The Courtesan's Daughter (16 page)

Ashdon looked at Calbourne askance. “You did hang about White’s for a bit, didn’t you? Run into Dutton at all?”

“Would you feel better if I said I beat it out of him?”

“Yes, actually, I would.”

Calbourne grinned and said, “He told me about the pearls, but why didn’t you come to me for them? You know I’d help you.”

“Would you, Cal?” Ashdon said, stopping to stare at him. “Would you help me ruin a girl in the name of revenge? ”

“It doesn’t sit well, does it?” Cal said.

Ashdon shook his head and said crisply, “And I wouldn’t have you share the experience. Stay clear, Cal. I’ll work this out.”

“With Dutton’s help.”

Ashdon shrugged. “If he can get me a strand of pearls, then yes.”

“You don’t worry about contaminating him?”

“Dutton? I don’t think he can be contaminated. Besides, he has his own games to play with Anne Warren.”

“IF he thinks he can play his silly games with
me,
” Anne said in a furious undertone as they hurried toward home, “well, he is in for a jolt.”

“Not Lord Ashdon,” Caro said.

“Of course not. Lord Dutton,” Anne snapped as they walked up the front steps.

“Lord Dutton? What sort of games is he playing with you?” Caro asked.

“The same sort of game that Lord Ashdon is playing with
you
,
”
Anne said as the footman opened the door for them. “Only I am not a willing participant, and that makes all the difference.”

“Oh,” Caro said, completely lost.

She blamed Lord Ashdon. If she were not spending so much time thinking about him and about his wicked eyes and his devilish mouth and his lascivious imagination, she would have a thought to give to someone else. As things stood, she did not. Yet with the way he made her feel, she cared not. He was a wicked man to make her cast aside all thoughts of Anne and what she was going through with Lord Dutton, though what Anne could possibly be going through with Lord Dutton was a mystery.

Lord Dutton was no stranger to the Dalby town house, and he was certainly no stranger to Anne. Why, when Anne had first come to live with them, Caro had been almost certain that Dutton had entertained Anne’s imagination quite a bit. But nothing had come of it and Anne had never said anything about an attraction to Lord Dutton, and that had been the end of something that had never really begun. All to the good, in her opinion, as Lord Dutton, for all his handsome looks and perhaps particularly because of them, was a bit of a scoundrel.

Caro was interrupted in her rambling musings by Fredericks, who said, “Lady Dalby would like you to join her for tea, Lady Caroline, Mrs. Warren.”

“Wonderful,” Caro said. “I’m chilled to the bone.”

“She’s not alone,” Fredericks whispered as he opened the door to the yellow salon for them.

She most certainly was not. Lady Louisa Kirkland, her aunt and chaperone, Mary, Lady Jordan, and Lady Amelia Caversham, daughter of the Duke of Aldreth and Lady Louisa’s cousin, all turned to look as Anne and Caro entered the room. It was quite close to being daunting.

Caro had never met Lady Amelia before, their social circles being wildly divergent, and she could not imagine what brought her here today. Or maybe she could imagine. London was a remarkably bad place to keep a secret. Suddenly, the pearl earrings dangling from her ears seemed to weigh a stone and she fought the urge to clap her hands over them in shame.

Sophia made the introductions, Anne and Caro sat upon the chairs that Fredericks provided for them, and there they sat, six women staring at each other in mute curiosity. Lady Amelia and Lady Louisa looked only slightly alike. They were both fair skinned, though Lady Louisa, with her curling red hair, was infinitely more so. Lady Amelia had lovely golden blond hair and sky blue eyes under dark blond brows. She was as beautiful as the rumors of her. Mary, Lady Jordan, sister to Louisa’s deceased mother, who had wed the Marquis of Melverley, looked slightly foxed. There was nothing unusual in that, sad to say.

When the silence bordered on discomfort, Sophia, predictably, took charge.

“How fortunate, Caro, that you are wearing the pearl earrings from Lord Ashdon. Aren’t they are as beautiful as I said they were, ladies?”

Caro, to her credit, lifted her chin and stared calmly at the ladies, who stared avidly back.

“We were, of course, talking of them, darling,” Sophia said serenely, smiling approvingly at Caro. “It seems the whole town can talk of nothing else.”

“How remarkable,” Caro managed to say.

“Yes, but things are slow in Town now, the Season just barely begun,” Sophia said. “What else to talk about but a broken engagement?”

Caro turned to stare at her mother, drinking in confidence from the amusement in her mother’s black eyes.

“Is it true, oh, forgive me,” Lady Amelia said haltingly, “I don’t mean to imply otherwise, but it is just so remarkable that you refused Lord Ashdon’s offer of marriage.”

To the awkward silence
that
remark engendered, Lady Amelia stammered, “Oh, I’m so sorry! That did not come out right at all. What I mean to say is that, it is rather remarkable, isn’t it? I mean, if Lord Ashdon had offered for me, I daresay I would have accepted him and gladly.”

Caro decided in that instant that Lady Amelia Caversham was a complete hag and that if Ashdon ever looked at her, she’d flay them both.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lady Amelia,” Sophia said soothingly. “Of course it’s remarkable, I thought so myself, and I daresay that Lord Ashdon thought so most of all. He certainly had no anticipation that he was to be refused, but my daughter has her standards and Lord Ashdon, unfortunately, does not meet them.”

“I believe we all have our standards, Lady Dalby,” Lady Louisa said silkily. Lady Louisa, for all that her lineage was impeccable, was a bit of a tough. “It is just amazing to the point of being unbelievable that Lord Ashdon would fail to meet Lady Caroline’s.”

“Yes,” Sophia said softly, her smile maternal, “we do have our various standards. Perhaps some could do with a bit of raising, but there you are.”

Anne cleared her throat at that remark and looked down at her lap. Caro wasn’t sure if Anne was trying not to laugh or not to vomit. It was into that congealed atmosphere that Fredericks opened the door and announced, “Lord Dutton is calling, Lady Dalby.”

“Oh, how nice,” Sophia said, taking in Lady Louisa’s flushed cheeks. “Can he be convinced to wait? I am engaged at present.”

“I believe he can wait, Lady Dalby, but he is calling upon Mrs. Warren,” Fredericks said, staring at Anne.

The look that both Lady Louisa and Lady Amelia cast upon Anne was worth solid gold. Everyone and the chimney sweep knew that Louisa Kirkland was mad for Lord Dutton. It was equally well known that Lord Dutton was mad for his own amusement and little else. The daughter of a marquis hardly fit his bill of requirement.

All eyes in the room turned to Anne, who said casually, “Inform Lord Dutton that I am not at home, Fredericks.”

“Yes, Mrs. Warren,” Fredericks said with the trace of a smile as he backed out of the room.

It was absolutely delicious. Mrs. Warren, shunning Lord Dutton? How quickly would that bit of gossip travel through town?

Louisa Kirkland looked ready to pop.

“More tea, Lady Louisa?” Sophia asked leaning forward. “You look as though you could use some refreshment.”

“I’m fine,” Louisa said crisply. “Thank you.”

“I’m afraid we’ve kept you from an appointment, Mrs. Warren,” Lady Amelia said, while casting nervous glances at her cousin.

“No, not at all,” Anne said silkily. “Lord Dutton, if you’ll excuse my saying so, can be a bit bold and rather a pest.”

“A pest?” Lady Amelia squeaked.

“A charming pest,” Anne said with a smile as she stirred her tea.

Really, Caro had never seen Anne behave so ruthlessly. It was completely delightful. After all, Amelia Caversham had never bothered to come to call before Lord Ashdon had made an appearance on her doorstep, and everyone knew that the only reason Louisa Kirkland suffered Sophia Dalby was for a chance at the Marquis of Dutton. It was all too, too obvious. It was only fair that an obvious revenge be enjoyed by the women of Upper Brook Street.

“I’m quite certain that Lord Dutton cannot enjoy being thought a pest,” Lady Louisa said, her tone definitely clipped. “He clearly has no idea that his companionship is not welcome to you, Mrs. Warren.”

“I find that difficult to fathom, Lady Louisa,” Anne said softly as she stared Louisa Kirkland down, “as I have told him most directly that his attentions are not welcome, though I would certainly not imply that I have the right of refusal to the other women of this house. I speak only for myself.”

“I find Lord Dutton a complete delight,” Sophia said brightly. “Don’t you, Lady Louisa?”

Louisa, caught out, said stiffly, “He seems a pleasant man.”

“I’ve always enjoyed his company,” Lady Amelia offered.

“His uncle was a macaroni,” Mary, Lady Jordan offered in a loose grumble. “Shares that trait with him, I do suspect.”

Since everyone in the room had spoken to Lord Dutton’s qualities, Caro felt the necessity of saying something of her own on the merits of the marquis.

“I always thought him a bit spoiled,” she said, and when they all stared at her she added, “though it does not spoil his charm.”

“Odd that you should mention being spoiled, Lady Caroline,” Louisa said, sitting up as straight as her spine would stretch. “It was extremely generous of Lord Ashdon to give you those earrings, wasn’t it? Especially as a marriage is not to take place. He
did
give them to you as an engagement gift, did he not?”

Caro answered as easily as if she had been telling the truth. The situation called for nothing less than hearty deceit.

“He did,” she said.

“And he did not want them back when the arrangements were broken?” Louisa said.

“On the contrary,” Caro said, making it up as she went, “he pressed these pearls into my hand and swore that, upon his very life, he would shower me with pearls until I changed my mind and accepted his offer. He was most ardent.”

“And most convincing, I’ll wager,” Sophia said with a small smile.

Caro blushed uncontrollably, which she suspected added to the impression that Ashdon was wooing her enthusiastically. Would it were so. As the situation stood, he was merely bargaining for a mistress. What the dolt didn’t seem to realize was that as a wife she would cost him far less than she was determined to extort as a courtesan.

That was the strategy as her mother had explained it, and it had made an odd sort of sense at the time, when she was not face-to-face with Ashdon, in point of fact. Facing him left her bereft of plans and of breath and left with nothing beyond an urgent desire to throw herself against his long, delectable body. Ardent, indeed. Ardent was the least of it.

“Upon his very life,” Amelia whispered, her look gone dreamy.

“How dramatic,” Louisa said cynically.

“Yes, wasn’t it?” Caro said sweetly.

“By the sounds Lord Ashdon is making, I would wager that he and Lord Dutton are learning their lovemaking by the same book,” Anne said.

Lady Louisa Kirkland dropped her spoon. It slipped onto her skirts and then tumbled to the floor where it gleamed like a weapon against the Turkey carpet, a traitor to her heart. It was in that moment that Caro felt complete sympathy for Louisa and forgave her all.

The same could not be said for Anne.

Fifteen

“NOT at home?” Dutton said to Fredericks. “I bloody well know she
is
at home.”

Fredericks, showing his American upbringing, shrugged. It was an entirely inappropriate response for a butler to make. Fredericks didn’t appear to care.

“I’ll wait,” Dutton said stiffly.

He was not accustomed to being kept waiting. Nor was he in the habit of being refused an audience, and certainly not by the widowed daughter of a failed courtesan. Especially as he knew that Anne Warren had been doe-eyed around him for months. She wanted to see him; he
knew
that. This was some womanish punishment for kissing her, a kiss he knew she had enjoyed. He was not accustomed to having his kisses repudiated either. Anne Warren certainly had a lot to learn about how to treat a man, and he was becoming more and more determined to be the man to teach her.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, my lord,” Fredericks said.

“Excuse me? Not possible?”

“That’s right, my lord,” Fredericks said in his particularly annoying American accent. One would think that after two decades in the country the man could learn to speak in a civilized fashion. “Perhaps another time.”

He was being shown the door? Never, since he had come of age and become the darling of the ton, had Edward Preston, Marquis of Dutton been shown anything less than enthusiastic hospitality. There was clearly some mistake afoot and he suspected it had Ashdon’s name all over it.

He’d seen Ashdon and Calbourne in Hyde Park, seen them from a distance talking to Lady Caroline and Anne Warren, assumed that Ashdon was holding up his end of the bargain with Anne, and this was the result? Ashdon had mangled things badly, that was obvious. If this thing with Anne didn’t sit up and bark, and quickly, Ashdon could forget getting the pearls he needed to coax Caroline Trevelyan into his bed.

How had such a simple exercise in seduction turned into such a tangle?

No woman could walk a straight line into a man’s bed if her life depended upon it.

“Good day, my lord,” Fredericks said, holding open the door. There was a footman on either side, flanking it. Fredericks, it seemed, was prepared for trouble. Ridiculous. Dutton had never in his life created a scene, and he wasn’t going to create one over a very average, ginger-haired woman of uncertain reputation.