A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man (26 page)

When he left the copy shop, Mick looked both ways along the sidewalk, spooked again. Ridiculous, he told himself.

He got the diaries back in Piper’s drawer by four-fifty
P.M.
He left work early, taking his contraband with him. He’d be awaiting Piper’s call that evening, and in the meantime, he’d stop by the pub for a pint and a little light reading.

*   *   *

The instant Mick disappeared into the flow of pedestrians, Linc Northcutt popped out from his hiding place and slipped into the Sir Speedy. He pretended to browse the wall display of supplies until all the salespeople were occupied. Then he bent casually at the waist—as if he were stretching—and snatched the discarded sheet of paper from the trash.

Linc smoothed out the wrinkles as best he could, dismayed that some of the writing was left unintelligible by the paper jam. He scanned the archaic script and knew immediately it was from a historic document of some kind, perhaps even a journal. A few words into the first sentence, his eyes bugged out.

My dear Robert has never been interested in pursuing the deliciously wicked practices I’d come to enjoy during my nights with Sir, and I intend to find a new lover who is vastly more adventurous.

Linc stopped. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was nearby. Whatever the fuck this was he was holding in his hand had to be some sort of secret or Malloy wouldn’t have come here to copy it. He continued to read.

I have fully embraced my wantonness as the Courtesan the Blackbird, after all, and am no longer living in the world as Miss Ophelia Harrington. That tame and predictable life is dead to me. I care nothing for the so-called virtue of respectability.

Linc folded the paper into fourths, shoved it in his pants pocket, and chuckled to himself all the way back to the museum.

Twenty-one

Mick forgot about the city heat the moment he ducked into Malloy’s Pub. As always, the narrow establishment was bathed in cool dimness, punctuated by the squeaky-clean mirror behind the bar, the sparkling brass of the taps, and the much-polished mahogany of the bar itself.

Mick inhaled, and it was almost as if he could draw in his family’s story along with his breath. Suddenly, he stopped. Something was wrong.

No one had greeted him.

Glancing around, he saw a couple sitting at the tiny table by the front window, lost in each other, their pints hardly touched. A lone old fellow Mick had never seen before sat hunched on a stool. His clothes were well to the other side of fresh.

And nobody was tending bar.

Mick tossed his Sir Speedy’s package onto a pub table and ducked under the flip-top. He was donning an apron when Emily burst through the kitchen’s swinging door.

“Hullo, Em. Where’s—”

“I told him to bugger off,” she said, delivering a plate of crisps and a fried egg to the tattered-looking fellow. “You enjoy, now,” she said to the man.

Mick watched the old guy attack his food like he hadn’t eaten in a week. Right then, it occurred to him that he probably hadn’t.

Emily turned to Mick with her hands balled on her hips and her mouth set tight. “Can I pour you a pint?”

“No. Nothing, thanks,” he said, aware that she still hadn’t revealed the whereabouts of his brother. Sure, Emily was known to feed the homeless and take in stray cats, but by this point, Mick needed to be reassured that his brother hadn’t been chopped to bits and stuffed in the walk-in freezer.

“He’s out in the alley,” Em said with a sigh. “I locked the delivery door on him, so if he’s comin’ back I suspect it’ll be through the front.”

“What happened?”

Her face saddened, and Mick thought she was about to cry, which was unheard of for Emily.

“Ah,
psshh.
” She turned on her short, sturdy legs and waved her hand dismissively, grabbed a rag, then began to wipe down the bar with strokes hard enough to strip the finish. “Nothing we can’t get through, I suppose.”

Em and Cullen were known to get snippy with each other on occasion, but Mick’s sister-in-law seemed truly down today, and that was not her style. He slowly approached her and put a hand on her moving shoulder.

“Emily? What’s going on?”

She spun around, the rag clutched in the hand she’d chosen to gesture with. “The gobshite has put the pub up for sale! He’s called a real estate agent!”

Mick felt his jaw open in shock. “Wha … when did he do this?”

“Today. I caught him on the office phone.” Em raised both hands over her head, the rag now her flag of surrender. “We hadn’t even made a final decision about it, and he takes it upon himself to—”

The front door flew open, and there was Cullen, his chest heaving and everything above the collar red with fury. Without a word, he ducked under the flip-top and put on a clean apron. Em glared at her husband like he was Satan himself, and headed back into the kitchen.

Right about then, Mick knew his plans for the evening were shot.

*   *   *

In truth, Piper didn’t mind that Mick got sidetracked at the family pub. She was so exhausted she could barely stand, let alone concentrate on the Night of Sin at hand, even if it were all about relaxation and slow lovemaking. That would be too conducive to nodding off at an inopportune moment.

Never in her life had she had so much sex. Literally—Piper had experienced more sex over the weekend than in all her thirty years combined. And the quality of the sex?

Not even comparable. Off the charts. The stuff she thought existed only in paperbacks with half-naked men gracing their covers. All that pleasure had been a shock to her system.

So Piper came home Monday evening and took a hot soak in the tub, put on an old, worn-out nightgown, and crawled under some threadbare cotton sheets.

Almost immediately, her phone rang. It was Brenna.

“Hello.”

“Why are you answering your phone?” she asked. “Right about now you should be breaking out the body oil.”

Piper chuckled, too tired to even laugh properly. “We had to skip tonight. Mick’s brother had an emergency at the pub. We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow night.”

“Hmm. But everything’s going well?”

“Ooh, yeah.”

“No morning-after awkwardness at work?”

Miss Meade began rubbing against Piper’s arm, demanding attention. She scratched the cat behind her ears, suddenly feeling guilty—only one pussy had been getting attention around here, and it wasn’t the one with four legs.

“No weirdness, unless you count the fact that I showed up at the staff meeting with a giant hickey on the side of my neck.”

Brenna sucked in air.

“Concealer covered it right up.”

“And how was the meeting with Baz? Is he going to be able to help you out?”

“Oh, Brenna—he was incredible! He might just save the day.”

Basil Tate was Brenna’s former graduate assistant, now working as an associate professor at Amherst. His area of expertise happened to be the historical context of promiscuity, and he had dozens of contacts he said could help provide artifacts for an exhibit on the life of an early nineteenth-century British courtesan. Most were in London and Paris, unfortunately, but Baz gave Piper the name of a private collector near Philadelphia and a friend on staff at the Museum of Sexuality in New York City.

“When I think about how much work I’ve got to do I start to hyperventilate,” Piper said.

Brenna laughed. “You can do it. Like I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m here to help.”

Piper smiled, realizing that she’d never responded to Brenna the way she was about to. “I’ll take you up on it,” she said, meaning it.

After hanging up, Piper reached for her copies of Ophelia’s journals, which she’d grabbed from her workroom office just before heading home. Selecting a dozen or so excerpts to enlarge and mat for display would be one of her first challenges. Piper was reviewing the now-familiar words and thoughts when she noticed a few pages were out of order. That struck her as odd, since she couldn’t recall removing the document clips and working with loose pages.

But then again, Piper was so out sorts these days that she could hardly recall what century it was.

*   *   *

Malloy’s was hit by an unexpected happy-hour rush, and Mick helped Cullen at the bar until about eight, while Emily whipped up pub food and dinner entrees. When Cullen had things well in hand, Mick retreated to a booth and enjoyed a plate of Emily’s delicious beef pie with potato mash and a side of spinach, all washed down by two pints of Murphy’s. Only then, when his belly was full and he was assured that his brother and sister-in-law would soon be discussing their problems like adults, Mick turned on the pub lamp and reached for the Ophelia Harrington diaries.

What a fascinating read! Ophelia was only a girl when she told the aunt and uncle to bugger off and set off on her own. The Swan was over-the-top. And how about this “Sir” character? Mick laughed his ass off. What a racket, going around wearing a mask and relieving girls of their innocence, all the while insisting they call him “Sir”!

A few moments later, Mick’s laughter subsided. He had to admit the masked fellow had some valid insight. Mick also deduced that if he and Piper had been following the Seven Sins of the Courtesan in order—and it sure looked that way—tonight was supposed to be about slow and sensual lovemaking.

He put the documents aside for a moment and sighed. Ironically enough, his first instinct was to share this with Piper. He missed his lover. Mick had half a mind to call her, just to hear her voice.

With renewed curiosity, he scanned the first volume to discover what sins awaited him, and found they were Wrath, Covetousness, and Pride. It didn’t take a genius to figure out how those goodies might transfer into the twenty-first century, and he broke out in a sweat.

Mick suddenly sat up in the booth, a shock of awareness going through him. As exciting as all this was, it was just the pretty wrapping for what he’d been experiencing with Piper. He wasn’t missing the sin of the day—he was missing
her.
He missed Piper’s laugh and her softness and that mix of innocence and wildness that he found intoxicating.

A twinge of anxiety shot through him. What the hell was he doing falling for a woman when he was hoping—planning, really—to start traveling the world for a TV show?

Cullen suddenly stood over him. “What ya readin’?” He bent down and shoved his nose where it didn’t belong.

Mick slapped the pages closed.

Cullen roared with laughter. “Relax the cacks, Magnus! What—you got some nudie pics in there or something?”

Mick shoved the diaries into the Sir Speedy bag, knowing there was no way on God’s earth he would be sharing two-hundred-year-old English porno with his brother—he’d never hear the end of it. Besides, this wasn’t his secret to divulge—he wasn’t even supposed to know the diaries existed.

“Just research,” Mick said.

“Yeah? Well, we’re winding down. You said you wanted to talk.”

Mick nodded, following Cullen and bringing along his dirty dishes. The three of them met up in the kitchen office. Mick and Cullen were in chairs and Emily leaned on the doorjamb, keeping one eye on the bar and another on the security monitor aimed at the front door and dining room.

“I hear you want to sell the place.” Mick decided he’d just get to it.

“Who said that?” Cullen’s eyes flashed to Emily. “That phone call was just for some of the preliminary, you know, information gathering.”

Emily lowered her chin to her chest and gave her husband a look that needed no words.

“Don’t do it.” Mick leaned forward on the desk. “Let me invest in the pub. I can get you out of whatever temporary spot you’re in and we’ll move forward together. I…” Mick paused before he went any further, knowing that if he mentioned the reality-show money he’d damned well better deliver. “I might be in a position where you won’t have to worry about money anymore.”

Cullen and Emily glanced at each other in shock.

“You win the Mega Millions?” Cullen asked.

Mick shook his head.

Cullen folded his arms over his chest. “Don’t be daft, Magnus. You’re already part owner. Da left the pub to both of us. This place is as much yours as it is mine.”

“Then what are you doing trying to sell the feckin’ place behind my back?”

Cullen’s eyes went wide. “Ha! I’m the one who’s in here bustin’ my bollocks every day trying to squeeze out a livin’ in a recession!”

Mick smiled. “Exactly my point, old man,” he said, reaching over to put a hand on his brother’s arm. “Isn’t it about time I did my bit?”

While they’d argued, Em had been studying Mick and Cullen, nervously fiddling with her ponytail. “That’s enough,” she said, her voice so soft it alarmed both the men. She looked at her husband. “Now, would you kindly explain what kind of spot we are in? I’m well aware we’re not making money hand over fist here, and I know we’ve been a few weeks late on bills, but is there something yer not telling me?”

Cullen swallowed. “We’re … ah … about three months behind on the mortgage,” he said.

She blinked. “Which one—the house or the pub?”

“Both.”

“What?”

“Ah, shit.” Cullen wiped a hand over his face. “I was hoping I could get us square before you found out. I didn’t want you to worry. But the receipts just kept getting less and less…” Cullen tried to smile. “But tonight might be a sign things are turning around!”

“Oh, for feck’s sake, Malloy,” Em said, shaking her head in disbelief. “You hid all this from me? Why? I have a right to know if we’re headed to hell in a handcart! Anyway, I thought we did everything as a team.”

Cullen lowered his head, chastised. “I just didn’t want …
this,
” he said. “I couldn’t face you finding out I’d failed you, failed the children.”

“Look,” Mick said to both of them. “You have a lot to sort out, but there’s still an offer on the table. I have about fifteen thousand saved and it’s yours. Catch up on the mortgages, get ahead on your bills.”

Cullen shook his head. “We couldn’t. We’d be wiping you out.”

“You wouldn’t.” Mick laughed to himself before he elaborated, knowing his brother might very well assume he was joking. “I’ll be getting my own reality show soon.”