Belle Read online

  Why? Why had one of London’s most notorious rakes brought her to Lady Rivenhall? Was she so lacking in the attributes necessary for a courtesan that he did not want her? Had her humiliation been so thorough—exposed to the eyes of a dozen men—that Lord Ashford found her repugnant? Or was there a crumb of decency left inside him, enough for him to affect a rescue . . .?

  But why Lady Rivenhall?

  “Miss?”

  Silly puss. No sense speculating when she was undoubtedly about to find out. After one last look in the glass and a slight frown over why Nell had left her golden locks tumbling over her shoulders, Arabella followed the maid to her meeting with her hostess.

  Another one, Juliana thought. This upper class waif would make three. Though the first left on her doorstep by Ashford. Remarkable. A selfless act or . . .?

  Lady Rivenhall sat behind the mahogany desk her husband had seldom used, preferring to leave all business matters in the competent hands of his secretary, now a young government hopeful, assisting one of the MPs from Sussex. Juliana liked the desk, liked the feeling of power when she sat behind it. Her house, her grounds, her bookroom, her desk. This was the world she had made, and she now commanded it. Wealth and widowhood combined to dangle power in front of her, but it had been up to her to seize it, hang on with all her might, and bend that world to her will.

  And she had. The vague spark of an idea, born shortly after Thaddeus Leath read Geoffrey’s will, had taken form and was being implemented, though each girl in her care presented a unique challenge. So far in her project’s short history, she was still feeling her way, refusing to listen to the niggling doubts that popped up, particularly on occasions like this when she was about to confront a young lady of impeccable lineage. If one discounted the present baron.

  Lady Arabella Pierrepont. Juliana would offer the girl a choice, of course. But offering such a choice to a baron’s daughter had never been part of her original plan. Baron’s daughters had relatives, resources . . .

  Evidently, this one did not. Juliana knew Gabriel Ashford and, despite his reputation, he would not have brought the girl here if there had been an alternative. And now that she thought about it, she’d heard whispers about Pierrepont’s sordid games. If the poor girl had been caught up in that . . . Merde! It was possible not all the Rivenhall wealth could offset the consequences of sheltering an underage daughter of the ton.

  Young Nell appeared in the bookroom door, bobbing a curtsey. “Lady Arabella, my lady.”

  “Thank you, Nell.” The maid left, softly closing the door behind her. “Lady Arabella, please be seated.” Juliana waved her hand toward a delicate gilt chair set in front of the imposing expanse of her desk. Astounding. Pierrepont’s daughter was shockingly beautiful, even at eleven in the morning after what must have been a particularly horrid night for Ashford to have brought her here in the wee hours. Beautiful . . . and prideful. Sitting there, shoulders straight, head up, hands clasped in her lap, as if she were having tea with a duchess.

  “I remember you from better times, Lady Arabella,” Juliana said. “I am sorry to see you cast down.” The girl blinked, visibly took herself in hand, her sky blue eyes once again fixed on her hostess’s face. “Do you have any idea why Lord Ashford brought you here?”

  This time the girl’s gaze never wavered. “I assumed it was because he wished to be rid of me, and you were perhaps the only person he knew who might take me in.”

  Ah! In her few encounters with Pierrepont’s daughter, Juliana had suspected the girl might be concealing a higher level of intelligence than most of the ton’s young misses, but now she could add courage to Lady Arabella’s other attributes. “You may have heard that I am widowed—”

  “My apologies, my lady. I should have offered my condolences immediately.”

  Good manners as well. Clearly, her mother had managed to fend off Pierrepont’s deleterious influence until her death. Poor, long-suffering creature, ’tis a wonder she’d lasted as long as she had. But it explained the chit’s good manners and her unwillingness to play the baron’s games. Juliana’s doubts came tumbling back. Just because the girl was right about Ashford having no other place to leave her did not mean that Thornhill Manor in its new incarnation was the right place for her. “Have you relatives who will take you in?”

  “No, my lady. If so, I would have found a way to leave London shortly after my mother died.”

  And that said it all. Very well then. But how to phrase a new kind of reality to a young woman of noble birth?

  Slowly. Carefully.

  “Lady Arabella, when my husband died, I became a very wealthy woman, a woman with the ability to do something besides being an ornament. My husband was . . . an unusual man. A man with ideas that would have shocked most of the ton if he had allowed more than a favored few to discover his proclivities.” Good. The girl was paying attention, closely guarding the faint apprehension Juliana could see in the depths of her eyes.

  Lady Rivenhall sat a little taller in her chair, her amber eyes narrowed on the young woman before her. “My husband was a free spirit in a tolerant age I see dwindling with each passing year. Therefore, after a great deal of thought, I decided to combine my own desire to help young women in difficulties through no fault of their own with my husband’s vast knowledge of . . . carnal pleasures. And yes, you heard me correctly, Lady Arabella. I assure you there is no need to run—after all, you yourself have said you have nowhere to go. Hear me out, if you will, and I will give you a choice of alternatives.”

  Lady Arabella, evidently speechless, nodded, but her look of pride had turned to wariness.

  “I am the headmistress of The Aphrodite Academy,” Juliana declared. “I accept only young women of intelligence and beauty. The Academy trains them in manners and deportment, qualities you have already learned. They study history, art, music, dancing, French, the fine art of conversation. They also learn the skills necessary to please a man in the privacy of the bedchamber.” Interesting. The chit’s gaze never wavered. “When the girls of The Aphrodite Academy are presented to the world, they will be women capable of deciding their own fate. They may choose not to use the skills they have been taught, no one will force them. But if my students wish to live lives of power, elegance, and influence on the great men of the realm, I can take pride in having taught them how to do it.”

  “As courtesans,” Lady Arabella declared flatly.

  “Courtesans who control their lives, not live it at the will of others.”

  The sky blue eyes had turned to ice. “Surely courtesans are most particularly vulnerable to the will of others.”

  Ah, but the girl was magnificent, a worthy recruit if she did not find a way to slip out of the net and descend into obscurity. “Not the courtesans from The Aphrodite Academy,” Juliana declared. “My young ladies will become the companions of great men, have influence over the government itself. Or”—she shrugged, a tiny smile curling her lips as she acknowledged not all females had high ambitions—“if their companions are more of the more dashing sort, then my ladies will enjoy a frivolous life, but always of the first stare. And if my advice is followed, they can look forward to a comfortable retirement, with no worries for the time when beauty fades.”

  “You mentioned an alternative?” Lady Arabella asked, her voice as neutral as her face was blank.

  “The Aphrodite Academy is a relatively new venture. In truth, we have only two other young ladies in residence, although you are the tenth to find her way to our door. None, however, are as well-born as yourself. T1wo of my graduates I have placed as companions to acquaintances—female acquaintances—in the country. One has become housekeeper at a grand estate in Somerset. One has married a wealthy farmer in Wiltshire. And three are now the chère amies of gentlemen of substance.”

  Juliana studied Lady Arabella’s exquisite features, at the moment set in a perfectly blank countenance, a mask she’d undoubtedly perfected while living with Pierrepont. Impossible to tell what the girl was
thinking. “You might find the option of a respectable marriage to a man of lesser rank appealing. It is not difficult to find men who are delighted to take to wife young women as well trained as ours. Beauty, fine clothes, exquisite manners, and knowledge of the arts of the bedchamber may easily transform a soiled dove into an attractive bride.”

  “Not without a proper dowry.”

  “Indeed, my dear, you have the right of it. How fortunate I am one of the wealthiest women in the realm.” Ah yes, this was a sharp one. No wonder Ashford was so anxious to be rid of her. Which brought up a question she should have asked earlier, but she hadn’t wanted to frighten the girl. “Tell me, Lady Arabella, are you a virgin?”

  For a moment Juliana thought the girl was going to jump to her feet and run out of the room. She did not. Instead her face hardened, eyes narrowing to slits of blue lightning. “I can understand why you might ask that question of Baron Pierrepont’s daughter, but I can only hope my mother’s spirit is far, far away and cannot be aware of such an insult. I had a most proper upbringing, I assure you, and until tonight I have clung to it, come what may. Tonight, however . . .”

  Lady Arabella’s chin came up, she clasped her hands tightly in her lap as she gave the devil his due. “Tonight, without Lord Ashford, that might have changed.” She pursed her lips, obviously searching for words that were difficult to say. “My lady, tonight I reached the end of my endurance. I would have paid any price for my rescue, but Ashford demanded none. I know not why he saved me nor why he brought me here, but I shall be eternally grateful. Anything is better than where I was.”

  Juliana gave the baron’s daughter one last chance. “I can arrange a marriage to a solicitor, a wealthy tradesman or farmer. I can arrange a position as a companion, far from London, where you need never again see the creatures of the night who frequent Pierrepont’s card parties.”

  “Why would you do this?”

  “Because it pleases me. Almost as much as training young women in the art of love, making them mistresses not only of men but of their own lives.”

  A tiny self-mocking smile tilted the corners of Lady Arabella’s mouth. “You have caught me out, have you not? My mama might be horrified, but my pride allows me only one choice. Contrary to all I was taught, given that a proper marriage is now out of the question, I choose to take my life into my own hands. My mind cannot fit around bowing to the dictates of some demanding old woman, trading gossip with merchants’ wives, or milking cows and slopping pigs. Courtesan it shall be.”

  Juliana inclined her head. “Welcome to The Aphrodite Academy, Lady Arabella.”

  Chapter 4

  “My lord, my lord!”

  Gabriel, Viscount Ashford slitted his eyes open, took one look at his valet, Hutchins, and promptly rolled over, presenting his back to the realities of a new day. A day which, he suspected, was already rather far advanced. After all, the sun was well up before he had finally tumbled into bed.

  “I beg your pardon, m’lord, but Lord Pierrepont insists upon seeing you immediately.” The agitation in Hutchins’s voice cut through Gabriel’s determination to sleep more keenly than the import of his words.

  Hell and damnation! Gabe groaned. He’d known there would be repercussions. As mad as it seemed, he’d aided and abetted a runaway, the daughter of a titled gentleman. He just hadn’t expected the furor to start so soon. The baron, like himself, should still be in bed after last night’s debauch. Nor had he appeared to care one jot about his daughter’s fate, other than as a source of entertainment for his friends.

  “Tell Hobbs to offer the baron refreshments and inform him I will be down shortly.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Gabe winced as, before leaving to speak with the butler, Hutchins threw open the draperies, allowing searing blasts of sunlight into the bedchamber from two directions. Hell’s hounds! Wasn’t the Baron Pierrepont bad enough without having to contend with sunshine?

  When Gabriel finally made his way into the drawing room some forty minutes later, it was clear the wait had not cooled the baron’s temper. It had, in fact, simmered well past the boiling point. Pierrepont, a man of medium height, with rumpled brown hair, pale blue eyes, and an incipient paunch about his belly, jumped to his feet from a slouched position on the sofa and demanded, “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

  Gabe, who topped the baron by half a foot, regarded him with cool surprise. “Concern, Pierrepont? From you? Surely you will not miss her. Whores willing to strip for your guests are easily found.”

  “She’s my daughter, you dolt.”

  “A-ah.” Gabe breathed out the word in mock amazement. “You recall that, do you? I had not thought so.”

  “Cut line, Ashford! What have you done with her?”

  Gabe crossed his arms over his chest, enjoying a moment of grim satisfaction as the baron’s face shaded from a flushed pink to apoplectic red.

  “Is she upstairs in your bed? If so, I swear you’ll marry her before the day is out.”

  So that’s what brought him here, the hot scent of a ripe plum for his ruined child. “I beg your pardon,” Gabe murmured. “I was under the impression you planned to auction her off to the highest bidder, no marriage vows necessary. Are you here to find out what I will offer. If, of course, I have any desire to make an offer. I have a quite satisfactory mistress at the moment—I doubt she’d care to be replaced.”

  A whoosh of breath escaped the baron’s mouth, color drained from his cheeks. Clearly, he understood there was no chance of trapping his quarry into marriage. Gabe could almost see his thoughts of generous marriage settlements fading into nothing. To his credit, the baron drew himself up and once again demanded his daughter’s whereabouts, adding in quieter tones, “Even if you scorn her, Ashford, and even though I may have used her ill, she is my daughter. I have a right to know where she is.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Demme, Ashford!” Pierrepont paused, shoulders slumping, the fire fading from his eyes. “Since my wife died,” he muttered, “I’ve gone mad. I was never a good man, I admit, but she kept me sane, kept me from excess. Or at least she tried. And for her sake, I must become a proper father again. So tell me, Ashford, what have you done with my girl?”

  “So you say in mid-afternoon of a sunny spring day, but what will you say at night after a few drinks with your gaming friends?” The baron flinched and dropped his eyes. “Just so. All I can tell you is that I delivered Miss Pierrepont to a place of safety. A place where she will not be stripped naked for your friends’ entertainment. Where her virginity will not be auctioned off—” Gabe swallowed his words, realizing he wasn’t all that certain about the truth of that last statement. “Where,” he emphasized, “she will be allowed to choose her direction in life.”

  “A virgin is a valuable commodity,” Pierrepont returned, steely eyed.

  Silence stretched between them as Gabe weighed the import of the baron’s words. He should have known Pierrepont’s excuses were all for show. It all came down to money. “Five thousand,” Viscount Ashford offered. “Five thousand and you forget you ever had a daughter.”

  The baron’s eyes reflected a sudden gleam of hope. “You’ll marry her?”

  “No. The five thousand merely buys her freedom, with no further obligation from me.” How fortunate his uncle, the nabob, had left him his fortune. Otherwise, the heir to the Earl of Wythorne would find it difficult to put his hands on such an exorbitant amount. “Well?”

  “Done.” Though the Baron Pierrepont was still grumbling under his breath when he left Gabe’s residence, a draft for five thousand pounds tucked into an inside jacket pocket.

  “What do you call yourself?” The challenge came from a dark-haired beauty sitting on the edge of Arabella’s bed when she returned from her interview with Lady Rivenhall. An even greater beauty, though garbed as drably as her companion, was draped over the scroll-back chaise longue which took up one corner of the room. Both girls wore the same dark blue gown
with white lace collars and cuffs as Arabella had been offered that morning. An Academy uniform?

  “La–Arabella. Arabella Pierrepont.”

  “La-di-da!” mocked the girl stretched out on the chaise longue, her golden brown hair falling in waves over her shoulders. “That is not what Holly asked. What will you call yourself now you’ve joined the ranks of the fashionably impure?”

  “Oh.” Unable to voice another word, Arabella could only stare at the two invaders of her privacy, fearing her breakfast might make an unwelcome return at any moment.

  “It’s simple, you see,” said the girl on the bed, whose straight dark brown hair was tied back into a tail so long it dangled on the coverlet. “We put our past behind us when we come to The Aphrodite Academy.”

  “Something like crossing the River Styx,” interjected the girl on the scroll-back chaise. “Or perhaps gladiators entering the Coliseum,” she mused. “We not only put our lives behind us, we prepare for the grand conflict which awaits.” Her hand cut a flourish through the air.

  “Dub your mummer, Cecy. You’re near as hoity-toity as her.”

  “She.”

  “Wha-at?”

  “The correct term is ‘as she,’” Cecy returned with sniff. “You’re supposed to be learning proper English, if you will recall.”

  Holly rolled her eyes and turned back to Arabella. “Cat got your tongue, don’t it?”

  “Doesn’t it.” The correction echoed in long-suffering accents from the chaise, as Arabella’s gaze moved back and forth between the two whose banter seemed to be escalating into war.

  Holly’s eyes narrowed, her body tensed as if ready to spring from the bed and charge her companion, who further aggravated the contretemps by looking smug.