The Courtesan's Daughter by Claudia Dain Read Free Book Online Page B

once made, seemed to have been one of her mother’s first friends. She had never quite warmed to Lord Staverton. It might have been because he still looked at her mother as if she were a treat he wanted to partake of at any moment. It might have been because one of his eyes was crossed. It might have been because she didn’t like to think of her mother having had … friends.
    But that was all going to change now, now that she was going to have friends of her own.
    “Delighted, Lady Caroline,” Lord Staverton said warmly.
    Whatever one could say about Lord Staverton, he did have lovely manners. Lord Ashdon had barely said one word in greeting. Lord Ashdon was eyeing her like an unruly carthorse. Lord Ashdon could go to the devil.
    “And you must remember Mrs. Warren,” Sophia said, whereupon Anne curtseyed gracefully, a curl of her shining red hair tumbling forward to land in her flawless cleavage. Both men’s eyes went to Anne’s cleavage, and stayed there for approximately four seconds too long.
    “Of course, and how are you this evening, Mrs. Warren?” Lord Staverton gushed, his good eye twitching back and forth between Anne’s face and her cleavage.
    The unsubstantiated rumors of Lord Staverton’s interest in Anne as a possible wife seemed slightly more substantiated.
    Was everyone in the world going to be married while she was busy being a courtesan?
    “Very well, thank you, Lord Staverton,” Anne said mildly.
    This conversation was boring beyond words and was taking her nowhere in her inexplicable desire to make Lord Ashdon wretched.
    “I’m so glad we’ve had the opportunity to meet, Lord Ashdon,” she said. “I daresay we have our mutual curiosity to satisfy.”
    There. In with both feet and not a moment’s regret.
    A startled silence spread out from their small group to touch the others in the room so that conversation stalled and stilled until only the most hesitant whispers could be heard in the far corners. Oh, dear. And those blue eyes were so chilling and so still, as if she were the only person in the room and still of no interest to him. Horrid man. She’d had quite enough of being undesirable for one day and she was in no frame of mind to tolerate it from this man.
    She half expected her mother to say something to smooth the moment; her mother excelled at that sort of thing. But her mother said nothing.
    “As to curiosity,” Lord Ashdon said, his voice low and controlled, “yes, that itch is scratched. As to satisfaction,” he almost purred, “no, Lady Caroline. Not at all. I am far, far from being satisfied.”
    “To your misfortune,” she said, caught in his cold blue gaze and fighting back with her tongue. “I find myself most satisfied, all my questions answered.”
    Somehow, with some hurried breath of words, her mother and Staverton left them. Anne probably wished to escape, but could think of no excuse that would carry her off. Caro reached back and grabbed Anne by the arm, linking them. Anne turned away and looked at a vase of early roses on the sideboard as if she had never seen pink roses before. Caro felt more alone with Lord Ashdon than if she had been locked in a cupboard with him, though being locked in a cupboard brought to mind all sorts of delicious sensations and dangers, not that Lord Ashdon looked at all as if he would participate.
    She gripped Anne’s arm tighter.
    “You’ll pardon me,” Lord Ashdon said, staring into her eyes, “but you do not look satisfied. Far from it.”
    “Your eyes deceive you,” she declared.
    “Something is endeavoring to deceive me,” he said. Was that a smile? No, he was too surly for smiles.
    “Surely you are not implying that I practice deceit.”
    “I would certainly never imply that you have perfected deceit.”
    Anne tried to pull off. Caro held on.
    “Lord Ashdon, this conversation is entirely too familiar,” Caro said, raising her chin.
    “Lady Caroline,” he said—he was smiling—“perhaps more than our