Cecilia Read online

  Cecilia

  by Blair Bancroft

  Published by Kone Enterprises

  at Smashwords

  Copyright 2014 by Grace Ann Kone

  For other books by Blair Bancroft,

  please see http://www.blairbancroft.com

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

  Welcome to the second book in The Aphrodite Academy series—Belle, Cecilia, Holly and Juliana. These are stories of the “dark side” of the Regency era, of young women who were not so fortunate in their birth or their experiences as the heroines of traditional Regency novels. They are, however, still romances, and somehow manage that Happily Ever After ending we all love.

  Chapter 1

  London, January 1817

  “Coo, now ain’t that grand!” A young woman, garbed in a shocking shade of pink—the matching ostrich plumes in her headdress askew from snagging on the velvet draperies at the entry to their box—gazed open-mouth at the glorious gilded interior of the Royal Opera House.

  “Hush, you ijit!” Her companion, clashingly arrayed in scarlet, nodded toward a third young woman just taking her seat at the front of the box. “She’s one of Lady R’s girls. Speaks like a treat, she does. Knows ever so much—least that’s what dearest Willy says. So keep your mummer shut. No need to sound like we jes popped up out of the gutter.”

  Naturally, the object of their discussion heard every word, for neither Shocking Pink nor Scarlet had been raised to gossip discreetly. And, Cecilia Lilly had to admit, the spectacle truly was grand. Granddaughter of an earl, she prided herself on a sophistication few young women in her present circle could claim, but the Royal Opera House was indeed stunning. To Cecy the bright and shining theater, currently filled with the cream of the ton, seemed the embodiment of her long climb from daughter of a Nonconformist black sheep—a Methodist minister, would you believe?—to the pinnacle of society. She was here, actually here. And in company with a marquess.

  And all thanks to Lady Juliana Rivenhall and the Aphrodite Academy, where she had learned to converse on all manner of subjects, in French as well as English. Where history and literature, art and music, even cooking and keeping close account of household expenses, had been part of a curriculum that also included how to please gentlemen of nearly every persuasion and inclination. Lessons delivered in detail so graphic even Cecy had occasionally blanched.

  From under lowered lids, she shot the man seated next to her a small smile of satisfaction. Jason, Marquess of Longmere, had been generous. While attempting to appear nonchalant, Cecy smoothed the folds of her deep blue satin gown, the bodice and hem richly embroidered in opalescent beads. Her fingers strayed to the strand of diamonds around her throat.

  Oh yes, Longmere was exactly what she wanted. The first night they’d met, last summer at Vauxhall, Lady Rivenhall warned her about him, making it clear the marquess had not been among the men invited to meet the latest graduates of The Aphrodite Academy. But Cecy hadn’t listened. Longmere, head of the Sommerton family, was tall, handsome, distinguished, a true aristocrat, titled and wealthy. What more could a girl want? She had insisted Lady R accept his offer and never looked back.

  At the moment he was gazing at the scene before him with bored indifference, ignoring both Cecy and his guests—one of the odd privileges of a great title and vast wealth. And something she must learn to accept. Cecy returned to her perusal of the vast theater. It was well lit, with large lantern-like chandeliers hanging out over the pit from the posts that supported the lower three galleries, as many as fifty or sixty in all, she guessed. In the pit below their private box, young bucks and members of the hoi-polloi openly ogled any lady unwary enough to sit forward in her box, and of course the ladies who came with the sole purpose of attracting as much attention as possible. Above the pit were five layers of galleries, the final one so high just thinking about the precipitate distance to the stage robbed Cecy of her breath. Surely, the patrons up there could scarcely see the stage, let alone hear what was being sung or said.

  Then again, everyone knew Londoners came for the spectacle of seeing and being seen as much as for the drama, music, or dance on stage.

  Longmere’s rich baritone sounded beside her, answered by tittering laughter from Shocking Pink and Scarlet—their escorts, the marquess’s friends, Viscount Pinkney and Sir John Upham, joining in with insinuating murmurs. A shiver twisted up Cecy’s spine—the why of it a mystery. This was the life she had chosen. Not all the women she encountered were going to be upper class courtesans of the quality produced by the Academy. She had no right to feel a faint distaste for her companions. None whatsoever.

  Another glance at Longmere, the epitome of the English aristocracy. As he bandied words with Shocking Pink and Scarlet, his medium brown locks artfully disarranged in a Brutus cut, his cool blue eyes warmed slightly, as if belying the ever-present disdainful curl of his lips. Hastily, Cecy turned back to examining their fellow theater-goers. In spite of Longmere’s armor of superiority, she had hopes, of course. There, she’d said it! If Belle could marry her viscount, why couldn’t Cecilia Lilly snare the marquess? She was, after all, the granddaughter of an earl, no matter how appallingly far from the fold she had strayed.

  Perhaps if she hadn’t lost her virginity at eighteen, been cast out at nineteen . . .? Followed by well over a year of earning her living by associating with a deteriorating sample of England’s not-so-finest . . .?

  But surely being rescued by Lady Juliana Rivenhall and accepted into The Aphrodite Academy counted for something. She was no longer a beautiful face being passed from one wealthy banker or merchant to the next but a courtesan of the first stare, the chère amie of one of the highest-ranking noblemen in England.

  The cacophony of the orchestra tuning up startled her, forcing her eyes toward the great red velvet curtain still shrouding the stage. The noise around her rose to a crescendo as everyone attempted to speak above the squeaks and squawks of the instruments. Cecy longed to ignore her strict training and cover her ears with her hands. She winced as the giggles of Shocking Pink and Scarlet turned raucous, topped by the salacious guffaws of their companions. Really! How Longmere could tolerate them she didn’t know.

  The overture was robust, silencing much of the general hum of conversation, but once the curtain rose, the soloists were hard put to be heard above the self-centered buzz of the audience. Strangely, Cecy found she minded. All those beautiful sounds, all that skill being wasted on so many indifferent pairs of ears.

  The farce, which followed, was only half over when there was a general shuffling in their box. “Cecilia?” Longmere took her arm and guided her out. Goosebumps rose on her arms as she felt a chill wafting from his direction. Had she paid too much attention to the stage? Too little to Longmere? Was she supposed to take umbrage over the other women openly flirting with her protector? Caught up in the music, had she missed vital clues to her survival?

  There were classes at the Academy that covered the delicate topic of pleasing the men who paid the bills, and Cecy had tried to pay attention, truly she had. But certain she
already knew all there was to know about men, her thoughts had frequently drifted into dreams of a glorious future instead of heeding the advice being offered. Truthfully, Longmere was not the only one afflicted by arrogance. She blamed her own tendency toward this aristocratic disease on her grandfather, the Earl of Kingsbury. No matter how far she had fallen, it was always there, telling her she was right, even when she was being bull-headed, intransigent, and headed down a totally wrong path.

  Was that what she was doing at the moment? she wondered as the marquess wrapped her fur-lined cloak about her shoulders? Did she expect Longmere, his friends, and their two tarts to adjust to her rather than the other way round? Surely that’s not what Jason thought. She had given good service, she knew she had. She had a fine cottage, exquisite gowns, an overflowing jewelry case, a fine horse and carriage to show for it. Yet a frisson of nerves passed through her. Some atavistic warning instinct? Or was it all in her head?

  As they exited the Opera House, a cold wind off the river enveloped them in a blast of winter, effectively swamping Cecy’s fears under a desire to arrive at their next destination as quickly as possible. Which was, alas, a gaming hell on King Street, where Cecy endured two long, infinitely boring hours. She wasn’t sure where her distaste for gaming came from—possibly it was due to her friend Belle’s experiences, or else she simply wasn’t born to find entertainment in throwing money away. If she had money, she held onto it, with absolutely no desire to risk it on the turn of a card, the bounce of dice, or the vagaries of a wheel.

  At near four in the morning, when the marquess and his party had imbibed far too much brandy, port, punch, and ratafia, as well as losing what Cecy considered a staggering sum of money, the six of them once again squeezed into Longmere’s coach. A somewhat fuzzy vision of her canopied bed in her cottage in St. John’s Woods rose up before her, beckoning . . . Just Jason and herself, alone at last. With a sigh, Cecy snuggled tight against the marquess’s shoulder and closed her eyes. This was an evening which could not come to an end soon enough.

  She came to herself as she bounced hard, her eyes popping open to a view of heavy black velvet hangings that seemed to go on forever. Not her bed. Where . . .?

  Giggles. Lascivious chuckles. A whoop, a flash of skin . . .

  Cecy’s head swam. She should have been more careful, not drunk so much. She knew that, but she’d been with Jason for months now. She trusted him.

  So why were there other people in the bedroom? Jason’s bedroom, she suspected, though she’d never set foot inside his townhouse on Cavendish Square. Which did not at all explain what they were doing here or why the room seemed filled with people.

  She squinted, attempting to focus, even as she heard the thump of multiple boots. What looked like a black evening coat flew across her line of sight, to land in a heap on the floor. “Jason, Jason?”

  “Nothing to worry about, my love. We’re but having a small orgy.” Strong hands seized her bodice and ripped her gown from neck to knee in one grand gesture.

  Jason? She grabbed the shreds of her dress, pulling them together as tightly as she could.

  “Well, look at this now,” Jason mocked. “My little whore has gone all holy.”

  Mocking laughter burst from his two sycophants, echoed by high pitched shrieks of laughter from Shocking Pink and Scarlet.

  “Fine. We’ll let them undress you,” the marquess said, nodding to the two women.

  This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. She could not possibly have been so wrong. But in a flurry of giggles, cold hands, and even colder air, she was soon spreadeagled, stark naked, on a very large bed, with five pairs of eyes gazing down at her. Avidly. Covetously. Rapaciously.

  Horror, humiliation seared her soul.

  It was all her fault. How could she, of all people, have been so naive?

  She’d trusted, ignoring the possibility that there could be exceptions to classic male-female arrangements . . .

  Her legs churned, her fists pounded futilely as Pinkney fell on her, laughing. She bit his lip, hard. He howled, rearing back, but not before delivering a sharp punch to her ribs. Jeering laughter, ribald remarks from the others, then Sir John, Shocking Pink, and Scarlet were holding her down while Pinkney, teeth bared, spent himself inside her. Jason, unbelievably, simply stood there and watched—even as Upham had his turn, followed by the women having their opportunity to play with her.

  Somehow Cecy endured, visions of The Aphrodite Academy held tight in her mind. Solid sixteenth century walls that shut out the world. Lady R’s promise that any girl could return if she needed shelter. Academy. Lady R. Academy. Lady R. Silently, desperately Cecy repeated the litany over and over. She would survive this, she would.

  But as dawn lightened the sky, she discovered her ordeal was not over. Before Longmere’s coach had even rumbled out of the drive, taking her assailants away, Jason—her shining marquess—turned on her, rage distorting his face into a demon’s mask.

  “You will obey me, woman!” Whack! His fist slammed into her ribs.

  “You will willingly join into any game I demand. Whack! His other fist clipped her jaw, sending her flying across the bed.

  “You will never again say no to me.” Whack! Another fist to the ribs sent her crashing off the bed onto the floor.

  “I pay, you obey.” The marquess rounded the high bed and kicked her in the ribs. Thud!

  As Cecy cowered on the floor, squinched into as small a ball as she could, she heard him huff. Had he finished, or was he gathering himself for another blow?

  Cold water flooded over her, startling an involuntary shriek of surprise and agony. Dear God, he’d emptied the pitcher over her head!

  But it helped. Her mind snapped into focus. Meek, calm, remorseful. Those were the emotions she needed to see her through. Any sign of defiance and she was dead. No matter how much she longed for a sword, a pistol, even a poker from the fireplace, so she could make him dead, dead, dead, her only recourse was subservience. Obey now, escape later. Fortunately, she’d been paying attention the day that lesson was taught.

  Cecy hugged the floor, as if attempting to bury herself in the carpet, letting her body go limp, totally submissive.

  “When you fully accept your lesson, you may come back to bed,” Longmere declared in stentorian tones, as if pronouncing sentence in Magistrate’s court.

  Cecy kept her eyes squeezed tight, struggling to find that place Belle had told her about—a place where she could ignore the raging pain of her injuries, the betrayal of her dreams, the devastation of her hopes for marriage and a normal life.

  What seemed an eon later, when the marquess’s stertorous snores filled the room, she dragged herself to the end of the bed, crawled up the bedpost hand over hand until she could lever herself to her feet. Staggering with every step, she made her way across the bedchamber, down the grand staircase—tumbling the last few steps to the black and white marble tile floor, where she lay, overcome by abject terror that someone would find her before she made it to the door.

  No! She could do this.

  More crawling. The front door loomed so very far away. At last the brass knob glistened, only inches from her questing fingers. Up. She had to get up. Dear God, but she hurt! Upright at last, she tugged at the bolt, which refused her feeble efforts. Out, she had to get out!

  After a supreme effort that took her last ounce of strength, the bolt shifted, the door opened. Cecy tumbled down the three front steps, collapsing on the walkway, unmoving. Darkness obliterated the dawn.

  Chapter 2

  “Guv?”

  Nicholas Black, following the gaze of his young companion, frowned at the dark shadow revealed as the first rays of sunlight penetrated the wisps of fog still hovering over Cavendish Square.

  “A mort, Guv. Foine place fer a dollymop t’drop from too much blue ruin.” Scorn filled the voice of the fourteen-year-old known as Fetch.

  Though somewhat mellowed by an evening spent at a flash house that had once b
een one of his favorite haunts, Nick was long past his rollicking twenties. Wending his way home at dawn, he was ready for his bed, not high drama. He paused at the corner of Mortimer and Chandos streets, eyes fixed on the crumpled heap at the foot of Longmere’s steps. As the mists swirled higher, the shadow on the walkway took on color—shiny blue darkened by damp, contrasting sharply with glimpses of flesh, a long swirl of hair somewhere between blonde and brown—definitely female and lying inert on the walkway in front of the Marquess of Longmere’s townhouse.

  Fetch’s assumption wasn’t too far off the mark, Nick reasoned. In St. Giles, a drunken female was a common occurrence. In Cavendish Square, it was odd, very odd. Ignoring the two brawny bodyguards hovering behind him, Nick strode down the walkway in front of a row of elegant townhouses, his calf-high boots thudding a determined tattoo that echoed in the crisp morning air. As faithful as hounds, his entourage followed.

  Half London—the half acquainted with Nicholas Black—would swear he was a hard-hearted bastard, both literally and figuratively. That he did no one favors without just recompense. With interest. But Nick hadn’t risen to his present position without a keen mind and a demanding amount of curiosity, which told him there was something very wrong about a lone female collapsed at the foot of a marquess’s doorstep at dawn.

  “Gawd,” Fetch exclaimed as Nick gently turned the girl face up. “Beat half to death, she is.”

  “And frozen,” Nick muttered. He shook his head, a rueful gesture that cut off protests from his guards before they were more than a rumble. “Nothing for it. We’ll let Mrs. Mackey deal with her.”

  Though his guards topped him by a good four or five inches and outweighed him by at least three stone each, Nicholas Black waved them back, scooping the woman up from the sidewalk and turning resolutely toward Princes Street, young Fetch trotting beside him, hero-worship shining from big brown eyes.