The Accidental Courtesan Read online

  Outrage burned through Noelle. “You are without honor, sir.”

  He cocked a brow. “I thought the way you vigorously pushed me against the hedge here meant you wanted to consummate our arrangement. After all, I’m stuck with you in this garden until the watchman finishes his rounds, am I not?”

  “You know the watchman cannot find us together,” she grumbled. If only she’d thought to bring a pistol when she’d decided to wander around tonight. One shot, and she’d be rid of him for good. “In spite of what may have happened in the past, I have no intention to bed you. Not now, not ever.”

  His grin slowly faded, and his eyes narrowed. “Then your presence in my room that night was for a darker purpose.” He locked onto her gaze. “Stealing a very expensive sapphire and diamond necklace, perhaps?”

  The words pounded through her head like rifle shots, and it took Noelle a few seconds for the full impact of his comment to take root. He wasn’t there to seduce her; he was there to have her arrested! She was bound to spend the rest of her life suffering the horrors of Newgate.

  Her legs buckled. Somewhere, from a distant place, she felt herself lifted, carried off the path, and lowered onto a bench. Once she was settled on the damp stone surface, she began to reclaim her senses, and with them, terror.

  Gavin sat beside her and looked into her eyes. She gripped his forearm with clawlike nails. “Please,” she whispered, numb to her toes, “do not send me to Newgate.”

  Surprise lit his features. “Newgate?”

  She felt the sting of hot tears burn her eyes and spill down her cheeks. “The necklace was returned in perfect condition. The theft was a mistake. There isn’t a reason to ruin lives.” The words rushed from her unchecked. She lifted his hand and clamped it to her chest. “Please. I will do anything to keep from prison. Anything.”

  Desperate, Noelle opened his palm and placed it over her right breast. He jerked it away as if scalded and stood.

  Noelle closed her hands over her face and sobbed. The image of living in that dank, rat-infested prison, with guards who abused women without fear of consequence, was too much to bear. She’d beg to be hanged before she’d suffer that fate.

  What had begun as a lark, an adventure, a way to help Bliss, had become her darkest nightmare. The shame brought to her family with her arrest would be acute.

  The bench moved slightly as Mister Blackwell reclaimed his place beside her. She hardly noticed him as her body shook uncontrollably with wretched despair. “It was a mistake, a stupid mistake,” she sobbed over and over again.

  Gavin drew her to his side and settled her in his arms. She clung to him in her misery, wetting his shirtfront, uncaring if he was the key to her downfall. She was falling into a bottomless abyss, and he was the only stable handhold she could cling to.

  Though he knew of her deception, he had not brought a magistrate. She understood that much in her befuddled brain. Perhaps she could still dissuade him from his plot if she could stop the flow of tears and figure out a course of seduction.

  Unfortunately, the blubbering continued unabated, despite her best efforts to quell her sobs.

  Shhh.” : Gavin pressed his mouth against her hair and inhaled her sweet fragrance. She felt so small and fragile as she her sweet fragrance. She felt so small and fragile as she shook uncontrollably and sobbed as if her heart was breaking. It brought out unexpected protective instincts, and he did his best to calm her. “Shhh. You must regain control of yourself lest the watchman hears you and comes to investigate.”

  There was no sign she heard him. Concerned, he turned her face so her sobs would be muffled by his chest.

  Her reaction to the mention of the necklace had thrown him off balance. He had intended to get to the bottom of the matter, not send her into hysterics. It took a moment to realize, when she mentioned Newgate, that she thought she was about to be arrested. Arrested? What crimes had she possibly committed, outside of breaking into the town house, that could send her to Newgate?

  He managed to make out something through her hysterical rambling about returning the necklace and how sorry she was for the trouble. She kept saying “we,” and he sensed she wasn’t the thief but perhaps knew the culprit. The missing courtesan, Bliss?

  However, the theft of the necklace was the least troubling matter he had to ponder. He’d been attacked over the bauble, and that lifted the crime to another level. There were deeper and more nefarious forces at work than Noelle climbing in a window. Now he had the added worry that somehow his reluctant courtesan might have put herself in danger.

  When her crying slowed, then stopped, he tipped her chin up to the lamplight and brushed lingering tears from her cheeks. Her beautiful eyes were so full of despair; he felt guilty, knowing he’d unwittingly been the cause. He cupped her cheek and bent to look into her flushed face.

  “I would never send you to Newgate,” he said softly. A beauty like Noelle would be a target for all sorts of debauchery in prison. She wouldn’t live a week. “It’s no place for a woman.”

  “Truly?” she asked with a hiccup.

  He nodded. “Truly.”

  The tension in her face melted. She let out a soft cry and circled her arms around his neck. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  Her soft body ran the length of him, and all sorts of improper reactions filtered through him. And he felt like a cad. She was emotionally frail, and what he wanted very much to do was nuzzle his face in the curve of her neck and run his hands over her perfect figure.

  Thankfully, she couldn’t read his thoughts.

  For the last several days he’d planned to bed her, but not like this. He didn’t want her to feel obligated to him, or desperate enough to allow a seduction in order to save herself from prison. When she pulled back and unlocked her hands from his neck, he let her move away. She looked down at her lap as if shamed by her tears and unchecked emotion.

  His arms felt bereft without her in them. He cleared his throat, leaned over, and braced his elbows on his thighs. His aching face deserved some justice, and Noelle was the key to lead him to the identity of the culprits. Somehow she’d gotten mixed up with some questionable characters. He found it difficult to believe she could have just stumbled upon them during her daily activities. If it took all night, he’d have his answers.

  “Lady Seymour, I think we need to start this tale from the beginning.”

  Chapter Nine

  Noelle slid back on the bench as far as she could go without falling off and clutched her hands tightly in her lap. She looked so morose that Gavin wondered if another bout of tears was looming behind her thick brown lashes.

  Thankfully, the dam held. He wasn’t entirely sure he could handle a second round of such raw emotion. His mother hadn’t been much of a weeper, not even as she lay dying. The only tears she’d shed were for him, as she begged him to take his rightful inheritance and turn his life to one of purpose.

  It was because of her, and the sacrifices she’d made, that he’d returned to England and entered Noelle’s life. And he still wasn’t entirely sure he should be thankful for it.

  “I don’t understand what you want from me.” She stared down at her feet.

  “I want to know the truth. I want to know how the necklace ties in to your little visit to my room.”

  Her eyes were wary. Gavin suspected Noelle didn’t fully trust him not to have her arrested.

  Could she be a thief? Could she be the sort of woman who’d give up respectability to become a courtesan? He didn’t think so. Still, there was much about her he didn’t know.

  Her tightly crossed arms pressed her breasts up to a delicious swell, and those eyes of hers made him wonder if they would change color when she was in the throes of passion.

  He cleared his throat. Lusting after her was getting him nowhere. Inhaling her lemon-cinnamon scent mingled with the flowers in the garden was getting him nowhere.

  “Since you were in possession of the necklace in order to return it, you must have somehow had
the opportunity to steal the piece. Perhaps you should start there.”

  Slowly, she nodded and swallowed before speaking. She seemed intently focused on some distant object over his right shoulder, and fingered the folds of her skirt. He took both actions as a clear sign she was about to hand him a steaming pile of horse shit.

  Gavin crossed his arms and waited.

  “I saw this beautiful necklace dangling from the earl’s pocket and knew I had to have it,” she said in a rush. Then she sucked in a deep breath and slowed her pace. “So I brushed up against him and plucked it from his coat.”

  The chit was a terrible liar. “Where?”

  “Almack’s,” she said firmly, nodding as if satisfied with her tale. Her attention remained squarely off in the distance, as if looking into his eyes would give away her secrets. “He was distracted by the dancers. It was a fairly easy feat to lift it.”

  Gavin let out a very long and exasperated sigh through gritted teeth. “His Lordship despises Almack’s. He much prefers to spend his free time in London at White’s.”

  “But I swear it is the truth,” she insisted, her eyes wide and fearful. “It was me. I stole the necklace. I’m a thief.”

  The woman was protecting someone. A lover? A friend?

  There was only one way to get the truth out of her. She needed a good slap of reality to break through her loyalty to this unnamed confidant. He stood and slowly turned toward the closest streetlamp. Pale light infused his face through a narrow space in the hedge. He hoped it was enough. He did not need a mirror to know it had born the brunt of several well-placed fists to his countenance.

  She gasped and scrambled to her feet. She took a step toward him and scanned the damage. “Good God! What happened to your face?”

  Gavin touched the tip of his forefinger to his swollen lip and winced. Though there was little pain, his attackers had done their job well. If not for his skill at dealing with criminal types, he might currently be residing at the bottom of the Thames with a knife in his belly.

  “A trio of footpads came upon me as I was leaving the shipyard.” He watched her eyes widen with shock. Obviously, she hadn’t set the men on him. Thank goodness. “They caught me unaware. My mind was occupied elsewhere.”

  “Did they break anything?” She pressed her fingers against his rib cage with a surgeon’s precision. “Do you have any bleeding?”

  He reached down and caught her hands. As much as he enjoyed her attentions—and he did, very much—she had explanations to make, and he wasn’t about to be put off before he had the complete picture. “They were looking for the necklace, Noelle.”

  Her mouth parted. Pain flitted through her eyes. Slowly, she eased her hands free of his grip and returned to the bench. She lowered herself onto the surface and rubbed her bare arms with her palms. A shudder shook her.

  “Would you like to tell me the name of the real culprit in this caper?” he asked firmly. In order to save himself, and perhaps her, too, he needed her to recognize the gravity of the situation and be completely truthful.

  She shook her head. “I cannot.”

  Gavin sighed impatiently. Clearly she was as stubborn as she was beautiful. He wanted to grab her and shake her until her teeth rattled. He could have been murdered tonight, and still she kept her secrets.

  He went to her anyway and reclaimed his seat beside her. The intimacy of the moment wasn’t lost on him. He was in the shadows of a darkened garden with the unchaperoned woman who’d haunted him since their first evening together. It wouldn’t take much to have her flat on her back and his mouth pressed between her nicely rounded breasts.

  It was nearly impossible to remain focused.

  He crossed one leg over the other to hide his growing arousal. He rested his arms on his thighs and spoke.

  “I know you don’t trust me, Noelle, and you have no reason to. We are strangers still, in spite of our previous, shall we say, close encounters.” He tipped his head to look into her eyes. “But what happened tonight changed everything. Three men tried to remove my head from my neck. This is no longer just about a stolen and returned necklace. Someone wants it badly enough to possibly kill for it.”

  “But I promised to keep the secret, and I cannot violate her trust.”

  “Her?” Gavin straightened. Noelle blanched.

  It all made sense now. Charles’s suspicion had been confirmed. There was only one woman foolish enough to steal from Charles and think he wouldn’t notice the loss. “It was Bliss.”

  Noelle pressed her clasped fists to her mouth. A moment passed before she answered, “She was pressured to take it by another’s influence. As soon as she took it, she realized her error. Then she panicked. It truly wasn’t her fault.”

  The plot grew. Noelle. Bliss. Someone unnamed. Now there were three. If he shook the tree of thieves, who knew how many more would tumble out? “How did you become involved?”

  “A, uh, friend has a small school that helps courtesans escape that life and matches them with husbands.” Noelle paused, and her shoulders slumped forward. “Bliss knew of the school and came to ask Eva for help. Unfortunately, Eva is in the country at present. So I offered to assist.” Noelle jumped to her feet and lifted her arms, her eyes beseeching. “I thought I could return the necklace and no one would know. Then I stumbled upon you. Entirely by accident, I assure you. I made the disgraceful offer as a way to distract you. I never intended to become your courtesan.”

  Noelle watched his face, knowing he held two lives in his possession. If he wanted to see a double hanging, he had only to call for a magistrate, and she and Bliss would be arrested.

  However, it wasn’t anger she saw on his battered face. He was frustrated over the situation and how her innocent adventure had almost had fatal consequences. And she felt horrible that he’d suffered for her actions. She wanted to reach out and touch the bruise under his eye.

  His handsome face would bear the marks of her bad judgment for days to come.

  “I could not let her go to Newgate,” she said helplessly. The one way to right this and save Bliss was to try and make him see her point. “She is an innocent in spite of her profession, and is easily swayed. If not for her maid, Bliss wouldn’t have taken the necklace.”

  “Her maid?” Quickly, his frustration changed to curiosity. This was an interesting twist. “Who is this woman?”

  Noelle shook her head. Bliss knew almost nothing about the woman. She’d come into the courtesan’s life, then evaporated just as quickly after the necklace was lifted.

  “Bliss said she arrived about three months ago, looking for work. She had letters of recommendation. Though Bliss found her somewhat terse that first week, she did her job well and was kept on. It was during the last month that the woman began to place ideas into Bliss’s head. Telling her she was not getting everything she deserved from the earl for her services.”

  Noelle’s embarrassment flared. It was scandalous to be speaking of the intimacies between a man and his mistress with this stranger. Yet, she had to get the complete story out.

  “It was during, ah, a visit with the earl at her town house that Bliss casually mentioned the necklace to the woman. She’d stepped out of her bedroom to call for refreshments and gushed to the maid about the beautiful piece. It was then that the woman urged her to take the item.”

  “So she slipped it out of his pocket?”

  Noelle nodded. “Almost immediately, she knew she had to return it, but she could find no way to do so without getting caught. She was trapped. It was then she came to me.”

  She watched his swollen face and felt the crush of responsibility weigh on her. He’d become entangled in this mad adventure and was paying the price for her impulsive game. She played at bravado, but she wasn’t an adventuress, not really. Climbing the trellis to enter the town house and accepting her illegitimate half sister into her life were as far as her adventurous spirit stretched.

  She hated that now, even with his bloodied face, she didn’t wan
t this adventure to end. Secretly, she had liked the thrill that came from climbing through the earl’s town house window and from Gavin’s stolen kisses. She liked being the kind of woman a man would pursue with enthusiasm and for whom he would sneak through a garden gate to spend stolen moments in her arms.

  Impulsively, she reached out to brush her thumb gently over the tiny cut at the corner of his mouth. His skin was warm under her fingertips. He winced under her touch but didn’t pull away. Little butterflies danced in her belly.

  “I am sorry,” she whispered regretfully. His handsome features were all but ruined, temporarily, giving him a rakish bent. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”

  His eyes softened as his gaze roved over her face. A playful smile lifted the uninjured side of his mouth. “I’m quite sure kisses would make it feel better.”

  Noelle clicked her tongue and shook her head. “You are impossible.” Then, feeling both a rush of guilt and a bit of mischief, she carefully pressed her mouth to the bruise beneath his eye. He tasted lightly of salt and dust. She felt him go still. Good! She’d shocked him.

  “Better?” she said, pulling back. Perhaps she was an adventuress beneath her proper upbringing after all. Her mother would fall into vapors if she knew what her oldest child was doing this evening.

  The thought emboldened her to brush a few strands of hair out of his eyes. She was handling fire and knew she could be scorched. Yet, he remained still and let her do with him what she wished. Without his protest, she found she didn’t want to stop her exploration.

  Gavin’s stare was intense. “Somewhat. But they had very hard knuckles.” She bit back a smile at Gavin’s thick tone.

  “I can see that.” She placed a hand on his knee and leaned to brush her lips across the pair of red knuckle marks on his chin. His breath caught.