THE VIKING AND THE COURTESAN

by Shehanne Moore

  Another mistake.

  Or a dream. She closed her eyes again, hugged the pillow against her cheek. Ah, how often she’d longed for this moment, to be back here in her bedroom with that scent of dried rose petals . . . and mildew.

  She jerked upright. Her bedroom with her face staring back from the pale oval glass opposite. She threw the cotton sheet aside. My God. How could she be here? Where was he? Where was Gentle? Snotra?

  Never mind where. What were they? Figments of her imagination? Nightmares? Her stomach clenched. Except if they were what was she doing without a stitch of clothes? Stark naked? Worse. What was that thing around her neck? That thing that . . . was made of iron.

  As she skimmed her fingers over the clammy surface, her lips contorted. Of their own accord. That ache between her legs was for real. It must have been real. All of it been real. Sin Gudrunsson had been real in 898 AD. But now she was back here in her bedroom in . . . She didn’t need to strain her ears, hear the rumble of a coach to know . . .

  That was when she fell down on the floor and the most awful noise echoed round the walls. A scream. Her own.

  “Lady Dallsworth.”

  Malice dropped her deepest curtsy. Entering a ballroom was like entering a lion’s den. Befriend those nearest the doors and she might escape without being devoured. Of course she took the chance she would be eaten anyway, wherever she stood, just as she took the chance that the lions might ignore her. As she might them, just like all these years ago.

  She dragged her gaze from Lady Dallsworth’s pale, glittering attire. Malice knew her own emerald gown, all she had left, was already out of place. Too dark, too frothy, with black diamante panels that were last year’s fashion. Or was it the one before? Whenever it was hardly mattered when they made her look like a bat, everyone else was dressed in cream and pink, and worst, her gown had black lace in lieu of a bodice, tight black lace with satin piping, that displayed and emphasized every inch, not just of her cleavage but her chemise. She knew it as she forced the words.

  “His Grace is here, before me?”

  She could no more change than she could afford to let the lions ignore her. Anyway, at least the damn thing fitted over the small lump of padding she’d tied over her stomach.

  “Cyril? Oh yes. You know, I simply cannot get used to the fact he has a wife. All these years and barely a word of you, my dear. Such a dark horse. But then that’s just him.”

  She smiled dazzlingly, then she turned away on the revolting shoes she’d also been forced to squeeze onto her feet. Yes, she could simply have presented herself at Cyril’s rooms happily pregnant. It wasn’t an option, any more than it was to admit she’d probably arranged the divorces of half those present, without ever seeing them face to face. The sword she had somehow fallen upon like mighty Caesar, was bigger somehow, so gargantuan it slashed her innards and her good intentions to ribbons.

  Not for the first time since landing back in her own bed two months ago, Malice bit hard on her lip. Mozart played on the dais, the candles mounted on the crystal candelabras blurred in bright flames but then the ballroom was warm, wasn’t it? And she was cold as yesterday’s ashes.

  How on earth could she still have that collar lying like cold and hard sickle around her neck, beneath the gauze scarf she’d draped over it and not him? Unable to have been even remotely capable of getting a discreet smithy to remove it, she’d tried filing it for ten minutes every day, herself, to no avail, because she couldn’t work open the clasp. At nights, lying naked beneath cold sheets, despite its rusty chill, it was the only thing that offered any succour, which was probably why she didn’t try harder to have it removed.

  Before she became too nostalgic, a few short weeks with the Vikings and Strictly was in ruins, except for Agnes. If she was reduced to using Agnes, no divorces would be obtained. No disrespect but the men would need to be paid to have sex with her not the other way about.

  As for herself only narrowly avoiding being flung into the streets after Cyril Hepworth complained to the magistrates about not getting his money’s worth—what was that about? The lies she’d been forced to tell to refute the salacious claims may have prevented her immediate eviction—for heaven’s sake they’d arrived at the door during her screaming session, there was still the matter of the unpaid rent.

  So now . . . now she was living in a two roomed effort off the Radcliff Highway, with her shoes crushed in a box, when she’d longed to get back here. How could she be so foolish? She had all of ten shillings to her name. Perhaps she had spent the previous hour pacing the floor of that disgusting hovel, pricked by various qualms of conscience about this foundling and how bad it was to foist one off on Cyril, how could she divert from the plan she’d hatched the night Lady Grace walked into her salon? It was this or sell her shoes. Or worse, herself.

  She would sooner swallow the shoe box, even if its contents did not quite heat the cockles of her heart as thoroughly as they once had. It didn’t matter how it pained her, she’d no choice but to wander about here. She might as well face this disastrous business of kissing anyone to get anywhere. She’d tried. Hadn’t she grabbed the pie vendor, the lamplighter and the next door neighbour—she was hardly going to try kissing the bailiff Cyril set on her. Where had it landed her? Nowhere. Such a terrible mess to be in. And not of her making.

  Catching sight of Cyril in an alcove, she sipped a breath. With his ruffled brown hair and luminous eyes, the carelessly tied cravat and creased jacket, he was untidily handsome. Twice, the sight of him had almost caused her to expire. When she had walked into the church at Coxwold and seen him standing there with a carnation in his lapel—their wedding day—and then that night in his apartment. Very well. She lied. It was thrice. When she had knocked on the door of his room at the little inn across from the church.

  Now, seeing him chuck wine down his throat as if the vineyard was about to run dry, casting his eye over some serving girl—her backside rather—and wagering what Lady Grace possessed, in a game of cards at the walnut table, nausea rose in her gorge. When she considered a man who made her heart pound, a man who she should not be thinking of here, it wasn’t Cyril. Still, whatever the problem with Cyril—and there were a good twenty dozen—she knew where she stood with him. That was nowhere at all.

  She glided closer. She had come to speak with him, wife to husband. And she had chosen here to do it because it was public. Those who thought the sun shone from the backend of his brown velvet breeches had a lot to learn. Was it enough to propel her forward into the alcove though? Or should she turn, make her excuses and go? Foisting a foundling on a man, even a man as bad as Cyril, did seem a hugely significant step to take. One that probably did not speak well of her character. Think of the life it would have though. She closed her eyes, letting the jasmine scented pleasantry waft through her senses. That room off the Ratcliff Highway seethed with every smell imaginable. Not one of them was nice. She must do this. She opened her eyes, took a deep breath.

  “My lord.”

  Of course, she might have known Cyril would be more interested in looking at her breasts than her face. Maybe she should have ventured in here topless? Still, at least he was looking at her.

  “Cyril. Husband.”

  Now that jerked his chin up. If ever there was a way to bring a dog to heel, this was surely it.

  “I knew I should find you here before me, my dearest. And involved in a wager too. My lords, you must excuse Cyril, especially when he does not possess the money to pay any debts. And, we are shortly to require every penny we own.”

  “Malice?” He peered at her closely. “Malice? Is that you?”

  “Most certainly it’s not Aunt Carter’s silver teapot, my dearest husband.”

  She would keep with the endearments for the time being. It would not do for anyone here to think she was anything less than fond—the sole reason s
he clasped his wrist. “I know you find every time you see me like a first time, but caution yourself. It is not seemly to behave in this manner here.”

  “Malice, what the hell are you doing here? Let go of my—”

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. “When I have come to talk divorce, I advise you to stop tugging. I will let go when I am good and ready to let go.”

  “Divorce?”

  One little word to guarantee complete obedience from the damned dog.

  He cleared his throat, elegant in the fall of lace. Then he stood up. “You want to talk divorce? Divorce with me, Malice?”

  “I am looking, but I don’t see any other man here I am married to. Do you?”

  “No. No I—”

  The doors onto the terrace loomed. Not for the first time guilt made a pin cushion of her. She could just as easily sell her shoes . . . but then what? She was done with living hand to mouth. Hatching more schemes than a hen hatched eggs. Squaring her shoulders, she opted to gesture for him to open the doors. The moonlit air might result in a chill. It was a small price to pay for having the privacy to impart what she was about to impart. Nicely. To begin with anyway. In another moment or so this would turn nasty. An audience was required then. Holding tightly to his arm she led him through the doors to a nicely shadowed stone bench at the far end of the terrace. Steps led onto the mossy lawn that torches bathed in flickering ash and nearby a fountain tinkled. He settled himself down on the bench as carelessly as he did everything.

  “Malice, you cannot imagine how astonished I am to—”

  “Let’s dispense with the formalities shall we?

  She snapped her reticule open. In it, in addition to the other things ladies kept in their handbags, was a gauze square. It was not the one she had worn that night she attempted to seduce him, obviously. That had been trodden underfoot or tied around the head or hips of some Viking, or other. But it was similar. The gauze square was nothing to her business card.

  That she removed and pressed into his hand.

  “I believe you contacted this agency.”

  “Malice . . .” The manner—the starkly horrified manner— in which his brown eyes roamed it, spoke oceans.

  “Yes?” She shrugged her scantily clad shoulders.

  “That was . . . That was . . .”

  “Obnoxious of you. Especially the lies you told. About me.”

  “But, Malice . . .”

  “Yes, Cyril?”

  “Malice, whatever, whoever said such things about you . . .”

  She held up a gloved hand. “Cyril, before you go further, there is something you should know.”

  “Yes?”

  “I am Strictly.”

  “You? Malice I should never have guessed.”

  No. he wouldn’t. He didn’t guess now either. Not the full implication of what she’d said. This was the polite Cyril, the one who was too busy thinking what was in it for him, trying to be likeable, when he was anything but. At least, for that moment he was trying. Then his face paled in the silver moonlight so his eyes stood out like dark slits.

  “Wait.” He passed his tongue over his lower lip. “You mean . . . You mean . . .”

  “I am the woman you set the law on, yes.”

  His mind probably somersaulted through every possible permutation. That he had lied to Lady Grace, doing the poor misunderstood man with the big, bad wife who is a fiend to live with, that there would be hell to pay, were probably the very least of this now.

  The worst was the wall her back was now hard against because he had gone to the law. This wasn’t revenge. This was simple economics. How many times in life had she started again? The last time was perhaps the worst because the solace it had brought her had been nothing at all. A veneer bolstered by shoes and fans, by every conceivable little knickknack going.

  If she could not have a man? Well, she’d had one in circumstances it made her sweat to remember. Circumstances that enslaved her. She was never going to see him again. Already he had been dead for hundreds of years. So the fact he’d have married Snotra by now wasn’t worth thinking. This was all that was worth thinking even if the whole thing was distasteful to her. She could not, she would not, walk the highway. It was all that was left for a woman like her.

  “Well, of course, Malice, firstly if I had known it was you and I see now that it was, I should never have gone to . . . to complain. I should have come to see you face to face to explain the situation with Grace but the fact was I didn’t know where you were.”

  “Oh, let’s dispense with the lies shall we? You have no idea how tiresome they are. What you mean is you didn’t look.”

  Astonishment brushed like a moth’s wing across her skin. Imagine speaking to him in this way. Bold. Decisive. If she had done it all the years ago instead of stuttering and stammering at his bedroom door, would he have abandoned her? Certainly that little flicker in his eyes, the one that pierced his hang-dog expression, was something she had never seen before.

  “Malice . . . I . . . Well, I . . .”

  “Want a divorce? Having found me impossible to live with so you can marry Lady Grace?”

  “It . . . it had crossed my—”

  “I met her by the way.”

  She might as well disabuse him of certain of his notions.

  Another flicker. “Well, I . . . I do want a divorce but only because . . . I mean only so . . .”

  “You can marry her for her money?”

  “Malice . . . I am vexed you think so little of me that I would do that and set the law on you into the bargain . . .”

  Her heart began to pound so loudly it drowned the strains of the Haydn minuet drifting through the open doors and the fountain tinkling yards from where she stood. After all these years. Years in which she had waited. Had abandoned hope. Lived like a drudge at times on a penurious income. She finally had him at a disadvantage. Even though she wanted to she didn’t feel good. Not given what she planned.

  “So you can live in a state you should like to become accustomed to? Ruining her as you have me?”

  “Well, the thing is, the thing was, I had no choice regarding the law. That woman you sent to do whatever she was meant to do, she let you down very badly.”

  “Really?

  “I’m sure that your other ladies aren’t so work shy. Why, your business came highly recommended. But that woman . . .”

  She unfolded the square of gauze. His expression as she placed the square on her head then arranged it over her face was worth a king’s ransom. “That woman was me.”

  Every scrap of colour drained from his face. Not that there had been a great deal to start with. There never was. It was one of his many attractions, what gave him that boyish look at the age of twenty seven.

  “You?”

  “Yes, Cyril.”

  “Y-you mean . . . Well, Malice.” Give him his dues, his recovery was excellent. But then it had every reason to be. “May I say how very—”

  “You may say nothing. But I will say I think we will agree there will be no divorce. How can there be when we are so very happy, so joyous together?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “That I am having your child?”

  “What?”

  Was it any wonder his eyes bulged? The wonder was they didn’t pop clean out of his head and ping about the paving slabs. She tilted her chin. If there was ever a doubt she shouldn’t do this, that moment was past, because he meant to marry Lady Grace at all costs. This ‘may I say’ niceness was all a play for time. Now he was out of time.

  What was he going to do? Have it all over London his wife ran a marriage-wrecking business? That he was a cad who stole from the woman he had abandoned? Hardly. No, the man was a leech. She would do well to stay married to him. And he
would support her from this day forward.

  “Yes, husband dearest. From that night, the one that was so special to both of us.”

  “That’s a damned lie. That night you disappeared. Vanished right before my eyes. I shut them for a second. One second only and poof.” He snapped his fingers. Indeed, his face had contorted with such rage, the only wonder was he didn’t snap more with his fingers, he didn’t snap her neck.

  “And you looked for me, did you?”

  “I went to the law.”

  “But not to report me missing?”

  “How could I report you missing when I didn’t know it was you?”

  Well, she’d wondered briefly, at the very beginning, what Cyril was doing about her vanishing like that, whether he might even be joining her. Things had become a little too challenging after that to think of anything but getting back to England. Now she saw the only thing of consequence to him was that he hadn’t had his money’s worth.

  Turning sharply on her heel, she stove to dismiss the image, the hot one that rose of what she had disappeared to. She had Cyril exactly where she wanted him. She had him so she could face down every question he asked. Sin Gudrunsson was of no consequence to her now. His lethal hips either. Especially when Cyril’s footsteps sounded right beside her.

  “If it was so damned special how come I don’t remember the first damned thing about it? Would you like to tell me that?”

  “You deny the fact I am three months pregnant?”