by Claudia Dain
“Thin on options, I agreed to marry Lady Caroline. The lady refused. It seems she would prefer another sort of life entirely than that of being the Countess of Westlin.”
“She would prefer to be a duchess?”
“She would prefer to be a whore,” Ashdon said grittily.
“Well, there’s a step in an odd direction,” Cal said softly.
“Blood tells. Here’s the proof of it,” Ashdon said.
Calbourne looked at him carefully. “How much of your father is in this, Ash? This has the feel of him, from start to end.”
Ashdon met Calbourne’s pale hazel gaze. “You know the bonds of family, Cal, you have a son and heir of your own. What more is there to life than honoring those bonds?”
“Honor has limits, Ash,” Cal said. “If Westlin has not taught you that, let life be your teacher.”
“This? From you?” Ashdon smiled and shook his head. “You, who have ever been constant, even vigilant, in honoring your duty to your family name and legacy? Why else did you marry at twenty a girl of your father’s choosing, begetting an heir within the year? How is Alston, by the way?”
“Thriving,” Cal said. “But do not seek to drive me off my point. I married, yes; I did my duty and produced an heir. Was I happy? Is there happiness to be found in responsibility? Yes, of a sort. But did I love the girl chosen for me? No. You know yourself I said a prayer of thanks the day Sarah died. Another year together and we would have drawn blood.”
“Yet you did your duty. Your father was content.”
“Yes, and in the ground himself a scant month before Sarah. It does no good to please the dead. Please yourself. That is what life teaches.”
Ashdon was shaking his head before Cal had even finished. “I cannot. His hurts, his wounds, are mine.”
“His wounds are imagined,” Calbourne urged. “Let this die with him, Ash. What can be gained from a marriage with Sophia’s brat? ”
“Revenge,” Ashdon said softly, looking at Sophia.
“Revenge is overrated. By refusing you, Lady Caroline had denied you a path to your own destruction. I may kiss her in thanks,” Cal said, trying to jest when the mood between them was leaden.
Ashdon smiled and looked down at his feet.
“What?” Cal said. “This is the end of it. She has refused you. You will move on.”
Ashdon shrugged and kept smiling.
“Tell me,” Cal commanded, sounding very ducal.
“She has refused to be my wife, that is true. She has made her choice,” Ashdon said, looking at his friend with glittering eyes. “What’s left now but for her to be my whore?”
Nine
“OAF,” Caro said as she was being laced into fresh, dry stays.
“You did it yourself,” Anne said, holding Caro’s new gown, a cream white silk with tiny florets of icy white embroidery on the sleeves, while the maid laced the stays.
“Did it myself? When he was practically chasing me around the room? What else was I to do? Stand in place and let him throttle me?”
“You exaggerate,” Anne said calmly.
“I most certainly do not. You did not see his eyes. They were positively lethal. And I always thought blue eyes were so pleasant, so cheerful, before now. That oaf has ruined blue eyes for me forever.”
“Better to have blue eyes ruined than be ruined yourself,” Anne said in an undertone.
“What was that?” Caro said stiffly as the maid tied off her stays.
“Just talking to myself,” Anne said.
“You were not,” Caro said, dismissing the maid, “but I hate to call you a liar to your face.”
“Isn’t that what you just did?” Anne said, grinning.
“Not exactly, no,” Caro said with an answering grin.
“Well, I suppose I can’t exactly take offense then, can I? How fortunate for me that I don’t offend easily.”
“No, how fortunate for me.”
“You are fortunate in all things, Caro,” Anne said more seriously. “Don’t toss fortune into the wind, especially not in the name of revenge.”
“Revenge?” Caro said, staring at herself in the mirror and toying with a curl next to her left ear. “I don’t have a vengeful bone in my body.”
“Then vengeance must reside elsewhere,” Anne said dryly. “Perhaps in your liver?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Anne.”
Anne grinned and stood behind Caro to gently fuss with her hair. “You sound just like your mother.”
“That’s to the good, I think,” Caro said, her hands falling to her sides.
“In most ways, yes, I think so as well,” Anne said softly, staring at Caro in the mirror. “I admire Sophia. She lifted me out of a life that . . . well, that was beyond bearing, really. Almost beyond comprehension. I’m quite certain that I’d be dead by now, if not for her generosity.”
“You’d be fine. You’d have survived.”
“As what?”
“I don’t know, perhaps as a—”
“Courtesan?” Anne finished for her.
“There are worse things,” Caro said defiantly.
“How would you know?” Anne countered.
Caro lifted her chin and stood up from the padded stool in front of the mirror. “My mother managed. She was a courtesan and she managed to find a man, a man who wanted her enough to marry her, no matter what Society said.”
But, of course, he had done so for Sophia, and there was truly but one of her. She was unique. For all that Caro was Sophia’s daughter, she was not Sophia.
“And of course you want the same,” Anne said, taking Caro’s hands in hers. Caro did not return her grasp. “But there are other roads to the same end.”
“Buying a husband for me is hardly one of those roads.”
“How do you know? It could be,” Anne said urgently. “What you do know is that becoming a courtesan will end your life in so many ways. You have everything a woman could want: security, a home, family. Become a courtesan and you throw all that away.”
“My family would not throw me away.”
“But you would throw away every chance for a life in Society, Caro. Think what an outcast you’d make of yourself.”
“I’m an outcast now.”
“No, no, you’re not. At least, not in the way a courtesan is. Even your mother is not an outcast like that anymore. She has a title, children, a legitimacy that a courtesan—”
“But she was a courtesan first!” Caro snapped, pulling her hands away from Anne’s.
Anne stared at Caro, so young, so sheltered, and so very foolish, and said, “Do you think you’re honoring her by emulating her, Caro? Do you think to love her more by living her life, by righting old wrongs?”
Caro turned abruptly and walked to the bedroom door. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Why did you really refuse Lord Ashdon?” Anne said from across the room, her voice ringing like an unwelcome bell. “At least tell me that.”
Caro froze at the door, her hand on the knob. “Because my mother bought him for me.”
“Which is how marriages are made, as you well know.”
“Because,” Caro said, staring down at her hand clasped on the knob, thinking how strange a thing it was that she had her hand on the means of escape and yet she was still trapped. A metaphor for her life, really. She simply had to turn the knob in her hand and she would be free. “Because . . . the Earl of Westlin insulted her . . . and so I insult his son. Fairly mild in the ‘an eye for an eye’ family code of honor, but the best I can do, I’m afraid.”
“Did you never think that by marrying him, your mother would have been repaid for every insult of Lord Westlin’s?” Anne said.
Caro turned sharply and said in astonishment, “No, I never did.”
Caroline Trevelyan was very young and very sheltered, most especially in the ways of vengeance.
AS far as revenge went, it was fairly mild.
Sophia had arranged the seating at dinner to
put Caroline and Ashdon directly opposite each other. The table was slightly too wide to hold a conversation across its width, but the candlesticks provided just the right degree of glowing yellow light to accentuate Caro’s very pretty cleavage and shining blue eyes.
A mild revenge to enact upon Ashdon, but enjoyable nonetheless.
She did note that Ashdon spent more time staring grimly at Caro than he did in talking to his dinner partners. Lovely what a little revenge could to do to spice an evening to perfection. The hours spent at the table passed far too quickly, but then the dining table was cleared for a few hours of gaming, which was fun as well.
It was impossible not to enjoy watching Lord Ashdon lose his money so energetically. The man had an amazing aptitude for bad luck, bad timing, and bad decisions. The only thing she could say in his credit was that he was devilishly good-looking and that he had quite nice friends. The fourth Duke of Calbourne being the perfect example of this good taste.
She had always enjoyed the man, though the third Duke of Calbourne had been a bit of a sot; it was nice to know that blood did not always tell. Charles, the fourth Duke of Calbourne, was so high in the ton that he could do whatever he wished, a situation that could hardly be more convenient or more pleasant, and so, sweetly, he occasionally attended her dinners. It had helped with the few monsters of protocol who still shunned her. Calbourne was without wife and highly eligible; not many hostesses or guests would ignore those two facts in conjunction.
Ashdon was playing whist at the moment, Calbourne standing just off and watching him. Sophia glided over to Calbourne and said, “He does lose rather brilliantly, doesn’t he?”
Calbourne smiled crookedly and said, “Everyone must do something brilliantly.”
“Then how fortunate that he has found his brilliance so early in life.”
Calbourne looked down at her from his remarkable height. “Now, Lady Dalby, we both know that you and Lord Ashdon are almost of an age.”
Sophia fluttered her fan and smiled. “You are a brilliant liar, your grace. It is what, I believe, makes you so charming as a dinner companion.”
“Have I charmed you, then?” He grinned softly. “To charm Sophia . . . you must know that sonnets are written instructing us how.”
“But not every man can follow instruction, your grace,” she said, her eyes shining at him from above the rim of her fan.
“I think, sometimes, the teacher must take the fault of that.”
“Said the disgruntled student,” she said, laughing lightly.
“I am an able student, Lady Dalby,” he said, his golden hazel eyes burning with sudden heat.
“And I an able tutor,” she countered. “But, alas, all that is past. I am past my prime, according to my daughter.”
“Children are ruthless, pushing us into old age before our inclination.”
“But not before our time?” she joked. “But you are too young, your grace, to think these thoughts. Your son is how old now?”
“Seven, and he makes me feel one hundred.”
“The trick, your grace, is to not look as old as you sometimes feel. You are doing brilliantly. You look . . . remarkable.”
Calbourne bowed crisply. “Is that my talent, then? To look remarkable? Looks to be remarked upon? I daresay, that calls forth all sorts of images.”
“When a man of your age and situation must hunt and peck for compliments,” Sophia said, laughing, “can England long survive?”
“I believed we were discussing how long Calbourne was to survive,” he said, laughing with her.
Ashdon looked up from the table and grumbled something. Sophia, unfortunately, couldn’t hear what.
Calbourne took her by the elbow and led her to a small sofa angled into a corner of the room. Sophia sank to the sofa like a peacock feather. His grace sat beside her, his long legs almost dwarfing the sofa.
“Shall we continue to flirt, your grace, or would you rather talk plainly?” Sophia asked. “I find immeasurable pleasure in either form of conversation.”
“Which is why a man finds so much enjoyment in conversing with you, madam. You are accommodating, and entertaining, in the extreme.”
“And still he flatters,” she said, looking across the room to where Viscount Staverton had apparently trapped Anne Warren into stilted conversation. She would have to attend to Anne soon; enough time had been given to the Duke of Calbourne for one evening, as much as she enjoyed him.
“I am losing you, lady. Your gaze wanders.”
“As does my interest, your grace,” she said softly, looking at him with the lightest of glances.
“Speak of what you will. I am held prisoner.”
“Then I will speak of Lord Ashdon,” she said, letting her eyes wander the room. “How well do you know him?”
“Better than any man,” he said softly. “Better than you, I should think.”
Sophia chuckled. “I should hope so. I am hardly Eton material.” She paused to close her fan and lay it on her lap. “You know of his debts?”
“Yes.”
“You know of my remedy to relieve him of them?”
“Yes.”
She cast him a sideways glance of inquiry. He matched it with an easy smile.
“You know of the refusal?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Then, your grace, in this small list of knowable things, we are of equal understanding.”
“As you say, it is a small list. Hardly enough to comprise a man,” Calbourne said calmly.
“But, your grace, this small list is all that matters to me. I do not care to know more.”
“Now, Lady Dalby, that I cannot believe for it is well known that you are a woman of rare energy and imagination,” he said, his voice slipping down seductively. “Surely, in knowing more, you would increase your odds of winning.”
“You want me to win?”
“I want him to win,” he said.
“Even if it goes against his own schemes?” she said, turning to face him slightly.
“Even so,” he said, taking her hand in his and raising it to his mouth. He brushed the lightest of kisses upon her gloved hand, his breath warming her skin. Sophia smiled. “Are you not working against your daughter’s schemes for her own good?”
“Your grace, I like you better and better, and I liked you well enough from the start.”
Calbourne grinned and kissed the tips of her fingers before releasing her hand.
“Then Countess Dalby, we all win.”
Ten
“NOW, Anne, throw off every polite and practical instinct you possess and tell me the truth. Do you have any interest at all in a proposal of marriage from Lord Staverton?”
Anne looked into Sophia’s black eyes and felt every shred of common sense tumble off her and land on the carpeted floor.
“No. I don’t. I’m a fool.”
“A fool is someone who doesn’t know her own mind. You are hardly a fool,” Sophia said. “Now Caro, she might be a fool yet. All this courtesan idiocy. Only a fool, a fool with a good roof over her and healthy food in her, would talk so ridiculously.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Caro said sarcastically.
The evening had waned into morning and still the party roared with energy. True, Lord Dutton was drunk and snoring by the fire, but if one discounted snoring drunks at a party, it could hardly be counted as a party at all, at least according to Lady Dalby. Anne had learned to pay attention to what Lady Dalby said about things and events and people. Lady Dalby saw things that other people didn’t. Lady Dalby was shrewd, and that was the least of it.
“You are certain?” Sophia asked her. “It would be a good match. He’s ridiculously wealthy and sweetly generous, and he would make you a viscountess.”
“Mother, he’s ancient and has that . . . eye,” Caro said. “Anne is a beautiful young woman in her prime. It’s a ridiculous match.”
Sophia cast a dark look in her daughter’s direction. “For a woman who’s announced he
r intention to be a courtesan, you are remarkably ill-informed. And spoilt. I’d begun to wonder if it might do you some good,” she said softly. “This latest remark quite decides it.”
“If you think I should marry the viscount, of course I will,” Anne said. She couldn’t stay with Caro forever, especially if Caro actually pursued a courtesan’s life. Unless she pursued it at her side. The thought niggled into her heart and settled there, coldly and heavily.
