The Courtesan's Bed (6 page)

Once she satisfied her curiosity, she'd send him on his way and resume her life.

He must've heard her light footsteps or the swish of her skirts. “Miss Willet.” He remained focused on the Toulouse-Lautrec. “I'm surprised you agreed to receive me, since you've snubbed me twice.”

Once again she was unwittingly mesmerized by the dark, silken richness of his voice, like strong black coffee laced with a surprising shot of whiskey.

She remained motionless. “I am now known as Régine Laflamme. The poor little country mouse named Regina Willett no longer exists.”

He turned and looked at her, his December eyes now warm and luminous. “So I've heard.”

“And I was perfectly justified in snubbing you.”

Régine slipped her hand into her pocket to finger Odile's rosary as though it were a talisman she could use against him.
This man's father did me a great wrong, and he did nothing to right it. Blessed Virgin Mary, please protect me from him.

They faced each other in a tense, charged silence.

Régine frowned. “Clarridge, what are you doing here?”

He took a step forward. “I have to talk to you.”

She let the rosary slide through her fingers, and then removed her hand from her pocket. “Why? You know what your father did to me. I have nothing to say to any Granger.”

“It's because of what he did that we must talk.”

The tables had turned. This was her house, her world. She could dismiss him as coldly as his heartless stepmother had dismissed her, and never see him again.

“Please, Regina—Régine.” He took another step closer. “I've been looking for you for a long, long time, and now that I've finally found you, I can't leave without saying my piece. What would it cost you to grant me some of your time?”

His admission that he'd been looking for her caught Régine by surprise. A flood of questions filled her mind, and if she wanted answers, she would have to listen.

“Very well.” She indicated the chair by the window, closed the sitting room door and looked pointedly at the clock on the end table as she seated herself across from him on the settee. “I can spare you half an hour.”

“I'll make good use of it.”

She thought of his half sisters. “How are Kate and Emma? I hope they are well.”

He looked taken aback for one fleeting second, and then a warm, delighted smile lit his face. “Emma is fifteen now and just as headstrong and independent as ever, while Kate is quite the grown-up lady at eighteen, looking forward to her first London season.”

“Eighteen…” Régine brushed a stray lock of hair away from her cheek. “The same age as I, when your father ruined me.”

Darius's smile faded.

Régine leaned back. “I always wondered how Penbry would feel if one of his own beloved daughters were seduced and abandon by an unfeeling cad.” No, she wouldn't wish her fate on the sweet, innocent Kate even to avenge herself.

Darius shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You'll be delighted to know that my father hasn't escaped unscathed. His wife died recently.”

So the hardhearted Lady Penelope Blackwall was dead. Régine couldn't say that she was sorry for the woman, but she felt no particular satisfaction, either.

“She was sailing for New York to visit her family,” Darius said, “when the ship encountered a violent storm and went down. There were survivors, but my stepmother was not among them.”

Did Lady Blackwall experience the same desolation and despair as Régine when she realized her life was ending and no one was coming to save her?

“I will never forget her particular cruelty toward me,” Régine said, “but I know the heartbreak of a daughter who loses her mother, so Kate and Emma have my sympathies.”

He inclined his head. “I'll tell them.”

Régine delicately stifled a yawn. “This is all very interesting, but I'm afraid I don't share your fascination with your family, so if we can get back to the reason you have tracked me to Paris…”

Darius leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and drawing closer to her. “I need to hear your side of the story.”

“My side of the story?” Now the anger that Régine had been suppressing for so long roared through her. “You mean the truth as opposed to your father's lies?” She rose in one quick movement and strode over to the tall window, where she looked out over the street and fought to control herself. She turned. “Do you know what I am, Clarridge?”

He rose and looked at her in silence, as though trying to find the right words that wouldn't offend her. “You're a courtesan.”

She plunged her hand into her pocket and grasped the rosary. “You needn't mince words, monsieur. I'm a whore. I sell my body for money. Oh, I am very, very good at it, as my popularity and many a satisfied ex-lover will attest. But I'm not respectable. Most women like your sainted stepmother and her daughters would put their dainty aristocratic noses in the air if they passed me on the street, and wouldn't give me a
sou
if I were starving. Not that I care. But that is the reality of my existence, and I place the blame squarely on your father's shoulders.”

A flush of anger or possibly shame stained Darius's lean cheeks. “My father took advantage of you, true. He admitted as much to me when I demanded to know why you had been dismissed. But there were other paths you could've taken, Régine. You didn't need to resort to prostituting yourself to survive.”

She burst out laughing. “Oh my poor, privileged little lordling…how astonishingly naïve you are for such a sophisticated man.” She walked back to the settee, sat down and insolently draped her arms across its back, displaying herself to mock him. “Well, have a seat, monsieur, because I'm going to give you an education I'm sure you never got at Oxford.”

He sat down. And while he listened, Régine told him about her parents' untimely deaths while mountain climbing in the Alps, and her own need to support herself, since none of her few remaining relatives possessed enough charity to offer her a home. So she embarked upon the only avenue open to an impoverished, genteel young lady of good family. She became a governess. She related how the head of the employment agency had warned her about lustful aristocrats and their sons.

When she first came to Blackwall Manor, everything was fine. As long as Kate and Emma excelled at their lessons, she was safe.

And then the master of the house noticed her, and she was no longer safe at all.

Darius turned white and his eyes blazed. “Did he force you?”

“He would never be so crude. The clever marquess
seduced
me, slowly, skillfully, until I truly believed we were destined to be together. Foolish of me, I know, but I was an innocent girl of only eighteen who fancied herself in love, without anyone to guide me and point out the folly of such a liaison.”

She studied his son, seeing the best of Penbry Granger. “Your father is a very good-looking man, very distinguished and commanding. Many of the younger maids in the house couldn't take their eyes off him and fancied themselves in love with him. As did I.”

Darius regarded her with surprise.

Régine lowered her arms and folded her hands in her lap, knotting her fingers together tightly. “So when he came to my room that night and several nights thereafter, I welcomed him into my bed, little realizing that I was making a horrible, life-changing mistake.”

She took a deep breath. “And then your stepmother found out. I suspect that one of the maids betrayed me in a fit of jealousy. I foolishly thought that your father would proclaim his love for me and we would go away together, and if not that, at least he would set me up in my own establishment as his mistress, so we could continue our idyllic liaison. But of course, I was the one sent packing with nothing but train fare to London in my pocket. I thank my lucky stars that at least he didn't leave me with child.”

Darius stared down at the carpet. “Why didn't you find another position as governess?”

Régine's laugh sounded so harsh and brittle. “Your stepmama sent me off without that precious letter of reference. Do you know what that means, for a servant to be turned out without a reference? It's a death sentence. The employment agency washed its hands of me. What lady of the house would employ a beautiful governess who will seduce her husband or her sons, as I seduced my last employer's husband?”

Compassion softened Clarridge's gaze. “Why didn't you come to me at Oxford? I would've helped you.”

She rose abruptly, went to the drinks table and poured herself a large glass of brandy. She took a fortifying sip. “I wrote you a letter telling you of my plight. And you never answered.”

He looked as though a dagger had just pierced his heart. He rose and stared at her. “But I never received any such letter.”

His words hung in the room between them.

“As God is my judge, I never received it!” He dragged his hand through his hair. “I would've helped you, if I had known what happened. You know I would.”

He never received my letter.
The room tilted and swayed. Régine steadied herself and took a large swallow. Her eyes watered, whether from the spirits or the cruel twist of fate, she couldn't tell. “Ah, too late now.”

Seven years too late.

He stood before her. “I'm so very sorry.”

She raised one shoulder in a careless shrug. “
C'est la vie,
as the French say.” She turned and poured him a brandy with surprisingly steady fingers and handed him the glass. “I can't complain. I live a life of luxury and want for nothing, which is preferable to living in a two-room London tenement with a dozen other poor, hapless souls.”

Clarridge took the glass and rocked back on his heels. “Is that how you lived after my stepmother threw you out?” He sounded both astonished and appalled.

“Not at first.” She returned to the settee before her knees buckled. He returned to the chair. “The employment-agency head took pity on me and referred me to a Bond Street shop that sold fabric. The owner gave me a position and a small room over the shop. The work was hard and exhausting, but honest, and his customers liked me. I hadn't been there two weeks when he made me a proposition. In addition to serving his customers, I would also serve him as his mistress. When I refused, he grew furious and threw me out.”

She sipped her brandy, savoring its bracing bite. “I found myself a bed in a rat-infested two-room tenement.” She shuddered in revulsion at the memory. “The stench, the filth…”

Seated across from her on the edge of his chair, his arms resting on his knees, Clarridge grasped his glass so hard that his knuckles turned white. He stared down at the floor, obviously at a loss for words.

Régine looked around her luxurious drawing room that smelled sweetly of hothouse flowers and beeswax furniture polish. “Feeling desperate and desolate, I contemplated ending it all. I was standing on London Bridge, ready to throw myself into the Thames, when a businessman driving home saw me and guessed my intention. He was very kind and solicitous, and cajoled me into returning to his townhouse. Even though he was a stranger, I went with him because I was tired, hungry and had nothing left to lose. He was very sweet and very compassionate, but also brutally candid about what my future life had in store for me, a young woman alone, without money or prospects.”

Clarridge's anguished gaze rose to her face. “So he offered to become your protector.”

She nodded. “He was a kind, witty man, and pleasing to look at. Best of all, he wasn't married, so I wouldn't be committing adultery. Once I embarked down this particular road, I would never have marriage to some nice young man from a good family, or respectability. But what choice did I have?”

A muscle twitched in Darius's jaw.

She smiled cynically. “Your father had already ruined me. I faced years of drudgery and an early death as a factory worker, or worse. And since I do have a weakness for clean, pretty clothes and financial security, I marched down the primrose path with my head held high. At first it was difficult, becoming intimate with a stranger, but we suited, and after a while I thought of the boudoir as a classroom where I received pleasurable lessons in the amatory arts. He was an even better teacher than your father, and I became a very apt pupil. My survival depended on it.”

Her candid words brought an unexpected flush to Clarridge's cheeks. “How did you come to be living in Paris?”

“I acquired richer, more powerful protectors, one of whom took me to visit this lovely place. Here I met and befriended Odile de la Montaigne, who convinced me that the City of Light had much more to offer an enterprising young woman than London.” She drained her glass. “She was right.”

“I'm so, so sorry,” he said softly. “My father's deplorable, cowardly behavior makes me ashamed to be a Granger.”

“You didn't control your father's deplorable, cowardly behavior.” She smiled. “Now that I know you never received my letter at Oxford, I do regret thinking ill of you for so long, and I do apologize.”

A wan smile touched his mouth. “Thank you for that.”

She set down her empty glass and regarded him curiously. “So there you have my story, monsieur
.
Now it's your turn to tell me why you've come to Paris.”

“I—”

A knock sounded on the drawing room door just before Molly opened it. “Forgive me, mademoiselle
,
but Monsieur de Groument from Cartier's is here.”

Régine smiled in childlike delight. Monsieur de Groument always appeared bearing quite beautiful and extravagant gifts. What bauble had Luc bought for her this time?

She should've had Molly show the jeweler's representative to another room, but she wanted to emphasize to Darius that she didn't need his regrets or his pity, that she enjoyed the material rewards of the life of pleasure and vice she had chosen.