Chapter 1

“There are certain circumstances upon which it is absolutely essential to seek out a courtesan,” Louisa Kirkland snapped.

“If you’re expecting an argument from me…” the Marquis of Hawksworth drawled with a half-hearted shrug.

“Oh, shut it, Hawksworth,” Louisa said. “Why should I expect something as energetic as an argument from you, of all people?”

It was entirely within her rights to talk to a marquis in such an abrupt manner, or at least this particular marquis. Hawksworth was not only her cousin, but he was an unrepentantly lazy boy of twenty who ought to have better things to do than lay around all day dozing on a sofa.

Which is exactly where she had found him when she had insisted he accompany her to Sophia Dalby’s town house. Not that she would permit him to enter with her. No, that would not do at all. No, Hawksworth had to remain outside, engaging in whatever activity best suited him, likely a nap, while she went inside to face Lady Dalby in what was certain to be a most uncomfortable conversation.

But then, most conversations with Sophia Dalby were uncomfortable. She was entirely certain that it came from Sophia having been a noted courtesan in her day, though it was equally possible that Sophia had always been a woman other women found uncomfortable.

“And what am I to do whilst you’re with the delightful Lady Dalby?” Hawksworth asked, neatly proving her point. Louisa had yet to meet a man who did not find Sophia Dalby delightful. It was most annoying.

“Isn’t there someone you might call upon? Someone who would admit you on Upper Brook Street?” Louisa said, straightening a seam on her glove as she prepared to approach Sophia’s door on Upper Brook Street. It was a very nice address, the houses quite respectable, and Dalby House was a literal stone’s throw from Hyde Park. Of course, Sophia had married into her fine address, but didn’t most women? It had been a neat bit of work and if Sophia could manage that, she could certainly manage the little thing that Louisa needed of her. “Doesn’t Mr. Prestwick live on this street? Go and call upon him.”

“And his lovely sister,” Hawksworth said with all the laziness he could muster, which was considerable as he had such practice at it. “I could do with another look at her.”

If there was one woman Louisa disliked, a ridiculous notion as she found it necessary to dislike quite a few women, most particularly Anne Warren, it was Miss Penelope Prestwick. Miss Prestwick was that impossible combination of sweetness and seduction that Louisa found intolerable and men found compelling. That the Prestwick viscountcy had more money than was entirely in good taste only made her more irritating, obviously.

“Of course you could,” Louisa said. “I’m quite certain you are not the first man to get a good look at Miss Prestwick. I should be careful around her, Hawksworth. She shouldn’t mind being a duchess one day and you would so nicely fill the bill.”

“Thank you,” Hawksworth drawled politely, missing the point entirely. “Shall we say half past? Or shall you require more time with Lady Dalby?”

“I shall be brief. I would advise you to be the same.”

“Half past, then,” he said agreeably. Hawksworth, for all that could be said against him, had a most even and agreeable disposition. It was his finest trait. It may also have been his only trait.

Louisa wasted no time in watching Hawksworth amble down Upper Brook Street towards the Viscount Prestwick’s town house. She had other matters entirely occupying her thoughts.

Louisa was admitted, looked over not at all discreetly by Fredericks, the Dalby House butler, and a most inappropriate butler he was, and ushered into Sophia’s famous white salon, but then, everything connected to Sophia was famous in one fashion or another and Louisa did not waste time in ferreting out the particulars as to the source of fame for the white salon. It was a salon, like any other, except that it had the obvious distinction of being swathed in various shades of impossible to maintain white.

It looked immaculate, of course.

Sophia rose to her feet, the greetings were exchanged, and Louisa, without shame and certainly no hesitation, proceeded to the point of her visit.

“Lady Dalby, thank you for seeing me.”

“Not at all. Can I offer you a cup of chocolate?”

“Yes, thank you,” Louisa answered.

She didn’t particularly care for a cup of chocolate, but it served its purpose in getting Fredericks out of the room to send someone for another cup. In the silence and quiet of their momentary solitude, Louisa studied Sophia briefly.

She knew her, of course. They were not strangers to each other, though they were hardly friends. Louisa had studied Sophia as much as anyone else in London had done, which is to say, minutely. Yes, she was beautiful, darkly aristocratic, flawlessly seductive, relentlessly charming. But what woman could not claim the same list, with some little bit of effort?

Which was the entire point, really. Sophia, as far as Louisa could discern, accomplished her list of credits entirely without effort.

“I find myself in a bit of a dilemma, Lady Dalby. I don’t quite know how to go about…fixing it,” Louisa said.

Sophia merely raised her eyebrows in pleasant curiosity and kept stirring her chocolate.

“I,” Louisa said, a faint blush heating her cheeks. Blast having red hair and the complexion that went with it. Every emotion showed on her skin. It was beyond embarrassing. “I…am certain that I don’t have to tell you about…well, about my pearls. About the entire pearl evening that took place at Hyde House two nights ago.”

“No,” Sophia said in obvious amusement, “you don’t have to tell me.”

Obviously not, as Sophia, somehow, had orchestrated the entire shameless event. Shameless, yes, but so very to the point. Caroline, Sophia’s daughter, had in a single evening, acquired three very likely men: the Lords Dutton, Blakesley, and Ashdon. Each man had presented her with a pearl necklace and each man had sought her favors, shamelessly and ruinously. The obvious problem being that Caroline had not been ruined in any meaningful sense of the word. No, Caroline had made her choice, the handsome though somber Lord Ashdon, and she had been married to him the very next morning. It was perfectly obvious to Louisa that Caroline had married the man she’d wanted and that she’d arranged things perfectly to get him.

It was even more obvious that Caroline Trevelyan, at the innocent age of seventeen, could have arranged no such thing. Her mother, the ex-courtesan, had been behind it all.

If it could be done for Caroline, Louisa saw no reason why it could not be done for her. Unless, of course, Sophia did not care to help her get what she wanted. Sophia, rather too intelligent for comfort, likely suspected that Louisa did not hold her in the highest regard. Or she hadn’t. Until now.

“I don’t know how it happened exactly,” Louisa said, plunging forward and ignoring the clever glint in Sophia’s dark eyes, “that is, I don’t know all the details. But I was given a rather lovely strand of pearls by my grandmother and somehow Lord Dutton got them from my father, Lord Melverley, and attempted to give them to your daughter.”

“Well, my dear,” Sophia said, taking a small sip of her drink, “Caro doesn’t have your pearls. Why come to me?”

It was perfectly obvious to Louisa that Sophia knew exactly why she had come to her, but that, being Sophia, she wanted Louisa to crawl over broken glass and beg for her aid.

Fine. She could do that.

“I would like, that is, I noticed, we all noticed, how well things have gone for Lady Caroline and I was wondering…I was thinking that you might…be…able…”

It was far easier to contemplate crawling over broken glass than to actually do it. This begging for help business was decidedly difficult. She was completely certain she did not like it one bit. Even Lord Dutton’s dashingly beautiful face grew a bit dim in the light of the amusement in Sophia’s eyes.

“You would like your pearls back, wouldn’t you?” Sophia said, setting down her cup on a very elegant Directoire table.

“Yes,” Louisa said, holding Sophia’s dark gaze. “I want my pearls back.”

“Then, darling, we shall simply have to get them for you.”

It was as Lord Henry Blakesley was leaving the Prestwick townhouse that he bumped into the Marquis of Hawksworth about to go in. Where Hawksworth was, Louisa was not far distant. Where Louisa was, Dutton was almost certainly to be.

Louisa made rather a point of that.

“All alone today, Hawksworth?” Blakesley asked. “Dutton left Town, has he?”

Hawksworth smiled slightly. “Certainly you’d know that as soon as I.”

A point and well taken. Louisa not only made use of her cousin to escort her around Town, she made equal if less comfortable use of him. He did not particularly like being used as a sort of tame hound to sniff out the elusive Marquis of Dutton, but that was how Louisa chose to use him.

He knew precisely how that sounded and he didn’t care for it in the least. Unfortunately, he did nothing about it. He didn’t care to think too deeply about why.

“You’re calling upon Mr. Prestwick?” Blakesley asked, changing the subject.

“Or Miss Prestwick,” Hawksworth said casually. Hawksworth did most things casually; he was becoming almost famous for it. “They are a pleasant family, are they not?”

“Most pleasant,” Blakesley said. “Mr. Prestwick is just within. I believe you were at school together?”

“Yes, and he spoke so often and so well of his sister.”

Blakesley smiled. “She is eager to wed, so I’m told.”

“Aren’t they all?” Hawksworth said with a pleasant smile. “She is in season, I should think, her age and circumstances being at that precise point.”

“You are not afraid of getting caught in the matrimonial net?”

“There is a season for everything, Lord Henry,” Hawksworth said languidly. “It is a waste of energy to fight against the seasons. They change most regularly, no matter our preferences.”

“And you will ride the change, enjoying all of spring’s abundant pleasures?” Blakesley offered.

“Precisely.”

“You are of a mind to marry Miss Prestwick?”

“I do not know Miss Prestwick,” Hawksworth said pleasantly. “It is not the season for me to wed, and so I may dally where the mood takes me. Miss Prestwick might be pleasant enough to dally with in this off season for me, in all propriety, of course. I find myself here; there is no reason why I should not avail myself of blessed proximity.”

“Of course not,” Blakesley said, more amused by Louisa’s cousin than he had ever been before. For such a young man, he was either more naïve than his peers or more sophisticated. It was so very difficult to decide which. “You have left your cousin somewhere safe, I trust? Or did you come to Upper Brook Street on your own?”

Blakesley knew Louisa’s habits well enough to know that she had dragged her cousin here and then shucked him off like so much mud on her shoe. Hawksworth was of a disposition to allow it. Blakesley was not.

Hawksworth smiled in lazy good humor. “She is calling upon Lady Dalby. She made it very clear that she did not want my company when she did so. Perhaps she will welcome your company more than mine. It is hardly possible that she would welcome you less.”

Or was it? Gone to see Sophia Dalby? Blakesley did not like the sound of that. Sophia Dalby had a way of managing things, a way of manipulating events and people until things were all muddled into a pattern that no one could have foreseen and few would welcome.

Except, he suspected, Sophia herself.

What was Louisa doing tangling herself up in Sophia’s skirts?

“I think I shall call upon Lady Dalby. Care to join me, Lord Hawksworth?” Blakesley asked. “I can promise you that Sophia is more entertaining than Penelope Prestwick could dream of being.”

Hawksworth smiled languidly and shrugged slightly. “I am at your disposal, Lord Henry. It is to Dalby House for the both of us. I do not care to think what Louisa will do when she sees us.”

“It will be entertaining, at the very least,” Blakesley said with a slanted smile. “What more can be asked of an afternoon call upon a countess?”

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