The Courtesan's Daughter (21 page)

What’s more, she was almost certain that the pearls Ashdon had given her, in the most sullen way imaginable, weren’t even his pearls to give. He didn’t have any money. Who knew that better than she?

It was in the middle of these thoughts, as her tribe of three men argued and haggled right in front of her as if she were no more than a bit of lace to be fingered and bargained over, that Ashdon hit Dutton in the stomach so that Dutton lurched over, huffing, while Blakesley burst into impolite laughter.

While she was staring at the mess she had made in the drawing room of Hyde House, Ashdon grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the large, rose-colored dressing room. They were not alone.

“Your grace,” Ashdon said, bowing curtly, tugging her into a curtsey.

“Good evening, Lord Ashdon, Lady Caroline,” the fourth Duke of Hyde said softly. “Bit of a row out there? Always happens at these affairs. I don’t know why the duchess insists upon having it year after year. I suppose she must like rows.”

Hyde was a soft-spoken man who had distinguished his name by performing well in the rebellion in the American colonies twenty-five years past. No one considered it his fault at all that the American colonies had been lost to Britain, least of all his wife, a native of the colony of Massachusetts. The Duchess of Hyde’s father had made a fortune in shipping. The fourth Duke of Hyde knew what to do with a fortune. It had been an ideal match, particularly as Molly, the Duchess of Hyde, had been run out of Boston with the rest of those loyal to the crown.

Molly had given Hyde six sons in eight years, a respectable showing by Boston standards she had declared, though the youngest had died before he left the nursery. William, Marquis of Iveston, as Hyde’s heir and one of the most eligible men in England, rarely ventured out during the Season for the very reason that he was one of the most eligible men in England. Iveston was his father’s son in that respect. Lord Henry Blakesley, Hyde’s fourth son, and part of the row that had happened in the yellow salon, clearly took after his mother, Molly, the Duchess of Hyde and previously of Boston, Massachusetts, by all accounts a most raucous town.

Caro didn’t think that Hyde knew that his son was involved in the disturbance, as was she, as was Ashdon. She didn’t think it prudent of her to tell him. For once, it appeared as though she and Ashdon were in agreement.

“I’m sorry, your grace,” Ashdon said. “I didn’t mean to disturb your solitude. I only hoped to remove Lady Caroline from the—”

“Disturbance,” Caroline supplied. What else to call it? A tussle for a future courtesan? No, that wouldn’t do.

“Perfectly all right,” Hyde said, dipping his head sorrowfully. “I suppose I must go out and mingle. Molly is certain to cause a row of her own if she finds me …”

Hiding
was the word that sprang to mind, and which obviously could not be uttered.

“Taking a moment to gather your thoughts?” Caro offered.

Hyde’s head lifted and he smiled rather brilliantly. “That’s it, exactly. I shall tell her that, if forced. Enjoy the evening,” he said with a lazy wave and made his way through the bedchamber, closing the dressing room door behind him.

They were alone, just. The sounds of the crowd, just beyond the dressing room door to the drawing room, were growing louder. Caro felt both exposed and hidden, like a hare holding still before the hounds, quaking and unmoving. If she just held still long enough, perhaps forever, the hounds would depart and things would return to the way they had been.

“Take off those damned pearls,” Ashdon snarled softly.

Apparently things were not going to return to the way they had been. And perhaps that, she decided with a snarl of her own, was for the best.

“Will you kindly stop snarling commands at me? You cannot tell me what to do.”

“Those pearls give me the right,” he said, pulling her nearer to him. That wouldn’t do at all; she was quite close enough to the snarling, wolfish face of Lord Ashdon and his impossibly blue eyes.

“Yes, about these pearls,” she said, yanking her arm from his grasp and taking a step backward. Unfortunately, though the dressing room was large, it was still only a dressing room. They were uncomfortably closeted, wrapped up in silken damask within the greater boundaries of an assemblie in full force. It was only a matter of minutes before the tide of the crowd would force its way into the dressing room, and she had
so
much to say to Ashdon. “Where did you get them? You couldn’t have purchased them, not honestly. You’re completely without funds.”

“But not without friends,” he clipped out. “You enjoy saying that, don’t you?”

“Saying what?”

“That I’m without funds, without blunt.”

“Isn’t it true?”

“There is much that is true that doesn’t need endless repeating.”

“Oh, endless repeating? Aren’t you being a bit childish? I don’t endlessly repeat—”

“You sold yourself for pearls, Caro,” he whispered. “Sold for pearls. Pearls are the price and the price has been met.”

“How vulgar you are!”

He shrugged. “I am merely stating the truth. Repeating the truth.” He grinned. It was not a pleasant sight. “Now, as to our bargain. Take off Blakesley’s pearls. Now.”

“This was not part of our bargain,” she said, ignoring the fact that her stomach lurched against her spine. Ashdon was rather good at getting stomachs to do unwelcome things, with a blow or without one.

“It is now,” he said, and by his look, he was not going to tolerate argument.

Blast to what he would tolerate.

“I will not be ordered about. You have no right, Lord Ashdon. I am my own person and I—”

“You
will
be ordered about. I
have
the right, the pearls you took from me gave me every right I need. And you are not your own person anymore, Caro. You are mine.”

Her stomach completely disappeared, dropping past her hips, her knees, and then she lost track of it. Her breath, caged and caught within her throat, was soon to follow.

“Take off Blakesley’s pearls,” he said softly, but there was nothing soft in his expression. He looked prepared to kill.

Without taking her eyes from him, she removed Blakesley’s pearls. Ashdon held his hand out for them and, without a word, she placed them there. Her hand trembled. His did not. But his eyes burned blue and hot.

It was oddly erotic. She knew nothing about anything, but she knew that they were engaged in a very serious sensual duel and that, unless she fumbled badly, in obeying Ashdon’s commands, she could get him to do almost anything. It was completely contrary to logic, of course, but it was suddenly as clear to her as if someone had shouted it into her face.

Perhaps she was her mother’s daughter, after all.

Ashdon put the Blakesley pearls into his pocket and then said, “Now the Dutton pearls.”

“But whose pearls am I wearing, Ash? ” she said, her voice husky with tension as she lifted the Dutton pearls over her head. “These pearls you gave me, they cannot be truly yours. Do I not then belong to the owner of these pearls? Must I not, by the rules of the game, give myself to … the Duke of Calbourne?”

It was a guess, but, again, led by some strange instinct, she knew it was the right guess. And it was exactly the right thing to say.

She held out the Dutton pearls, tangling them in her fingers. Ashdon took a step nearer, his hand covering hers, peeling the pearls from her fingertips, his hand hot, hers chilled; erotic, there was no other word. Ashdon towered over her, his scent enveloping her, his eyes burning her.

“They are mine now,” he said. “As you are mine.”

His hand tangled in her hair at the nape, pulling her into him, holding her hip in one large hand as his mouth opened upon hers. He was hot, everywhere. Heat rolling off him, igniting her, pooling heat in her loins, gathering fire in her breasts, inflaming her heart.

As she flamed, she took him with her, setting fire to the ice that was Ashdon. Ashdon, who only burned when he burned in anger. Ashdon, who wanted nothing to do with her, yet couldn’t leave her alone. Ashdon, who mocked her and scolded her when he wasn’t pretending to ignore her, when he wasn’t burning for her.

She could see that now, now that she was burning for him as he was burning for her. It was all so clear, the smoke of desire outlining everything in charcoal. He hated her because he wanted her. He hated that Sophia had bought him. He hated that she had rejected him to become anything other than his wife. There was no room for love when hate protected him so well.

But passion could turn hate to ash. Passion blazed and everything fell away, destroyed and then forgotten.

Passion, she thought, reaching for thought through the thrum of desire, the rhythm of need, trying to think when his mouth swept thought from her, passion … passion …

Ashdon’s mouth trailed a moist path across her cheek and down her neck, his lips caressing her throat, kissing her, biting her gently. His teeth scraped pearls, moving them over her neck, causing the strand to slide between her breasts in sensuous curls. Her skin shivered and then flushed, her breath dragged in and gasped out, and she watched it all from passion’s cage, a willing prisoner, an eager accomplice to passion’s assault.

“Meet our bargain,” he whispered against her skin, his hands poised under her breasts, her nipples tingling with the hope that he would touch her. He spoke in command, but it was a plea. He was desperate, scorched, and he begged to be burned even brighter. “Give me,” he said, his voice cracked, “give me to the fall of the pearls. That much and no more. That was our bargain.”

She did not know where the words came from, certainly not from her inexperienced heart. She knew next to nothing, nothing beyond what her mother had told her. Then again, that was more than most girls knew.

“You promise to take no more than the fall of your pearls?” she said on a gasp.

“I promise,” he said, his hands sliding around to her back, pulling her to him, crushing her breasts against his chest. She groaned in need and he tipped her head back by pulling on her hair and kissed her deeply, groaning his own need into her mouth.

The sounds of the party were as nothing, the sound of the wind high in the trees, the sound of wheels clattering over the cobbles, the sound of the surf after a day at the shore. Nothing. Background. Purged of meaning eons ago. The only meaning left to the world was the passion and the need between them.

And the knowledge her mother had given her.

She turned her head slightly and broke the kiss, pushing him back with a gentle hand to his chest. He obeyed her wordless instruction. How had she known he would?

“You are many things, Ash,” she said, shocked to hear the smoky longing in her voice, pleased at the flare of desire in Ashdon’s eyes when he heard it, “but I never knew, until now, that you were a liar.”

And with those words, passion broke into pieces.

“Is this a game to you, Caro?” he said hoarsely, his eyes glittering like sapphires.

She stepped back another step, her shoulders brushing against the silk-lined walls, the sounds from outside their sheltered box coming louder to her now as the spell they had made between them fell in wisps of anger and disillusionment to the floor at their feet.

“Isn’t it?” she said softly, her chin up.

“And if a game, then you want to win it?”

“Of course. Don’t you want to win? Hasn’t this all been about what you shall do and what I shall do and who can come out the victor? ”

Ashdon nodded and swallowed, crossing his arms over his chest, considering her.

“Then let us finish,” he said slowly. “I have met your price, but you have yet to meet mine. Take down your bodice. I want to see what I’ve paid for.”

“You don’t mean,” she said, startled, “but you can’t mean
now
!”

“I do mean now,” he said calmly.

“But we are hardly … alone. There are people all around us, ready to—”

“I do not care what they are ready to do, or what they will see. Being alone was never part of our negotiation. You should be more careful in the future. A successful courtesan lays out all the terms beforehand. Consider this a lesson you needed to learn. Someday, you might even thank me.”

“You’re a lout! A brutish, ill-mannered
monster
,” she shrieked softly. It was so difficult to be enraged when one had to keep one’s voice down.

“So?” he said, sitting down on the single chair in the dressing room and crossing his legs at the ankles, his very posture screaming that he had not a care in the world and would not care if the whole world saw her with her breasts bobbing about in the open with nothing but a string of pearls to shield them. “I am a lout. Slip down your bodice.”

“I won’t!”

Ashdon raised an eyebrow. “Are you ashamed of your breasts? ”

“I am not! My breasts are perfectly lovely.”

Ashdon smiled and said, “I’ll agree with you, or not, when I’ve seen them. I’ll let you know my opinion.”

“What? You can’t mean to … grade my breasts?” she gasped, clutching her bodice to her.

“Why not? A courtesan must have the proper equipment. You want to earn the highest price, don’t you?”

“Listen to me, you horrible man,” she said between clenched teeth, “I … I’ve changed my mind about being a courtesan. This is all ridiculous and completely pointless.”

“Not to me,” he said evenly. “There is a debt to be paid, and you
will
pay it, Caro.”

“I won’t.”

“You will, if I have to strip you naked to see it done,” he said. One look at his set face and cold eyes and she believed him. “I have lost far too many wagers of late, as you are so fond of reminding me, to see this one lost for want of will on your part.”

“You can’t expect me to want to do this!” she said, crossing her arms over her breasts to stop their tingling. She was dismally afraid that some wicked part of her found this exciting.