The Courtesan's Daughter (29 page)

She could almost make out the coarse word he used, but not quite. Well, onward and upward. She would do better.

“You have told me, reminded me, really, of my first impulse to follow the courtesan’s path. I had thought to do so. Until I saw you. Until I met you. Seeing you, feeling as I do about you, about your tumbled hair and piercing eyes … did you know what I first thought about your eyes, Ash? I thought that they would pierce me through, and my next thought, I blush to admit, was how some other part of you would pierce me. And of how much I wanted that.”

“Stop, Caro,” he growled. “Stop it.”

“I don’t want to stop,” she whispered, slowly taking off her right glove, sliding it down her arm, tugging it from each finger. “I want you to know everything, now, as we part. You must have noticed I have an addiction to honesty, Ash. I don’t want to be turned from it, especially not now when everything is lost to me. When you are lost to me.”

“I’m trying to do what’s right,” he said, his voice gone hoarse as he stared at her gloveless hand. Remarkable how seductive and erotic a simple woman’s arm could look, bare and white in the darkness.

“I know you are,” she breathed. “But I wonder if you understand where you’ve left me. How can I be a courtesan now, Ash, when you are the only man I want to touch me?”

“It will pass,” he gritted out. Did he say,
God help me
? She wasn’t certain. She’d like to think so.

“It may,” she sighed. “But what a pity that would be. I like this, Ash. That is my guilty secret. I like what I feel for you, the heat, the hammering, the blind dizziness that assaults me when you look at me, when you touch me. I don’t think I can find this with any other man. Or am I wrong? How many men will it take to drive the imprint of your touch from me? How many beds? How many arms? How many mouths pressed against my skin will drive the memory of your kiss from my heart?”

“God, Caro! Stop this!”

Ashdon grabbed her by the arms and shook her twice. His touch was a scald against her bare arm that they both felt. He jerked back against the squabs like a wild thing bayed by hunting dogs.

“I can’t stop,” she said, leaning forward to lay a hand against his cheek, well aware that her bodice dipped and the weight of her breasts spilled forward. “I wanted to be wanted. I told you that. It is nothing but the stark truth. But shall I tell you another truth, Ash? I wanted
you
to want me. You.”

“I do want you,” he murmured.

His eyes were glittering and his cheek was hot, his beard rough beneath her fingertips. He was breathing though his mouth, his air moist and hot on the inside of her wrist. She shivered with longing and let him feel it.

“I believe you,” she said softly, letting her breath wash over his face. “Your desire is more gift to me than these pearls could ever be.”

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, her lips pressing against the sharp bite of his beard. A parting kiss, not unlike the simple kiss of a friend. And nothing like it at all.

“I want you, Ash,” she whispered against his face. “I want you right now. What sort of courtesan can I be when the only man I want between my legs”—she moved her mouth to lightly touch his lips—“is you?”

Twenty-three

THEY were married at eleven the next morning. It was simple, really. Her mother had acquired a special license on the same day she had acquired Lord Ashdon’s debts. Lord Westlin was invited, naturally, and, naturally, did not choose to attend.

Ashdon did not seem particularly concerned. In point of fact, Ashdon did not seem particularly anything. One would think a man crossing into marriage would display some emotion, but Ashdon displayed only resolve. Caro did not think resolve qualified as a particularly flattering wedding day aspect, but Caro was, ironically, resolved to ignore everything about Lord Ashdon’s aspect and be happy. She had won the man she’d targeted, her mother’s rather violent description for a courtship, and she was going to rejoice in it and in him.

Just because it had been a rather unusual courtship was no reason not to enjoy herself now. She had the husband she had sought. He had come into the marriage willingly, one might even say
eagerly
after the episode in the coach. And everything, now that it was all concluded, was going to be wonderful. Things would settle down. Lord Ashdon would stop displaying his resolve, and she would stop having to display her breasts to get him to do the most mundane of things. Like marry her. Like want her. Like … love her.

For a very logical girl, it was more than disturbing to realize that, while she had the husband she’d aimed for, she wasn’t at all certain she had the husband she’d planned for.

It seemed to her that she’d been rather more logical before she’d set eyes on Lord Ashdon. He had a way of muddling every thought just by looking at her. A skill of that sort could lead to a most disturbing state of affairs in a marriage, unless it was his thoughts being muddled by merely looking at her. That would have been quite nice. But, looking at him across the table at the lovely wedding breakfast her mother had arranged, he did not look at all muddled. He looked, she couldn’t help repeating,
resolved.

“A lovely wedding,” her mother said from the head of the table in the capacious dining room. “Quite the loveliest of the Season, I daresay.”

Anne and the Duke of Calbourne made murmuring noises. Ashdon did not make noises of any sort. He probably couldn’t think what precise noise would sound
resolved
.

“Have you made plans, Lord Ashdon, as to where you and Caro will spend the next month or two?”

“I have not, Lady Dalby,” Ashdon said. He seemed to be moving from resolved to grim. Lovely.

“Might I suggest France? Absolutely
everyone
is there now since the treaty has been signed. If you have any desire to see France, now is the time. I daresay that this peace will not last, as no peace between France and England ever shall last. Still, France has the most delightful fashions and quite the best gardens.”

“It’s a cynical position you take regarding politics, Lady Dalby,” Ashdon said, “particularly as it is strongly rumored that
you
are French.”

“I?” Sophia said with a smile. “I am not French. And as to politics, how can one not be cynical about politics?”

“I did not know you had an interest in politics, Lady Dalby,” Ashdon said. “It is perhaps the one thing not whispered about you.”

“Really? How very odd,” she said softly. “Yet, one of the pleasures of family, darling Ashdon, is that we should have no secrets between us.”

“Should I excuse myself?” Lord Calbourne said, pushing back his chair.

“Not at all necessary, your grace,” Sophia said. “I just don’t understand where these silly rumors are born and why they never die. I am not French. I have never claimed to be French, though I should not mind being French.”

“Then you are … ?” Ashdon prompted.

“Why, English. What else?” Sophia asked with a grin. “Isn’t it obvious? ”

No one answered her, but it was quite obvious to everyone that there was nothing at all obvious about Sophia Dalby, unless it was her charm and appeal. Sophia and Caroline were as unlike as any mother and daughter could ever be and as soon as Ashdon realized that she was nothing but a pair of breasts, which surely even he must eventually tire of, the marriage would be over, or as over as marriages in the ton ever were. He would live his life. She would live hers. They would toil out two or three children between them and then see each other occasionally at parties.

Ashdon had likely reasoned that out already, which would explain both his resolve and his descent into grim. She could quite feel herself following him.

“Where would you like to go, Caro?” her mother asked.

“Oh, I suppose France would be amusing,” she said, staring down at her napkin.

“I do believe my daughter is suffering from bridal nerves,” Sophia said lightly. “You will be considerate of that, won’t you, Ashdon?”

For answer, Ashdon merely stared at her, grimly.

“I think, Lady Dalby, that Ash is suffering a bout of nerves himself,” Lord Calbourne said in an attempt to cover the awkward silence. “It is not only brides who feel the jangle of nerves upon the event of marriage.”

“Were you a nervous groom, your grace?” Anne asked softly.

“I was convinced I had lost three teeth, they were chattering so violently,” Calbourne said.

“And you were an eager groom?” Sophia asked.

“I’ll go so far as to say I was willing,” Calbourne said. “I don’t know that I had the intelligence to be eager. I was but twenty and there was little in my thoughts but gambling, hunting, and—”

“Certainly women,” Sophia interrupted, laughing. “I’ve yet to meet a man of twenty whose thoughts were not preoccupied with women.”

“Preoccupied, yes,” Calbourne acknowledged, “but a tangle of fear and longing that only confused me.”

“How honestly you put it,” Anne said. “May I congratulate you, your grace? Most men would not admit to confusion and never to fear.”

“Do not put too much upon it,” Calbourne said. “I can admit it now because it is long ago and I am well past it. Women no longer frighten me,” he said with a wry grin.

“How fortunate for women,” Sophia said with an answering grin, before turning her attention to Anne to ask, “And was your husband a nervous groom, Mrs. Warren?”

“I think he was,” Anne said with a smile of remembrance. “I didn’t know it at the time, of course. He seemed to me all that was strong and true and brave.”

“Which is precisely how a bride should see her husband,” Sophia said.

At which point all eyes turned to look at Caro. Even the footmen standing against the walls were looking at her.

Unfortunately, she could not find resolve. All she could find was fear, longing, and a large dose of anger. Let Ashdon be Resolve. She would be Anger, though perhaps more refined. Let it be called Outrage.

“Once more I find myself stepping out of tune,” Caro said, looking at her mother with a sarcastic smile frozen on her face. “I am clearly the most unlikely of brides … with the most unlikely of husbands.”

Ashdon jerked his head up from his contemplation of his beefsteak and stared at her. He did not look resolved. She considered it a vast improvement.

“If I am not mistaken,” Calbourne said politely, “that is the entire point. Most husbands on their wedding day feel completely unlikely, though most brides are not able to see it. You are very astute, Lady Caroline.”

“I daresay, your grace, that I should not be praised for what even a blind beggar could discern,” Caro said. “Lord Ashdon has been artfully maneuvered into this marriage and, far from seeing him as strong, brave, and true, a more honest description of him would be cornered, caught, and, because he is a gentleman,
resolved
. Do I do you an injustice, Lord Ashdon? ” she asked sweetly.

“You do yourself an injustice, Caro,” Ashdon said, staring forcefully into her eyes. “All women set their traps, indeed they are taught to do so from the nursery, but when a man is cornered, as you put it, he is the one who decides whether or not he will be caught. And since we are sharing secrets with what Lady Dalby has so graciously deemed family, I will share this: there is not a man married who does know that it was
he
who was the hunter, he who set the trap, he who cornered, and he who caught the woman he had set his eye upon.”

Sophia clapped lightly and said, covering Caro’s stunned silence, “Well said, Lord Ashdon. Charmingly put.”

“You will agree to what I’ve said, Lady Sophia?” Ashdon said.

“I would be a fool argue it,” Sophia said serenely.

Yes, well, Caro would most definitely argue it, fool or not.

“I do apologize for this,” she said, turning her gaze to Anne, Calbourne, and her mother, “but I’m certain I’m not revealing anything you don’t know, however vulgar it is to speak of it.”

“It is best to avoid vulgarity whenever possible, Caro,” her mother said. “Perhaps we should leave you to discuss this privately. Shall we take coffee in the yellow salon?”

And before Caro could take another breath, Anne, Calbourne, and her mother were out of the dining room, closing the door behind them.

“I suppose you’re going to chastise me for vulgarity as well,” Caro said to Ashdon once they were alone.

“Not at all,” Ash said, looking pointedly at the footmen until they blushed and left the dining room as well. “Say what you wish. I have no desire to be heavy-handed with my wife.”

“You have no desire to be
anything
with your wife,” she said. “You didn’t even want a wife!”

“Don’t be absurd, Caro,” he said, cutting into his beefsteak. “It was my duty to take a wife.”

“That is not the same as
wanting
a wife.”

Ashdon looked up at her, his blue eyes piercing into hers. She was getting rather sick of that as well. Ash could go about with his
piercing
eyes elsewhere, where he could blissfully pierce some other woman with them.

Which only showed how outraged she was since she would happily kill any woman who was pierced, blissfully or otherwise, by Ashdon’s eyes … or any other part of his anatomy.

“You know very well I wanted you,” he said.

“And I know very well what you wanted me
for
,” she said, pushing her chair back and standing up. She felt the overwhelming urge to pace and she saw no reason not to give in to her urges.

“I should think you would,” he said, leaning back in his chair, tipping the front legs off the floor, “as you worked diligently and most provocatively to bring me to that state of desire.”

“So you admit I trapped you.”

“I admit nothing of the sort. Do you think yours are the only kisses I have enjoyed? The only breasts I have fondled? The only nipples I have—”