Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The woman stopped struggling, and for the first time, Alexander was able to look at her properly.
He was utterly transfixed. Golden blonde hair falling in soaking wet waves down her neck, her large blue eyes gazed at him, defiance and fear mingled in their huge irises. There was strength in her steady gaze, but a vulnerability too.
His hands were on her arms, and he was suddenly conscious of her damp and heaving chest, rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath. Her gown, a green or blue he could not tell, clung to her body as she shook slightly with cold.
Teresa Metcalfe was stunningly attractive, and Alexander hardly knew what to do with himself as her last words echoed in his mind. “I am a courtesan, you fool!”
“A – a what?” He said stupidly.
She was barely moving, and yet he could feel the resentment in her, and he dropped her arms as though they had burned him.
“A courtesan, a lady of the night, whatever you want to call it,” she said with a curling smile. “And I can tell by your shocked expression, my lord, that you have little to no experience of such matters.”
Alexander flushed; he could not help himself. Two hours ago he had been at Almacks, waiting for a girl who he had felt attracted to, one of the most eligible young ladies of society. Now he was standing in a back alley of London, arguing with a courtesan.
“May I suggest that you keep it that way,” said Teresa in a low voice. “I would not want your wife to be disappointed.”
Alexander laughed darkly. “I have no wife to speak of, nor intended, nor mother actually, if it comes to that. I would not worry on their accounts.”
His gaze raked over her. There could almost be no difference in age between them, and yet what different lives they had led; he, the son of a Duke, now a Duke himself.
She, a woman who offered men the pleasures of her body – and the more that he looked at her, the more conscious he became that those pleasures were likely to be very delightful indeed.
He shook his head. That was no way to think of her, not a path that he was going to go down. Becoming transfixed by a pretty face, perhaps. But considering taking her into his arms, his bed –
“I did not know,” he said stupidly, and cursed his tongue for once again stating the obvious.
She laughed. It was a pretty laugh, but there was an edge to it.
“My dear Duke, do you think that we all wear signs around our necks with a price list? Goodness, I should have known you for a prude the moment that I saw you, you have never known of such things and far be it for me to enlighten you.”
Alexander stared at her, and then shook his head once more. “There is much bitterness in you, is there not, Miss Metcalfe?”
For a second, he thought he saw something; a glimpse into sorrow, or something deeper, in those blue eyes. But then it was gone.
“Life has dealt me a hand, and now I must play it,” she said briskly. “And as I said before, I actually have an appointment with a young gentleman who shall, between us, remain nameless. If you will excuse me.”
Teresa Metcalfe, woman of the night, started to walk slowly back down the alleyway.
Alexander stared after her; even from a short distance, soaked to the skin and in the dead of night, there was no denying that she was an incredibly attractive woman.
There was something about the way that she walked, perhaps, or the curve of her gown – though, and he smiled to himself, perhaps if every woman strode the streets of London in damp and clinging gowns, there would be riots in the street.
He bit his lip. If he had met her at a dance hall, been introduced by mutual acquaintances over a cup of tea, or come across her at a music recital, he would have liked to get to know Miss Metcalfe better.
A great deal better, whispered his darker self. With far fewer clothes on.
Alexander started walking, hardly knowing why, after her. She represented everything that he despised: a bad reputation, sensual depravity, the dregs of society. And yet he could not keep his eyes from her.
“Wait,” he called softly, and was astonished to find that she did. There was a tightening in his body as he gazed at her, as those eyes turned to him, as she twisted and the silk fabric, barely covering her as it was, tighten across her hips.
“What do you want, Caershire?” She sighed.
Alexander raised an eyebrow as he reached her in five long strides. “I would not have expected you to address me correctly. Most people call me Duke, or Alexander.”
It had been a pet peeve of his father’s and to his shame, it was one he had inherited.
Teresa smiled, and yet the smile did not reach her brilliant eyes. “It will, perhaps, surprise you to hear that I know many of your ilk. I am not just your run of the hill courtesan, you understand. Oh, no. Most of my . . . friends are from your strata of society, my lord.”
Alexander blinked. “My – my strata?”
She nodded. “Dukes, earls, lords of all descriptions. If they have a title, they generally come to me, not one of the street riff raff.”
“But . . .” Alexander found that his voice was trailing off.
Could she possibly mean what he thought she meant?
Could all of the men of the ton who strutted about, disowning anyone whose reputations even had a whisper of scandal, really be indulging in .
. . “Surely not. I think you will find that many men visiting a – well, visiting you will give false names.”
She laughed again, and though it was slightly cruel, Alexander found that he wanted to hear her laugh more.
“And yet I see them in the society pages, Caershire! I am not blind to the men I meet, no; they may take everything else off,” and she licked her lips in a way that made Alexander’s loins stiffen, “but they still leave their signet rings on, and I have become something of a master at reading them from strange angles.”
Alexander stared at her. It was all a lie, a sham, then.
Society had its rules which punished those who got caught, not those who transgressed.
All were liars, all were deceivers, and here he was, desperately trying to keep his reputation as clean as possible, denying himself, denying any sort of pleasure of drink, of cards, of – and here he glanced down at Teresa’s lithe body and clenched his jaw – of women.
But no one else was. Everyone was enjoying the fruit of temptation, but he.
“Yes,” breathed Teresa with a smile. “And now I have ruined a little of your innocence, for which you must excuse me. “After all, you would not want to be seen in my company, would you?”
Alexander baulked, but then thrust out an arm and drew her close to him. “You have no idea,” he whispered in a low voice. “My reputation is already as low as it could be.”
Teresa blinked.
His eyes, dark and deep, were incredibly close. That had always been a rule of hers; nothing too close, nothing too intimate. Nothing that that could start to give a connection, create intimacy.
Anything, in short, just like this. His hand was strong in the small of her back, but it was not harsh. She did not feel in any sort of danger, and yet a thrill flickered down her spine.
“Indeed?” She whispered, trying to break the connection between them but unable to look away. “Now that is something that I would not have guessed at.”
Caershire was breathing deeply now, and as she felt the warmth of him – even through their mutually damp clothes, she tried to think. Caershire, Caershire: hadn’t there been that rumour about him?
Those eyes. There was a spark of fire in them, but there was also kindness.
A sensitivity, deep down there, that she had not immediately spotted.
There was a depth then, to this Duke, that she had not seen.
Perhaps most people didn’t spot it, perhaps everyone walked past Alexander of Caershire without ever quite knowing. Without investigating.
Teresa caught herself just in time. No, she did not have the time to start exploring the unique personality of the Duke of Caershire. She had a job to do, a man to find, one with money, and if she did not hurry soon then he would, undoubtedly, consider looking for someone else.
“Reputation or no,” she said in a whisper. “I simply must go, my lord. Please release me.”
She was not sure what eventually changed his mind.
Perhaps it was the ‘please’, perhaps it was the whisper – a tone carefully crafted by her over the last year, a sort of pleading yet respectful desperation that she used when it seemed as though she was going to lose one of her regular gentlemen.
And every coin mattered, every penny mattered.
Whatever it was, his hand was gone from her waist almost as quickly as it had come, and she staggered a few steps back, so great was the shock of losing the connection.
He was looking at her now; looking at her shrewdly.
“You are unlike other women, are you not?” were his words.
Teresa tried to laugh. “My, I do not know what you mean, sir. How do I compare to the other courtesans that you have run down in alleyways?”
Alexander laughed, a true laugh. “Admittedly, you are the first; and yet you strike me as someone so different from those that I generally meet. A world apart. As though you came from a different planet.”
The kindness in his eyes had not disappeared, and now there was another emotion.
Teresa rolled her eyes. “If you are hoping to ‘rescue’ me, my lord, let me tell you that you are not the first, and are unlikely to be the last. It is a little old, I must say, the ‘I can help you leave this terrible life’ patter, but if you must say it then I must hear it.”
His brow furrowed. “You – you cannot tell me that you like the life that you lead?”
His direct question caused her stomach to twist, and Teresa tried to harden her heart. What was this man doing, trying to weasel his way into her deepest emotions, her darkest secrets?