Mistress in the Making Read Online Free Page A

a cough. Vulgarity was now expected of her.
    From everything she’d learned from Madame these past weeks, welcoming two men in her bed was now acceptable behavior. The man holding her inner elbow in a firm grip didn’t seem to think so if his reaction was any indication. Or perhaps his negative reaction was in response to her suggestion of sharing his brother.
    He hustled her down the hall, possibly bruising her skin, but she didn’t think his tight grip was in anger at her. He’d seemed in a hurry to escape his brother’s presence.
    “Charlotte.” A girl’s voice hissed into the hallway.
    She narrowed her eyes in the direction of the unwanted young voice and tipped her head toward her new protector, hoping the other girl would take the hint. Emmy, the youngest of Madame’s pupils had been inconsolable this morning upon learning it was Charlotte’s twenty-first birthday, and she would be auctioned to the highest bidder and leaving their little school. Emmy had just three short years until her eighteenth birthday when she too would parade in front of London gentleman and hope to go to a kind one.
    “Can you excuse me a moment?” she murmured to her gentleman.
    He paused, frowning down at her. “What now? I’d hoped to be home with a brandy by now.”
    “It will take but a second,” she said and slipped her arm from his grasp, darting to the narrow staircase where Emmy hid.
    “Emmy, you shouldn’t be here. Remember what Madame said.”
    “I know,” she said with a pout. “My beauty could cause riots and provoke one of the visitors to take a free sampling. Heaven forbid Madame doesn’t get paid.”
    “Emmy,” Charlotte sighed. Sometimes the girl was a contradiction. She looked and acted innocent, but her words often belied a greater understanding of the world than even Charlotte could claim. “I said goodbye earlier. I promise to visit at first opportunity.”
    “We simply wanted a glimpse of your protector.”
    “He’s a fine one, isn’t he?” asked another girl hidden farther in the shadows.
    “Go upstairs, Emmy and Lucy. Madame will punish you if she catches you.”
    “She won’t catch us,” Lucy said cheerfully. “She hasn’t got her money from your man yet.”
    “Go.” She shooed them up the stairs with her hands and quickly returned to her gentleman. “My apologies, there was a small matter.”
    “Your friends wanted to see me.” Dry humor danced on his words.
    “You heard?”
    “I have excellent hearing, and they weren’t exactly whispering.”
    She licked her lips and looked up anxiously at his face, but white teeth gleamed in semidarkness, transforming his face into a thing of masculine beauty. Her breath hitched at her luck. Madame had warned them to accept any gentleman who bid, and even hinted that an older man would demand less. But Charlotte shivered at delight that Lucas held many physical attractions. Then she snorted at her silliness. As if she had anything to be proud of. The man didn’t even seem to want her, and only wanted to best his brother.
    She lowered her gaze and stepped toward Madame’s parlor.
    “They called you Charlotte.”
    “What?” She paused with one foot nearly in the doorway of the parlor.
    “The girls on the stairs called you Charlotte,” he repeated. Coarse hairs dotted his cheeks and chin and he had shadows under his eyes, the kind that lack of sleep formed.
    “They did, but Madame prefers Charlene. She believes it to be a more fitting name for a mistress.”
    “Which is it to be then? What do you prefer?”
    “Char…” She hesitated, unsure how to proceed. “Lotte,” she said. He’d already won the auction. Surely he wouldn’t renege because of her name, and it boded well that he even cared about her preferences. Remaining Charlotte helped her retain a core piece of her soul.
    “Come in, Charlene. Stop dithering in the hallway,” Madame said from behind her desk.
    “Charlotte and I were just conversing,” he said with an