The Secrets of a Courtesan by Nicola Cornick Read Free Book Online Page B

in a gesture of surrender.
    “All right, Rowarth. I understand.” He grinned. “Don’t forget that I am your oldest friend. There
    is no need to call me out. I’m here only if you need help tonight. As is Nat Waterhouse.” He
    pointed out a tall, dark man who was across the other side of the hall drinking champagne and
    flirting with a blond woman with improbably girlish ringlets, whose breasts were tumbling out of
    the bodice of her clinging blue gown. As they watched, Waterhouse raised one of the blond’s
    ringlets to his lips and she simpered up at him in return.
    “Contrary to all appearances,” Miles Vickery said drily, “Waterhouse is working tonight.”
    He bowed again and sauntered off, leaving Eve very aware of Rowarth’s presence at her side.
    She had felt the tension simmering in him from the moment they had first greeted Warren
    Sampson. She turned to see him glaring at her.
    “No one will believe that we were ever lovers if you look at me like that, Rowarth,” she said.
    “There is no need to behave with such ill-tempered possessiveness.”
    “Is there not?” Something primitive flared in Rowarth’s eyes before he banked it down. “That is
    what you do to me, Eve. There is business unfinished between us.”
    “There is nothing between us—” Eve started to say, even as he caught her close again with a
    demand she was powerless to resist and which made a mockery of her denials.
    “You still respond to me,” he murmured, his lips brushing the corner of her mouth. “Admit it,
    Eve.”
    “And what is that to the purpose?” Eve was really angry with him now both for demonstrating
    the power he still had over her and arrogantly asserting that it meant anything at all. “I admit that
    there is some sort of inconvenient attraction still between us,” she said, “but it is no more than
    that.” She tapped her fan sharply in the palm of her hand. “You should take a good, long look at
    yourself, Rowarth, duke or no. You come here and insult me with your false accusations and
    coerce me into behaving like a harlot in red silk and no underwear and then you behave like a
    dog in a manger.”
    They stared at one another, locked in furious confrontation, until recalled to their surroundings
    by a discreet cough.
    “Excuse me, madam.” A liveried servant had approached and was standing a little distance away,
    clearing his throat. Eve tore her gaze away from Rowarth. “Mr. Sampson’s compliments and
    would you care to join him in the library?”
    “Thank you,” Eve said, casting Rowarth one final glance before she followed him. “I should be
    delighted.”

Chapter 4
    “I don’t like it,” Rowarth said to Miles Vickery. The two of them were stationed on a stone
    balcony directly above the open terrace windows that led from the library into the gardens. It
    gave them a perfect means of eavesdropping on the conversation inside the room without being
    so obvious as to be lurking suspiciously on the terrace. But Rowarth could also see the
    disadvantages. If Sampson closed the terrace doors then they would hear nothing and more
    importantly, if Eve needed help it would take them a long time to reach her. Nat Waterhouse,
    who was downstairs making sure that no one sprung them, was nearer, but he could not know
    what was happening inside the library.
    At the moment Eve was alone and Rowarth was already feeling as strung out as a wire. His
    tension had ratcheted higher and higher since the confrontation with Eve in the carriage. He had
    despised the way in which Sampson had looked her over, his hands itching to plant the man a
    facer. He had almost done the same to Miles, who was a childhood friend. And Eve’s words to
    him in the hall had cut directly through all the bitterness and anger within him and had gone
    straight to his heart.
    You come here and insult me with your false accusations and coerce me into behaving like a
    harlot …
    Rowarth gritted his teeth. He was not proud of himself.