Belle Page 4

  “Oh very well, I suppose we must take pity on you,” Cecy said to Arabella. “At least you look like someone who knows how to speak the King’s English. What Miss Elsie Ragsdale—once an innkeeper’s daughter in Kent and now known as Holly Hammond—means is that the Dragon Lady expects us to take new names. Partly in an effort to distance ourselves from our pasts, for I suspect you are as unwilling to be found by your relatives as I am. And partly because we are expected to choose names that enhance our . . .shall we say, sensual appeal.”

  Arabella gulped, her eyes widened. “And partly,” Cecy continued inexorably, “because a new name helps us become the new person we are expected to be. Arabella Pierrepont fades into obscurity, to be heard from no more, and, voilà, in a few short months, a courtesan of the first stare emerges from The Aphrodite Academy.”

  Arabella winced. She had chosen her fate and must learn to live with it. These must be the other two students currently attending Lady Rivenhall’s academy. Of necessity, she must find a way to make them friends, not enemies. “May I ask what name you chose?” she said to the girl reclining on the chaise longue.

  A silvery laugh echoed through the room. Oh my, but the girl would surely dazzle the gentlemen with that alone. Indeed, everything about her proclaimed she had found her destined profession. “First,” the better-spoken of Arabella’s visitors declared, “let me tell you the name I endured for nineteen years before I realized I must be a changeling, brought by mistake into a pious family of Methodists, my father a preacher, no less. My name was—can you believe?—Chastity Singletary? Both words anathema to me, I assure you. I ran off from that gray, joyless household with the first man who would have me. And fortunately for me, after some less than scintillating experiences on my own, Lady R—we call her that, you should know—remembered me from a chance encounter and offered me a place at the Academy.”

  “But why?” Arabella blurted out. “You had already found—”

  “Three men in eighteen months. Making me more of a whore than a courtesan. I wished for better.” Chin high, green eyes gleaming, she glared, defying Arabella to judge her. “I am now Cecilia Lilly and proud of it. And I intend to be much, much more.”

  “I see,” Arabella murmured. “A new name seems a sensible plan. I will put some thought into it.”

  “Later,” Holly offered, “we get to choose grand dresses, but for now the Dragon Lady makes us wear these.” She fluffed the folds of her skirt, her nose turned up in disgust. “She says that when we learn how to attract men while wearing gowns like this, we will be ready to graduate!”

  “Though how we are to attract men when none are allowed inside the gate, I cannot imagine,” Cecy declared with considerable feeling.

  Arabella, realizing she was still standing while her guests lounged, seated herself on the delicately carved chair at her dressing table. She opened her mouth to ask questions about the academy and suddenly reality intruded its ugly head. She was now living at something called The Aphrodite Academy. She was sitting in her bedchamber, talking with two young women who had undoubtedly lost their virginity long since, at least one with a ready will. Never, in spite of all her Papa’s proclivities, had she been allowed to talk to such women. Now . . . now they were her only friends.

  No, not even that yet. But she would have to try to bring them round. The three of them needed each other, for it would seem The Aphrodite Academy was a very strange place.

  To hide her mix of amusement and growing sympathy, Arabella studied the pattern in the Aubusson carpet in the sunny morning room Lady Rivenhall had set aside for classes. Elsie Ragsdale, the innkeeper’s daughter now known as Holly Hammond, was struggling with the art of conversation, particularly conversation in the language of the ton. Miss Cecilia Lilly also had occasional difficulty, having fallen so low that the language learned at the vicarage had acquired a number of unwholesome additions. It was disconcerting, Arabella admitted, to be constantly held up as a glowing example of a proper young lady. But, compared to Holly and Cecy . . .

  “Miss Pierrepont!”

  Thank goodness Lady Rivenhall had not revealed her title! “I beg pardon, my lady.” Chagrined by her lack of attention, Arabella focused on their mentor.

  “I asked if you had decided on a name for your new life?”

  “Belle, my lady,” she returned. “And perhaps Ballard. I know not why, the name simply came to me. Do you think it too euphonious?”

  “Belle Ballard.” Lady Rivenhall rolled the name on her tongue. “Belle Ballard. Miss Hammond and Miss Lilly, what are your opinions?”

  “Right fine,” Holly declared. “Did the same m’self, though I don’t know nuthin’ about yuffy-whatever.”

  Lady Rivenhall frowned. “Holly, we have made a considerable effort to teach you proper English, and you have just destroyed all our progress in two seconds. Use your ears, girl, or you will be nothing but a tavern wench for the rest of your life.”

  Holly ducked her head. “Yes, my lady. I’ll try harder, really I will.”

  “I think Belle Ballard will do nicely,” Cecy declared. “But she and I already speak proper English, and I, for one, am chafing for lessons of more interest.”

  Lady Rivenhall gave her the look Arabella was already beginning to recognize. Amber eyes wide, questioning and slightly reproachful. “I have planned a visit to the British Museum two days from now. And to Somerset House to view the paintings. Is that what you had in mind, Miss Lilly?”

  Cecy hid a pained expression behind fingers to her forehead.

  “Astley’s would be a treat, my lady,” Holly interjected. “I been there once and it was grand!”

  Belle could almost swear Lady Rivenhall’s stylishly arranged bronze locks suddenly shot flames into the room. Probably the sun glinting through the window behind her, but Holly, poor girl, definitely needed to make a greater effort to speak like a lady.

  “We are not going to London for a treat, Miss Hammond,” Lady Rivenhall returned in a tone that sent shivers up Arabella’s spine. “We are going to view great art so you may be better able to converse with gentlemen of the highest rank, gentlemen who are graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, who made the Grand Tour before Bonaparte made such travels impossible. Men who grew up with works of art by the great masters hanging on the walls of their homes. Men who can read Latin and Greek, quote Shakespeare—”

  “Beggin’ your pardon, my lady, but you know all they want from us is a slap and tickle. As long as they got a place to poke it, they’re happy.”

  A chorus of groans echoed through the room, Arabella’s among them. She sympathized with Holly, truly she did, but she understood what Lady Rivenhall was attempting to do. And the difference between being a whore, always moving from man to man, and a courtesan who might stay with one man for a decade or more was the ability to be something more than a bed partner, including speaking the King’s English.”

  “But you said we were to have other lessons,” Cecy persisted. “Something more lively than statues and such, even if a great many Greeks seem to have had an aversion to clothing.”

  Lady Rivenhall folded her hands in front of her. Looking down her nose at her three pupils, she declared, “I had hoped to see you well versed in language, history, and the arts before we moved on to more–ah–delicate topics.”

  “Won’t work,” Holly declared, shaking her head. “I need . . . in–in—”

  “Incentive,” Arabella supplied.

  “That’s it. Incentive. If’n I can—” She broke off, tried again. “If I can have,” she repeated, enunciating each syllable with care, “a bit of fun while I’m trying to get my tongue around them high-falutin’ words, I’ll learn a lot faster. I promise you I will.”

  “She has a point, my lady,” Cecy added. “We’re accustomed to considerably more action than you’ve offered us so far.”

  Lady Rivenhall sat quite still, obviously considering the significance of the morning’s mini rebellion. At last she said, “I was under the impress
ion you wished to be rescued from the life you were caught up in, leaping from man to man to man, with no regard for respect or for your futures.”

  “Yes, my lady,” the girls chorused, instantly contrite.

  “You wish to rise to the level of courtesans, women who are kept in luxury, treasured by their lovers, lavished with gifts that will keep them in comfort when their beauty is gone.”

  The girls nodded in solemn unison.

  To their astonishment, Lady Rivenhall’s lips twitched, a smile flitted across her face. “I should have anticipated the problem,” she admitted. “How could I expect young women suited to the role of courtesan to be content with schooling in the mundane when hot blood demands something more exotic.”

  Arabella recoiled. Hot blood? Cecy and Holly perhaps, but Arabella Pierrepont—even Belle Ballard—had blood as cold as ice, her lessons at Pierrepont House having taught her well. To support herself, she would absorb every lesson Lady Rivenhall could teach. She would turn a seductive face to the men of the ton. But hot blood? Enjoy it?

  Never.

  Chapter 5

  Grim-faced and weary, Lady Juliana made the long walk back to her private suite of rooms. Light from the lingering June sun glinted off ancient glass, casting intermittent rainbows in her path. Geoffrey’s ancestors peered down from the walls as she passed through the gallery, and, as always, she wondered if they were rolling in their graves over her current use of Thornhill Manor. Perhaps a Tudor dagger would come to life, striking her down . . .

  She stopped abruptly. Turning her back on generations of Rivenhalls, Juliana looked out through leaded panes of glass, across stone terraces, colorful gardens at the height of their bloom, and well-scythed lawn all the way to the river. She drew the beauty into her soul, thoughts of Cecilia’s tantrum in cooking class—Courtesans don’t cook any more than ladies cook!—and her continuing failure to get Holly to speak the King’s English fading into vague misdemeanors to be confronted at another time.

  All this—house and grounds—was hers. And enough more that she could afford to float barges of money down the Thames and out to sea and still live extravagantly for the rest of her days. And what was she doing? Training courtesans. No! She was rescuing promising young women with nowhere else to go. Her goal was to make companions, wives, and mothers of women who, otherwise, would have no choice but a life of degradation. But if the obscurity of respectability held no appeal, if a girl chose to stay in London, if she chose a life of brilliance, power, and sexual license, then Juliana Rivenhall would see that young woman became the finest and most skilled courtesan available, the cream of the crop.

  And for that she had Geoffrey to thank. Geoffrey who had taken a naive young girl from Kent and shown her a world most young ladies never even dreamed of. A world whose fringes had damaged poor Arabella, though hopefully not beyond repair. Pierrepont, however . . . Juliana could only hope the debauched dastard ended up as ruined as his daughter’s reputation.

  The sun’s rays glinted off the distant river, highlighted the colors in the garden, and added an iridescent glow to fountain’s spray. Do you approve, Geoff? Do you mind what I’ve done?

  Almost, she thought she heard him chuckle. Why, when I’ve shown you nearly every form of sexual congress known to mankind, should I object to your teaching others?

  Whimsy, pure whimsy, though she’d swear that was Geoff’s voice echoing through her head. Nonetheless— Juliana’s lips curled into a smile—she was quite sure he’d be pleased. If Geoff had not trusted her to make the right decisions, he never would have left her one of the greatest fortunes in England.

  With a brisk, almost jaunty step, Juliana continued her walk to her suite of rooms in a recently remodeled wing of the old manor house. Inside her private apartments—solitude, peace. Too much time to think, a lonely bed. Yes, that too. But she owed Geoffrey, did she not? Even though she’d had no difficulty reading between the lines in that last section in his will. He had been telling her not to mourn, to follow the path that was becoming clear even before his untimely end. The path she had shunned, retreating into herself, relegating Geoff’s teachings to the theoretical, the academic—lessons for the Academy’s students. But no longer part of the life of Juliana, Lady Rivenhall.

  A soft sigh for lost love, lost delights, and she opened the door into her new apartments. Where she found Darius Wolfe, hands behind his head, stretched out full length on her blue and green brocade sofa.

  “It’s about time!” Holly declared.

  “Oh!” Belle gasped.

  “Don’t be such a goose,” Cecy snapped. “If you never saw a man starkers before, you wouldn’t be here.”

  Belle winced. Should she tell them “ruined” did not necessarily mean she had seen a naked man or lost her maidenhead? No. Very likely her new friends would turn their backs on her. A virgin in courtesan school? Heaven forfend!

  “I–I’ve never watched before,” Belle told her new friends. “It’s different than–ah–doing it.”

  “Would you look at that?” Holly said. “He ain’t even touched her and he’s stiff as a pole.”

  Belle gulped, feeling a flush blossoming to purple proportions. She had occasionally seen men at her papa’s drunken gaming sessions stagger to the cupboard where the chamber pot was kept, but she had always averted her eyes. Well, almost always, but what she had caught a glimpse of a time or two was nothing, absolutely nothing, like the appendage jutting out from the man in the room below.

  The three girls were seated on a balcony, rather like a minstrel’s gallery above a medieval hall. And perhaps the room below had once been exactly that, for it was large, though much of its furnishings were hidden by large sheets of cloth. Directly below them, however, was a vast bed with no posters, no draperies. Just black satin sheets, lit by the power of six tall candelabra, arranged to illuminate every action of the encounter about to be enacted.

  “Of course, silly,” Cecy said to Holly. “You don’t think the Dragon Lady is going to hire a man who can’t get it up.”

  Belle firmed her lips together, ducked her head toward her lap.

  A sigh from Holly. “You won’t never make courtesan if you don’t pay attention, girl. Jus’ lying there and thinking of England is for wives, not us. You better take a good look, else you’ll find yourself on the street with the hoors.”

  “Gawd, she’s blushing, Cecy cried. “Do you think they have blushing classes for ladies?”

  “That’s enough!” Belle ground out through clenched teeth.

  “Hush! You’re missing it!” Holly hissed.

  Belle let out a small huff of relief. The girls weren’t looking at her any more. They were, in fact, so focused on the scene below that she could look anywhere she wanted to and no one would notice. But . . . truthfully, she had to admit Holly was right. What kind of a courtesan would she be if she had no idea what she was doing? From all she’d heard, there must be joy somewhere in the sexual ritual, even though she had experienced only the bad. And although she planned to use men only to assure she lived well and accumulated enough wealth for a comfortable retirement—to fulfill her goals, she was going to have to look.

  The girl who used to be Arabella Pierrepont raised her head enough to look down at the room below, where the female—an attractive woman in her twenties, with a long fall of brown hair—appeared to be enraptured as the male stood behind her, lips touching her ear, playing his hands over her shoulders, lingering over her breasts, insinuating their way down her belly, farther, farther, feathering their way inside her thighs.

  One of her friends moaned—Holly, Bella thought.

  And then, suddenly the two lovers switched places, the male stepping in front of the woman, while her fingers played over him as he had to her. By the time she took the engorged length of him in her hands, stroking, kissing—Oh, dear God, she was kissing the sack that hung below. Was that what bollocks were?—Belle’s body was clenching in places she didn’t know existed. Embarrassment, that’s all i
t was. Sheer embarrassment.

  “Oh!” Cecy exclaimed, clearly horrified. “No way a courtesan would do that, I don’t believe it.”

  “Frenchie stuff,” Holly agreed. “Lady R’s gone mad if she thinks we’re gonna do that.”

  Belle scarcely heard the girls’ comments as the female below seemed to swallow the male’s extended part, her lips replacing the massage of her fingers. Belle blinked, her hand covering her mouth as she gazed at the demonstration. The live, so very real demonstration. What she was feeling must be horror. And yet . . .

  “Look at his face,” commanded a voice from behind them. Sharp gasps of shock from all three girls at their mentor’s sudden appearance. “Would you say he is being properly pleasured?”

  Utterly mortified, Belle nodded, Cecy and Holly as well. All three girls fixed their gaze on the man below as sweat sheened his skin, as his legs trembled, his body jerked, and a howl of fulfillment rang through the room.

  “Come with me,” Lady Rivenhall said, “and I will explain why I began the more intimate aspects of your instruction with such a shocking display.”

  Belle sat, straight-backed, at the small wooden desk in the room where students at the Aphrodite Academy learned history, the intricacies of government, and practiced balancing household accounts. And where Lady Juliana was about to discourse on the subject of a female devouring that shocking part of a man’s anatomy. The irony did not escape her. Though Belle could still feel the scarlet stain on her cheeks, her brain was returning to its customary sharpness. Their mentor had deliberately chosen this mundane room to counteract the voluptuousness of what they had just seen.

  Lady Rivenhall remained standing, assuming a stance in front of the desk usually occupied by one of their teachers. “Miss Lilly, Miss Hammond,” she pronounced, “I see ‘Not I, never ever’ hurtling at me from defiant eyes. But, Miss Ballard, in your eyes I see nothing at all. Why is that, I wonder?”