by Claudia Dain
Yes, she was fully Sophia’s child in that regard. And so, her decision. She would be a courtesan, just like her mother before her. Men would bankrupt themselves for a single kiss from her virgin lips. Of course, her lips, as well as other parts of her, would not remain virgin for long, so it was absolutely imperative that she bankrupt as many men as possible before all her virginal qualities were spent. And then she would move on to bankrupting men for her distinctly unvirginal qualities. It was a plan that pleased her as it had the air of being so very sophisticated and so very luridly debauched; exactly the sort of plan a practiced courtesan might hatch.
Of course, the fact that she knew little or nothing about the details of being a proper courtesan was just the tiniest fly in the ointment. But she could fix that with almost no effort at all. There was a very convenient man waiting downstairs for her mother even now and he would do nicely; she could practice her seductive skills on him. The fact that he was, she strongly suspected, her mother’s current lover was just the least bit inconvienent. Still, one had to work with whatever, or whomever, was available.
Viscount Richborough was just available enough.
LORD Richborough was pacing the yellow salon as Caroline softly entered the room. Softly, because she didn’t intend to startle him. Softly, because she had just managed to shush Anne and leave her in the foyer, where she suspected Anne was listening avidly at the door. Caroline did not enter softly because she was afraid. Far from it. She was going to find out if she had any skill at seduction at all before commencing a life of profitable seduction. A perfectly logical plan, as anyone would attest. Anyone except Anne. Anne was ridiculously conservative about things of this nature, which Caro considered quite odd since Anne had been married and certainly had a working knowledge of such things, such things being those acts that occurred between men and women.
Richborough was a man and she was a woman. Things ought to proceed nicely from there, oughten they?
As men went, Richborough was above average in appearance; quite above average. Her mother wouldn’t have tolerated him otherwise. He was tall, slim without being fragile, possessed of remarkably even features capped by a luxuriant cap of tousled dark brown hair that was a complete match to his dark brown eyes. Naturally, as he had been coming round to see her mother, she’d had a fair chance to study him. If he wore his jackets a bit snug across the shoulder and if his wit was a bit thin, she didn’t suppose anyone would notice those small deficiencies. But she did.
She knew her mother did as well. Nothing escaped Sophia’s notice, though perhaps quite a lot escaped her comment. There was likely some proverb about age and the wisdom of discretion, but as Caro was seventeen, she didn’t suppose she should be expected to know it. Or practice it.
Attempting to seduce her mother’s lover was hardly discreet, but she did need to know if a man could find her appealing, and this man would just have to do. It was almost a scientific experiment. In fact, if her mother found out about her attempted seduction of Lord Richborough, she would claim exactly that. A scientific experiment, nothing at all personal about it.
She didn’t suppose Lord Richborough needed to be told that, however. What she knew of men indicated that they were rather humorless about things of that sort. Dour things, really, but strangely compelling in spite of it.
Lord Richborough stopped pacing and turned upon hearing the door close, and her heart did a little flutter. He was such a tall man and not a little imposing in that particular way men had of imposing themselves upon absolutely everyone, no matter the occasion. All in all, she rather liked that about men.
“Lady Caroline,” he said, bowing gracefully. “How good to see you again.”
“Thank you, Lord Richborough,” she said, curtseying quickly. “You’re calling early today. My mother is not yet receiving. I’m afraid you must make do with me.”
That had not come out at all as she had hoped. She hardly wanted to be thought of in terms of yesterday’s toast. She was almost certain that successful courtesans did not go about announcing that they must be made do with.
“Delighted,” Richborough said with a somewhat stiff smile.
He looked disappointed. Not at all the response she’d been hoping for. Caro sat down upon the silk damask sofa and arranged herself as beautifully as possible. Richborough sat as well, though not beautifully. He did not appear to care if she thought him nicely arranged or not.
It was difficult not to begin to think that Richborough might be a bit stupid. Without being vulgarly obvious, how far did he expect her to go in her invitation for his attentions? Apparently farther still.
“And how have you been entertaining yourself lately, Lord Richborough?” she asked, running a finger across her collarbone. “Have you done anything particularly amusing?”
“Not particularly, no,” he answered. “What of you, Lady Caroline? Have you seen the new play at the Theatre Royal?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said. “Have you?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding altogether bored and distracted. “It was tolerably good.”
“I suppose it was very wicked,” she said. “I so long to be exposed to something wicked.”
There. That got his attention.
Lord Richborough stopped his rather poorly concealed fidgeting and stared at her. In actual point of fact, he stared hard at her, as if he were unsure of what he had clearly heard her say. Since he was having so much trouble with it, it would only do that she repeat it, or perhaps some even more scandalous version of it.
“Are you wicked, Lord Richborough? I do hope so,” she said. It seemed to her exactly the sort of remark a courtesan would make.
Oddly enough, Richborough got a very distracted look again and shifted his weight on his chair. It was a most disappointing response to the clearest invitation she could imagine a woman giving a man. She couldn’t be as unappealing as all that, could she?
“I am here to call upon Lady Dalby,” he said, still squirming slightly in his seat. “You are aware of that, I presume, Lady Caroline ? ”
“Of course,” she said. “However, you may not have noticed it, but I live here as well. I only thought that we could . . . entertain ourselves until my mother has completed her toilette.”
“Entertain ourselves,” he said softly, staring at her rather more intimately than she was accostumed to. “In precisely what manner? ”
Oh, bother, he was stupid. Well, what was left but for her to spell it out for him?
“In the usual manner,” she said. She was quite certain she sounded as experienced as the most accomplished courtesan, even if she did only have the foggiest sense of what she was implying. Certainly Richborough must be counted upon to carry some of the weight of this exchange.
He responded by coughing into his fist. Most peculiar and not at all what she had hoped for.
Worse, she was almost completely certain that the footsteps she heard in the foyer were Anne’s, running to fetch Sophia. Now she would have to seduce Richborough all the faster so that the deed was done before her mother arrived. That was going to be a bit tricky as Richborough was most decidedly slow at reading the proper signals. No wonder her mother was so often exhausted; seducing Richborough was turning into one of those impossible tasks constantly referred to in all those boring Greek myths.
“I am not certain I understand what you mean by ‘usual,’ ” Richborough said, standing up to fuss with his waistcoat.
“I mean, Lord Richborough,” she said in some annoyance, “that some men might enjoy a few minutes alone with me, but as you are clearly not one of them, I shall leave you to your solitude.”
She stood up so abruptly that she was not altogether certain she had not ripped a seam in her hem, which seemed to suit the occasion precisely.
“Excuse me, Lady Caroline,” he said, blocking her in the most subtle manner possible from the closest doorway to the foyer. But he was blocking her, which she considered very nice of him. “I have insulted you in some fash
ion, which I would never do. I do not prefer solitude to your engaging company. It is only that you are young and I would not see your reputation damaged by a misspoken word, or deed, on my part.”
Deed? Perhaps he was not so stupid as he first appeared. Certainly he must have some redeeming qualities or her mother would never tolerate him, though, to be honest, her mother did not mind stupid men as long as they were not stupid in showing her the proper appreciation, a position Caro found altogether logical.
“I am not so innocent, nor so diabolical, Lord Richborough, that I would allow my reputation to be ruined on something so whimsical as a word,” she said. There, she had laid it all out for him. Let him now show her just how desirable he found her. She would prefer in deed, but she would tolerate in word. She was not unreasonable, after all.
“A lady of rare virtue,” he said. It did not sound at all complimentary. “However, I would consider it a failure to my manhood if I did not endeavor to protect you from any possible harm.”
He bowed as he said it. As if that excused him from the insult he had dealt her. Caro might be innocent but she was not stupid; she knew very well that men in the throes of blazing desire did not give a fig for anything beyond satisfying that desire upon any likely female.
It was patently obvious that she was not even remotely a likely female.
Her mother, the most likely female that the men of London had apparently ever seen, chose that exact moment to enter the yellow salon. It was the most perfectly dreadful cap to a most hideously embarrassing situation.
“Lord Richborough,” Sophia said smoothly, “how early you are today. I had not thought to see you until this afternoon. I trust Caroline has kept you entertained?”
Hardly. At least not in any way that mattered. Things had not gone at all the way she had hoped, but when did they ever?
“Perfectly,” Lord Richborough said, kissing Sophia’s outstretched hand. It seemed to Caro that her mother’s hand was always outstretched for one reason or another and that she always managed to achieve whatever it was she was reaching for. Caro was not at all certain how she did it. “She is your daughter in every delightful detail.”
Sarcasm, if she’d ever heard it, and she had.
“But of course she is,” Sophia said with a smile. “Now, how may I entertain you, Lord Richborough? In much the manner my daughter has already done? Or are you ready for a change of pace?”
From that moment on, neither Richborough nor her mother had eyes for any but each other. Caro made her excuses and then her exit, all her questions about her desirability answered in the most demoralizing manner conceivable. This courtesan business was getting more complicated by the moment.
Three
LORD Ashdon arrived promptly at the Countess Dalby’s Upper Brook Street house for his eleven o’clock appointment. The time was just past eleven. He considered that arriving just past eleven was as prompt as he was willing to deliver; the Countess of Dalby, Sophia to her many intimates, was not going to have him walking the street in front of her immaculately maintained London home, begging entrance early. He had some pride left to him. Not much, but enough.
Arriving late was a small insult, but deserving, nonetheless. What the Countess of Dalby was attempting deserved at least some responding insult.
He knocked, was admitted with a cordial nod by Fredericks, famously loyal to Sophia from her courtesan days to this, and was led to the yellow salon. Where he was made to wait until almost noon.
“Unfailingly prompt,” Sophia said, entering in a rustle of soft muslin. “Thank you for that, Lord Ashdon. One finds manners so appallingly on the down these days.”
Which meant, of course, that she knew exactly when he had arrived and was repaying insult for insult. She was rather famous for doing that.
He watched her as she arranged herself on a yellow silk damask sofa, toying with the folds of her ivory-colored muslin skirt. She was the beauty she had always been. Tall and slim, her breasts high and white, her throat smooth, her complexion creamy. Her black hair was still dark and glossy, no trace of silver to mark her years. Her almond-shaped eyes were black pools set under a straight and narrow brow. Her lips were full and red, her nose slim and aristocratic, her face a perfect oval of feminine beauty. She exuded serene poise, aristocratic condescension, and simmering sensuality.
No wonder she had been the talk of her time.
No wonder Dalby had married her.
No wonder she had him by the purse now.
“Be seated, if it please you,” she said, waving a slim arm in the general direction of the chair opposite her.
He sat, though he was not the least bit pleased to do so.
“Refreshments, or do you have other appointments you must keep?” she asked.
He had no other appointments. “I’m afraid that my visit must be brief, Lady Dalby.”
“Of course,” she said with a smile. She knew he lied. “You are a man of the world, Lord Ashdon, and as such, I know you have considered your position and my offer most carefully. You have been well educated in your duty to your family and your estate. As you may recall, I know your father well and I know that he would not neglect to instruct you in the responsibilities of your station.”
Knew his father well; that was exactly to the point. She had “known” his father, and been kept by him until Dalby had snatched her from under his father’s hand. Westlin, his father, and Dalby were old rivals, well before the onset of Sophia’s arrival in the streets of London, yet Sophia had used that rivalry to increase her own purse. He did not blame her for it, though neither did he applaud her.
She was a businesswoman to the last, no matter her title now.
That his father still lusted after her made the whole subject decidedly galling.
That Sophia clearly understood his father still hated her was what brought him to her salon now.
“I know my responsibilities, madam,” he said, crossing his legs.
“How fortunate for us both,” she said, running a lace handkerchief between her fingers in a gentle rhythm. He found himself staring at her hands, at her long fingers and the bundle of lace that passed again and again through them. White against cream, stroke by stroke.
She was both crass and obvious, and he had expected nothing less from her.
“And I can manage my own life,” he said, lifting his gaze away from her hands and that damned bit of lace.
“I do not doubt it, sir. In point of fact, I am quite relying on it. But the question is, can you manage your debts?”
“Given time.”
“And good fortune,” she added. “Unfortunately, time does not wait.” She tucked her bit of lace into a fold of her muslin skirt and considered him with her dark and unfathomable eyes. He met her stare and stilled the urge to squirm. “I have purchased your debts by paying them, Lord Ashdon. You now are in debt to me. The sum is thirty-eight thousand pounds. Can you pay it?”
This was not as this scene was to have been played. He had grossly miscalculated her, in spite of all his father’s instruction.
“Not at present,” he said stiffly, keeping his legs crossed and his posture relaxed.
“The present is all we have, Lord Ashdon,” she said. “The future, as ever, is uncertain. At present, you have a debt that you cannot pay. At present, I have a daughter who must be married. Surely you see the solution to our present problems.”
“You think to buy me? I am not a stallion, madam. I cannot be bought for your daughter’s pleasure.”
Sophia smiled and said, “You cannot be bought? Have I not just done so? As to my daughter’s pleasure, I am not certain she even wants you. You were . . . available, and I gambled in buying up your debt. Whether she finds you to her pleasure is completely up to her. And to you, I suppose,” she said in afterthought.
“You take much pleasure in this, Lady Dalby,” he gritted out. “A revenge of sorts against Westlin.”
“Lord Ashdon, I have not thought of Westlin in years. I l
ive in the present, as should you. But, if it makes you feel better, your father paid much less for me. Thirty-eight thousand pounds is quite a sum. I would feel flattered, were I you.”
“You are not I.”
“No, I am not, but I know what it is to be purchased for a sum. How nice that we have something in common, besides our enjoyment of the gaming tables and the thrill of a wager.”
He flinched inwardly. She was as cruel as his father had said, and as merciless. “You cannot buy me. I cannot, I will not be bought,” he gritted out through clenched teeth.
“Darling Ashdon,” she said softly, her smile sweet and kind. What an actress she was. “Let us not be crass. You must pay your wagers. Your good name depends upon it. If one chooses to play, one must honor one’s losses.”
