'Come now, dear. He smiled at you so nicely.' Poppy linked arms with her, neatly setting down her glass of champagne as merry groups of revellers ebbed and flowed around the two of them. Henry Grancourt may have been the most unsociable Duke in London before marrying Poppy, but within six months his events had become the stuff of legend. 'I am sure he means to woo you. He will say lovely things to you by the magnolia tree, even if it is a little cold outside.'
'Of course.' Matilda had to restrain a snort. Lord Featherstone had visited the pleasure-house where she worked not too long ago; although Matilda had not been the object of his affections, she had heard quite enough from the other courtesans. The man was certainly incapable of saying anything that could be considered lovely.
'Why do you seem so very cynical regarding him? He seems so very nice.' Poppy's eyes widened. 'I... I do not suppose you and he have ever been... well... introduced under different circumstances...'
'Of course not.' That was the problem with being friends with Poppy Grancourt; one never wished to disappoint her, even when placating her meant lying. They had never spoken of Matilda's scandalous past, or uncertain present, and Matilda hoped against hope that they would never do so. Their friendship was already so thoroughly unlikely that any unpleasantness at all could mar it beyond repair. 'I am simply a little tired.'
She was tired of everything. Tired of both of her lives; the life she lived within the walls of the pleasure-house, and the one she lived uneasily under the eyes of the ton. Tired of weighing up her dignity against her security, tired of moving between glittering ballrooms and her own shabby boarding house, tired of changing her personal history to explain away any number of inconsistencies… tired of avoiding would-be protectors, and beginning to loathe any man she looked at.
Men like Lord Featherstone. How she hated Lord Featherstone. How she hated being the kind of woman who had to associate with Lord Featherstone, and men like him, in order to earn her bread….
‘Matilda, dearest, you look terribly faint.’ Poppy squeezed her hand. ‘Shall we take a little turn upon the lawns? For the fresh air, not the chance of receiving compliments.’
‘I will take a turn alone, dear. If we are too long together, as always, then people will begin to chatter.’ Matilda slowly drew away from Poppy, smiling despite her friend’s look of concerned protest. ‘A little evening air will revive me.’
By the time she had walked, slowly and silently, around the starlit edge of the Grancourt lawns, she did feel revived. Almost happy, in fact. Which is why, when she heard Lord Featherstone’s voice slither out of the darkness, Matilda felt unspeakably angry.
‘What luck! The little doe-eyed creature slips into the forest, waiting for the hunter.’ He moved closer, reeking unpleasantly of champagne; Matilda took a step backward, looking longingly back at the house. They were close enough to be seen clearly—had no-one noticed she was gone? ‘Let me hunt you a little.’
Matilda, like all women of her profession, had a ready list of flattering refusals that were designed not to offend the gentleman in question. Looking at Lord Featherstone, feeling the last of her fragile peace fly away, she did not wish to use any of them.
‘No. Remove yourself from my presence.’ She held her head high, not wanting to show the man that she was trembling. ‘Immediately.’
Lord Featherstone paused. When he laughed, long and low, Matilda fought the urge to run.
‘Come now. Let us lose the pretence that you can refuse me. You do not make your money by refusing.’ He moved closer; a stab of real fear moved through Matilda. ‘Although given your rudeness, sweet, you should not expect to make any money from this particular encounter.’
Now the fear was spreading; it curdled in Matilda’s stomach. She trembled openly as Lord Featherstone approached, his hand moving to the shoulder of her dress. Men had attempted this before, in the pleasure-house—but at the pleasure-house there were guards, there were people in nearby rooms, there was safety…
‘Get away from me!’ Her hoarse whisper rang through the gardens as she sprang back. There was a coarse ripping of fabric; Lord Featherstone closed his fist over the scrap of fabric as Matilda clutched at her torn dress. ‘Get away from me, or I shall scream!’
Lord Featherstone looked at her, his face tight with fury. Matilda wondered if she would actually have to run from him, or fight him, before he began to speak.
‘Scream. Scream all you like. No-one in that house will believe you for a minute. Everyone here knows what you are—and what’s more, when I run and tell them that you are attempting to solicit gentlemen in this garden, they will condemn you so thoroughly that your life here will be over!’
Dropping the torn scrap of fabric to the wet grass with a scowl of disgust, he turned and began walking rapidly back to the house. Matilda, staring in utter shock at his retreating back, found she could not raise her voice above a whisper.
If any of the ton saw her here, in the gardens, her dress torn… why, she was finished. She was more than finished. She would be plunged into a hellish nightmare from which there would be no waking—and Lord Featherstone, with his ugly whispers and brutal shouts, would be the architect of her downfall.
She would have to leave London. Leave Ellen and Poppy. Change her name, change her profession, live by the skin of her teeth… die alone, unloved, with no-one beside her who would know her true name…
‘Miss Weatherbrooke.’ The voice was quiet and low, unmistakeably masculine. Matilda, to her astonishment, recognised it. ‘What has happened? Are you hurt?’
His Grace, Christopher Harding, Duke of Longbrooke. A close friend of Matilda’s, for want of a better word, employer… and the only man, the only man in London, that Matilda had ever permitted herself to moon over.
It might had been his kind face, or his impeccable politeness, or his fine figure as he moved through crowds that Matilda never considered herself a true part of. Something about the man, something indefinable, had led Matilda to indulge in deeply unprofessional dreaming. Now he was here, emerging from the dark tangle of leaves that bordered the kitchen gardens with a cigar falling from his fingers, looking at her with his soft, concerned gaze.
Oh, Lord. As soon as Lord Featherstone had attracted a crowd, Harding would believe his version of events. He would think exactly as badly of her as everyone else. Matilda, shivering, began to sob with abrupt and terrifying panic.
‘Lord Featherstone. He was going to…’ Why lie, when he wasn’t going to believe her anyway? ‘He wanted to—to—but I did not, I do not.’ She stopped, a fresh wave of tears assailing her, her body shuddering with the effort of staying upright. ‘I slapped him, and he—he took most grievous offence, and has gone to alert everyone in the ballroom that I am here to—to—’
He knew. He had to know; all of them suspected. She was nothing more than the worst sort of woman, attempting to consort with her betters, and the brightly glittering world that she had built for herself would crumble spectacularly to dust—
She stopped. Stopped sobbing, stopped speaking, stopped breathing, as Harding took her into his arms.
He was all around her. He was warm, and solid, and safe; so safe, in the midst of so much danger, that Matilda’s tears came thick and fast.
‘He was going to hurt me.’ She whispered the words, not caring as she unburdened herself of something desperately, unspeakably ugly. ‘I know it. I do not deserve to be hurt.’
‘You do not.’ Harding’s voice was so close to her ear; Matilda found herself wishing she could appreciate it more fully. She had dreamed of similar moments to this—why, why, did this particular moment have to come thanks to so much horror? ‘You do not, and… and you will not be hurt. Ever again.’
He looked down at her. In the starlight, he looked even more handsome than all the other times Matilda had seen him. All the times that she had watched him, wondering, dreaming…
‘Do you trust me, Miss Weatherbrooke?’ Harding paused, his expression suddenly fraught.
‘I understand it is an enormous request, especially considering the atrocious conduct of Lord Featherstone. But… can you trust me?’
‘Yes.’ Matilda didn’t even have to think about it. Many things about Christopher Harding were a mystery, but his trustworthiness was plain for everyone to see. ‘I can. I… I do.’
‘Thank you.’ It sounded as if Harding really meant it. ‘Now…’
‘Look!’ Lord Featherstone’s voice echoed out over the lawns, making Matilda flinch. ‘Look at the gardens! You shall all receive the shock of your lives!’
Matilda held a hand to her mouth as she saw shadows grouping at the edge of the lawns. Lord Featherstone was well-known as a wit… oh, Lord, the things he would say…
No. Harding was here. Harding would make everything well again.
Harding was… was kneeling. Getting down on one knee, to be precise.
‘Do not worry. Everything will be alright.’ His voice was so careful, so measured, that Matilda almost didn’t understand what was happening. ‘Miss Weatherbrooke… would you do me the utmost honour…’
‘Oh, Lord!’ An ecstatic female cry came from the edge of the lawns. ‘A proposal! Why, Lord Featherstone, you absolute cupid!’
‘No, I…’ Lord Featherstone’s voice rang over the gardens, thoroughly confounded. ‘I… this was not what I…’
It was far too late. The crowd was alive with rapturous coos and small burst of applause from the younger ladies. Matilda, her head suddenly swimming, barely heard Harding finish.
‘... The honour of becoming my wife?’
Wife?
Matilda nodded once. Twice. Then, with a mingled sigh of both shock and profound relief, she fainted dead away.
There were scandals. There were enormous scandals. Then there were earth-shaking scandals, with far-reaching implications… and somewhere above all of them, at a truly dizzying height, sat the scandal of a widowed duke, Christopher Harding, proposing marriage to a notorious courtesan.
The mood at Simpkins the following afternoon, for a decidedly relaxed gentleman’s Club, could be described as one of barely restrained excitement. Simpkins himself, used to scandals but not public ones, had retired to his bed with a bottle of brandy and a towel to dampen his head. There had already been two membership cancellations, one gossip-monger skulking about the carefully anonymous entrance, and an argument in the library over what the world was coming to; Simpkins, one hand held to his head, moaned quietly in his bed.
The most logical thing to do would be to cancel Christopher Harding’s membership immediately. Unfortunately, logic and class were rarely happy bedfellows; Simpkins loathed to throw away a duke, even a scandalous one. Even though he had other dukes to choose from, four of them in fact, not one of them was unimpeachable enough to carry the rest without help.
Harding had always been the quietest of the Bad Dukes bunch. Quiet, and polite, and rich, oh, Lord, he was rich. Almost rich enough to make marrying a well-known courtesan seem like an amusing peccadillo, rather than the slide into complete insanity that it must represent in reality.
‘Oh, no.’ Simpkins took another swig of brandy, coughing as he threw the damp towel over his head. It made him feel rather as if he were drowning, which was a considerably more comfortable state than his current predicament. ‘What the bloody hell was the man thinking?’
The man in question, it had to be said, was thinking rather a lot. As Harding sat in the back room at Simpkins, nursing a glass of whisky by a crackling fire, he leaned his chin on his hand to muse.
None of his thoughts involved regret. That would have come as a surprise to the ton’s more notable gossips—but then, Harding wasn’t thinking about them either. He was thinking, or rather feeling, two distinctly powerful sentiments; one for Matilda, and the other for his group of friends that made up, or had made up, the Bad Dukes Club.
The door-handle rattled, as if someone had attempted to enter and then thought better of it. With a small sigh, Harding turned his mind away from Matilda and towards his friends.
They were going to think he was absolutely bloody mad. This was inevitable. What intrigued him, though, what entertained him slightly, was wondering how each of them were going to express their doubts. All of them were so very different, and all of them considered Matilda very differently…
As he thought of James Selby, Harding’s frown deepened. But before he could give more time to the problem of that particular friendship, the door opened with a small creak of apology.
Bale. Harding had always liked Victor Bale; he was a little younger than the rest, and a part of the Club by virtue of his scarred face rather than his conduct. A spectacular marriage to Isabella Thurgood, the wealthiest society beauty that London had seen in a good number of years, had softened Bale’s bitter points and coloured his advantages more highly… Harding wondered, as he softly nodded his head in greeting, how exactly Bale was going to raise the subject of Matilda.
‘Harding.’ Bale gently inclined his head, a nervous smile on his face. The black mask he wore shifted a little as he raised his eyebrows. ‘Quite… quite a night yesterday, what?’
‘Yes.’ Harding couldn’t resist a small smile. ‘Did you enjoy the evening?’
‘Oh, yes. Terribly. Isabella will drag me into every dance, but I cannot resist her pleas.’ Bale ran a finger along the bookshelf, apparently checking for non-existent dust as Harding patiently waited. ‘And… and I believe the other Bads enjoyed themselves.’
Harding nodded in response. He wanted to see how long the silence would be; the long, infinitely awkward silence that stretched between what Bale had just said, and what Bale desperately wanted to say.
‘Look.’ A shorter silence than Harding had thought; he sat up, trying to look attentive as Bale spoke. ‘Concerning… concerning the rather unusual events of last—’
He didn’t manage to get any further. Both men looked around, startled, as Henry Grancourt strode into the room with a snarl.
‘Oh, come on!’ He looked at Bale with withering scorn as Bale held up his hands. ‘We gave the job to you because we thought you would do it gently, not take a bloody age!’
‘I was not, under any circumstances, taking anything close to an age.’ Bale glared at Grancourt, before turning back to Harding with a gaze designed to be as appealing as possible. ‘We do not wish to be overly curious, of course, and we would rather die than have it seem that we are condemning your conduct, but—but—’
‘But what in the bloody hell were you damn well thinking?’ Grancourt threw up his hands, almost hitting Bale on the nose. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’
So far, so predictable. Marriage had softened Henry Grancourt when it came to most things, but apparently Harding’s choice of second wife had escaped the general softening. Harding, not even bothering to get up from his chair, decided that he was going to have to use The Voice.
He hardly ever used The Voice. He had never used it with servants, and he had certainly never used it with women. He had developed it during his brief period in the regiment, before he had come into his title; it had been useful for persuading men to pick their way across a muddy battlefield. Harding hoped, as he looked at his two friends, that it would be useful now.
‘Stop talking. Stop talking about this. Grant me the courtesy of knowing my own mind, and give me the respect due to a friend who has always supported your choices, even if he has not always understood them.’ He paused, not blinking, to ensure the best effect. ‘And bring me some cigars. There is a jar of them in the cloakroom.’
That, at least, appeared to take care of the two easiest problems. With an embarrassed look on Bale’s face, and an infuriated but resigned expression marring Grancourt’s scowling features, both men left the room with abrupt bows and hurried footsteps.
There were no cigars in the cloakroom. That would keep them occupied for at least a little while… but Harding knew that Bale and Grancourt would not have come to Simpkins alone. And the next appointme
nt, as necessary as it was, had him gnawing at the inside of his cheek.
Richard Maldon entered the room with swift, impatient strides. From the look of him, Harding surmised, his friend was as eager to both begin and end the conversation as he was.
‘Look.’ Maldon sat opposite, his exhausted features thrown into sharp relief by the firelight. ‘I know you have no desire to discuss this, but—’
‘You are right. I do not.’ Harding didn’t use The Voice, but his tone came perilously close. ‘Keep it short.’
‘Fine.’ Maldon took a deep breath. ‘Your marriage represents—’
‘A loss of business. I know.’ Harding didn’t mince words. ‘I shall pay you for whatever losses are incurred by Matilda’s absence.’
Maldon’s eyes widened. ‘The costs will be considerable.’
‘And I am considerably rich.’ Harding frowned. ‘I can pay. Unless, of course, she decides to keep working.’
Now Maldon looked as if someone had hit him with a hammer. ‘Harding… you cannot possibly mean that.’
‘Why not? The marriage was not planned, and it was meant to protect against public ruin. Not private enterprise.’ Harding folded his arms as he leaned forward. ‘I would not deny her the luxury of an independent income.’
‘A luxury?’ Maldon shook his head, holding his hands up with what looked like complete disbelief. ‘What manner of man permits his wife to continue working as a courtesan?’
‘A man who understands that his wife would not have wished to become his wife, if circumstances had been kinder.’ Harding allowed himself a glare; Maldon leaned back in his chair. ‘You know it. I know it. The alternative was letting her be hounded out of London.’
‘Harding…’ Maldon’s tone was softer now. ‘Please demonstrate that you are acting with some sort of sense. Some… some evidence of reason.’
‘I have already told you my reasons. They were charitable ones. In this way, she can carry on her friendship with your wife. It can even be a legitimate friendship.’ Harding sighed. ‘Would you deny Ellen that?’
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