The Courtesan's Secret (36 page)

"I should kill Westlin," he finally said, having composed himself to the best of his ability, which was not great, poor man.

"Westlin is not your problem, Lord Melverley," she said. "Louisa is. She has been ruined and will continue to be so and more so if you do not step in and make all right."

"You mean, to marry Henry Blakesley."

"Precisely."

"She could do better."

"My dear Lord Melverley," Sophia said, gesturing across the theater, the shouts and catcalls rising, "she is being done better even now. By Lord Henry. What you will not give, will be taken."

It was then that Melverley, who really must get his head out of a lady's skirts more often and look about him, saw what everyone else in the Theatre Royal was seeing, and commenting upon, loudly. Namely, that Lady Louisa Kirkland, eldest girl of the Marquis of Melverley, was almost certainly being tupped by Lord Henry Blakesley in a box at the Theatre Royal. She seemed to be enjoying herself far more than Emily Bates had done, but Sophia did not think that Lord Melverley would appreciate that distinction being pointed out to him.

"And you doubted she was your daughter, Melverley," Sophia said brightly. "You must be blind."

"I'M not going to take you here, Louisa, pressed against a wall at the Theatre Royal," Blakes said, holding her at arm's length and breathing hard, rather like a man who was fighting for his very life.

Poor man. He was having such a difficult time resisting her. What was she to conclude but that she was irresistible to him?

"I think, Blakes," she said, smiling at him and licking her lower lip. He nearly moaned. It was extraordinary. She was enjoying herself completely. "I think that I shall have you anywhere I want you. I think, darling man, that you are powerless to resist me."

"And you want me powerless, do you?" he said, his blue eyes glinting like rubbed pewter.

"I'm a woman, aren't I? Naturally I want you powerless, at least where I am concerned."

"Darling Louisa," he said, mimicking her, "if you think that you have all the power here, now, you are very, very stupid. I don't mind, you understand, for a man does not require intelligence in a woman, particularly if she has a firm bosom and a solid arse, but I had thought, once, that you possessed some small bit of intelligence. Oh, well," he said with a rather nasty grin, "we shall have to

make do without, shan't we?"

"Whatever do you mean?" she said.

She was very well aware that he was baiting her, but she could not fathom his reason. She was ruined. He had ruined her. Her father had to be punished for it somehow. And they had stumbled upon this happy solution. Why did Blakes have to muddle it all by thinking so much?

He did have the unfortunate tendency to complicate things. She would have to work on that.

"Only that, as ruined as you are, I'm not at all certain that Hyde will allow
me
to marry
you
, no matter what Melverley decides. I have done my part, certainly."

"I presume you mean the part where you ruined me?" she snapped.

"I thought your supposition was that you had ruined me?"

"Blakes, you know perfectly well that only a woman can be truly ruined, and I am most sincerely ruined!"

"You most certainly are," he said. "Which would mean, I presume, that I can take you or leave you, as the mood strikes me."

"Something certainly will soon be striking you, Blakesley," she snarled, grabbing him by the arms and trying to shake him. He was, most annoyingly, unshakeable. He stood like a rather stupid rock embedded in the soil, and with all the capability of a rock, too. "You have ruined me, in your father's very house, and you shall do all within your power to make it right."

"Ah, my power. I have so little, you see," he said, smirking at her as if this were a jest of immense proportions. "Your father denies me. My father, after this night's exhibition, will certainly deny me. We are, it seems, left without options. Except, naturally the option of me setting you up somewhere, somewhere not quite as respectable as you are accustomed to, but nice enough for all that. I shall set you up, give you a generous allowance, and see you at my pleasure. In fact, I have begun the arrangements today, as Lady Dalby so helpfully instructed."

"Lady Dalby! I should have known," Louisa spat.

"The only thing left, of course," he continued, all but ignoring her, "is for me to decide just when and where I will take you and, having sampled the goods, decide how much I will settle on you."

"Blakes, you have the most appalling sense of humor!" she said, crossing her arms over her breasts. It was all well and good to
play
at being a girl on the town, but it was altogether another to actually have to
perform
as one. "You know very well that you love me and want to marry me."

"Do I?" he said softly, pressing her back into the darkness, away from the catcalls of the crowd and the leers from the peers all around them. Was this to be her life now? "When did I tell you that?"

"You told me that," she said, lifting her chin and her hopes, "when you sat by my side at every event in Town for the past two years."

"The two years that you were chasing Dutton?" he said. "Is that when I declared myself and you heard my vows?"

Oh, he would make everything so difficult. Leave it to Blakes to want to poke and prod every little thing, even ancient things like her ill-founded fascination with Dutton. How was she to have known that Dutton couldn't kiss and couldn't make her blood roar? It was even worse that he couldn't make her laugh and, as Blakes well knew, only
he
could make her truly laugh.

"Blakes, you know very well that I
allowed
you to ruin me. That speaks volumes, if you would only admit to hearing the tune. Do you think I would have kissed you if I didn't know that you cared for me?
Deeply
cared for me? Really, I can't think why you are being so argumentative all of a sudden. You know perfectly well that you want me desperately."

"And you, Louisa?" he said on a soft growl. "Do you want me desperately?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Not quite," he murmured against her mouth, almost kissing her, but not quite. He truly did have the most malicious sense of humor.

His hands were doing wonderful, scandalous things to her breasts, teasing them, taunting her, and his mouth, that wicked mouth, breathing, tickling, tantalizing her without truly satisfying her.

She could hardly think for wanting his mouth on hers and his hands on her, and yet he was mumbling something against her skin, which was irritating in the extreme. The man needed serious instruction in debauchery; she was quite certain that there was no need for this endless
talking
. Certainly, there were far better things he could be doing with his mouth.

"Melverley pearls," he whispered just before he kissed her. It was not nearly enough of a kiss to satisfy her, as he almost immediately moved from her mouth to her throat to her chest to her... right breast. Finally, he seemed to have the idea of the whole thing.

And then he stopped and lifted his head and said, in an almost conversational tone of voice, which he was obviously putting on just to annoy her, "What about them, Louisa?"

"What?" she gasped, thrusting her breasts at his mouth with a moan of longing. "What about what?"

"Your pearls. This all started because of the Melverley pearls. What shall we do about them?" he said.

It was with some relief that she noticed he was struggling for composure and to keep his hands still, though they were snuggled just beneath the shadow of her breasts and he seemed to be having a bit of a time not moving them about. Blakesley was far less immune to her particular charms than he cared to let on. She had the most peculiar urge to giggle for joy.

She squelched it, naturally.

"I don't care," she said, making a grab for his head, to pull it down to her mouth, which he rudely avoided by pinning her arms to her sides. She did have the satisfaction of having her bodice gaping open in his general direction, but her skirts were firmly planted around her ankles and he didn't seem particularly eager to repeat his performance of the Hyde House dressing room. Really, she had never known Blakesley to be so ill-tempered and stubborn. One would almost think that he didn't
want
to seduce her.

"I thought you cared very much. I thought you wanted them back at any cost."

"Almost any cost," she said, deciding that trying to fight her way toward Blakesley's mouth was indecorous and, possibly, indecent. She relaxed against the wall and took a deep breath, hoping that the jut of her breasts would distract him.

He did, in truth, seem mildly distracted, at least for a moment.

It was not a pleasant moment; she was becoming seriously in doubt as to her powers of appeal. Could it be possible? Might he actually be able to resist her?

"I tried to get them for you, at almost any cost," he said, staring at her bodice, his gaze moving slowly down to her skirts. She tried to think of some way to encourage the direction of his gaze, but couldn't, other than trying to tackle him by wrapping her legs around his waist. She was completely certain that such an attack would be both indecorous and indecent. And she would likely miss.

"Yes, that was very nice of you," she said softly, staring at his mouth. He seemed to respond well when she stared at his mouth; it helped a great deal that she enjoyed his mouth immensely. "Did you get them? The pearls?"

His gaze left her skirts and went back to her eyes. Oh, well, she supposed she could entice him with her eyes as well as her skirts.

"Do you care so much, Louisa?"

Something in his voice, some small sound of pain and longing, made her forget all about his mouth and his hands and even her skirts to let her gaze linger on his face.

He was not a beautiful man, her Blakes, not beautiful and seductive as Dutton was, but startlingly male and strong and intelligent.

And she found that far more beautiful and seductive than any lovely face could be. When she looked at Blakes, she could barely remember what Dutton looked like, and she couldn't remember anything that Dutton had ever said. Blakesley's words hung about her like jewels, every sentence golden, every word a pearl of humor and insight.

It was all so clear. She could see it all so clearly, now that he had forced her to stop and think. It was not a comfortable habit, and she was entirely certain that she would not adopt it. This one moment of introspection would just have to be enough for him.

"No," she said, staring into his eyes, letting down the gates into her heart that had been put in place so long ago, a defense against Melverley. "I
don't
care."

"I have the necklace, you know," he said, watching her, waiting.

"But whatever will you wear it with, Blakes?" she said, smiling softly.

"I could give the pearls to my mistress," he said, leaning closer, which was very stupid of him, really. She could attack him at any time now. Poor Blakes, getting so careless of his virtue.

"You should only give them to the one you love," she said, pulling his face close to hers and kissing him on the edge of his mouth. "Give them to your mother."

Blakes started laughing then and pulled her into his laughter as he pulled her into his arms.

"A strand of pearls will likely warm things enough for Hyde to give his permission for me to marry you. He likes you, you realize," Blakes said, wrapping one arm around her waist and with the other hand, lifting her skirts slowly. Finally. "Hyde likes redheads."

"As does his son," Louisa said.

"As does his son," Blakes repeated just before he kissed her. About time, too.

IT was perfectly clear to Melverley, indeed to everyone in the Theatre Royal, that Louisa was being thoroughly seduced and irretrievably ruined by Henry Blakesley. What was less certain was how far the seduction was actually progressing and if, once fully engaged, Blakesley would marry her.

"I must admit to a bolt of nostalgia," Sophia said, hovering near Melverley's elbow, though his linen truly was past due for washing, "for it was in this very theater that I lost my virtue to... well, I suppose it would be very indiscreet of me to name names, even at this late date." And she laughed to punctuate the moment. Melverley, as was to be expected, did not take it in stride.

"You don't mean to say you lost... but that's not possible, for I know you were taken up by Westlin before your arrangement with Dutton."

"Oh, darling, of course I didn't mean my actual virtue, but my virtue specifically as far as Dutton was concerned. And I do think it dreadful of you to name names. Dutton is certainly dead, but his son lives on, and you know how it distresses these children when the past is paraded out for them to see. And now Louisa and I shall have that in common. How lovely for her, to lose her . . . oh, but I suppose it may already have been lost in that wonderful dressing room at Hyde House. I simply must have a carpenter in to see to my dressing room. It is most definitely not performing as it clearly could."

Which produced the precise result she had planned for.

Melverley, who did so love to bluster and storm and speak gruffly whenever he possibly could, shouted out across the theater, which was such a huge success that all the players on the stage stopped their performance to watch and listen, for surely this moment was the most entertaining play of all, to Blakesley in his box,

"You can and shall marry the girl, Blakesley!"

Upon which, Blakesley appeared at the rail, looking deliciously disheveled, his waistcoat all but stripped from him, his hair a perfect halo of wantonness, and, smiling, held his hand out behind him to catch Louisa to his side. She looked just as wanton and disheveled and, plainly, fully debauched. As a pair, they grinned at each other and then at Melverley. And it was in complete perfection of purpose and with ringing clarity that
Louisa
called out across the theater, "Of course he shall, for I shall have no other!"

At which point, most delightfully, the entire theater rang out in applause and calls of good cheer. It was one of those rare moments when London, all of London, seemed in the same state of high good humor.