The Courtesan's Bed

by Sandrine O'Shea

  The marquess lifted his shoulder in a triumphant shrug. “My plan produced the desired results. You and Regina are no longer lovers.”

  “But we will be again, so you’ve lost, old man. I’m leaving for Paris as soon as I can pack. And I don’t care if she has a hundred lovers, I’ll do whatever I must to win her back, and then I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

  Blackwall turned a violent shade of dark red. “You can’t. I will not tolerate a whore in this family.”

  “You don’t have a say in the matter. You never did.”

  “I’ll disown you, that’s what I’ll do. You won’t inherit a single guinea from me.”

  “Go ahead. In case you’ve forgotten, I have a rather large fortune of my own earned through my own efforts.”

  He strode out into the foyer just as his sister was hurrying down the stairs with her bag. She wore a waterproof hooded ulster and carried one for him as well.

  She handed him the coat. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  He put it on and realized he was still wearing slippers, but he didn’t care if his feet got soaked. He just wanted to return to the woman he loved.

  Their father came running after them and grabbed Darius’s arm. “Think about what you’re doing, the both of you.”

  “Let go of me before I do more than fling you against the wall.”

  His father dropped his arm and stepped back, genuinely alarmed.

  “I’ll send for the rest of my things once I’m settled,” Kate said. “And Emma must come to live with us. Unless, of course, you want me to tell her exactly what kind of man her beloved papa really is.”

  The marquess extended a beseeching hand. “Don’t leave, Kate. Please.”

  She told the butler to bring the carriage around, and they left their father standing in the foyer, glaring balefully after his insolent children.

  Paris

  The party in Alice d’Alençon’s apartment was too hot, too noisy and too crowded. Régine sat alone in a quiet corner with Alice’s two adorable spoiled French bulldogs lying on their red velvet pillows nearby. She wished she were lying in Darius’s arms, propped up against a bank of pillows in her bed. In the weeks since she’d so cruelly sent him away, her whole world had lost its vivid brightness and sparkle, as though she were seeing familiar landscapes smudged and blurred through a black mourning veil.

  She’d sacrificed her own future happiness so Kate could have hers. So why didn’t she feel noble and virtuous instead of empty and lonely?

  A thousand times a day she would stop to wonder what Darius was doing right at that moment. Was he thinking about her despite what she’d done to him? Was he courting some Penbry-approved, respectable young noblewoman of impeccable lineage? Or had he found a new mistress? Jealousy stabbed her right through the heart.

  Alice, a girlish vision in ivory lace, pushed her way through the crush and handed Régine a glass of champagne. She sat next to her. “Here. Drink this. It won’t heal a broken heart, but it will dull the pain.”

  Régine took a sip as ordered but didn’t feel better.

  Alice pouted. “My poor darling…you miss your dark, handsome English lord.”

  Régine fought back tears. “I do, but I had to send him away for his own good.”

  “Ah, so his family plans to marry him off to a simpering little miss worthy of his title. Well, I wouldn’t have, and let his family be damned.” Alice’s little-girl lisp suddenly disappeared. “Why is it that respectable women hold us in such contempt? True, we are harlots, but that doesn’t mean we can’t change and embrace a life of virtue if the right man comes along. In fact, many of our sisters have done just that.” She named a few. “But we are expected to sacrifice and give up our noble lovers to our respectable sisters.” She sighed. “It’s quite unfair.”

  Régine thought of Kate, which brought home the truth to Alice’s words. She had expected Régine to give up Darius without thinking twice. And she had.

  Tired of dwelling on the mistake she’d made, Régine scanned the room for her former protector, and when she didn’t see him, said, “Where is Luc tonight?”

  “With his wife. And I am with Duplan tonight.” She smiled. “As long as Luc doesn’t object to my taking other lovers, I shall indulge to my heart’s content.” She fluffed her curls. “I have my own needs, after all, and as you know, Luc cares only for his own satisfaction at the business end of a whip.” She looked around the room, checking faces. “We must find you another lover, darling, which shouldn’t be hard at all, as there are many wealthy, available men here tonight.”

  Régine wasn’t interested in acquiring another lover but didn’t want to argue with her friend. “Monsieur Clement wants to be my next protector.”

  Alice frowned in distaste. “That annoying little man who snorts like a pig when he laughs?”

  “The same.” Darius’s laugh was a low, distinguished rumble that always sounded so joyful. Régine could listen to him laugh all day. “The Comte de Galbois wants me to initiate his youngest son.”

  Alice rolled her eyes rapturously. “Ah, those young ones…so fresh and inexperienced, so eager to learn the art of love.”

  “I prefer men, not boys.”

  Alice rattled off one name after another, but Régine compared them to Darius, and they all came up short. Some weren’t as handsome. Others lacked his fine physique. One painfully reminded her of the marquess. Most important of all, none of them possessed a fraction of Darius’s abundant charm, or his compelling, arresting personality.

  She drained her glass. “Thank you for your efforts, Alice, but I think I am going to retire to the country for a while.”

  Alice’s brows shot up. “You mustn’t! Paris will never be the same without its Queen of Fire.”

  “Oh, I shall return once my broken heart mends.”

  “Well, if you must, darling…”

  “I desperately need time to think.” And to mourn her loss.

  After petting the sweet bulldogs and fending off one very drunk potential suitor, Régine collected her wrap, bid Alice good night and left the apartment.

  Once downstairs, she told the concierge her driver’s name, and he went in search of her carriage.

  While she waited, she breathed deeply of the warm spring air. She thought of the last time she’d seen Darius.

  She had known he’d come to her demanding an explanation the minute he received the note and the crown. So when Villemessant arrived, she apprised him of the situation and her former lover generously agreed to pretend to be her latest conquest.

  Then they waited.

  When she saw Darius arrive, she and her old friend sat on the settee and embraced, waiting for Darius to walk in on them.

  And he had.

  She couldn’t banish the look of shock and despair on his face from her memory. Those gray eyes that so often warmed when they rested on her had chilled. He looked like a man trapped under the ice of a frozen pond.

  “I’m sorry I had to hurt you so badly, my love.”

  She hoped Kate would be happy with her duke. If the girl did marry him, would Darius return to Paris? Of course not. He didn’t know that Régine had forsaken him for Kate’s sake. He would assume she’d moved on. Ah, the high price of keeping a secret.

  She looked up and down the street impatiently. Her carriage was nowhere to be seen. At this late hour of one in the morning, the sidewalks were empty, all good folk tucked safe and sound in their beds.

  A carriage drove slowly down the street and drew up to where Régine stood.

  She was so busy looking for her own carriage that she didn’t notice the man who emerged until it was too late.

  Dragomilov swooped down on her before she could think to run. He grabbed her, circling her waist with his strong, muscular left arm, and pulled her against him, lifting her off her feet as though she weighed nothing, squeezing the breath out of her. With his right hand, he pressed a cloth that smelled sickly sweet over her face. When she opened her mouth
to scream, she inhaled the powerful, drugging vapors that numbed her senses.

  The last thing she remembered before slipping into unconsciousness was Dragomilov’s leering, triumphant face, a garish white mask by lamplight as he lifted her limp, unresisting body into his arms.

  Ivy stood at the boudoir window, watching Serge’s carriage roll down the country house’s wide circular drive.

  When it came to a stop at the front door, his three friends came out. They opened the carriage door, reached inside, and two of them carefully lifted out a woman’s limp body.

  Ivy’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a shocked gasp.

  Had Serge’s volatile temper finally got the best of him and he murdered someone?

  She stared more closely. The woman lying so still between two men was none other than Régine Laflamme. Even by faint, silvery moonlight, Ivy would recognize her anywhere.

  She couldn’t be dead. Drugged, perhaps?

  Serge emerged, his saturnine face shining with a satisfied masculine look of triumph.

  Ivy felt sick to her stomach. How could Serge insult her so by bringing another woman into the house they shared? She had to face the devastating truth she had resolutely ignored. Serge Dragomilov didn’t care a fig for her.

  As she watched the men carry the unconscious woman into the house, she itched to grip a fireplace poker and beat Serge to an unconscious pulp. But violence would get her nothing, except a beating in return, or a jail cell.

  She was going to make Serge pay for this humiliation, and pay dearly.

  After the men left, Ivy opened the connecting door just a crack. What she saw sent her reeling.

  Serge had stripped Régine naked and bound her wrists and ankles to the wooden frame, where she sagged limp and helpless. Her red hair had fallen from its pins and straggled about her shoulders and face.

  Ivy stood there wringing her hands. What should she do? Report Serge to the police? He’d kill her. Revive Régine and help her escape? No, he would stop them, and then kill them both.

  As much as she pitied Régine’s plight, she had to think about herself.

  She closed the door softly and hurried downstairs, where she found Serge and his friends drinking vodka and laughing raucously in the drawing room.

  “Will you please excuse us?” she said to his friends. “I have to speak to the count alone.”

  They ignored her and instead looked at Serge for orders.

  “Leave us,” he said.

  When they were alone, she glared at him fearlessly, though her knees were knocking. “You kidnapped Régine Laflamme. Are you mad? She’ll have you arrested. They’ll throw you in prison.”

  He regarded her with cold disdain, his eyes flashing. “Let the bitch report me to the police. They won’t dare arrest me. I am Russian nobility.”

  Her mouth felt dry with apprehension. “What are you going to do with her?”

  “After I break her proud spirit, perhaps I shall take her to Russia.” He took another sip of vodka. “I’ve always wanted to possess the Queen of Fire, and finally she will be mine. Even when I was with Odile, I always desired Régine more.”

  “She is the woman who rejected your diamond necklace, isn’t she?”

  A suspicious scowl marred his brow. “How do you know about that?”

  “I overheard you speaking to the jeweler when he returned it to you.”

  “I vowed she would wear it one day, and she shall.”

  “Do you really want a woman who doesn’t come to you of her own free will?” she asked.

  His jaw clenched. “It may take time, but one day she will come around and want me. I just have to show her who is her master.”

  Ivy couldn’t explain Serge’s depravity, but the blinders that had covered her eyes for so long fell away like fog in sunlight, and she could see clearly now. Serge was incapable of loving any woman. He got pleasure from hurting and dominating them, and that wasn’t love. What in the name of the Blessed Virgin had ever attracted her to a man like Serge Dragomilov in the first place? Even beautiful gowns and Maxim’s weren’t worth his abuse.

  Ivy shivered at the ruthless determination in his voice. “And what’s going to happen to me?”

  “We had a business arrangement for our mutual pleasure, and that arrangement has come to an end. Don’t worry. You’ll be well compensated.” He shrugged. “You’re young, beautiful and very skilled between the sheets. You’ll find another man soon enough.”

  She hoped so, a man more like Régine’s devoted earl. “So you’re tossing me out on my arse.”

  “As I said, our arrangement has come to an end. And I never promised to keep you forever.”

  Deep inside, Ivy realized he had never intended to keep her as his mistress for very long. “May I stay here until I find another protector?”

  “I am a very generous man. It’s the least I can do.” He rose to stand in front of her, gripping her chin between his fingers, pinching so hard that Ivy winced. “But in exchange for my generosity, you will not show yourself to Régine or try to help her get away from me. And don’t even think of telling the police, because I will make you regret the day you were born.” He shook her. “Do you understand?”

  She nodded. When he released her, she added, “I wouldn’t dream of disobeying you, Serge,” in her meekest voice, her gaze cast down to the carpet.

  He smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “Good. We understand each other, then.”

  “There is one more thing. I would like another bedroom. I don’t care to listen to you…taming her.”

  “There are many bedrooms in this house. Take your pick.” He smirked. “I thought you would enjoy listening to us. Or even watching. Or perhaps joining us for a lively little ménage à trois?”

  She grimaced in distaste, all traces of meekness gone. “There are some things I will not do, Serge, even for you.” That included abusing Régine.

  Before he could comment, she swept out of the drawing room, a plan forming in her mind. All she needed was enough time and courage to carry it out.

  Serge’s hearty laugh of derision followed her.

  Régine opened her eyes and looked down at her own bare breasts.

  She lifted her head, trying to collect her addled wits. She was in a room somewhere, surrounded by darkness.

  Then the nausea hit her right in the gut. She heaved and coughed.

  The sour, acidic taste of bile filling her mouth and dribbling down her chin woke her quicker than a splash of cold water in the face.

  When she tried to wipe it away with her hand, she was startled to find that she couldn’t move because she was bound, her arms extended straight out to the sides, and her legs spread apart, wrists and ankles immobilized.

  As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she could discern wide leather restraints fixed to a wooden frame of some sort that pressed against her back. She looked around, trying to get a sense of her surroundings. A large bed with high, carved posts stood against one wall, and the window beyond provided weak, silvery light from a full moon so she wasn’t completely in darkness.

  She remembered standing in front of Alice’s building, waiting for her carriage, and the man who grabbed and drugged her.

  Dragomilov.

  Now she was the sadistic Russian’s prisoner, bound and helpless, at his mercy.

  What did he intend to do with her?

  She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. God help her.

  He intended to rape and humiliate her, and for the first time tonight, Régine knew real fear.

  Chapter Twenty

  Régine opened her eyes to find sunlight streaming in through the window.

  She’d found it difficult to sleep standing up, with her weight supported by her bound wrists. Now they were chafed from rubbing against the leather straps. But at least she had managed to doze intermittently. She would need all her strength for her coming ordeal, one she prayed she’d survive.

  How should she handle her dire situation? Should
she scream and struggle? Remain calm, but contemptuous? Placate him, and go along with whatever depravity he had planned? She shuddered at the thought.

  Her pride would keep her from whimpering and begging. Unless, of course, she was in imminent danger of dying.

  She took a deep breath to damp down her fear, which was growing like a cancer with each passing minute.

  She decided she would remain calm. Panic would serve no purpose.

  Her own survival was paramount.

  She’d shamed Dragomilov by refusing his gifts and his advances, and now he was determined to make her pay.

  She’d stopped pulling against the straps. They were securely buckled and would not give. She recalled the times she’d let Darius tie her to the rings in Odile’s bed, but he had used soft silk scarves, and his objective had been her pleasure, not pain.

  She looked around the room for anything she could use as a weapon should she get free. Her spirits plummeted. There was nothing—not a glass vase to drop on Dragomilov’s head, not a pen to stick in his eye. Nothing.

  Dragomilov’s balls and prick would be vulnerable targets for her teeth and nails, especially when he was in the throes of passion—that is, if he got naked at all and let her anywhere near him. Perhaps his intention was to torment her while she remained helpless. How like him.

  The soft scraping of a key turning in the lock alerted Régine that someone was coming.

  The door opened, and Dragomilov strode in, carrying a small china bowl. He walked over to stand before her, his insolent gaze raking her over from head to toe, lingering on her breasts. “You quite take my breath away.”

  Before she could tell him to go to hell, he took a cloth out of the bowl and wiped the dried bile none too gently from her lips, chin and chest. “An unfortunate effect of chloroform.”

  When he was finished, he put the cloth back in the bowl and set it aside on a nearby table.

  “Set me free this instant,” she said quietly, though her heart was hammering violently, “and I’ll forget that you kidnapped me and held me against my will.”