The Courtesan's Daughter

by Claudia Dain

  “No,” he said. Actually, he didn’t so much speak as growl. As Lord Ashdon was a bit given to growling, especially at her, she took that as a good sign as well. Things were going quite well, all in all. The fact that she could scarcely breathe was not going to be factored in.

  He stood, filling the small room, the candles dancing at the movement, the moving shadows highlighting the arc of his brow, his fine cheekbones, his chiseled jaw. He was a tall man of well-turned leg and broad shoulders. He had a mouth not given to smiling and eyes that experienced joy too seldom. There was a sadness about him that intrigued her, for she could not name its source. Sorrow and sensuality tumbled within him, fighting for dominance. She was an ally of sensuality. Let sorrow retreat, abandoning the fight for him.

  “They’re lovely pearls, aren’t they?” she asked, touching the strand at its lowest point. “I’m so glad you gave them to me.”

  He stood staring down at her, mute. She handed him the tasseled ends of her cording, which he took. It looked for all the world like she was his captive, led on a silken rope.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she breathed, avoiding his eyes. If she looked at him, she would remember who he was and who she was and that this was a game that she wanted to win, even if she had forgotten why. “This bodice tie is very weak. I shall have no trouble with it, but you, you must be very adept and very determined or the cording will defeat you. I should not want,” she said on a broken sigh, “you to be defeated, my lord.”

  “I shall not be,” he murmured, pulling her to him by the ends of the cording. “Not in this, Caro. Never in this.”

  She walked toward him with tiny steps, her head lowered, her gaze averted, but she did not stop walking. She came on. Her mother would have done no less.

  When he had her close, when she was tucked under his chin and within the length of his arms, he stopped. She stopped.

  His scent tantalized her. Ashdon had what she could only describe as a clean smell: clean linen, clean hair, clean skin. Like the top of a mountain, like winter on a lake, like a spring meadow. Like Ashdon. The world seemed full of scents, of perfumes and flowers and cloying, sweetly spiced odors, but Ashdon smelled clean, and because of him all other scents were the lie of clean. A mockery of Ashdon.

  She loosened the tie of her bodice and let it gape open to reveal the top edge of her chemise. Her stays were small and did not cover her breasts. It was the French fashion, and everyone knew the French excelled at fashion. Besides, her mother had told her what to wear, from her skin to the pearls at her ears. Had she known this would happen? Had she somehow known that Ashdon would immediately demand his privilege bought with pearls? She had known about the challenge, it had been her idea, after all, but had Sophia known that Ashdon would be so angry and so impatient?

  Of course she had known.

  Perhaps it had not been Ashdon who had told Dutton and Blakesley of her pearl price. Perhaps that had been Sophia’s doing as well. It was logical, or was it? She was not a courtesan. She was not going to be a courtesan. Her mother did not want her to be a courtesan and would never direct her down its path.

  Then how did she find herself in the Duke of Hyde’s dressing room with her bodice gaping and Lord Ashdon . . . bewitched?

  Bewitched was such a short step from besotted.

  Thank you, Mother.

  Ashdon was staring down at her, his eyes burning with passion and need and perhaps just a bit of surprise. She gambled recklessly by looking at him, studying his face, watching the way his mouth opened to take in a heavy breath, to see the line of his dark beard trace his mouth, to note the sweep of his lashes as they reached for his brows and the smoky line of his dark lower lashes.

  His eyes smoldered.

  She smoldered.

  The strand of pearls rolled against her skin, gathering between her breasts, falling out of sight into the hem of her chemise. Ashdon had his hands around her ribs, his thumbs pressed just under her breasts, the cording tangled in his hands and falling over his wrists.

  She couldn’t breathe. Her heart hammered under her ribs and she knew he had to feel its wild beating.

  Someone hammered at the door to the dressing room from the drawing room. Ashdon pulled her into the shelter of his arms and turned her so that his back was to the door, shielding her.

  “This is madness, Caro,” he growled. “Tighten your laces. Cover yourself. I won’t see you ruined this way.”

  “I won’t have my honor questioned, my lord,” she said softly. “Let the world call me ruined. You and I shall know that I was paying a debt of honor.”

  “Honor be damned! I won’t have you ruined for some stupid game, started for what reason I can’t even remember now.”

  “Can’t you, Ash?” she said, tipping her head up to look at his chin. He had a dark beard. She liked that. “You gave me pearls. I give you all that falls within their scope. Don’t you want to touch me? Don’t you want to see if my breasts are as lovely as I claim?”

  He swore something, she couldn’t tell what, and then his mouth was on hers and his fingers were in her chemise, pulling it gently down, his fingertip grazing a swollen nipple.

  She arched into his hand with a moan of longing and aching and confusion. Could anything feel like this? Could hands on skin do this?

  Her bodice collapsed against the cording around her ribs, Ashdon’s hands on her breasts, hard and hot, gentle, relentless. His kiss delved deep and long and she opened her mouth to consume him. The pearls twisted against her breasts; he fisted his hands in the white length of them and pushed her from him, her mouth still seeking his, open and wet, starving for the taste of him.

  He stared at her, his eyes a blaze of blue, his breath coming in pants that sounded loud and harsh in the stillness of the silk-lined room. He held her, controlled her, by the pearls, twisted tight now around her neck, his clenched hand a mass of veins and muscle. He looked hungry, hungry and wild, beyond speech, almost beyond thought.

  It was the same for her. She was beyond everything but the need for Ashdon.

  “Don’t resist,” she urged in a hoarse whisper. “Take what you have won.”

  “What are you?” he breathed. “To say such things, to want—”

  “A woman,” she breathed, interrupting him. “Nothing more. Just a woman. Tell me it is not a woman you want.”

  He shook his head like a man coming out of a nightmare on a cloud-thick night, lost and seeking, afraid. “You don’t even know what you’re saying. You don’t even know what you’re offering.”

  “Then show me,” she said, staring into his eyes, wanting him, wanting him to want her.

  The door to the dressing room thundered in its frame, the sounds of the assemblie rising to a roar of curiosity and frustration. Ash pulled her to him roughly, the pearls his chain, and kissed her hard, fast, and then released her and the pearls.

  “Cover yourself,” he barked.

  She tried. She did, but her hands were clumsy with passion, trembling with what they’d done and what she’d wanted him to do. He was right; she wasn’t at all certain she knew what it was she wanted, but she knew she wanted it from him.

  Ash stood barring the door as she fumbled with her bodice. Her chemise was twisted, her lips felt swollen, and her hair felt tumbled. She was certain she looked as if she had been, tumbled, that is.

  The door flew inward with a bang, the crush in the drawing room surging behind it. Caro jerked her head upward, her hands to her floppy bodice while Ashdon stood directly in front of her, a shield from curious eyes. At the front of the group stood Lord Henry Blakesley, fourth son of the Duke of Hyde. He wore an amused expression, as was his habit. At his side stood Sophia, whose expression fluctuated between amazement and approval.

  “How lovely,” Sophia said. “I see the wedding is back on.”

  Nineteen

  “SOPHIA, I must protest,” Henry Blakesley said from the small confines of the closet. “I gave Caroline pearls as well as Ashdon. I don’t see wh
y he should be entitled to marry your pretty daughter just because he locked her in a dressing room. Give me five minutes locked with her in this closet and then let Caroline choose between us.”

  They had, by force of nature, the nature in this case being the absolute crush of humanity and the flash fire of gossip, been practically pushed from the dressing room through the gold bedroom, a highlight of these assemblies as the bedposts were covered in gold, and into a room which was not officially on the circuit. The closet had nothing to recommend it. It was even painted a completely lackluster white. Still, it did afford what little privacy they were going to find tonight and Sophia was adamant that Caro not leave Hyde House with matters unresolved.

  Which meant, of course, that Caro must be married forthwith, the matter decided immediately.

  That Ashdon had competition for the delectably tousled Caro seemed to annoy him unreasonably.

  Blakesley couldn’t remember ever having been so entertained at one of these affairs.

  “I don’t think the pearls are the deciding factor here, Blakesley. You do remember the pearls I gave her just moments after your grand gesture,” Dutton said. “I’m still being considered, isn’t that so, Caroline?”

  When Dutton had forced his way into the closet, Blakesley had thought Ashdon just might hit him again. It was only for lack of space that he didn’t. Give Ashdon room to swing and he’d wager on a different outcome.

  “Don’t pretend you give a damn about her,” Ashdon snarled at Dutton. “Six hours ago you were hot for Anne Warren.”

  “Lord Ashdon! Such language!” Sophia said, one corner of her mouth tipped up in a wry smile. “Please remember that my daughter is a lady and an innocent.” And when the pause lengthened to the breaking point, Sophia added, “Isn’t she?”

  “Of course!” Ashdon said.

  “Of course,” Sophia said, nodding sweetly.

  No one asked Caroline, as it would have been awkward and no one wanted to make her feel any more awkward than she already must feel. It was perfectly obvious to anyone with a working knowledge of a ladies’ bodice, and all here must admit to at least that, that Caro’s bodice had been trifled with. And if the bodice, then Caro. Marriage was the order of the day in times such as these.

  Blakesley thanked God that he had never personally experienced times such as th ese,no ma tterwh athe sa idto annoy Ashdon. Though, in all truth, it was more that Sophia had implied that his involvement would help her daughter that he tarried, baiting Ashdon. That, and Lousia Kirkland knew exactly what was going on in this closet, as did the whole house, and he found a peculiar joy in baiting her as well.

  Blakesley was equally aware that Sophia had implied that as well. A clever woman, was Sophia Dalby. He must take care never to fall into the center of any web she spun.

  “I don’t suppose my opinion matters,” Caroline said calmly, or at least calmly considering that she was destined to be the scandalous example mothers frightened their marriageable daughters with for the next ten years, conservatively.

  “Of course it does, darling,” Sophia trilled as she took Caroline’s gloves from Ashdon’s clenched fist and handed them casually to her daughter. Blakesley swallowed a laugh and ended up with an explosive cough.

  “Pardon me,” he said to the room at large. Ashdon frowned at him. It wasn’t a punch in the gut, but it was something.

  “Now, which of these fine gentlemen would you like for a husband, Caro?” Sophia said. “You may choose freely as they have each freely compromised you, a lovely girl of good home without a blemish to your reputation, until, that is, they gave you, in the full view of all Society, a rather inappropriate, too personal, and far too expensive gift of pearls. Isn’t that right, Lord Henry? Lord Dutton? And, of course, not to be forgotten, Lord Ashdon.”

  Blakesley reconsidered the whole thing. He had been punched in the gut, but not by Ashdon. Damn Sophia for her cleverness. He had been pushed into this by the promise of a small revenge against Louisa Kirkland. It was a fine revenge if he ended up married to Caroline Trevelyan!

  “I beg your pardon, Lady Dalby,” Dutton said stiffly, “but it was not I who had your beautiful daughter trapped in that dressing room.”

  “And wasn’t it kind of Lord Ashdon,” Sophia countered politely, “to remove Caroline from such a squalid scene? I cannot thank you enough for that, Lord Ashdon. My poor girl, abused in front of absolutely everyone in such fashion . . . if I’d only been in the room, I might have been able to prevent it. But,” she sighed, “as I was not, I am so fortunate that Lord Ashdon took, dare I say it, a father’s role in attempting to protect my innocent daughter. She is innocent, isn’t she, Ashdon? ” Sophia prompted.

  “Of course!” Ashdon bit out. “But I am hardly a father to her.” He sounded rather insulted. Sophia looked entirely too pleased. Blakesley decided, for the moment, to hold his tongue and see exactly how Sophia led this merry chase to the altar.

  “Naturally not,” Sophia said. “Merely a turn of phrase and entirely complimentary to you, Lord Ashdon. You did, in fact, present my daughter with a rather spectacular, by all accounts, strand of excessively long pearls, quite in the company of these two gentlemen. Are those your pearls which she is now wearing?”

  “They most certainly are,” Ashdon said.

  He said it with some, oh, what to call it? Pride of possession? Ownership? Blakesley crossed his arms and leaned against the door to the antechamber. Caroline was almost certainly blushing. How very interesting. What had happened in that little room?

  “And the other pearls? Don’t tell me you’ve lost them, Caro.”

  “I certainly did not,” Caroline said, fussing with her bodice tie. How very interesting.

  “Then where are they?” Sophia pressed.

  At this question, Caroline most definitely did blush, and now it was Ashdon’s turn to cough. Sophia merely raised her ebony eyebrows and waited.

  “Lord Ashdon has them,” Caroline finally said, mumbled actually.

  “Really?” Sophia said, looking with keen interest at Lord Ashdon. “Did you give them to him or did he take them off you?”

  “Mother!” Caro hissed, pulling on her long evening gloves furiously. “Really!”

  “It is a good question, Caro, kindly answer it,” Sophia said.

  “I will answer it, Lady Dalby,” Ashdon said. “Lady Caroline gave me the pearls because I demanded that she do so.”

  “I see,” Sophia said softly. “And did you also demand that she keep the pearls you gave her?”

  “In a manner of speaking, I did,” Ashdon replied.

  Any fool could see where this was going and not a one of them was a fool.

  “And she still wears them, I see,” Sophia said with a soft gleam in her eyes. “Caro, since you refused the pearls of Lord Dutton and Lord Henry, in a manner of speaking,” she added with a wry smile for Ashdon, “it seems you have made your choice. It is my pleasure, Lord Ashdon, to welcome you into the family. You will, of course, return the pearls in your . . . pocket?” At Ashdon’s nod, she continued, “To these gentlemen. Their offers were rejected. It is only proper that their goods are returned to them, perhaps to be put to more fruitful use later in the Season.”

  What? Not bloody likely. Blakesley took his pearls and shoved them deeply into his pocket. Dutton, he was astonished to note, did not. Dutton, who might have been a fool after all, smiled at his pearls, at Sophia, and at Ashdon of all people, before slowly pressing his pearls into his pocket. He was still smiling when he bowed his departure, but not before kissing Caroline’s hand and murmuring something against her glove.

  Ashdon looked ready to sock him again. Damned nuisance that there wasn’t enough room in the closet for that sort of thing. He was going to speak to his father about that, perhaps get some carpenters in to smash out a wall or some such. There was entirely too much fun being missed merely for lack of space.

  And with that thought, Blakesley made his departure. He did not kiss Lady Caroline’s han
d. He did, however, kiss Lady Dalby’s.

  “WHAT a lovely young man. I do wonder whom he shall find now that Caroline is removed from consideration,” Sophia said as Blakesley left the closet on the heels of Lord Dutton. They had both exited through the antechamber, which led to the music room, the last room on the assemblie circuit. It was the route they would all follow at their own exit out of Hyde House. Ashdon was hardly looking forward to it.

  His father was going to kill him.

  Ashdon found, after a rather cursory consideration, that he didn’t much care. His thoughts were all of Caro, her flushed skin, the pearls tangled around her nipples . . .

  Calbourne’s pearls. He was going to have to repay that debt immediately, if not sooner, because he knew without doubt that he’d never return the pearls to Cal. They were Caro’s pearls now.