Chapter 1 #2
“Someone who will appreciate your wild,” Evelina said quietly.
For a moment, Arabella was struck silent by the sting of her sister’s words.
What she and her sisters called her “wild” was a topic of great contention amongst the men who had bedded and kept her over the years.
Almost as much contention as it had been with her father, though she had far more power in those relationships than she ever had in the one with him.
“They all appreciate my wild until they have it,” Arabella said. “Then it becomes about who can stifle it. Bridle it and keep it just between the sheets. Until they realize I won’t give it away and it all ends.” She shrugged. “ C’est la vie .”
“Oh, Arabella,” Julia breathed softly.
Arabella caught her sister’s hands and spun her around in the circle with a laugh. “Don’t you take that tone with me, Miss Comerford! I am not pitiable and I shall not be pitied.”
Julia giggled as they came to a stop and she rebalanced herself. “Of course not.”
“Oh look, here comes Simone,” Evelina said, waving off toward the crowd.
Arabella looked in the direction that she indicated and her smile widened as her old friend and mentor started across the room toward them.
She was wearing a gorgeous dark blue silk that brought out the absolute perfection of her skin.
Arabella could only hope she would age so well and still be so sought after at the long end of her thirties.
“Simone,” she said, and hugged her friend. Her sisters did the same and then stepped away to talk with another friend and give the two of them privacy. They were all close to Simone, but her sisters knew that Arabella and Simone were the closest. “My God, you are a vision. I’m desperately jealous.”
Simone barked out a burst of laughter and linked arms with her. For a moment they looked out over the group of courtesans.
“We might need to offer a little assistance to Beatrice Holms,” Simone said. “She’s not had much luck with her choice of protectors and her last didn’t settle her well.”
“Oh, poor Bea, she’s so new,” Arabella said with a sigh. “Yes, I’ll be on the lookout for her.”
“What about yourself?” Simone asked, repeating the question Arabella’s sisters had just posted, but with far more experience behind the words. “Who will you pick, do you think?”
“Oh, it’s early days yet,” Arabella said with a knowing smile. “I’m not allowing anyone near.”
Unlike her sisters, who had seemed troubled by the answer, Simone nodded knowingly. “Ah, so you let them work themselves into a froth for you. Fight over the honor of your attention. You increase your value.”
“I learned from the best,” Arabella said.
“Hmmm,” Simone replied. “That’s a lovely compliment, but I think you’ve surpassed me in your reputation and accomplishments in these last five years. You are the ultimate courtesan and one we all strive to emulate.”
“You shall make me blush,” Arabella said with a shake of her head. “I didn’t think I still knew how to do that.”
Simone laughed and then squeezed Arabella’s arm gently. “I do have some information for you that might just change your thought process on your next lover.”
Arabella’s eyebrows lifted. “Really? And what is that?”
“Silas is back.”
It felt as though the room around Arabella faded into a blur, the music stopping, the buzz of the women dissipating into the wind. There was nothing but her and Simone then, and the name that hung between them.
“Silas Windham?” she managed to choke out.
Simone nodded. “The very one.”
Simone was watching her closely now. But of course she would.
Silas and that night at the Vauxhall Gardens had brought Arabella to her and to this life.
She’d never made her desire for him a secret over the years because she had decided never to make what she wanted a secret ever again.
She pursued her passions, whether it be men, the occasional woman, orgasms or the finest silk for a gown.
“Back from America,” Arabella mused.
“Yes, I saw him at the Donville Masquerade two nights ago.”
“Oh,” Arabella said slowly. “Does that mean he’s yours?”
“Mine?” Simone cackled. “My dear, he was never mine. That moment in the garden altered your life, I know, but it was, as I’ve told you many times over the years, nothing but a bit of fun for me. Silas has never belonged to anyone, I don’t think.”
There was far too much pleasure in the idea that the man was fair game. Arabella had to fight for breath as she murmured, “Hmmmm.”
“So he’s yours to claim if you’d like him.”
She tossed a lock of hair off her shoulder with a shrug that was far more nonchalant than she actually felt. “We shall see. Who even knows what kind of man he’d be after his long disappearance? What brought him back anyway?”
A little shadow crossed Simone’s expression, but then she shrugged. “I have my theories, but he didn’t say. Silas has always blown by his own wind. Rather like someone else I know.”
“Sounds like it could be explosive,” Arabella said.
“I fear it might be. But I may see him at Vivien’s party tomorrow. Are you going?”
“No. My aunt is having us over for our monthly supper at her home.”
“Oh, sweetest Caroline. Give her my regards,” Simone said.
Arabella laughed, for her proper aunt had only encountered Simone once, but any mention of the courtesan always made her blush.
“And should I make an overture to Silas on your behalf?” Simone continued. “Set the groundwork for you?”
A shiver worked through Arabella at that thought and yet she still shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I suppose.”
“Then I shall. And now I must go. Harding is expecting me soon and one mustn’t disappoint.”
“Goodbye, dearest,” Arabella said, kissing her cheek. Her sisters floated toward Simone, as well, saying their goodbyes, too.
But as Arabella stood there, still watching the room but no longer seeing it, she couldn’t deny the thrill that worked through her body and soul. The man she had dreamed of, obsessed over, fantasized about as back. And she was going to make him hers.
There was already no doubt about it.