The Courtesan's Daughter Read Free Page A

Richborough?” she asked, running a finger across her collarbone. “Have you done anything particularly amusing?”
    “Not particularly, no,” he answered. “What of you, Lady Caroline? Have you seen the new play at the Theatre Royal?”
    “I’m afraid not,” she said. “Have you?”
    “Yes,” he said, sounding altogether bored and distracted. “It was tolerably good.”
    “I suppose it was very wicked,” she said. “I so long to be exposed to something wicked.”
    There. That got his attention.
    Lord Richborough stopped his rather poorly concealed fidgeting and stared at her. In actual point of fact, he stared hard at her, as if he were unsure of what he had clearly heard her say. Since he was having so much trouble with it, it would only do that she repeat it, or perhaps some even more scandalous version of it.
    “Are you wicked, Lord Richborough? I do hope so,” she said. It seemed to her exactly the sort of remark a courtesan would make.
    Oddly enough, Richborough got a very distracted look again and shifted his weight on his chair. It was a most disappointing response to the clearest invitation she could imagine a woman giving a man. She couldn’t be as unappealing as all that, could she?
    “I am here to call upon Lady Dalby,” he said, still squirming slightly in his seat. “You are aware of that, I presume, Lady Caroline ? ”
    “Of course,” she said. “However, you may not have noticed it, but I live here as well. I only thought that we could … entertain ourselves until my mother has completed her toilette.”
    “Entertain ourselves,” he said softly, staring at her rather more intimately than she was accostumed to. “In precisely what manner? ”
    Oh, bother, he was stupid. Well, what was left but for her to spell it out for him?
    “In the usual manner,” she said. She was quite certain she sounded as experienced as the most accomplished courtesan, even if she did only have the foggiest sense of what she was implying. Certainly Richborough must be counted upon to carry some of the weight of this exchange.
    He responded by coughing into his fist. Most peculiar and not at all what she had hoped for.
    Worse, she was almost completely certain that the footsteps she heard in the foyer were Anne’s, running to fetch Sophia. Now she would have to seduce Richborough all the faster so that the deed was done before her mother arrived. That was going to be a bit tricky as Richborough was most decidedly slow at reading the proper signals. No wonder her mother was so often exhausted; seducing Richborough was turning into one of those impossible tasks constantly referred to in all those boring Greek myths.
    “I am not certain I understand what you mean by ‘usual,’ ” Richborough said, standing up to fuss with his waistcoat.
    “I mean, Lord Richborough,” she said in some annoyance, “that some men might enjoy a few minutes alone with me, but as you are clearly not one of them, I shall leave you to your solitude.”
    She stood up so abruptly that she was not altogether certain she had not ripped a seam in her hem, which seemed to suit the occasion precisely.
    “Excuse me, Lady Caroline,” he said, blocking her in the most subtle manner possible from the closest doorway to the foyer. But he was blocking her, which she considered very nice of him. “I have insulted you in some fashion, which I would never do. I do not prefer solitude to your engaging company. It is only that you are young and I would not see your reputation damaged by a misspoken word, or deed, on my part.”
    Deed? Perhaps he was not so stupid as he first appeared. Certainly he must have some redeeming qualities or her mother would never tolerate him, though, to be honest, her mother did not mind stupid men as long as they were not stupid in showing her the proper appreciation, a position Caro found altogether logical.
    “I am not so innocent, nor so diabolical, Lord Richborough, that I would allow my reputation to be