Chapter 15
S imone Stanhope’s London townhouse had been the first place Arabella had felt safe when she left her family and began on her path to becoming a courtesan.
Simone had allowed her a room and full use of her library of naughty books.
Her education had been first theoretical thanks to the books and then practical as Simone took her out into the world and let her see and experience the expectations Arabella would encounter as a courtesan.
Memories of long talks and spied upon moments flooded her as her carriage entered Simone’s drive on an early afternoon two days after the Cyprian ball. As she exited the vehicle, servants rushed to help her and she smiled at them. They were the same people who had served Simone all those years ago.
Get good servants and keep them happy. She could practically hear that edict in Simone’s voice. It was one she followed religiously. She took care of those in her employ and she trusted them to take care of her…and her secrets.
“Miss Comerford,” Simone’s butler said as he stepped from the house to greet her. “We weren’t expecting you today.”
“Good afternoon, Buttons,” Arabella said with a warm smile for the man.
She had no idea if Buttons was his true last name or if he’d been a pirate at some point and that was his nickname. Honestly, she might believe the second. He had a scar on his cheek, after all, and a rather rakish air for a butler.
“I assume you’ve come to join your aunt and Miss Simone?” he asked as he took her hat and gloves.
Arabella blinked at that unexpected question. “My—my aunt? Er, yes. Of course.”
He led the way to the parlor. Arabella was surprised to find the door shut. He knocked lightly and waited until he heard Simone’s voice, “Yes?”
“Miss Arabella Comerford,” he announced as he cracked the door.
“Oh. Yes. Well, have her come in,” Simone’s voice came from behind the door.
He stepped back and Arabella entered the room.
She found her aunt first. Caroline stood at the window, her hands clasped almost nervously in front of her.
Simone was also on her feet before the settee.
She must have been entertaining her protector before Caroline’s arrival, because Arabella recognized her gown.
Normally it was one she wore at the beginning of a new arrangement.
It was low cut and accentuated Simone’s lush curves.
Something to make them want, she always said.
“Simone,” Arabella said, and crossed so they could kiss each other’s cheeks. Then she turned on her aunt. “And Aunt Caroline. I…I admire I’m shocked to find you here. I didn’t realize you and Simone shared tea.”
Her aunt blinked and reached up to smooth her dark hair before she cast a quick look toward Simone. “I—we don’t. Or we didn’t. Not often at any rate. I just wanted to talk to her about?—”
“Gracious, Caroline, don’t give yourself an apoplexy,” Simone said smoothly.
“Your aunt and I share something in common, our affection for you and your sisters. We bumped into each other at Mr. Mattigan’s bookshop and decided to have tea.
I’m not sure one should say they are shocked to see us together. ”
Arabella wrinkled her brow. That did make sense, of course. It was only that her aunt was always so missish when the topic of Simone ever came up. She’d had such a sheltered life and the idea of the courtesan seemed to make her nervous.
“Well, I’m happy for you two to be friends,” she said carefully. “To have you two both looking out for us is a very powerful idea.”
“Yes,” her aunt said, and seemed to find the ability to move from the window at last. “But it seems you have something to discuss with Simone…with Miss Stanhope, and I think it’s best I not be involved in the details of your arrangements.
I’ll excuse myself.” She glanced toward Simone. “Thank you for—for today.”
“It was my pleasure,” Simone said with a smile. “May I escort you to the door?”
“No, I’m fine. I can find my way. Good afternoon.”
Her aunt scurried off and shut the door behind her. Though muted through the thick wood, Arabella could still hear her voice as she asked for her carriage. She glanced at Simone.
“What did you do to my aunt?” she teased.
Simone shifted. “Nothing at all, I assure you. You know we’ve had a few interactions over the years.”
“You have? I thought it was only the one time.”
Simone shrugged. “You don’t know all her business, you know. Or mine.”
“We delight in teasing her at how red she blushes when your name is said.”
“Does she now?” Simone said with a husky laugh.
“Well, she was raised in a very sheltered way,” Arabella explained. “That she didn’t cut herself off from me, and later from Evelina and Julia, speaks to her loving heart. Still, the facts of our lives are still shocking to her, I’m sure. Was she concerned about something specific?”
“Don’t you worry. I took care of it,” Simone said. Then she motioned to the tea that had been laid at the sideboard. “Would you like a drink? I have this, but also a great many somethings which are stronger.”
Arabella took a seat on the settee. “The tea is fine.”
She watched as her friend prepared her a cup just to her liking.
That was another skill Arabella had learned at Simone’s knee: that a courtesan must always pay attention to the small details.
Being able to prepare a cup of tea just perfectly to a partner’s liking was almost as important as knowing what kind of sex he liked.
How did Silas like his tea? They’d shared tea once, back at the beginning of this seduction, but he’d prepared it for her, not the other way around. Did he recall how she liked it? She had a sneaking suspicion he did, down to the exact amount of milk.
“What are you doing?” Simone asked as she set the cup before Arabella and took a place in one of the chairs across from her.
Arabella blinked. “Doing?”
“I’ve heard the whispers, you know. Actually it’s all louder than whispers now, though not quite shouts. You and Silas.”
Arabella’s first instinct was to play it all off. To act like it meant nothing. But she’d come here to talk to Simone about just this. She couldn’t be a coward now. Even if she tried, she had a sneaking suspicion that her friend would see right through her.
“Well, it’s all supposed to be breezy,” she said carefully. “It’s just meant to be a bit of fun.”
Simone sipped her tea. “But?”
Arabella shifted in her seat and stared at her hands. The words she was about to say came very hard suddenly. Like they were stuck in her throat. She cleared it and forced them loose. “Have you ever…cared about a man?”
“No,” Simone said, but her gaze went faraway. “I’ve cared about a lover, though. You are saying you care about him.”
Tears stung Arabella’s eyes and she blinked them away. “I do. I think I’m falling in love with him.”
There. It was out. The fact that terrified her more than anything was free into the world where it could fly and sting and maybe poison her in the end. And yet saying it didn’t feel painful, it felt glorious, at least for a moment before it became utterly terrifying.
Simone set her cup down and leaned forward in her chair. “Arabella, you’ve been falling in love with him since you first saw him at Vauxhall Gardens. This is not news.”
Arabella let out a shaky sigh and scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “Possibly that’s true. Probably that’s true. He’s just…he’s special. He’s so intense and passionate.”
“You’ve been with passionate men before,” Simone said gently.
“But he’s also bright and he’s…he’s caring.”
“And he’s leaving.”
That was said firmly and Arabella shut her eyes against the weight of it. “I know. I know . And even if he wasn’t, what do I know about sharing myself? About loving someone?”
“You think he wants your love?”
“I know he wants more of me, even if it’s not the love he craves.
He presses me, tries to crack me open. I’ve always run from anyone who did that and I feel that same desire to run with him.
But I also feel this need, this want to—to tell him everything.
To give him everything he ever wanted. Even though I know if he sees me, truly sees me… how will I ever protect myself?”
She waited for Simone to lecture. She deserved a scolding, after all, didn’t she? This idea that she could care for Silas, even love Silas, went against every creed she had agreed to when she became a courtesan. She broke every rule by even thinking about it.
Instead, Simone let out a shaky breath. “Oh, Arabella, I wish I knew the answer to that question. I never taught lessons on love aside from avoiding it because I didn’t know it then.
And right now, looking at you, my gut tells me not to support this.
To tell you to hide yourself away, to break with him as cruelly as possible so that he won’t pursue what could hurt you. ”
“But?”
Arabella was breathless as she awaited the answer. Simone was just as breathless as she gave it. “But I know him and I know you. You two together, truly together…it makes some kind of sense.”
Two sensations rushed through Arabella at that answer.
First was joy, pure and unadulterated joy.
But the second was a terror unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
A full knowledge that she could be torn to shreds by this if she allowed it.
That she could surrender all she’d built around herself and never fully recover.
That she could force Silas to lose his family and the future he pretended he didn’t want.
But she wouldn’t share that fact with Simone.
It was too private and intimate to whisper his secrets and pains to anyone else.
“I came here so you could talk me out of this,” she gasped as she leapt to her feet and paced to the same window where her aunt had stood a few moments before. “Christ, Simone, don’t tell me it makes sense, none of this makes sense!”
Simone was quiet for a moment, long enough that Arabella faced her at last. She found her friend watching her, expression unreadable. “But what do you want to do?”
“Want to do? When did want ever come into it? Need was first, wasn’t it? That was what you taught me. Access what I need, determine how to get it. Want would only get me in trouble.”
“You quote me back to myself so easily,” Simone said, and now she got to her feet, too.
“Because I memorized every line. You are successful because you don’t fall, you don’t even waver. You give exactly the amount that is needed but never an ounce more. You mentored me to make the same choices and I have. I have and I’ve been…happy.”
She faltered in that last word because it felt heavy on her tongue. Like it was a lie.
“Happy,” Simone repeated. “I’m not sure I ever taught you to be that. Just to survive. Happy might take a little more risk than I’ve ever been willing to take.”
“If you haven’t been willing, then how can I?”
“Because you are young, Arabella. And Silas isn’t like anyone else.
He isn’t some duke who pretends to care while he is just getting what he wants.
” Arabella winced because she feared Simone was using Evelina as the example of what not to do.
Worse, she feared Simone was right. “Silas is…singular. So what do you want to do with this emotion in your chest?”
She kept coming back to want and Arabella pushed at it with all her might. She had to focus on need, no matter what Simone said. And need was very clear.
“Perhaps what I must do is…end it.”
Saying that felt like slitting her own throat. She almost couldn’t breathe.
“Oh, Arabella.”
“I should end it, and get a new arrangement and be finished. He’ll go back to America or…or do something else that will be better for him. Make him happy. What was between us will become nothing more than a pleasing memory I’ll recall when I’m trying to orgasm with some fumbling gentleman.”
She expected Simone to laugh at that. She didn’t. Instead she crossed to Arabella and took her hand. “Are you certain?”
“No. Yes. No. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Arabella let out a shaky sigh and let her friend hug her. “So am I. So am I.”