To Recapture a Rake: A Hephaestus Club Novella Read Online Free Page B

evidence that he cared for her
in any but an obvious, physical way.
    Then, he had said those words.
    But it had happened only once. Surely, if the
affection was deeply rooted, he’d have said something of it before. And if he had
loved her, why was he so quick to replace her?
    At last, she sighed. “Give me the direction
of this place then, for you know you want to.”
    Her sister leaned forward eagerly on her
chair. “What do you mean to do with the information?”
    “Nothing that concerns you. And you must promise to avoid Blackthorne
from this moment on. It is bad enough that one of us is totally ruined. Please
do not break our mother’s heart further than it already is.”

CHAPTER
THREE

 
    Caro sat in her carriage in front of the
green door on Jermyn Street, gathering her nerve. Considering her profession,
it should not have been possible to shock or disgust her. She was a courtesan
and beyond the pale. The activities that took place behind that door were not
unfamiliar to her. In fact, she quite enjoyed some of them.
    But if she was honest with herself, she was
terribly sheltered. She’d spent too much of the last year hiding in her house.
She could not go about in polite society. But she had made no effort to mix
with others of her set.
    That made her too proud, she supposed. She
had not wanted to think of herself as a demimondaine, so why should she mix
with them?  To make up for the absence of friends, she had filled her days
with activity. Mornings, she had walked in Hyde Park, early enough to avoid the
majority of society. Then she had received her sister. In the afternoon, she
read, tended the flowers in her garden and embroidered innumerable
handkerchiefs, screens and pillows.
    In the evenings, she had Vincent. Between
them, they had created their own world: a harmony of quiet conversation, shared
jokes, and leisurely lovemaking.
    Now, he was behind that green enameled door,
doing God knew what with God knew whom. Was he guilty of perversion? She hoped
not. Despite his reputation, when he was alone with her he was the most decent
of men. To find him holding a whip, or bending beneath it, would spoil her
opinion of him.
    As she watched the door a man approached,
clearly planning to enter. If he was representative of the clientele the place
could not be too terribly bad. This stranger looked in no way worldly, the very
opposite of the rakish Blackthorne. He was pale skinned and bespectacled. His
ill-fitting coat hung from shoulders set in a scholarly stoop. While he might
be the sort of man to frequent a house of ill fame, she had trouble imagining
him at the same one as her Vincent.
    She would not know the truth until she had
seen the other side of the door, and her curiosity grew by the minute. She
signaled to her driver to circle the block and took to the street, walking a
few paces behind the man as he climbed the granite steps and raised a hand to
the knocker.
    After a short series of raps ,
it opened for him, and the porter greeted him by name. “Hello Mr. Howard.”
    Before he could answer, she was up the steps
and beside him, slipping her hand into his arm and propelling him forward
through the open door.
    He jumped, as shocked as if she’d assaulted
him, and tried to pull his arm away.
    In response, she gave him her most
devastating smile and held on even tighter. Then she looked to the mortified
servant. “I am sure Mr. Howard does not mind if I partake in the pleasures here
this evening.”
    “I don’t?” he said absently. Then he shook
his head to clear it. “Actually, I do.” He glanced down at her. “It would be
most improper.”
    “That is the point of this place, is it not?”
She squeezed his arm, hoping that he would use his imagination rather than
requesting a demonstration. It did not look like the sort of place where events happened   in full view of the staff. The foyer was as staid and unremarkable as her
companion. “Under circumstances such as these, is anything really