A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man (35 page)

Yes. Of course. Alice’s response was only natural.

As I stood there, wondering if I might yet manage to escape without confrontation, a tall figure in black stepped between us.

I blinked at the sneering rage in the blue eyes of Lord B
____
. Shock reverberated through me. I had not seen a glimpse of him since he’d beaten me nearly to death. My heart pounded.
Run.

“Whores should not invade the presence of respectable women.” His tone was arch, his words righteous, yet I saw his gaze travel knowingly over my body. With his back turned to Alice, he licked his lips and smiled as a wolf might, showing all his teeth.

I backed away a step. “I—” Time to leave.

The door across from me opened and a small, neat man in spectacles blinked at us all in surprise. “Here already? Goodness, I must wind my watch!”

Alice jumped to her feet and scurried into his office. Lord B
____
followed Alice, for after all, she had the purse strings all tied up. Relieved, I turned to flee. I had one hand on the door when the solicitor stopped me.

“No, Miss Blackbird. Your presence is required for the reading of the will.”

I turned and blinked at him. Why? I’d thought Eamon might have left me a token, a silver jewel case or perhaps a favorite painting. I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I shall have to come back later.”

The little man gazed at me with understanding but no mercy. “No, Miss Blackbird. Your presence is
required.
I shall not be allowed to read the last will and testament of Eamon Wainwright unless both you and Miss Wainwright are in the room.”

He bowed crisply and beckoned with one sweeping hand. I walked slowly into the office.
Oh, Eamon, what have you done to me?

Once Alice and I had been seated, the solicitor scuttled around to his own chair, then blinked up at Lord B
____
. “My lord, might I ask in what capacity you are attending this reading?”

Lord B
____
, who loomed behind Alice’s chair like a prison guard, folded his arms. “In the capacity of Miss Wainwright’s fiancé.”

“Oh, Alice,” I breathed. “You didn’t!”

Alice shot me one guilty, defiant glance. She then pointedly shifted in her seat, turning her back to me. The solicitor’s gaze flicked back and forth between the three of us and I knew that Eamon had kept this gentleman informed of all our doings.

I had nothing to hide. Of the many names people might call me, “liar” was not one of them. Alice surely had no secrets worth keeping, for she was but twenty-three. With a start I realized that by the time I had turned twenty-three I had been a courtesan for five long years. I shot another look at Alice. Hmm. It would not do to underestimate the daughter of Eamon Wainwright.

Lord B
____
, on the other hand, could be called every name in the book and they would still not encompass the extent of his evil.

“Very well.” The solicitor shuffled his papers about on the desk and began to read. “Hereby stands the last will and testament of Eamon Wainwright of Bannerfield Hall. I, Eamon Wainwright, being of sound mind, do state that…”

The man droned just a little and I was still trying to conceive of what Alice’s life might be like in the hands of Lord B
____
, so I did not closely attend the next several paragraphs pertaining to the dispensation of the estate (to Alice, of course, since it was not entailed) and the fine horses that his wife had so devotedly bred (to his wife’s brother, who shared her passion for them) and his personal wealth, which would obviously go to Alice again—

“… unless my daughter Alice should be so idiotic as to wed that malignant wastrel, Lord B
____
, in which case half my wealth, some fifteen thousand pounds, will go at once into the hands of my devoted Blackbird, Miss Ophelia Harrington—”

“What?” Lord B
____
let out a roar of rage that completely drowned out Alice’s gasp of shock.

I sat stunned.
Oh, Eamon, how could you involve me in this, knowing what you know?
And then, in a startled flash, I realized that Eamon had revealed my true identity, which I hadn’t even known that he’d known. I wondered how much involvement this capable little solicitor had in tracking down the old Ophelia. He shot me a sharp glance. Oh, quite a bit, I imagined.

Lord B
____
was shouting now, his fury unleashed on the bearer of bad tidings, who sat through it all with a quiet lack of intimidation. People must lose their tempers in his office quite often.

Then Alice stood and placed one trembling hand on Lord B
____
’s arm. He whirled on her, but quieted at once. “Take me home,” she said in a trembling voice. “I don’t care about the money. I only want to get away from
her.
”

All eyes fixed on me, the apparent cause of all distress. Had I only so much power in the world! Unfortunately, since Lord B
____
had already revealed the engagement there was no concealing it now. If the two of them wed, Alice would lose half her substantial fortune.

I only hoped Eamon’s last attempt to bring her to her senses would work. I, myself, had no interest in the money. Eamon had taught me a great deal about investments. I was secure, if not actually wealthy. I need not even find another protector if I did not wish it, although if I gave up the life of a courtesan, what life would I live?

When they left, I turned to the solicitor. “Eamon should not have done this.”

He spread his hands. “And yet he did. A man’s fortune is his to dispense as he wishes.”

I looked after Alice worriedly. “I hope she opens her eyes. If the girl has an ounce of self-preservation…”

The solicitor shot me a look. “Then you would get nothing.”

Oh, Eamon.
I gazed at the floor. “What I wanted I lost ten days ago.”

Clasping his hands behind his back, the little man rocked back on his heels. “Mr. Wainwright talked about you a great deal. You made him happy, although to be truthful, I thought he was a man in the grip of a middle-aged folly. I am very pleased to see that I was entirely wrong.”

I met his even gaze without shame. “I’m glad I pleased him. He deserved whatever happiness I could provide.” I thought of poor, deluded Alice. “I only wish I could convince his daughter to look elsewhere for hers.”

Twenty-nine

Boston

“I can’t thank you enough,” Linc told Melvin Tostel. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

The security guard hooked his key ring to his belt and looked him up and down like he didn’t trust him.

Linc made a rectangular shape with his hands. “It’s a day planner, about six by nine, black leather. I must have left it in here this afternoon and I’ve been completely lost without it—I couldn’t even sleep!”

Melvin narrowed his eyes at him. “I’ll let you go about your business, Mr. Northcutt. I’ll be up at the security desk to sign you out. Soon.”

Linc nodded, pretending not to notice that Tostel had warned him to be quick. He began to search frantically for what was already shoved down into the front of his shirt, nicely hidden by a button-down shirt and navy blue blazer that was hot as hell.

“I’ll be up in a jiffy!” he said, watching the security guard disappear from the doorway. Linc listened for the elevator to ding and the doors to close. Silence. He had to work fast. He didn’t want to raise Melvin’s suspicions enough that he would tell Piper about Linc’s little midnight visit.

The workroom was a disaster. He spun around, his mind racing. What he needed was something that would shed light on the Sir Speedy mystery page. He needed to confirm that the words on that page were exactly what he thought they were, and that they absolutely had found their way into the exhibit.

The possibility made him shiver with pleasure every time he thought of it.

But what, exactly, was Piper up to? It was driving him
insane
that he couldn’t figure out what she was doing. The exhibit taking shape upstairs was exactly as she’d described to the trustees. Yet those erotic sentences Linc had found were written by Ophelia Harrington’s hand! Piper and Mick knew that! They had uncovered some kind of seriously juicy scandal, and there was no way they’d hide the truth to avoid causing a stir. They were too honorable for that.

Linc rifled through all the desk drawers, seeing nothing that struck him as noteworthy. He quickly perused the shelves and the boxes near the worktable. Nothing. He scanned a stack of exhibit design sketches, and that’s when he saw something quite puzzling.

The physical dimensions on these pages were almost identical to the exhibit proposal Piper had submitted to the board. But that’s where all similarity ended.

Linc pulled up a chair, crossed his legs, and tore through the papers as fast as he could. The installation in his hand was entitled “Harrington 2,” and the central exhibit was a … a …

Linc’s eyes bugged out.
No fucking way.

As he pored over the plans for the individual exhibit chambers and an itemized checklist of artifacts, his shoulders began to shake with silent laughter. This was better than anything he could have whipped up in his dreams—Piper was planning a completely and totally different exhibit than what was expected for the Fall Gala.

Oh, this is rich,
he thought. Piper fancied herself as some sort of vanguard feminist curator, when in reality, anyone who would rock their career boat at a time like this was a stone-cold twit.

Her office had a bigger window, didn’t it? He could probably start moving in next week.

Linc bundled the sketches together as quickly as he could and returned them exactly where he’d found them. On the way up the elevator, he had to force himself to stop giggling. His first duty was to double-check that
everyone
in Piper’s life had received their gala invites.

Linc yanked the day planner from inside his shirt just before the elevator door opened on the main floor.

He jogged toward Melvin, seated at the main security desk. “Got it!” he said brightly, waving the book in the air before he signed out. “Have a nice night!”

Thirty

London

Breakfast was once again interrupted by the Swan and her news sheet, but this time she rushed into my chamber, her lovely face as pale as marble. “Ophelia! You must flee London!”

I halted with my toast halfway to my lips. “Before or after I’ve had my tea?”

“I’m quite serious!” She flung her paper down before me. “Read this!”

The headline declared quite loudly, “Blackbird or Black Widow?”, and then beneath that, “London Ladybird to be Charged With Murder!”

My toast fell to my plate, forgotten. I grabbed the newssheet up and read quickly. “Notorious woman of pleasure known as the Blackbird is to be formally charged with the ruthless murder of Mr. Eamon Wainwright, who died a fortnight ago under suspicious circumstances. Mr. Wainwright was found in the bed of Ophelia Harrington without a mark on him. The City Coroner suspects poison.”

I looked up at the Swan. “At the inquest, they said heart failure. How can this be?”

“Bribery,” the Swan said bitterly. “Or prejudice. There is no law in London for the likes of us.”

I gazed back down at the paper in my shaking hands. “Survived by his grieving daughter, Miss Alice Wainwright, and her devoted fiancé, well-regarded author, Lord B
____
, Mr. Eamon Wainwright was a respected citizen of London. Lord B
____
, in posing the charges on behalf of Miss Wainwright, claims that Ophelia Harrington seduced the unsuspecting Mr. Wainwright into leaving half of Miss Wainwright’s rightful inheritance to the woman he knew only as the Blackbird. ‘She is a conniving harlot,’ says Lord B
____
. ‘No man is safe from her grasping claws.’”

“‘On behalf of Miss Wainwright,’” I murmured. “Oh, Alice.” I bit my lip. “She’s a lamb in the grip of the wolf.”

“She’s a twit,” the Swan said sharply. “She isn’t a child. There is no excuse for her stupidity.”

I traced a finger over the drawing of the Blackbird, a sketch of a sloe-eyed seductress with long, clawlike fingernails. “I was that stupid once.”

The Swan snorted. “Yes, for about a week. Alice Wainwright has been stupid for years.”

“It says the trial is scheduled for two weeks from today.”

“Which is why you must pack a bag and sail at once. I hear Barcelona is most diverting.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. “You are fortunate that the news sheet arrived before the magistrate’s men.”

I was not fortunate for long. Scarcely had I dressed and thrown a few belongings into a valise than a hearty pounding came upon the door of my house.

“Quick!” the Swan urged. “You must flee through the back garden!”

However, when she towed me to the rear of the house, we saw a burly fellow lurking outside. I backed away from the window. “I will not be dragged screeching from my own house!”

The Swan followed me as I strode to the front door and flung it open. “Gentlemen, I’ve been expecting you,” I said with dignity.

The expressions upon the faces of the three watchmen was priceless. I doubt they had ever been in the presence of a woman as beautiful as the Swan and I followed a close second. I smiled regally at them. In less than a second, their hats were in their hands and their feet shuffled on my front step like those of bashful schoolboys. I handed one fellow my valise and took the arm of another. “Won’t you delicious fellows show me the way to Newgate Prison?”

“Ophelia!” The Swan’s whisper was urgent.

I turned to my dear friend and lifted my chin. “Could you contact Sir on my behalf?” I had never asked it of her before.

She bit her lip. “I shall try.”

I turned back and cast a blinding smile upon my captors. “Shall we go?”

As I left my home with dignity, I feared I might never see it again.

*   *   *

The Blackbird had been caged at last. I sat on a bench in the ward reserved for female felons in Newgate Prison. The low arched ceiling of stone made me feel as though I were seated in a sewer tunnel, albeit a dry one. A few small high windows opened to the inner courtyard of the women’s quadrangle. These provided enough light to gain a view of my fellow prisoners. All around me, women sat or lay upon pallets that looked to be stuffed with straw. Some of them were grouped together, some sat alone. Some of them had their children with them, sunken-eyed and wary creatures that they were. Was it better to stay with their mothers than to be cast into the streets or warehoused in an overcrowded orphanage? I honestly could not say.