A Haughty Courtesan, page 9
She knew sooner or later she would have to sleep with him, but tonight she wanted to savor the memories she had shared with Lord Clifford. She could not bring herself to taint those memories.
“You know me, my lord,” she said coyly, giving him a fake smile. “I like shocking people. I wish to see the face of Olivia Dustin when we share this spectacular news. She believes she owns me, but Rose belongs to only Lord Doris and no one else.”
He bought her lies without suspecting anything. The reason her lie worked so easily was that there was a sliver of truth to her claim. She wanted to hurt Olivia. Olivia profited from her hard-earned money all her life and treated her with malice when she committed one mistake.
She was her best girl. She deserved mercy for the only mistake she ever committed under her roof.
“Oh, my lovely Rose,” he said. “You are an enigma.”
She winked at him and walked away. The moment she was out of his house and safely inside the carriage, tears started flowing down her face. She had a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach that was making her feel hollow on the inside.
Has she made the right decision in becoming the mistress of Lord Doris?
Was it a good idea to leave the house she had known since childhood?
Chapter 14
William woke up in the morning to a massive headache. He went to bed pretty late because he was thinking about Rose all night. Last night he had been in shock when he had seen Rose, so the questions that were posing in his head were not there last night.
Rose loved her freedom and independence then why did she come in the middle of the night to his house with such an unusual request?
Was she in some sort of trouble with Madam Olivia?
Was her request another adventure or did she genuinely wish to become his mistress?
When she had asked him to make love to her, he had seen a flicker of emotion that could be interpreted as a plea for someone to see her for the young girl she really was, rather than the worldly courtesan she pretended to appear.
Was he overthinking or did Rose feel something for him?
To have some peace of mind, he went out to meet Robert Tyne. Robert would make fun of him for sure, but he would also provide some insight that might help resolve this dilemma.
He found Robert at the gentlemen’s club. Robert was standing with a group of lords and they seemed to be discussing something amusing. The group was laughing and sharing drinks early in the morning, so the news must be worth their while.
“Robert.”
Robert turned towards him and left the group to join him on their usual table. Robert shuffled the cards, but William shook his head. He was not in a mood to play. He was here to seek answers for his restless mind.
“Is it possible for a courtesan to fall in love with someone?” William asked.
Robert gave him a crooked smile. William was puzzled to know Robert was not scowling at his question, considering Robert’s opinion regarding courtesans.
“Well, my man, you will be pleased to know a courtesan has fallen in love with someone,” Robert said.
“What do you speak of?” William asked.
He felt like someone stabbed him in the heart. He had denied it all this time, but the mental image of seeing her in the arms of another man made him stop denying the truth.
He was finally admitting to himself that he was in love with Rose.
He was a madman. No sane person would fall in love with a courtesan.
“The whole town is abuzz with the news,” Robert said. “Rose has become the mistress of Lord Franklin Doris.” William lost his coloring at the shocking news and Robert did not miss the change in his friend. “Guess their love was stronger than yours, William.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” William stammered. “I don’t love Rose.”
He averted his gaze. He could not let his friend see the lie in his eyes.
“Well, in that case, you will not have a problem with attending the soiree Lord Doris is throwing in honor of his new mistress,” Robert said. “Everyone is invited.”
William became weary and exhausted all of a sudden. For a moment, he had believed Rose might have developed genuine feelings for him, but all that seemed to be a fantasy on his part. Rose never cared for him the way he cared for her.
William looked at his friend who was still waiting to hear from him. Robert wanted to know if he would attend the soiree where Lord Doris would be presenting his new mistress to society, but he had no answer for that question. He was not sure going to the party would be a good idea.
William was too exhausted to hide secrets from his friend. It was time to spill his guts.
“Rose requested me to take her as my mistress,” William said.
“When?” Robert asked, shock and wonder evident in his voice.
“Last night,” he responded.
Robert took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.
“I guess a courtesan only falls in love with your purse,” Robert said. “They are shallow beings of loose character who lay with God knows how many men.”
William remembered the debate he had with Rose regarding something similar. He had asked her if she minded sleeping with random men and she had asked the same question from him. He had become defensive because there was truth to her words.
“We lay with countless women in our lives,” William said. “Does that make us shallow beings too?”
Robert narrowed his eyes and William saw what Rose might have seen that day. He was facing an egotistical man who was getting offended because someone had dared to speak the truth.
“We are men,” Robert clipped. “Such rules do not apply to us.”
“Says who?” William asked.
William had responded in a similar fashion and the guilt of what he did after that was still fresh in his mind. He should not have walked away from her in anger. He should have treated her with respect. She was a courtesan, but that did not entail she could not feel humiliation when a nobleman like himself treated her like a pile of rubbish.
“Says the society we live in,” Robert said.
William had heard the same sentence from his mother, father and every other respectable member of society. Everyone blamed society for rules everyone was bound to follow blindly. There was a time when he might have agreed with those rules, but now his conflicted mind was rebelling against the norm.
“Who is society?” William asked. “Is it a living breathing being or just a bunch of rich people who consider themselves better than everyone else?”
Robert looked at him like he had lost his mind. There was pity and sympathy in Robert’s eyes for his best friend.
Was Robert seeing something he was missing?
Could Robert guess his love for Rose?
“Go home and rest, old pal,” Robert said. “You seem tired. Once the news settles in, you will forget about your obsession with that girl and actually start thinking about your future with Lady Lillian.”
William’s guilt further increased. It was not fair to Lady Lillian that the man who was showing interest in her was also obsessed with a courtesan who never cared for him.
Rose was an immature and selfish girl while Lady Lillian was wise and humble, yet his heart yearned for Rose.
He had lost his goddamned mind.
William walked out of the club without continuing to argue with Robert. There was nothing left to say. William was in love with a courtesan and his friend knew that.
Chapter 15
Rose was standing in the middle of the crowd, surrounded by people of nobility yet she felt utterly alone. No one was bothering to talk to her, but everyone was talking about her.
To them, she was a thing, not a human being.
She was an ornamental piece Lord Doris had bought and was now showing around to society.
She was a courtesan by profession. People assumed reading books for fun would be the last thing she did. She was more than just a pretty face, but to her dismay, no one bothered to see that side of her. It was an aspect of her life that had never bothered her before that moment.
She was supposedly incapable of feelings.
When the feeling of suffocation started to settle in, she heard a voice that had her whirling around her head. Someone was laughing and the voice was so fascinating she could not resist following it to the source. That voice brought a ray of light into her bleak world.
Her heart started to beat fast as she saw Lord Clifford and Lord Tyne standing near a pillar in a corner of the ballroom. They were not paying attention to her nor to anyone else in the room. They were contented with each other’s company.
Her legs moved of their own accord towards Lord Clifford. She had vowed to keep her distance from him, but there is no stopping a desperate lover. She loved him and even though she could never tell him that, she still wanted to spend a few stolen moments in his company.
He was watching her every move like a hawk stalking its prey. She was standing with a small group of guests while Lord Doris was holding her possessively from her waist. Every once in a while, her gaze would wander towards him and would look away immediately when their eyes met.
“Does it bother you?” Robert asked.
He sighed, but his gaze still remained fixated on her. He was trying to see the same girl who had come to his house in the dead of the night. She had made him believe she cared for him and was in need of his help. He wanted to know if she would look in a similar fashion at Lord Doris.
It was the only reason he had come to the event or so he was telling himself.
So far, she was the Rose he remembered from the early days when he was newly introduced to her.
A shameless flirt and a shallow courtesan.
“Not really,” he responded. “She is his mistress. I know she lays with him.”
He had not stopped thinking about Rose and Lord Doris. He was trying to hide his feelings by pretending to not care, but the truth was, he was in Hell. The thought of another man’s hands touching her was too much for him. He could not concentrate on anything in his life when she remained tied to another man.
“Why are your fists clenched then?” Robert asked.
He slowly unclenched his fists and winced when his nails were extracted from his flesh. His nails had been biting into his flesh and he remained unaware of it.
That was how much Rose held sway over him.
“Leave me be, Robert,” he said. “You know why I am upset.”
Robert understood the suffering of William, so he dropped the subject. Both friends watched the event from afar, standing near a pillar with a glass of wine in hand.
“Your father sent a lackey to the club,” Robert said after a long pause. “He wants you home tonight.”
William knew Robert was trying to divert his attention towards something other than Rose and he was grateful to his friend for being there for him in his time of need.
“What did you tell him?” William asked.
William’s eyes were on Rose, but his focus was now on Robert. It was a rare occurrence for his father to bother him.
“I told him you will comply with his wishes,” Robert said.
A hint of a smile tugged at William’s face. “You would rather take a beating from me than face the wrath of my father?”
Robert stood straight with an aristocratic arrogance and looked down at him with annoyance.
“Shame on you, Lord William Clifford,” Robert said in a thick voice. “A true man is not afraid of anyone.”
William sprayed the wine he was drinking and both of them started to laugh. Robert was mimicking his father’s voice and the resemblance was uncanny.
“May I have a word with you, my lord?”
William sobered up immediately when he heard Rose’s voice coming from behind him. He had lost sight of her for only a few minutes and she had managed to sneak up on him in that little timeframe.
He turned towards her and wished his heart would stop desiring her. She still looked beautiful as ever.
“In private,” she added.
He looked at Robert who shook his head in the negative.
William knew the sane decision would be turning down her request like Robert was suggesting, but sanity left him the moment his gaze set on her.
“Lead the way, my lady,” he whispered.
He followed her as she led him towards an empty room and locked the door behind them.
There was a gap between the two lovers… both physical and emotional. They could not run into each other’s arms because both of them believed the other did not love him or her.
They were both in a conundrum.
“I know you love another and I mean nothing to you,” Rose said, breaking the silence. “But there is something I wish you would still grant me.”
He wanted to yell at her and tell her how much her claim was wrong, but his pride was not allowing it. She was a selfish girl who loved no one except herself and he did not wish to humiliate himself to her.
She had made him believe there was a deep connection between them when she had visited him in the dead of the night. He had worshiped her body, took her to his room, forgot about Lady Lillian and all for what? A selfish and shallow courtesan who ran into the arms of another man that same night?
“What do you want, Rose?” he finally managed to say.
She had moisture dancing in her violet eyes. If it were someone else, he would have believed that the person was conflicted and in need of his help, but he knew she was good at feigning emotions, it was one of her many tricks.
“A kiss,” she whispered.
She knew at that moment why she was avoiding the inevitable. She understood why she had been delaying any sort of physical connection with Lord Doris. She had made the excuse of monthly cramps all week to avoid the man who had taken her as his mistress.
Lord Doris was not her customer anymore, so she could not deny him a kiss. A kiss she had been meaning to share with a man she truly loved.
“What about Lord Doris?” he asked. “Why become his mistress when you still want me kissing at your feet?”
He felt like someone had reached through his chest cavity and punched his heart. He could not believe that Rose would stoop so low that she would use that card against him. She was trying to hold on to her old life even after becoming a mistress of another man. She had neither shame nor integrity.
“I had nowhere else to go,” she said defensively. “Olivia hit me with her paddle.”
William closed his eyes to rein in the anger that was pulsing out of his every pore. For a moment he had believed she would give him a reason good enough to justify her actions.
“The same paddle you made her use on your fellow courtesan?” he seethed. “You left your house in a tantrum like a child. Shame on you, Rose.”
He strode away from her without bothering to wait for what she had to say next. Coming with her had been a mistake. Rose was not the person he should waste his time on. It was time to move on.
“You once asked me why I refuse to kiss my customers,” she said softly and despite his anger, his legs stopped moving. He was standing in the middle of the room, neither moving forward nor turning around towards her. “I wanted to keep a part of myself innocent when the rest has been sullied by strangers… I wanted my first kiss to be with a man I loved.”
All anger whooshed out of him in the blink of an eye.
His mind was yelling at him; she was once again playing with him, she was lying to him, it was Rose, the deceiving and cunning harlot. But his heart was begging him to believe her. His heart could hear the honesty and truth in her words.
Despite his better judgment, he listened to his heart and turned around towards her.
“You love me?” he asked.
She flinched as if the words had come out of her mouth without her knowing about it. She had not meant to confess her love.
William watched with curiosity and amusement as she cleared her throat, squared her shoulders, and stared him in the eyes. Rose was many things, but a cowering and simpering chit was not one of them.
“Olivia punished me because I hit a girl when she claimed to have slept with you,” Rose said. “It was impossible for me to live in a place where my love was mocked.”
This time, William flinched as the words slapped him with all their brutal honesty. He looked at her with wildness in his eyes, trying to find a solution to his current situation.
He was a businessman. He knew which decision would profit him and which would bankrupt him, but right now, his mind was utterly blank. He did not know what to do.
Lord William Clifford felt like losing control and it was a frightening feeling.
“You should have told me that when you came to my house,” he said with utter dejection and helplessness.
Rose lost her composure once again, and this time, the strong woman was nowhere in sight. She looked the young girl she really was rather than the worldly woman she pretended to be in front of the whole world.
Rose walked towards him gingerly and stood an inch away from him. Lifting her hand to his face, she caressed his cheek.
William closed his eyes and tried to savor the feel of her hand on his face. Nothing had brought him joy as profound as the small touch of her hand.
“You love another woman,” Rose responded sorrowfully. “How could I have told you this?”
He opened his eyes and saw tears flowing down her flawless face. He lifted his hands and cupped her face in his hands.
“I am willing to take you as my mistress if you will have me,” he said.
Her tears started to flow in abundance as she slowly shook her head in the negative. She could not ask him to pay Lord Doris and set her free. He might consider her a greedy and selfish person and despite his disdain towards her, she would rather live with another man than hear him throw more accusations at her face.
“It’s already too late, my lord,” she said. “I gave my word to Lord Doris and breaking a vow is not something I wish to do.”
She did not see nor hear his heart breaking into a million pieces. She did not witness the regret, sorrow, and grief as he realized there was nothing he could do to rectify their situation.
