The King's Courtesan Read Free

Such gifts are wasted on a wife. She’s no need of them to catch a man, provided she has money, and she’s nay al owed to make use of them once she’s married.
    Property she is. Broodmare and slave.”
    Hope was too shocked to speak. It was the longest conversation she’d ever had with this stranger who’d once been her mother, and it was not the awkward declaration of love she’d both dreaded and longed for. She blinked back tears, feeling like the world’s biggest fool. She didn’t keep me safe to protect me, but to add to my value. She wanted to feel contempt and hatred but she couldn’t move past a soul-kil ing pain. I should have known. I should have known.
    Her mother stroked her hair as she spoke, taking no notice of how it made her flinch. Is this how she recruits new girls?
    Stroking and cooing like a beady-eyed pigeon? Is this all I am to her?
    “Now look here, at the pretty dress his lordship has sent you!”
    The dress, with its white satin underskirt and sleeves shot through with silver braid, looked like a wedding dress but for the indecently low-cut bodice. She knew what it meant.
    There would be no prince for her. No choice. No happy ending.
    “Which lord?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

    “Let’s leave that as a surprise for now. It wil add authenticity to the undertaking.” Taking her silence for acceptance, her mother rubbed her hands together and nodded briskly. “Good girl! The anticipation is building, child. We’re to have an auction tonight and you are the prize. There’s naught to fear. You’ve seen enough of what happens here to know that, and only my best gentlemen wil take part. Remember what al the other girls have told you and use it wel . You’l fetch a fine price, my dear. Half to you and half to the house. You’l be off to a grand start in life. No daughter of mine wil be a common whore. You’l be a rich man’s mistress. You’re a lovely girl. Sharp and lively, too.
    You’l climb higher than I ever dreamed or dared.” There must have been something—a flash in her eyes, the stubborn tilt of her chin that hinted at rebel ion—because when her mother left she locked the door behind her and positioned a doorman in the corridor.
    They bathed and perfumed her, and then tamed and combed her unruly hair so it fel like a dark silken river to her waist. They ushered her into a paneled room where her mother and two of her “ladies” sat in attendance, as if she were a bride. There were at least five gentlemen present, though al she could see were their boots. She kept her eyes on the floor, wil ing them al to disappear, imagining if she but closed her eyes and opened them again the day would start anew.

    But it didn’t, and she stood red-faced and mute as they joked and murmured, waiting for the bidding to begin.
    There was no doubt as to the outcome. Sir Charles Edgemont would have her. ’Twas he who’d provided the dress. Nevertheless, her mother knew an auction would raise the price he paid for her “dowry” and had refused to spare her the humiliation when several hundred pounds might be at stake. Two of the ladies stripped her of her bodice and overskirt as the bidding heated up, leaving her tearstained and trembling, standing in her shift.
    Inflamed by the sight of her and determined no other man should see naked what was meant to be his, Edgemont rose and bid two thousand pounds, raising howls of protest from the other gentlemen but effectively quel ing the game.
    She looked at him then, from under her lashes. His hair was dark and close-cropped, interspersed here and there with flecks of grey. His eyes were cold, his face harsh, his jaw square.
    Furious at being duped when he’d expected a private negotiation, but too proud to back out in front of his friends, Sir Charles took her wrist in a cruel grip and jerked her toward the door, stopping before he left to toss a heavy purse on the table. “This wil have to do for now, madam. I had not expected the