The Illicit Love of a Courtesan. Jane Lark

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       Chapter Four

      Fully clothed, Edward lifted his weight from where it had rested on the windowsill. He could see her fingers shaking as she secured the buttons at the chest of her pelisse. He moved forward, caught her hands, set them aside and took over the task. She looked up studying his face as he did. He did not meet her gaze.

      He hadn’t left her long to dress. He couldn’t bring himself to wake her any earlier. She’d looked so peaceful in sleep, young. Again he wondered at the fact that she was the older of the two of them. Age had not touched her beauty. She could pass for a debutante in her first season.

      Season? A sound of humour escaped his throat bringing a question to her gaze.

      He shook his head.

      She was no debutante. What she was, was a courtesan who’d bluntly refused to speak of her origin. Yet his brain could not equate her with a woman of anything less than reasonable birth. It was in the tone of her voice, her posture. His mind turned to the one thing he knew—her trade was not her choice—then wondered at the cause. An over eager lover who had taken her virtue and not offered marriage?

      Who was the family who’d turned its back? Or did she have none? No father, no brothers to protect her. No wonder her beauty had brought her to this.

      He couldn’t think of it.

      His gloved fingers skimming her cheek, her pale blue eyes met his, so starkly different to the luxurious fall of her ebony hair. He was so moved by her beauty.

      She looked saddened by their need to part, but there was no other option. He’d seen what Gainsborough could do to her. He couldn’t let her take risks until he’d worked out what to do. If she’d told him how she’d met Gainsborough it may have helped, but she clearly wasn’t going to make helping her easy. He needed to think.

      She turned away from his touch, picked up her hat and re-secured it, then pulled the veil across her face.

      “Are you ready?” she asked, turning back.

      He nodded, taking a breath, almost afraid to ask the question he longed to in case she refused. “May we meet tomorrow?”

      Her expression was uncertain but she nodded none the less, blushing and turning away from him again to collect her gloves.

      “Not here though, somewhere else.” She spoke with her back to him, pulling on her gloves and then picking up the muff.

      Edward stepped forward, clasping her waist and then pulling her against him so that he could kiss the delicate skin behind her ear. “I could pick you up in a hackney if you wished, if you tell me where to meet you?”

      She turned in his arms and pressed one gloved palm to his cheek, a shallow smile touching her lips and happiness warming her eyes again. “I can wait for you on the corner of Jermyn Street at eleven, but you must not be late.”

      “I shan’t be.”

      Her lips brushed his.

      The doorknob rattled and Ellen jerked back and stepped away.

      It was undoubtedly another ploy of the landlord’s to play voyeur. “Y’u done yet? Yu’r time’s up!”

      Ellen’s chin lifted and he recognised her distaste for clandestine assignations. He didn’t like them either but until he decided how to free her from Gainsborough they could not meet openly.

      “We’re leaving!” Edward barked back at the door, taking her elbow as she slid both hands into her muff.

      When they left the room the landlord was standing outside, a smirk on his ugly face.

      Edward’s fist balled, but Ellen’s fingers closed over it, briefly, before she walked on ahead. He assumed her silent implication said it would do no good. She was right of course.

      She must have experienced years of such disparaging looks and cruel comments. In response, he saw the shell she’d developed to shield her through those years draw into place. Her shoulders stiffened, her chin lifted higher and her eyes focused ahead.

      He was not sure he could be as strong. Perhaps her greater age did show after all, but never-the-less he was determined to strip her of her armour. The woman he’d fallen for was the one living beneath it.

      ~

      Accepting Edward’s offered hand Ellen stepped up into the carriage. The driver shut the door and Edward immediately reached past her to draw the curtain across the glass and protect them from the visibility of passers-by. Private, obscured from interested eyes on the street, he pulled her close and kissed her. Hunger and longing instantly lit a fire inside her. This was how it had been each day for nearly a week.

      Edward’s embrace pressed her back against the squabs and she slid her legs across his lap.

      She’d learnt in the days since Gainsborough had left London that her appetite for Edward was insatiable, as was his for her. Laughing, after a few moments, she pushed him away. “You will have me in disarray before we even reach the inn and then what will people think.”

      His voice escaped in a guttural tone. “You know damn well they think it anyway so I hardly give it credence.” Her fingers tenderly straightening the knot of his cravat, she then hugged his shoulders and settled her cheek against the capes of his greatcoat, while his arm lay across her back, his hand resting at her waist.

      “Millie thinks I have run mad, she found me singing while I bathed this morning.” His forefinger brushed along her nose, then slipped a stray strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “I told her, in Wentworth’s hearing, I have made a friend. I said we met in Gunter’s, in Berkeley Square. He knows I trust Millie. He thinks I wouldn’t lie to her. He thinks my days are spent gossiping.” She laughed again, light hearted and carefree.

      His finger tilting up her chin, her eyes met his. They were almost black in the shadow of the hackney, the slate blue-grey a narrow rim around his pupils. She could not really tell what expression was on his face until he smiled. “She’s right. You are completely different than you were but five days ago. You have lost your shell, Ellen. There is no weight on your shoulders anymore.”

      She smiled too. “Why need I worry about anything when I have you to worry for me?”

      A kiss fell on her forehead in response, another touched her nose and then his lips covered hers. Once again she was engrossed in him, her fingers in his hair and slipping up and down his back, while his grasped her breast over her pelisse.

      True СКАЧАТЬ