was sweet, tenderly responsive, yet almost innocent … Impossible! For God’s sake, she’d been selling herself at the Temple of Beauty! Displaying herself, on stage, looking for the highest bidder!

  His raging doubts were succinctly echoed by Garrett, as the two of them went as usual round the big place one last time, to check all was well before locking up for the night.

  ‘You’ve let yourself in for a whole heap of trouble, taking that one in, Captain, if you don’t mind my saying,’ warned Garrett softly. ‘A whole heap.’

  Alec was awake early the next morning as ever and went down to breakfast, brushing aside that damned great dog, who’d jumped up to greet him from a warm spot by Mary’s cooking range. Quite a few men were already at the big table, eating. The newcomers were especially hungry and shovelled down the food as if they couldn’t believe their luck, while the two new women Garrett had hired to help out were cheerfully dishing out the plain but hearty food.

  They all greeted him warmly. ‘Mornin’, Captain!’ He nodded in reply. The dark-haired wench who’d tried her luck with him last night lifted her face for a kiss, but he’d already made it plain she was hired to work and nothing else. He couldn’t see Mary, though he knew she couldn’t be far away, because only she could have got so many pans full of sizzling fried bread and bacon on the big cooking range.

  He went to pour himself some coffee, then saw Mary coming through from the breakfast room—with Katy in her arms.

  ‘Where’s the child’s mother, Mary? Isn’t she down yet?’

  Kind Mary, a mother and grandmother herself, looked anxious. ‘She’s still a-bed, Captain. The little one was heard cryin’, so I went up to fetch her. Took her clothes to freshen up, as well. The mother, she didn’t wake!’

  Garrett entered just then. ‘Doubtless she’s not used to keeping early hours, Captain,’ he said pointedly.

  Alec whipped round on him. ‘She has a child. No mother normally sleeps when her child’s crying!’

  ‘This one does.’

  Alec said grimly, ‘In that case, I’m going up to her. She cannot be well.’

  But first, Garrett handed him the note.

  Hell’s teeth.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rosalie was in an old dark castle, where every room was full of sneering soldiers and gaudily dressed whores. She was running along endless passageways in search of Linette, for ever glimpsing her, but unable to reach her; then she was faced with a door which turned out to be not a door, but a mirror. In it she saw herself wearing nothing but a silken underslip, through which her hips and her breasts were outlined. Her hair was tangled, her cheeks flushed, and Alec Stewart was coming up behind her, lithe and dangerous, pulling her to him, kissing her, plundering her mouth with his lips and tongue …

  Linette’s destroyer. A rackrenter, who sought out the company of loose women.

  Darkness enveloped her again. Flames were burning her. She could hear Katy crying, Mama, Mama, and Rosalie was struggling to get to her, but was powerless to save her. There is no hope, someone was saying, there is no hope.

  Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Weakly she hauled herself up against the pillows, still light-headed, still nauseous. Daylight poured into the room. And she saw that Katy’s bed was empty.

  She began to scream.

  The door opened and Alec Stewart was there. Instantly he strode to her bedside. ‘Rosalie. You’re having nightmares—my God, you look as though you’re burning up!’

  ‘Katy.’ The tears were still rolling down her cheeks. ‘What have you done with Katy?’

  ‘She’s safe. Do you hear me?’

  ‘I must go to her. I must …’

  He sat quickly on the chair by her bed and gripped her hands. ‘She’s downstairs, having breakfast. Mary is looking after her; she’s quite safe. You’re safe.’ He touched her forehead. ‘But you have a fever. You’re not fit to go anywhere.’

  She was trying to pull away. ‘I must get up, I must get out of here.’

  ‘And go where precisely, damn it?’

  She sank back, pulse thudding. She had no money. Helen’s house had been destroyed. And she was clad only in a loose nightgown—where were her clothes?

  Alec had gone over to the dressing table and was pouring something from a jug into a cup. ‘Here,’ he said, coming back to her, his face strangely shadowed. ‘Drink this. It’s Mary’s barley water.’ He sat on a chair next to the bed, supporting her shoulders with one hand and holding the cup for her with the other hand. She felt as weak as a kitten. Her throat was parched, and the barley water was cold and pure. His hand was unnervingly comforting against her back. But—

  ‘You will be all right here,’ he emphasised softly. ‘Katy will be all right. Mary has her two young grandchildren here nearly every day while her daughter works at a bakery in Bishopsgate. The little girls are playing with Katy now and Katy is perfectly happy. I’m going to send for the doctor.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I know that you hate this place, and me,’ he said quietly. ‘But unless you can tell me of somewhere else you can go—somewhere safe—you really have no option.’

  She hesitated, her stomach pitching. ‘I will find somewhere …’

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘If you insist. But I take it you’re going with a bodyguard to accompany you?’

  The blood pounded through her veins. ‘What—what nonsense is this?’

  ‘Not nonsense, unfortunately. This was delivered at the house this morning.’ He passed the crudely written note to her. She took it with trembling fingers.

  Stop asking questions, whore. Your friend has already suffered the consequences, and you’re next.

  The writing. The notepaper … Her stomach lurched.

  He said, ‘Do you know who it’s from?’

  ‘I think—I think it could be from the same person who has been threatening my friend Helen. The same writing. The same notepaper.’

  He drew in a sharp breath. She went on, in a voice that shook despite all her efforts to control it, ‘This is ridiculous! I cannot be threatened like this; I will go to the constables, or a magistrate—they will help me!’

  ‘Save yourself the trouble,’ he said.

  He didn’t need to explain. He’d told her before that no magistrate would take the trouble to listen to her. A courtesan who writes for a gossip rag. That was how he’d described her. ‘Then I am even more determined that we will leave here!’ she cried. ‘Katy and I, we will find somewhere …’ She was trying to push back the bedclothes.

  ‘No!’ he rasped, flinging out his arm to stop her. ‘Whoever it is, they’ll follow you—you and the child!’ Then, a little gentler, ‘I don’t make a habit of throwing women and children out on the street. Stay here.’

  He must have seen the downright fear shoot through her. ‘I realise the idea doesn’t immediately appeal,’ he said. His eyes darkened. ‘But believe me, as soon as word goes around that you’re under my protection, you’ll be far safer than anywhere else in London. And rest assured I will require nothing of you at all. Except, perhaps, obedience.’

  She swallowed, hard. ‘Then—you truly think I’m in danger?’

  He pointed at the note. ‘Don’t you?’

  She sank back against the pillows. Oh, Lord. Where else could she go? But how could she possibly think herself safe here, of all places?

  Alec was mentally cursing himself. If he hadn’t gone to Dr Barnard’s to tackle Stephen, he would never have seen her. She’d have been left to deal with her own problems, which she’d surely brought upon herself. But—was she really used to earning her living on her back, as well as with her vitriolic pen?

  She was trouble. Even in that voluminous nightgown, she was treacherously alluring. He remembe
red her slender waist, the sweet curve of her hips, the warm scent of her skin as he’d hauled her against him in that kiss, the last time she’d paid a visit to Two Crows Castle. The memory sent a nagging ache of need throbbing through his veins.

  You fool, Stewart.

  ‘Have you decided?’ he asked curtly.

  Her eyes looked bruised with distress. ‘Will you truly promise me Katy is safe here?’

  ‘Of course she is,’ he said. Safer than she was with you last night, since you were dragging her around the town. No. He wouldn’t rebuke her—yet—for her idiotic trust in his brother.

  She drew herself up and said, with that air of defiant dignity that so confounded all his preconceptions of her, ‘Very well. For as long as the danger stands, I will—accept your protection.’

  He nodded, as if it were a matter of as little importance to him as the hiring of a hackney cab. ‘I am overwhelmed by your gratitude,’ he said.

  ‘Some day you must let me pay you!’

  He shrugged. ‘Why? Nobody else does.’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘Only those poor soldiers!’

  ‘My soldiers?’ He looked coldly angry now. ‘I’d like to make it quite clear that none of them pays me a penny.’

  Oh, God. She bit her lip. For some reason she believed him. ‘I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were a—a …’

  ‘A rackrenter,’ he said tightly. ‘Indeed. As you implied in those scribblings of yours—wait! Where in hell are you going?’

  She’d suddenly slid to the side of the bed away from him. Was trying to heave herself out, but was instead doubled up and starting to retch helplessly.

  In a couple of strides Alec had pushed the porcelain bowl from the washstand on to the floor beside her. ‘I’ll send Mary up. I’m going for the doctor.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘This time,’ he said, ‘I’m giving you no choice.’

  Exhausted with sickness and with Mary quietly tidying up around her, Rosalie sagged back against the pillows in despair. Oh, no. She’d made so many dreadful mistakes. She’d been wrong about Helen’s printing press, and the fire, and about his rackrenting. In return he despised her as a cheap little widow, a courtesan. And even though Alec Stewart might be a despicable seducer—my own sister denounced him to me!—just now she’d found comfort and something even more disturbing in his calm voice, his very presence …

  You are mad. You are ill, Rosalie.

  Ill indeed, because during the course of that morning the fever took her more firmly in its grip. Bed rest, the doctor ordered.

  The next few days for Rosalie passed in a haze. She was sometimes aware of Mary serving her with the powders the doctor had prescribed, or bringing her a fresh cotton nightgown. Of Katy being brought up to see her, her little thumb in her mouth, sometimes with Mary, sometimes in Alec’s strong arms, which Rosalie found almost unbearable.

  Sometimes, she would hear the physician’s grave voice. ‘The fever lingers … She must have caught a chill on the night you found her.’

  Then Alec’s low tones. ‘Mrs Rowland was drenched that night, in the rain. And I’ve reason to believe she was served drinks that had been tampered with.’

  ‘That would not have helped. Rest is what she needs; a little light food, plenty of liquids …’

  That threat, that note Alec had shown her, hung over her all the time. Stop asking questions, whore. Your friend has already suffered the consequences, and you’re next.

  Who could it be from?

  One morning—Rosalie guessed her fourth day here—Alec knocked and came in after the doctor’s daily visit. She had tried getting up earlier, but her legs were as shaky as a newborn colt’s.

  ‘I’ve brought you a letter,’ he said. Her pulse began to race. ‘It’s from your friend Helen.’

  Helen. Oh, poor Helen would have been so worried, so angry … ‘How did she know I was here?’

  ‘I told her,’ Alec said quietly. ‘I went to see her at Mr Wheeldon’s house two days ago to explain that you were ill and had taken shelter at my home. She—expressed her disapproval quite strongly.’

  Rosalie could imagine. She opened the letter quickly. Rosalie, my dear. What can you be thinking of, staying at that place? You know you are welcome here, with Francis and his sister! I have news. But first please write, to let me know you and Katy are safe.

  ‘She wanted to visit you,’ Alec said. ‘More than that, I think she wanted to drag you and your child away from here and tear me limb from limb. Her friend Mr Wheeldon was more reasonable. Do you wish her to visit?’

  ‘No, I don’t. Because that threat was directed to her, too, wasn’t it, Captain Stewart?’ Rosalie managed to sound calm. ‘So at the moment I imagine it’s best if she has as little as possible to do with me.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell her that the doctor still advises you to rest. And if you wish to write to her, I’ll see that your letter’s delivered.’

  So Rosalie wrote to her.

  A reply came the next day from Helen. Alec waited while she read it. Rosalie. I am disappointed that you have chosen to place any trust in that man. Since you don’t wish me to visit, I am obliged to write with my news. Francis has asked Toby and me to travel to Oxford with him for two weeks, because he has been approached to set up a church school in a village there and wants me to help. Just think, it’s not far—ten miles or less—from where you used to live, and I used to teach! I am considering making a permanent move—I don’t think I can be happy in London again. I hope you know, Rosalie, that I will be there whenever you want me. Yours, Helen.

  Alec was watching her. ‘Are you all right, Mrs Rowland?’

  She pushed some loose strands of hair back from her cheeks. ‘Helen is leaving London for a little while. I—I think she feels I’ve rejected her.’

  ‘You did so for very good reasons,’ he reminded her quietly. ‘Unselfish reasons. Some day, you’ll be able to tell her so.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ll leave you to rest.’

  She lay back against the pillows.

  Now, she really was on her own.

  Whenever she was by herself she would get up from her bed and try to walk a little further around the room, but Rosalie was frightened by how weak she was after these days of illness. Katy was brought up to her regularly, but was always happy to return to her new friends.

  Time for Rosalie hung heavily, until she noticed some books on a shelf by the window. She was surprised by their quality. Several of them, she realised, were sketchbooks that must have belonged to someone in the army. Quickly she became captivated by the swiftly but skilfully drawn portraits of soldiers at rest, or marching, the deft watercolours of mountains and villages, in Spain, she guessed. There were also other, heavier volumes containing reproductions of the work of more famous artists.

  Mary had brought her some spare clothes, and on her seventh morning there Rosalie took off her nightgown and pulled on a sleeveless cotton chemise, intending to wear the plain rose-pink cambric dress that lay over the foot of the bed. But it was warm in here with the sun pouring through the window, so she decided to continue reading the book on Boucher she had found while sitting curled on the bed. The doctor had been and there was no danger of any other visitors just yet.

  She was fast learning the rhythms of the household. She’d heard from Mary, always willing to chatter, that the soldiers were usually up and about early. Some went off to local places of work, at building sites or timber yards. Others were organised by Sergeant McGrath into doing repair work around this ungainly great building. Alec was often out until his fencing lessons began in the early evening.

  But now, as Rosalie sat cross-legged on the bed in that flimsy chemise, engrossed in her book, Alec Stewart walked in, carrying a tray laden with a steaming teapot, china cups and a plate of bread and butter. He almost dropped everything. He clutched the tray and steadied it with a clatter of crockery, but not before one of the cups had rolled off and smashed on the floor.

  He said, ‘My God.�
�

  She dropped the book and jumped off the bed, putting it between herself and him. With his tousled dark hair, his rumpled white shirt, black boots and breeches that clung to every inch of his muscular thighs, he looked utterly devastating.

  Her pulse was hammering. ‘If you’d knocked first,’ she declared, ‘you might have saved yourself a broken cup! How dare you just march in?’

  ‘It’s my damned house,’ he pointed out reasonably. ‘And Mary asked me to bring your tea. Normally you’re hiding under the sheets. I had no idea you’d be putting on such a display.’ To be truthful, Alec was flummoxed. He knew he should leave. But—he was entranced. He felt lust stroking his loins. In that simple white chemise, she looked exquisite.

  Already she was tugging on the rather faded rose-pink gown.

  But that was hardly any better at concealing her charms either, thought Alec, cursing under his breath as he picked up pieces of the broken cup, because the soft fabric had moulded itself tightly to her small but rounded breasts. Earlier she must have tied back her hair, but now some blonde tendrils had escaped to cling enchantingly round her face. And as she gazed up at him with those defiant turquoise-blue eyes, he saw that they were shadowed with fear.

  He sighed. He poured her some tea. ‘Please sit down again. How are you feeling? I see you were looking at one of my books.’

  The big book still lay outspread by her pillow. She struggled to fasten the last button and sat on the edge of the bed because her legs were suddenly unsteady again. ‘I’m feeling a good deal better, thank you. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have looked at them without your permission …’

  ‘Permission? Don’t be ridiculous! What were you looking at?’ He’d pulled up a stool by the bed and was reaching to examine the open pages. ‘These paintings are French, aren’t they? By François Boucher. You told me about Boucher at the Temple of Beauty, remember?’

  Rosalie swallowed. Be prim. Be polite. But as she watched his lean brown hand gently lifting and turning the corners of the pages, some sort of inner turmoil set her blood racing.