Once Upon a Courtesan (The Comerford Courtesans #1)

Prologue

A rabella Comerford didn’t know everything at seventeen, but she knew one thing: she didn’t want to marry.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She didn’t hate the idea of marriage. She understood there were benefits, such as a sense of security and getting to participate in the very naughty things she’d found out about in book stolen from her father’s private library. The ones that made her achy and hot.

But she didn’t want to marry the way her father wished her to do.

He’d been on the hunt for her husband since she was sixteen, parading her in front of old men of a certain rank and monetary situation, talking about her like she was a horse at market.

Once, when she’d left the room for a moment, she’d overheard one of the men having a conversation with him about her maidenhead being intact.

How much the potential suitor looked forward to having it.

And her father had encouraged such talk, so long as it got him what he wanted: increased position and access.

He hadn’t forced her hand yet. To marry her off at sixteen would be looked upon with arched brows and whispers.

No, he had to bide his time, and so she did so, as well.

What she’d do, she had no idea, but the desperation to save herself and her two younger sisters was only just beginning to burn the edges.

Ever more so since her seventeenth birthday when her father had packed her up and hauled her off to London.

Arabella loved London with all its loudness and boldness and brightness.

She loved catching glimpses of things she wasn’t allowed to see as a gentleman’s daughter, real slices of the lives being led behind closed doors.

She wanted to throw those doors open and look inside.

She wanted to spin and dance and laugh too loudly and truly experience the world around her.

Her father would never allow it, of course.

She was honestly surprised that he had agreed to the trip they were currently on to Vauxhall Garden with her aunt, Caroline Ashfield.

Her aunt was her father’s younger sister, who had also been married off many years ago.

Luckily for her, her husband was now dead and she was free.

“You are distracted,” Aunt Caroline said as she leaned over to take her arm while they filtered toward the front gate of the garden, metal tickets in hand. “I thought you’d been waiting for ages to finally see the garden.”

Arabella jolted from her worries. “I have been. And oh, I can hear the music and I am excited. I just…”

“Can’t stop thinking about this afternoon?”

Arabella nodded. “How can he be serious about lining up gentlemen for me to pick from already? About buying wedding trousseaus? I haven’t even had a Season.

I’ve never even been able to attend a dance, never been able to mingle amongst friends and young men and feel the rush of the chase.

Ugh, he’ll have me in the bed of one of those ogres before the year is out and my life will be over. ”

Her aunt flinched, probably at her blunt assessment, but she didn’t correct Arabella. “I am sorry, my dear. I’ve tried to discuss this with him. I’ve tried to convince him to turn his course, but he has little respect for women as a whole and even less for me.”

“I know.” Arabella squeezed her aunt’s arm gently. “I appreciate you trying.”

“There is one benefit to being forced to marry an old man,” Caroline said after a pause.

“He can barely perform his husbandly duties so you don’t have to bear his pawing for long?” Arabella asked.

Caroline’s eyes went wide. “Goodness, you should be careful what you say.”

Arabella shifted, heat flooding her cheeks, and looked around to see if anyone had heard her.

Those in the line shuffling toward the entrance all seemed too tangled up in their own conversations and excitements to be listening to her and her father was bellowing to some person a few people farther up in line.

A man his age, of course. And occasionally they looked at her like she was something on sale in a shop window.

She supposed that was an apt comparison. Still, she lowered her voice when she spoke to her aunt again. “Then what is the benefit?”

“They die when you’re still young enough to have a future.” Caroline stared off into the distance a moment, but there was no mistaking her sadness.

“I’m glad you still have a future,” Arabella said softly.

“I wish I could see mine, control mine on any level. Even tonight, when I should be thrilling at every bright beauty of the garden, I know my father will be watching me. Judging me. Trotting me out to any man with the right rank and pocketbook.”

“Hmmm. Yes. Well, I am your chaperone tonight,” Caroline said. “And he can be distracted. Perhaps you’ll be separated from our party. Briefly, of course. Safely . And you’ll get a moment to truly enjoy yourself where you don’t feel him breathing down your neck.”

Arabella’s lips parted. “You…you would allow that?”

“ I could do nothing about the crowd, Albert ,” her aunt said, using Arabella’s father’s first name while she blinked in what was very believable false innocence.

“ The poor girl must be terrified to be lost from us. But give it a moment and I’m certain she’ll reappear. How far could she have gone ?”

“And when I return I will be terrified,” Arabella mused. “ Oh, Father, I’m so sorry. A horrid man …oh, a juggler. He hates jugglers. A horrid juggler stepped in my path and by the time I got around him you were both out of my sight. Then I’ll sniffle and you’ll comfort me…”

Caroline nodded as their tickets were examined by brightly liveried servants and then they stepped through the gates.

Arabella’s breath caught as she forgot their wicked little plan and really looked around her.

She had been obsessed with Vauxhall Garden for years, reading everything ever written about it and its entertainments in any paper or book she could get her hands on.

It had the wide, stone-lined paths and tall trees and well-manicured bushes and flower displays of a regular public park.

But it was far more than that. Vauxhall Garden was a spectacle.

There were lanterns strung along the path in dazzling closeness so that it was almost as bright as day even though the sun had gone down over an hour before.

There was music playing from the large, open concert hall in the middle of the garden and a woman sang opera with a clear, perfect tone above the murmurs of the crowd.

Everyone was in their finest, with royalty mingling with even the lowliest patron.

There was laughter, occasional gasps of excitement at the presentation of a scantily clad tightrope walker making her way across wires that were stretched over one segment of the crowd.

Later there would be fireworks, a fine display that Arabella had heard told could shake a person down to their bones.

It was all a singular delight and her worries faded a fraction.

In that moment, of course, her father reached for her, tugging her forward and away from Caroline. “Stop gaping up, you silly girl.”

Arabella’s natural reaction was to snap back at him.

She did that at home plenty, a way to draw his ire to her so it wouldn’t fall on her younger sisters, Evelina and Julia.

But tonight she didn’t want him to find a way to punish her.

To drag her off from all the joy and pleasure she wanted to savor in this magical fairyland that was all she had ever hoped for.

“I apologize, Papa,” she said, all sweetness and light. “I’m simply washed away by all the magic.”

“Magic,” he snorted. “Foolhardy waste of time and money, I say. If it weren’t one of the places for a woman of your position to be seen, I wouldn’t have bothered to make the expense.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said, sending her aunt a small look. Caroline dashed her gaze away. It seemed that even as a widowed and self-sufficient woman, she didn’t dare go against her brother. Perhaps stand up to any man with more power. That was the way of the world, after all.

“Now later I’ll introduce you to a few gentlemen.

I saw more than one eyeing you while we were in the line.

You’ll do well to impress them tonight. You’ll want to have choices, I think, or you might not like where you end up.

I have other daughters, so if you fail I’ll have to put my efforts to Evelina.

She may not be yet sixteen, but arrangements can still be made. ”

Arabella’s stomach turned, but she was saved from having to act sweet and obedient because her aunt did step up then, catching her father’s arm, drawing him away to point at something in the distance. As she did so, she shot Arabella a hard look.

It was time, it seemed, despite the fact they had barely arrived in the garden. Caroline clearly didn’t think she’d be allowed another chance to be free, to enjoy herself…perhaps ever.

And with that thick, cold fact choking her, she turned away and slipped into the milling crowd, away from her family and her father’s cruel intentions.

For a few moments as she walked, all she could do was mull his wretched plans and the destruction that would follow in their wake.

All she could do was mourn what she would lose and fear for the sisters she would no longer be able to protect.

But then she shook those thoughts away. She was not going to have much time. She wanted to use it well. So she shoved her shoulders back, drew a shaky breath and slowly picked her way through the crowd, eyes turned up to all the sights and sounds.