The King's Courtesan Read online

  “And your wife. I’l stil be that, too,” she said, stung.

  “Good God, madam! You act like a bitch in heat. You are his. Would you have it otherwise?”

  “And you a hound with the scent, sir.” It wasn’t going at al as she’d planned. She was angry, and despite herself her feelings were hurt. “You want me. Your prick can’t lie. You’re just not man enough to act on it. I may be his bitch, but you are his cur and the master is far from the kennel. Why shouldn’t we please ourselves?”

  “Have you no love for him, then? Are you truly so venal? He has treated you wel enough. At least show some honor to the man who has fed and clothed you. You owe him that much.” His voice was laced with disgust.

  “No!” Her angry shout startled them both. “Love for him?

  Honor? I owe him nothing. I’l not love a man who doesn’t love me. He’s no better than you! You are hypocrites both.

  And I am a courtesan, not a whore. I am educated. I can dance and sing and play cards. I can use a napkin and speak some French and write and read. I have even learned to do my sums. I have known only three men. Yes.

  They bought and paid for my company, but I’ve been faithful to each one. I daresay that’s more than you or he can say.”

  “I pray you forgive my doubts regarding your faithfulness when I have just removed your dainty hand from about my cock. I’m a man, Hope. And yes…I have your scent. I spring to attention whenever you walk by. It’s in your voice, your look, your walk. Women like you were born to entice, but like it or not, you’re not some strumpet I can walk away from. Your name, and thus your honor, is now bound to mine. As long as you’re his, I’l treat you as guest, not lover or wife.”

  “Hah!” Her laughter was harsh. “Listen to yourself. You think that refusing to acknowledge we’re married makes you any less a cuckold? You have no honor left to lose, Captain.

  You sold it for a title, my lord. ” Robert sighed. He didn’t real y want this constant animosity.

  There didn’t have to be a contest. She was what she was and he was what he was. A whore and a kil er who’d failed in his duty. Far better if they could just let each other be. He careful y modulated his tone. “The title means naught, Hope. Al I cared about was keeping Cressly, so I might honor a promise made years ago. There must have been other men to suit your purpose. If you find me so distasteful, why in God’s name did you choose me?”

  “Choose you? What choice did I make? I was not even forewarned. As you and he decided how I was to be disposed of, I was seeing to his guests and readying the maypole and doing my best to make him proud. He thanked me by denying me the thing I want most. I know what you think. Jewels. Money. Position. But what are they when dependent on the good graces of another? I wanted my freedom, Captain. I had no wish to be there when his queen arrived. I begged him to let me leave court and retire to a place of my own before he married. And what did he do? He sold me to a man who hates me. Married me to someone I’d never met and forever denied me my freedom.

  He does not love or honor me, so why should I him?”

  “He is your monarch.”

  “As someone who has slept in his bed I can tel you that al that he is, is a man.”

  Her hair was disheveled, her lovely face stained with tears, and Robert felt a gut-wrenching ache that spread to his chest and squeezed his throat. The thought that she might not have known, might not have been complicit, had never occurred to him. If what she said were true, Charles had treated her badly indeed, and she was no more at fault for their current predicament than he. She was as much a pawn if not more. At least he had been given a choice. “I didn’t know, Hope. I thought it was something arranged between the two of you.”

  She looked taken aback but quickly recovered. “And I thought it was something between you and him. He used us both, Captain. When I saw you in London my pulse quickened. I had never been so interested or attracted to a man. It’s not something I would have acted upon, but we are far from London now and so much has changed. Why not seek comfort from one another? There is sorrow in your eyes and I am lonely this night.”

  His body tightened and he took a harsh breath. She was such a lovely creature he ached to possess her, from her tumble of night-dark hair to her pretty toes. He looked into violet eyes that shone with their own inner light. “And when he cal s for you?” His voice grated.

  “You know as wel as I do that I wil have to go.” He took a step back. “I wil not take advantage of a guest, madam.”

  Rippling like water, her gown slid from her shoulders to lie in a silken pool on the floor. Her body shone like alabaster as lightning lit the sky. Her breasts were firm and high and sweetly rounded, with tight dark nipples that begged to be teased and kissed. A slim waist curved into luscious hips and he could feel the heat from the soft dark thatch between her sleek and shapely legs. His nostrils flared as he smel ed her musk. Her fingers brushed his penis, trailing up and down the underside, and he groaned and leapt in her palm.

  Her other hand found his, and guided it unresisting to the juncture between her legs. She was wet and silky and he cursed beneath his breath, taking her by her hips and bottom and lifting her tight against him. She wrapped her legs around his waist as his straining erection pressed hard between her naked thighs. Rubbing up and down against it, she purred like a stroked cat. This man set her body aflame.

  Succumbing to imaginings that had plagued him for days, he let go of his good intentions. His hands worked with her, rocking her against him. He captured her mouth in a scorching brandy-soaked kiss, his tongue plunging deep into the hot inner recesses of her mouth, thrusting to the same rhythm as her hips. There was nothing tender about his kiss. It was hungry, demanding, greedy with need. Her breasts were mashed against his chest. He could feel her hardened nipples rub against him as her moist and eager heat teased and embraced his swol en cock. A violent gust of wind blew open a French door but neither of them noticed.

  He had been too long without a woman and his hunger overtook him. He leaned over the heavy oak bil iards table and lowered her onto its green worsted surface, one handing knocking ivory bal s aside as his body fol owed hers down. His mouth devoured hers as his hands traveled her length, pinching and teasing her nipples, brushing her bel y and squeezing her waist. He blazed a trail of hot kisses down her throat, across her breasts and over her stomach as he stroked her quivering flesh.

  Hope had imagined his kisses in London. At the inn in Nottingham his nearness had been a touch. She didn’t know what wild magic this was but she reveled in the feel of him as he boldly claimed her body. She arched against his hands, and turned into his kisses as his bristled jaw abraded aching skin and left her lips burning and swol en.

  Every part of her was exquisitely alive.

  She whimpered an incoherent protest when he withdrew his heat from hers. Her eyes opened to find him standing, watching her from the edge of the table. His body was al that she’d imagined. Lithe, hard and lean-waisted, his torso was taut and sleek, his stomach ridged with muscle, and he had the corded shoulders, sculpted chest and rippling arms of a swordsman. She moaned in frustration and lust, and gasped in shock and excitement when he grasped the back of her thighs in his large hands, roughly hauling her toward him so her buttocks rested against the felt rail cushions and she lay completely open to his gaze. Her face blazed as he stood naked between her legs, a proud erection jutting, brushing against her soaking curls.

  “Good Christ, I could devour you.” It was the first words either of them had spoken since she’d slipped out of her gown. He knelt between her legs, hooking them over his shoulders, and gripped her hips, holding her firmly in place.

  Despite the chil wind and rain spattering through the open door, her body burned crimson. When he kissed her lightly, just brushing her with his warm breath, she almost leapt from the table, twisting and squirming, but her gyrations didn’t free her, they only forced her tighter against his seeking mouth. As he pleasured her, kissing and tonguing, he
r moan was one of wild surrender, but her hands gripped his head, and her hold was as fierce and possessive as his was of her.

  “Robert, please,” she gasped. He rose and entered her, slamming into her, and she grasped his shoulders and arched to meet each thrust. Thunder reverberated in the distance, rumbling as it echoed off buildings, trees and hil s. As wind slammed the shutters hard against the outer wal and white sheets of lightning lit the sky, he fil ed her body, he fil ed her senses and he rode her through the storm.

  He lay atop her for several moments. She could hear the rain sweeping across the flagstones. She could hear his heart and his ragged breathing, but he didn’t say a word.

  He pushed himself up on his arms and she shivered, watching in silence as he adjusted his robe. Retrieving hers, he handed it to her, and offered his hand to help her to her feet.

  “I think it’s time for me to retire. Do you need me to escort you back to your room? Or can you find your way alone?” His cold politeness mortified her after abandoning herself as she had. “Now that you’ve taken what you wanted, you wil simply walk away?” She couldn’t keep the hurt from her voice.

  “It was what you wanted, Hope.” His manner was distant, his voice weary. “It’s been a difficult day. It’s better I’m alone.”

  “And now I suppose you feel dishonored. You ooze judgment like a weeping sore.”

  “It’s not judgment. You have no idea what I…” He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “Was that your purpose? Was it what you wanted?”

  She had the grace to flush. Why had she pursued this man?

  She didn’t know herself anymore. She was so lonely, so far away from al that was familiar, and she had never felt so lost. She blinked back her tears. They served no purpose and he would not appreciate them. No doubt he hated her now.

  She rounded on him with a fortifying surge of anger. “If you feel you’ve sul ied your precious honor, you have no one to blame but yourself. Yes, I teased and provoked you. Yes, I offered myself. Blatantly! But no one forced you to accept.

  Don’t act like I ravaged you. Like you are some sort of victim. That is laughable. You are a man. The world and al the things in it belong to you. You are bigger than me.

  Stronger than me. You took what I offered. You took what you wanted. ’Tis you who has the power here.”

  “Is it?” he said mildly. “It’s you who has the king.” She cal ed after him as he turned and walked away. “Whilst you try and sleep in your lonely bed you wil think of me wil ing and warm.”

  “Leave it be, Hope.” His voice was flat, rasping, barely more than a whisper. “It’s not you who haunts my dreams.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  HOPE WOKE WITH A blinding headache. Doubtless it came from crying herself to sleep. It was a wretched habit, one she seemed to be growing used to. Perhaps she should turn to the bottle when upset. It would be far better, and certainly much less humiliating, to wake sick and hurting from too much drink. She should be feeling powerful and victorious. She’d decisively turned her back on Charles and shown the captain he was no better than she was, yet al she felt was guilty and confused. Not that she had any reason to. Perhaps the captain had not knowingly tricked her into marriage. But he was stil a hypocrite, who’d married someone he held in disdain in a situation he disapproved.

  And how must he feel today? All I’ve done is proven to him I’m nothing but a whore. With a moan she buried her head against her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs.

  I’ll never be able to look him in the eyes again.

  That was how Rose found her almost twenty minutes later.

  Unable to deal with the girl’s relentless good cheer, Hope flopped onto her stomach and pul ed a coverlet over her head. A determined Rose prepared her tea with a loud clatter of silver on porcelain. The delicious hot drink was the latest rage among sophisticated folk, but she’d been surprised to find it here in the country. It seemed Nottingham real y did have shopping to rival that of London.

  “Here we go, my lady. Open your eyes and see what I’ve got. I’ve brought you a special treat!”

  “Go away, Rose,” she mumbled into her pil ow.

  “My lady, I know what it is to be far from home, and I know sometimes you’re sad and lonely. If you’d just open your eyes I have something I promise wil cheer you up.” Giving a very unladylike grunt, Hope stretched out her arm and pointed. “It’s not the magic potion people say it is. Just put in on the side table, Rose, and leave me be.” Something warm and silky soft rubbed against her hand, and she opened her eyes to see an amber-eyed, snub-nosed, fluff-bal of a kitten. It stared at her with a mix of curiosity and mischief, and she stared right back and grinned.

  “You’ve been awful y nice to me, my lady, what with the dresses and al . Before you came here nobody even bothered to ask me my name. I wanted to do something nice for you.”

  “Wel , God bless you, Rose O’Donnel . I daresay this is one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.” Giggling and cooing, they played with the kitten as it reared and pounced and wriggled in ambush, attacking a feather they tied to a string.

  “I should warn you though, my lady. We best try to keep her a secret. The master is very strict about animals in the house.”

  As the week wore on, Hope managed to avoid the captain, who had returned to Nottingham on business with Sergeant Oakes. She expected he was busy avoiding her, too. She ate in her rooms rather than alone in the dining room, and procured a matronly apron with wide pockets that could discreetly carry her kitten inside. Mrs. Overton saw its tiny head peeking from her pocket and screamed as if she were carrying a rat.

  “You’l not be keeping that in the house once the master sees it! Far as he’s concerned the place for animals is outside.”

  Hope shrugged her shoulders and ignored her. The palace had been ful of dogs and they often made a filthy mess, but cats were cleanly. Rose wouldn’t stay long in the curiosity cabinet she’d claimed as study, and one little kitten to keep her company was surely not too much to ask. She continued her exploration of Cressly, hiking through pasture and woodland and riverside with her kitten at her side. And if the night was fil ed with mournful cal s and eerie creaking, she was too tired from her travels to pay it much mind.

  Midweek a coach from London arrived bearing her jewels, her cosmetics and clothes. She had little use for them here at Cressly, and much to Rose’s horror, after giving her another dress, a coat and a very smart feathered hat, she packed them away, contented with a few simple dresses, some India gowns and the men’s clothes she’d worn in London when that fashion had been the rage. She wondered what her soldier husband would think of those.

  There was little she could do to improve the house without cooperation or resources, so she contented herself with adding her own touches to her study, and weeding and tending its hidden garden as best she might.

  ROBERT N ICHOLS WAS IN a quandary. He had slept with his own wife. That she was another man’s lover hadn’t mattered until now. So long as he hadn’t touched her, so long as he was convinced she’d deliberately used him, knowing his desperate situation with Charles, al he owed her was the minimal civility one had to offer an unwanted guest. Her perspicacity had taken him completely by surprise. You think that refusing to acknowledge we’re married makes you any less a cuckold? It was exactly what he’d thought. But refusing to think of her as his woman was going to be far more difficult now.

  In spite of his words the other night, he’d been lying to himself and her. His nights were stil fil ed with flashing steel and cannon fire, the battlefield, fear and blood. He stil heard the shouting and cursing and the screams of trapped innocents, and her crying stil fol owed him through his dreams. But ever since London, as he drifted off to sleep, his thoughts were fil ed with a sad-eyed elf with violet eyes.

  It was bad enough before, when he was constantly thinking of her dancing like some wild pagan queen, or the movement of her shapely bottom as she leaned out the carri
age window. But now, the image of her spread in open invitation on his bil iard table, the scent and taste and sound of her, invaded his every thought. She was making his life complicated in ways he’d not imagined. She was certainly not a wife he’d have chosen for himself. But a fever was upon him and he’d have to find a way to resolve the thing because he was not a man who shared.

  He dealt with easier complications first, sending Oakes to hire five more men, ex-soldiers al , to act as footmen, grooms and extra coachmen. It wouldn’t be hard. The country was ful of displaced soldiers il -fit for other jobs.

  The sergeant would see to it they were armed and ready if their other skil s were required. He’d also swal owed his pride and sent a message to de Veres. He needed eyes and ears in London. The man knew things, and Elizabeth trusted him.

  And then there was Hope. It was clear she was unhappy, and true he’d been neglectful. He could only imagine how she’d felt at the way she’d been betrayed. She had not come of her own accord and given that, and what had passed between them, he felt a greater responsibility than he had before.

  He knew she’d been avoiding him. He hadn’t meant to insult or offend her after their…encounter, but she’d been in no mood to listen, and he in no mood to speak. Not about Caroline. Not to anyone. A little time and distance should make it easier to talk. Too much might make it impossible.

  Fortified with a shot of brandy, he set out to track her down.

  She was not in the drawing room or library, and there was no answer when he knocked on her door. He was about to take the search outside when he saw the housekeeper.

  “She’l be in the same place she goes every day,” Mrs.

  Overton told him. “Down the old east hal off the north wing.”

  “She’l be where?”

  “In the room you told us al to stay out of. It seems she’s got it in her head to make it her own.”

  Bloody hell! The woman was a damned nuisance. What gave her the right? She went where she pleased. Took what she pleased. Did as she pleased, and now she’d launched an invasion of his privacy and his home. He stalked down the hal .