Chapter 5
Two Years Later
Simone trudged through her door and smiled as she handed over her wrap to Waring.
She was tired and her feet hurt and the sex with her current protector, the Marquess of Harding, had been milquetoast at best. All she wanted to do was go to her bed and sleep away what was left of the early morning and far into the afternoon.
“It’s very late, Waring,” she said. “Feel free to lock up and go to sleep. I won’t need anything until teatime at least.”
“Yes, Miss Stanhope. Only you had a message delivered while you were out.”
Simone had started out of the foyer, but stopped and turned. “A message? From whom? I think all my acquaintances were at the party with me tonight.”
“Yes, miss.” He handed out a tray with a single card and a folded sheet of vellum on its surface. Simone stared, for even from the distance she recognized the card. It was the same one Caroline had presented to her all those years ago, the first afternoon she had come to call and check on Arabella.
“I see,” she said softly, and stepped forward to take the card and letter. “Thank you. Good night.”
She resisted the urge to tear the note open immediately and instead carried it up to her chamber. When she stayed out late, she didn’t require her maid to wait up for her, and didn’t ring for her now, but moved to sit beside her fire.
She drew in a shaky breath and ran a finger over the swirls of Caroline’s name in the filigree of her card.
She should just read it and discard it like she did all her other correspondence, but she wouldn’t.
No, she’d foolishly place it into her keepsake box where she also kept the other card from the first visit.
She would refuse to consider why she did so.
Why had Caroline written her? In six years she’d never received a note from the woman.
Their encounters were always accidental and out in the world aside from her first visit.
And she hadn’t actually seen Caroline in almost two years, not since she’d broken off her arrangement with Bowerton because of his nasty words about Caroline.
She’d avoided her ever since. Even if she’d seen her through windows or in the park, she’d hidden herself away so Caroline wouldn’t notice her.
She’d told herself it was only because there was no point in having an acquaintanceship with someone of such a different world, but she knew better in her heart why she hid.
Despite how brief their interactions had been, despite them being nothing but appropriate, or as appropriate as Simone could ever manage, it always meant too much.
Thoughts of Caroline would linger for days, weeks, even months after Simone spent just five minutes with her.
Those brief encounters made her forget the boundaries of how she connected with people of her rank, and Simone couldn’t ever forget those boundaries or else risk a great deal of loss and destruction.
She stared at her name, written on the folded vellum. It was very pretty handwriting. Neat and elegant, though what else would it be? Caroline was elegant, so of course she would have been trained to be so in every way.
“You are being very foolish,” Simone muttered to herself, and broke the wax seal that closed the folded sheet.
The note was brief.
Miss Stanhope,
I would like to meet with you at your earliest convenience to discuss Arabella’s well-being.
I know you’re aware of her connection to Silas Windham.
It feels different and I want to be certain she isn’t risking something she cannot afford to lose.
I will make myself available to you at any time or place.
With my great thanks,
Caroline Banfield
Simone read it several times. She liked the way Caroline wrote her capital S in Stanhope—it had an extra pretty swirl to it that felt like a caress.
She tossed the letter on the table beside her with a gasp. What fool waxed poetic about the letter S?
Instead, she focused on the statements Caroline had made regarding Arabella.
She wasn’t wrong to be concerned. Arabella had been obsessed with Silas for as long as she’d been a courtesan.
Silas was the reason Arabella had known about Simone at all, for they were former lovers, though there had never been any romantic feelings between them.
But Simone had been observing her, watching them together, and she saw the same difference to the connection that Caroline had mentioned in her letter.
Arabella was emotional when it came to Silas.
It was in the way her eyes lit up and her face flushed when she spoke about him.
She was on the edge of breaking a cardinal rule of courtesans, one regarding love, and perhaps the time had come to speak to Caroline about it so she would at least be aware that there might be trouble on the horizon.
Christ, what would she even say to Caroline about that? Sweet, almost innocent Caroline who was so removed from the world Simone inhabited. Caroline who would stare at her with those perfect, smoky eyes and make Simone feel too lit up and flushed, herself.
She pushed from the chair and paced to the window to stare into the dark night.
What she should do was obvious, actually.
She should tell her no. In fact, she should be even harsher than that.
She should tell Caroline to go to hell and not bother her, because they weren’t the sort of women who were supposed to bump into each other and chat in salons or exchange notes about her family.
She crossed to a small desk across the room and sat down.
She drew a sheet of expensive, perfumed paper from the neat stack in the corner and dipped her pen in ink to do just that.
But as she stared at the blank vellum, she couldn’t force her hand to write something cruel or dismissive.
She tried, but it was as if her hand and heart revolted against her very rational mind.
So instead she scribbled:
Today. One-thirty. My home.
Simone
Blunt was the best she could muster rather than cruel. Although blunt was possibly enough to feel like a go to hell to such a refined woman. Perhaps it would get the message across and end this foolishness once and for all. Caroline might not even come at all after such a dismissive response.
And yet, as Simone sealed the letter and set it aside to be delivered at a more reasonable hour of the morning, she found herself hoping Caroline would come. And she hated herself for wanting that thing she could not, should not, would not ever fully possess.
Simone didn’t want Caroline here, that was clear, but she sat in the courtesan’s parlor anyway the afternoon after she’d delivered her message. It was the same parlor she’d come to six years before, worrying over Arabella. Uncertain of anything and not even fully aware of who and what Simone was.
She’d been captivated by the room then, with its rich silk and sensual velvet fabrics, with its wallpaper featuring erotic imagery that had made Caroline’s stomach flutter oddly.
All this time later, she still felt the same and she hadn’t even bothered to look at the wallpaper today. She worried her hands and glanced back at the doorway just as Simone opened it and entered the room.
Caroline staggered to her feet, her breath gone in an instant.
She hadn’t seen Simone in over two years and now she couldn’t stop staring.
She was wearing a wine-colored gown cut so outrageously low that the globes of her breasts were on display.
She had a little mole on one of them that Caroline couldn’t stop staring at.
When she realized she was ogling no better than a man, she jerked her face away.
“Miss—Miss Stanhope,” she gasped out. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Simone hesitated a moment. Caroline felt her gaze move over her even though she wasn’t fully looking at her anymore. Then Simone shut the door behind herself and took a long step into the room.
“Mrs. Banfield,” she said with a light laugh. “Would you like a drink?”
Simone moved to the sideboard and lifted a bottle of whisky to motion it toward Caroline. She blushed. That was what she’d had the last time she visited, did Simone recall that? She couldn’t!
Caroline swallowed. “Er, no. I think I ought to keep my wits about me.”
“A pity,” Simone said softly, and poured herself one. She sipped it before she said, “Well, you have demanded an audience and now you’re here. What is it you want?”
Caroline blinked. In all the times she and Simone had encountered each other, the courtesan had never been so short or gruff with her. Her chest ached as she stared at her, foolishly wishing they could get back those softer times. Wondering what she’d done to lose them.
“I-I wanted to speak to you about Arabella, as I said in my message,” she managed to choke out. “As I mentioned, this connection she’s forming with Windham feels different.”
“It is different.” Simone finished her drink and set it aside with a clink of glass on wood.
She said nothing more and Caroline worried her hands in front of her. It was evident she should leave, for her own sake as well as for the sake of politeness when one realized they were not wanted in a place. But she didn’t move and she heard herself whisper, “I think I’ve upset you.”
Simone’s gaze fluttered over her and her nostrils flared slightly. “Because you’ve invaded my parlor to ask me questions about who your niece is fucking?”
Caroline flinched at the vulgar term. She’d heard it before, of course, but those words were rarely thrown around in mixed company. She had a suspicion that was why Simone used it. She wanted to shock and disturb her. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back.
Simone drew a soft breath and then took a long step toward her. Suddenly the energy in the room was no longer entirely adversarial. There was something else crackling between them. Something that was just as frightening as rejection even if Caroline couldn’t name it.
“That is what she’s doing, Caroline. Fucking him.”