And waited.
I felt a small flash of triumph when she finally broke, looking down to stir her tea with a silvery ringing of the spoon against the china. I had no idea what I had won from her. A modicum of respect, perhaps? At the very least, when she looked back up at me it was with a smile. It was nothing like her regal benevolence of before, but more like the shy smile of a young girl who thinks she might have found a friend.
“You are a most unusual girl, Miss Harrington.”
I dared a saucy grin. “You are not but three years my senior, my dear Swan.”
Her smile widened. “I certainly strive to make everyone think so.” Then she tilted her head as she gazed at me. “Why are you doing this? I know you wish independence, but why? You could stay the course you’re on and all the world would envy your good fortune.”
I had known the question would come but I felt helpless before the pressure of my feelings. “I cannot explain it. It is as … as if my skin is too small for my spirit. I feel as though I must be free or I should explode! Or worse, shrivel day by day until I disappear. Both ends terrify me more than notoriety or scandal.”
She raised a brow. “Perhaps because you have never experienced such things. You have no idea what it is like to be rejected by your peers.”
I gave a short laugh. “I have no idea what it is like to be accepted by my peers. I have ever been the oddity, the ill-fit piece to the puzzle. I wear a red rose in my hair when the other girls wear white ones. I think too much, I say too little … except for now, apparently. With you I seem to have no trouble speaking my mind with ease.”
“As opposed to?”
I shrugged. “As opposed to speaking my mind and causing chaos.”
She gave a secret little smile. “Hmm. Chaos. One of my favorite flavors.”
“Really?” I asked faintly. “I prefer mayhem myself.”
Her lips quirked. “You would.” She lifted her gaze and stared thoughtfully at some point over my shoulder. After a moment, she smiled slightly and shook her head. “I have no doubt whatsoever that I shall live to regret this but … it is time for your lessons to begin.”
I felt my heart give a leap of fear, yet I was equally thrilled. My pleas were to be granted.
I would be a courtesan.
I watched the Swan stand and move gracefully to the door. “If you will come with me?”
She led me to a room filled with books, a sense of masculine comfort, and the lingering scent of pipe tobacco. The deep blue of the wallpaper and the subtle glow of dark polished wood turned the Swan’s pale beauty into something ethereal. She was a shimmering pearl in the deep blue sea of the room. A man sitting in the wing-back chair, reading a book and smoking his pipe, would surely find his eye and his attention completely arrested by her.
“He cannot help but watch your every move in this room.”
The Swan turned to me with a single elegant brow raised high. “Very good. Most people would not notice the purposeful nature of the décor. You get high marks for observation, little bird.”
I bowed my head in gratitude, only a little facetiously. “Thank you, O Sage.”
She snorted. Yes, the Swan actually snorted. The smile that broke across my face was as wide as the Thames. How delightful to find a playfellow beneath that façade of dreamy perfection.
On impulse, I took her hand in mine.
“Thank you.”
She eyed me for a long moment. “I wonder if you will still thank me in five years?”
Then she seemed to shake off that strange melancholy and led me to a side table where a brandy snifter awaited. “First, you must understand a man’s taste in fine liquor…”
To have a man’s hands upon you, his mouth moist and gentle on your skin, the feel and weight and heat of him there for your pleasure, even as you are there for his … there is naught so beautiful as skillful, gracious love.
When I appeared at the Swan’s house every morning while Society still slept off the excess of the night before, she would greet me with fond resignation.
I quite pestered her with questions about her life and her world, and the more I learned of the Art of Love, the more I wished to experience it myself. The way she described it was both frank and lyrical. I had never thought of men much beyond admiring the fellows pacing their Thoroughbreds in the park, but each thing I learned about their bodies and their needs inflamed my curiosity further.
And the stories of the physical pleasure I might someday experience! My imagination was afire, along with other portions of my anatomy. Such awareness of my own potential left me restless and susceptible to every sensation. Even the slide of warm water over my skin in the bath seemed new and delicious.
Everything she told me, I committed to memory. I have ever been an excellent student!
On this particular morning, a week into my lessons with the Swan, I informed my relatives of a last-minute fitting at the dressmaker’s, so they sent me on my way with only Sylla at my side. We giggled like schoolgirls as we made our escape.
Sylla had taken a fancy to the Swan’s young footman, Jessup, so it was not difficult to shoo her from the parlor as the Swan and I sat down to tea.
At first, she spoke of the freedom of her life, of her standing and her responsibilities, of the need to be the setter of fashion, not the slave of it, of how one’s wealth should turn to charitable work and the patronage of the arts.
“I should like to encourage writers,” I told her. “I fear that all the good literature has already been written!”
She laughed at that. “I believe every generation claims this.” Then her gaze turned more serious. “Little Ophelia, I must ask this yet again. Are you certain of this path? You have a safe life, a life that might very well turn out more happily than you believe.”
I shook my head. “I wish you would believe me. I shall never be happy until my destiny lies in my own hands. As long as I am ruled by another, I shall shrivel and die.” Then I gave her a gamine grin. “And how else am I to sample life’s full and varied men-u?”
The Swan smiled at me sadly. “How else, indeed?”
She leaned forward to set her tea down and I could not help but notice that even such a mundane movement was laced in elegance. I tried to emulate that ease as I did the same. I was pleased to note that I did a creditable job of it.
“Today we are going to find you a house. It must be not too large, for it will be too costly to manage, yet not too small, for a courtesan must not ever appear to economize. Every moment should seem like an exercise in indulgence. Every cushion, every carpet, every silver spoon must announce bounty and comfort, for that is why men come to us.”
“I thought they came for sexual favors.”
She laughed. “Goodness, no. I spend far more time listening to men than I do fondling them. Sometimes I think a man’s favorite feminine organ is her ear!”
* * *
By that evening we had settled upon a house for me. It was small but of pleasing proportions. There was a parlor to delight my friends. There was a gracious bedchamber with which to delight my lover.
And best of all, there was a library with which to delight myself!
The Seven Obligations of the Courtesan …
The duty to know and understand him
To be his solace and his fire
To take part in his Society
To bolster his endeavors
To bring witty conversation and tender touch
To give comfort to those in need
To give strength to those who are weak.
“I don’t think I should like a man too much my elder,” I told the Swan as we sat over tea one morning, compiling a list of possible clients. My lovely little house in a pretty square had been secured and furnished, although with a large bite out of my personal inheritance. We’d had quite the amusing time choosing décor. I had settled upon the colors of jewels. Deep sapphire and rich ruby to make my skin glow and to hint to my lovers the preferred colors of thei
r most appreciative gifts!
And let us not forget comfort. As Aunt Beryl blithely planned the wedding without the inconvenience of my opinion, I purchased thick carpets, deep soft chairs, and a single, magnificent bed. Fortunately, the Swan knew every reputable secondhand dealer in the city!
I chewed meditatively on a lemon biscuit and went on. “If he is too much older than I, he might think himself like my uncle and believe he commands me.”
The Swan nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, it is best to begin with someone you can manage easily.” She grinned. “Although I defy the Prince Regent himself to resist your prodigious bosom!”
I rolled my eyes. “Surely not all men are fixated on bosoms?”
The Swan laughed. “Thank heavens, no, or I should be in the poorhouse!”
We were in her lovely parlor, where the easy elegance was fast becoming necessary to my being. Every day I dreaded that I must leave this pretty house and return to Aunt Beryl’s stuffy, ponderous furnishings and dark, closed rooms. Therefore I pushed the seams of my freedom nearly to bursting. Sylla enjoyed our outings too much to leak a whisper to my relations and we had pacified my aunt with a mythical friendship I had struck up with the baroness’s companion, an elderly lady I had never met, but whom I imagined to be quite bored with the baroness’s staid lifestyle.
I went home every day stocked with tasty but innocuous Society gossip supplied by the Swan, which made my lie most convincing indeed. I am not a liar by nature, but in my mind a war had been declared and I was within my rights to take extreme measures in order to win my freedom.
Soon, however, I would be an independent woman in my own house! Bouyed by that prospect, I settled down to select my first protector.
The interviewing of potential suitors was much more comical than it ought to have been. The Swan created a list of gentlemen based on my own first requirements and her knowledge of Society. They were all fairly young, enormously rich, and all unwed.
I knew that most people considered a Society marriage to be little more than a business contract, a joining of bloodlines and property, but I still held a naïve ideal of true marriage, much like a child’s dream of a magical unicorn. Silly or not, I still had no wish to be someone who might damage such a mythical creature.
Once we began the actual process of selection, I found myself installed in a tiny, dark room outside the parlor. Before me was a small point of light that became a peephole when I lowered my eye to it. I could quite clearly see into the parlor, including a view of the sofa, the fireplace, and the Swan’s dainty harp.
I had learned enough from the Swan’s tutelage that I could imagine an erotic use for such a room with a view. I have ever had a fertile imagination. Such thoughts brought a tingle of eagerness to my skin.
When Mr. W____ was led into the room to await the Swan, I was encouraged by my first sight of him in person. I had seen him, of course, but only from afar. His Society was somewhat above that of my aunt and uncle. He was a tall man in his thirties, quite well-formed. He was dark of hair but not swarthy. His face was unobjectionable if one liked a hawkish profile. The Swan had warned me not to choose on looks alone, but so far I found no cause to strike Mr. W____ from the list. He was wealthy and connected and supposedly of a certain intelligence. I eagerly awaited his answers to the Swan’s questions. She would be joining him soon—
To my horror, at that moment the refined and elegant Mr. W____ thrust one finger into his nose and removed something so disgusting that I was forced to shut my eyes. I frantically rang the bell pull at my side. No sound came to my ears, but I knew that down in the kitchens, Sylla was on the alert.
Within moments, the Swan entered the room. “Mr. W____, I must make my apologies. Something most urgent has arisen and I must take my leave at once.” There was no hesitation and no attempt to appease in her tone. She was polite, friendly, and relentless. Mr. W____ found himself upon the stoop in a matter of seconds.
Then the door to my little chamber opened. “Goodness, what happened?” The Swan frowned at me. “I thought him quite promising!”
Without replying, I grabbed her hand and dragged her into her formerly pristine parlor. With the tips of two fingers, I flipped over the silk pillow that lay on the sofa. Her shriek likely penetrated the revolting man’s eardrums as he fled the scene.
It took the Swan’s staff nearly two days to completely cleanse the room. The entire sofa was relegated to the rubbish bin and replaced by something even finer. “I sent the bill to Mr. W____,” the Swan stated with great satisfaction. “He paid without a quibble!”
“Too right!”
The next gentleman was far more genteel. Young Lord T____ was a fine, spindly specimen of British inbreeding. He was as pale as milk and as fair as corn silk. Against my darkness, I thought we might make a rather fetching couple.
This time it was spittle into the fireplace. Not just a small, discreet clearing of one’s throat either. The Swan had the hearth sanded and the carpets replaced as well, in case of any possible spattering. Again, the gentleman paid without a single objection.
“Perhaps you should do this more often,” I told her laughingly. “You could redecorate your entire house!”
She shuddered. “Sometimes too much knowledge is a dangerous thing. I shall never be able to look either in the eye, ever again!”
“Are they all so revolting?”
She looked thoughtful. “I hadn’t thought so.”
I, for one, was beginning to despair of finding a man who did not excrete something ghastly the moment a woman turned her back, yet the next suitor who entered the parlor gave me hope.
He was tall and slender, not to mention young and quite beautiful. I found myself mesmerized by his fine, even features and the way the light glinted from his fair hair. He remained standing while waiting for the Swan and nervously adjusted his cravat half a dozen times in the few minutes that it took her to join him. I found his tension charming. He was wealthy and confident enough to think that the Swan might take his suit seriously, yet not so overbearing that he assumed the outcome of this interview would be in his favor.
The Swan entered and smiled at him. He bowed and cleared his throat twice before greeting her. Adorable. Furthermore, when he bowed, the view from where I sat was most appealing. I have never been able to abide an insufficient derriere. This fellow had the buttocks of a horseman. I wondered if he had the roughened hands to match. I leaned forward to listen to his interview with great interest.
After they were seated and exchanged a desultory amount of social talk, the Swan eyed him seriously for a moment. “Mr. P____”
He smiled. “Please call me Robert. Mr. P____ brings to mind my elder brother.”
Hmm. A younger son. Socially, that was not necessarily a detriment, for Robert was a P____, an old family so wealthy and socially prominent that even I knew of them. Although not nobility, they had married so many of their relations to the aristocracy that they were included in that world without a quibble.
Robert was looking like quite a catch, indeed.
The Swan was as obviously charmed as I, for she reined in her formidable elegance and gave Robert a real smile. “Thank you, Robert. I am honored.” Then she glanced in the direction of my peephole.
I wished I could signal her. Yes, yes, I like him!
The Swan let a teasing glint show in her gaze, then licked her lips and wiggled her eyebrows at me while Robert was busy with his cravat once again. Yes, she found him quite edible, I could tell. When Robert looked up, the serene courtesan again sat before him without the slightest hint of impish humor on her beautiful features.
He cleared his throat again even as his fingers twitched toward his cravat. The first thing I would do would be to hire him a decent valet who would make sure his cravat knot could survive a tropical hurricane without adjustment.
“I am very flattered that you agreed to see me,” he told the Swan. “I find myself in need of an individual like you in my life. I am too young to wed,
but too old to simply dream of having a lover. In addition, I have political ambitions,” he said seriously. “An elegant and accomplished hostess such as you could help me enormously. However, I truly did not think a woman of your stature would be interested in someone like me.”
Humble as well. I wanted to lick him off my spoon!
The Swan bowed her head graciously. “I am always interested in making valuable friends,” she told him, “but in actuality I asked you here today to discern your suitability for … someone else.”
Robert frowned, his face drawing in disappointment. “Someone else?”
The Swan smiled. “Yes. A dear friend has recently arrived back in London from a sojourn with her ailing lover in Belgium. While she found the countryside restful, she is now prepared to make England her home once more. She is exceedingly lovely, of course, as well as intelligent and accomplished. She was extremely popular in Brussels. His High—”
She paused just long enough to let her “slip” register with him, then continued as if she hadn’t stopped at all. “Gentlemen were simply begging her to stay, but she wished to come home. However, she has been away long enough to lose track of English Society. She finds herself quite at … loose ends.” Her voice dropped just a husky smidgen right then as she let a smoky, suggestive hint of what a loose woman might find herself doing while at loose ends. Robert came to point like a setter on a quail.
Fantastic. I must practice that.
“Is she—would I—”
The Swan waited politely through another spate of throat clearing until Robert could contain his obvious surge of arousal. “Would she be interested in meeting me?”
Meet him? I wanted to wrap him up in brown paper and have him delivered to my new doorstep that afternoon, but the Swan had cautioned me not to allow my nether regions to make my decision for me. Still, he seemed entirely perfect in all other ways.
A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man Page 7
