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Not only was he not amused, he looked thunderous. ‘Do you wish to become a courtesan as well, Morgana?’
She responded to his grimace with a saucy smile.
Madame Bisou hurried to his side. ‘Are you ready, Cyprian?’ She batted her lashes at him. Morgana’s eyes narrowed.
Sloane took Morgana’s hand and leaned into her face. ‘Do not jest with me, Morgana. Are you planning to become a courtesan?’
The clasp of his hand felt angry, but the contact was every bit as affecting as the day before.
She raised her eyes to his, suddenly serious. ‘Do you jest, Sloane? What man would think me a courtesan?’
His eyes filled with heat and she felt his thumb caress her palm. He did not answer her. ‘Good day, Miss Hart,’ he said.
She did not immediately release his hand when he began to pull away. His expression turned quizzical.
She said, ‘I hope your dinner goes well tonight, Sloane.’
‘My dinner?’ He looked startled. ‘The dinner with Heronvale, do you mean?’
She nodded and opened her fingers so his hand slipped out of hers.
He lightly brushed her arm. ‘Thank you for thinking of it.’
Madame Bisou, née Penny Jones, entwined her arm in his. ‘Come, Cyprian.’ She swept him out of the door.
Morgana lightly fingered her palm and her arm where the memory of his touch still lingered.
Chapter Ten
If Sloane had led a double life in the past, he now had tripled himself. He continued to play the gentleman for the ton, the possible suitor for Lady Hannah, the wealthy fellow who put in appearances at White’s and talked politics with the Marquess of Heronvale. At night, after the ton’s elegant routs and balls, he slipped into the shadows, returning often to Mrs Rice’s glove shop, keeping his eyes and ears open to possible danger from that quarter. To Mrs Rice’s mounting rage, her lackeys had made no progress in finding her missing girls or in discovering the ladylike woman who had snatched the pretty maid from her grasp. Sloane would remain watchful, however, just in case.
During these past three weeks it had also become his practice to often look in on the courtesan school. He kept an eye on Penny, lest she be tempted to go back on her word not to exploit Morgana. He imposed his intimidating presence on the taciturn Cripps, to ensure the butler kept the servants in line. Sloane watched Morgana as well, in case he need rein her in from some risky exploit that might expose the whole affair.
It had become his habit to breakfast with Morgana and her girls, the most pleasant part of his day. The courtesan school, scandalous as it might be, was a relief from the crushing boredom that permeated the rest of his time. Sometimes Elliot joined him at Morgana’s, as he did this day. Penny had requested they both assist the girls in her special dancing lessons. Both men slipped through the gap in the garden wall and entered Morgana’s house unseen.
The formality of being announced long abandoned, they made their way straight to the dining parlour and entered to a chorus of good mornings. Morgana’s grandmother’s eyes lit up. ‘How lovely of you to call.’
‘Men at last,’ exclaimed Katy, who nearly thrust her chest under Elliot’s nose before Miss Moore pulled her into a chair.
Katy complained loudly. ‘I’m tired of seeing only old Cripps. He’s given the footmen such a lecture they run and hide when they see us!’
Sloane was greatly heartened that Cripps had been so cruel to poor Katy.
‘You must remember, men are to throw themselves at you, not you at them,’ Miss Moore told her. ‘You are better than that, Miss Green.’
Sloane frowned as he and Elliot filled their plates. Morgana often said those words to the girls. You are better than that. For all Morgana’s wide-eyed plans, he knew too well the world would not treat them so.
Elliot chose a chair at the far end of the table where Lucy, who still considered herself of the servant class, always retreated. Sloane sat next to Morgana.
She poured him a cup of tea, fixing it just as he liked. ‘It is so good of you and Mr Elliot to volunteer to be dance partners.’
He smiled at her. ‘I would not exactly say Elliot volunteered, but he is excellent at following orders.’
Her brow wrinkled. ‘Is it against his scruples? I would not impose upon anyone who objected to it.’
He glanced at Elliot, who was engaged in a quiet conversation with Lucy. ‘He is shy around women, I believe.’
Her expressive eyes glanced in the same direction. ‘Katy must frighten the wits out of him, then. Lucy is shy, too, but they seem to get on together.’
‘They talk of plants, I believe.’
Morgana asked his opinion of Naldi’s performance as Figaro at the opera the previous evening. Lady Hannah had fished for an invitation and Sloane had obliged, including her parents and Morgana in the party.
He gave a dry laugh. ‘Surely you know I find every opera a dead bore.’
She rolled her eyes at his comment, but went on, ‘Well, I was not impressed. Naldi speaks as often as he sings, and often off key.’
Sloane had known without her saying so that she had not been impressed. While Lady Hannah spent the evening searching for her friends among the audience, he’d watched Morgana and had seen her opinion of the opera written on her face.
‘I do wish I could have talked with Harriette Wilson,’ she added. ‘She could have answered so many questions.’
What a silent argument they’d had over the infamous courtesan. Morgana had given Sloane a hopeful glance when Harriette appeared in her opera box, and he’d returned it with a censorious grimace. She’d replied with a thinning of her lips and he’d countered with a pointed shrug.
‘Do not act the fool, Morgana. You know you could not speak with her.’
She sighed. ‘I know. I know. My reputation would be ruined.’ She said this with exaggerated drama.
He put a stilling hand on her arm. ‘You have no notion what ruin would mean, but, I assure you, I do.’
Her ginger eyes turned warm with sympathy.
Damnation. Such moments between them only complicated matters. He did not need her sympathy, nor her interest in his well-being. It only pulled at his baser urges. He’d thus far avoided playing the rake with her, but who knew how long he could last? He looked away and attacked his slice of ham.
A few minutes later Miss Moore announced it was time for the girls’ lessons and helped Lady Hart to her feet. As Rose, Katy and Mary filed out of the room ahead of them, Miss Moore asked, ‘Are you coming, Morgana?’
Morgana looked up at her. ‘I shall be in shortly.’
Elliot left his half-eaten breakfast and followed Lucy, who paused uncertainly by Morgana.
‘What is it, Lucy?’ Morgana asked.
Lucy hesitated, and glanced shyly at Elliot. ‘Mr Elliot and I were talking of how the primrose is in bloom, miss. May I show him in the garden?’
‘Of course,’ Morgana said gently.
Sloane peered at Elliot. Was his secretary attempting to make a conquest of Lucy? Lucy could do much worse than a liaison with a fine young man such as Elliot, so why did he feel he ought to cuff Elliot’s ears?
Lucy curtsied more like a maid than a courtesan and she and Elliot hurried out.
Morgana turned to Sloane. ‘Is that not remarkable?’
‘What?’
‘Lucy and Mr Elliot. She seems to blossom around him, like one of her flowers.’ With a dreamy expression, she gazed at the door through which Elliot and Lucy had departed.
Sloane put down his fork. ‘Do not make this into some Minerva Press novel, Morgana.’
She raised an indignant eyebrow. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
He looked directly in her eyes. ‘Those are not two innocents. It is not a flower bed they are in search of, but the other kind of bed.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘Do not be vulgar, Sloane.’
‘Then do not you be missish.’ He made sure she listened. ‘How much do you wish to wager on it? Elliot and Lucy are bound to engage in more than a waltz soon enough?’
‘I do not wish to wager at all,’ she said in a huff, but she glanced back at the door with a pensive expression. ‘It is precisely what I am training her for, is it not? I dislike thinking on it.’
He made no effort to relieve her tension. ‘You ought to think on it. You’d best realise what sort of life you are handing these young women.’
She gave him a withering look. ‘I suspect you are about to tell me.’
Her sarcasm set him off. ‘If they are lucky they will attract men of means. They will be selling themselves to the highest bidder. The man may be short or tall, fat or skinny. He may smell. He may be cruel. But one thing is for certain.’ He paused so that she would be sure to pay him heed. ‘To the man she will be a mere ornament and bed partner. That is all. And she will be at his mercy for the food she eats and the roof that shelters her.’
Her colour heightened. ‘Will it be so different when you choose a wife, Sloane?’ She took an angry breath, and Sloane did not miss the tantalising rise of her chest. ‘Do you not seek a wife other men will consider beautiful? Will you not wish for the pleasure of her bed? I assure you, she will be at your mercy for her food and her shelter. At least my girls will not be tied to one man for life, if they do not wish to be.’
He’d be damned if he’d allow her to know she’d struck a truthful chord. ‘Spare me this Wollstonecraft recitation. Next you will be penning A Vindication of the Rights of Doxies and Harlots.’
For a second he thought she would slap him across the face, which he surely deserved. Her eyes flamed and flashed with pain. She gripped the edge of the cloth on the table. But he suffered worse than the sting of her hand. He watched as she blinked, straightened her spine and erased all expression from her face.
How many times in front of his father had he done the very same thing?
He could barely make himself speak. ‘Do not do that, Morgana. Please God, do not do that.’
‘Do what?’ she responded, eyes bland.
‘Pretend I did not wound you.’ His voice was a mere whisper. ‘I wish to God I had not said that to you.’
She remained stiff and distant. ‘It is of no consequence. My unguarded tongue.’ She waved her hand dismissively.
He caught it in his. ‘I fear I spoke like—in a manner I regret.’ Like his father, he almost said.
She pulled her hand away, and he snatched it back again. ‘You were correct, Morgana, about my marital desires. I do wish a beautiful wife and… the rest. It is the way of the respectable world, is it not?’
She darted a glance at their clasped hands. ‘The way for you, perhaps.’
He rubbed her palm with the pad of his thumb. ‘And for you?’
She again pulled loose of his grasp. ‘If there exists a man who could consider me an ornament, with my outspoken nature, I am certain he would soon fail to find me decorative.’ She let slip a fleeting glimpse of pain. ‘So your assessment of me was not far off the mark.’
Did she not know her appeal partly lay in her outspokenness? No pretence, no coy flirtations. He put his fingers under her chin and turned her face towards him, forcing her to look at him.
Her eyes glittered like topaz, and their gazes held until he felt like walls were cracking inside him, walls that held back his own pain, the pain he’d fended off almost since birth.
He cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand, touching the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb. ‘Morgana—’ he murmured.
Katy’s voice sounded outside the door and they broke apart just in time before she burst in.
‘Make haste!’ Katy cried. ‘Madame Bisou has arrived and says you must come for the dance lessons.’ She did not wait to see if they would follow her. Heading back out the door, she laughed. ‘You ought to see the fribble she’s brought with her.’
‘Well.’ Morgana stood. ‘I suppose we ought to join them.’
Sloane’s brow knit in worry. Who had Penny brought with her? There were already too many people who might leak information about Morgana’s outrageous courtesan school.
He offered Morgana his arm and they walked to the library, where the lessons were to take place. When they neared the door, he stopped her. ‘Forgive me?’ He brushed her cheek lightly.
Her smile held a hint of sadness, but it heartened him that it was a smile none the less. ‘Why the devil not?’
He squeezed her cheek playfully. ‘Hoyden.’
She grinned this time. ‘Rake.’
Katy came to the doorway. ‘What keeps you? Come on. We are waiting.’
They obliged her, entering the room where all the furniture except the pianoforte and two chairs had been removed and the carpet rolled up. Miss Moore had settled Lady Hart in one of the chairs and she sat in the other that was placed at the keyboard of the pianoforte.
‘Oh, lovely to see you!’ exclaimed Lady Hart, catching sight of them.
Madame Bisou stood next to a young gentleman. ‘Miss Hart, I have brought my friend Robert. Allow me to present him to you.’ She used her French accent this morning. ‘We need more gentlemen. Cyprian, you were to have brought your secretary.’
‘I did bring him, Penny.’
Her eyes narrowed.
Katy gave a dramatic sigh. ‘Lucy is pulling weeds with him, no doubt. I shall go after them again.’
But there was no need to do so, because Elliot and Lucy appeared.
‘Excellent!’ cried the madam. ‘We shall have nearly enough gentlemen to go around.’
‘I… I could sit out,’ murmured Mary.
Madame Bisou poo-pooed the idea. ‘Nonsense, my dear. We will take turns. One may learn by observing as well as by doing.’
Sloane watched as Madame Bisou more formally introduced her friend, Robert Duprey, to Morgana. Why the devil had she brought that fellow? Duprey was not only a very foolish dandy, he was also brother to the woman over whom Sloane lost his wagers at Bisou’s gaming house. He had always been a favourite of Penny’s, though it foxed Sloane why.
Madame Bisou raised her voice. ‘Now, you will think you already know how to do the dances, but you will be wrong, ladies. I will teach you that the dance involves not only the feet, but also the eyes and the hands. I will teach you what to do with each.’
As she went on, Sloane sauntered up to Robert Duprey.
