How To Vex A Viscount (5 page)

And yet Isabella’s advice echoed in her head. Whatever happened this night, she would have to wash her own face in the morning. Even courtesans should be allowed modesty when they wished it. Perhaps she could be a courtesan on holiday, not seeking a patron, and therefore not displaying her wares quite so boldly.

Daisy skittered back over to the dressing table and selected a filmy red fichu to tuck around her neck and into the deep-cut bodice. Her rouged nipples still showed darkly through the delicate fabric, but the slight additional covering gave her a measure of relief.

She caught Nanette scowling at her in the mirror. “You wish to say something?”

“Only that mam’selle has ruined the line of the gown,” the lady’s maid said with an injured sniff.

“Perhaps,” Daisy allowed. “But now the line of my conscience remains untroubled. Blanche La Tour is not trying to entice a new patron this evening. This is daring enough.”

Uncle Gabriel always said she could have had a career on the stage, if only the theatre weren’t so tawdry an undertaking. She would look upon this evening as if it were a play, Daisy decided. The Venetian shoes lifted her to a new height. The gown was more daring than plain Daisy Drake would ever think of donning. She would speak nothing but French for the rest of the night. Her accent was excellent, and the nasal quality of that tongue should effectively disguise her voice, even if she met someone she knew.

No one would penetrate this disguise.

Daisy slipped into the role of Mademoiselle Blanche LaTour, bird of paradise, albeit with a few of her finer feathers discreetly tucked. With a lace-gloved hand on the brass railing, she descended slowly to join Lord Wexford’s party, already in progress.

Lucian accepted the flute of champagne from Lord Wexford’s butler and surveyed the long ballroom. He rarely attended such events. Since the family fortunes were so depleted, Lucian didn’t have the resources to be fashionable. Cultivating the image of a misanthropic recluse was more palatable than letting the threadbare truth be known.

The only enticement that drew him out this time was Lady Wexford’s suggestion in her invitation that he might find an investor for his newest enterprise this evening. He was surprised she’d heard of it so quickly. The gossip mill in London was obviously as ruthlessly efficient as ever. No doubt the news of his excavation and his hopes had been trumpeted and tittered at all over town.

At least Lady Wexford hadn’t laughed at him as the Society of Antiquaries had.

“Bunch of gossipy old hens,” he grumbled to no one in particular, and turned back to gaze over the assembly.

The theme of the masquerade seemed to be a bacchanal. Several guests sported Roman togas. One randy old fellow had bared his sunken chest, donned furred leggings and was cavorting about the dance floor. Already seriously in his cups, he chased the female dancers and interrupted the stately lines of the gavotte, proclaiming himself Pan incarnate. Finally, one of Lord Wexford’s servants in the guise of a praetorian guardsman firmly escorted him off the floor.

Lord and Lady Wexford looked cool and classical in their flowing white robes and gold leaf laurels. Though the lady was reputed to be her husband’s senior by some fifteen years, she still turned heads as they glided from one group to the next, greeting their guests.

Given the lateness of his invitation, Lucian decided his hostess couldn’t quibble about the fact that his costume consisted solely of a silk mask and a decidedly old-fashioned frock coat and knee breeches, all in black. The original buttons on the ensemble had been ornately worked silver, but he’d been forced to sell them to fund his work. Now sombre pewter was his only decoration. If anyone asked, he supposed he could claim he’d come disguised as a Puritan.

And a good stretch that’d be,
he thought with a wolfish grin. His financial state might keep him from seeking gentlemanly pleasures, but his imagination was rife with them. Lucian dreamed of a well-stocked stable, membership at the most exclusive clubs and a beautiful mistress tucked away in a fashionable love bower. Of course, once he found the Roman hoard, he’d upgrade the family estates and ease the plight of his even poorer tenants. But after that was accomplished, a gentleman had a right to tend to his own needs.

However, at the moment, he was the nearly penniless Viscount Rutland. His father was kept from total ruin by a degradingly small stipend from Lucian’s mother’s family. When his mother had died, his Italian grandfather threatened to cut Lord Montford off, and probably would have if not for Lucian. Still, his father was deucedly tight-fisted with his meagre coin. Lucian couldn’t have afforded to hire a Roman-themed costume for this masquerade, even if he’d received his invitation in a timelier manner.

Still, Lucian didn’t feel too out of place. Despite the classical theme, many revellers had decided to dress to their own tastes. There was a smattering of medieval lords and ladies, a Turkish pasha accompanied by a shapely harem girl, and one fellow wearing an ass’s head.

“He’s either supposed to be Bottom from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
or he’s being honest about his true character,” Lucian murmured.

“Bien sûr,”
came a musical voice at his side. The speaker obviously understood English, but she continued in French. “Sometimes we must don a mask before we can be completely ourselves.”

He turned and found a vision in red tulle at his side. The statuesque beauty met his gaze squarely, her slanting cat eyes glittering behind her mask like jewels embedded in velvet. A beguiling whiff of jasmine swirled about her.

The expensive and lavish scent announced her occupation more clearly than if she carried a placard. A top-tier courtesan, he guessed.

She looked away, as if she hadn’t spoken to him. Then she raised her own glass and sipped, baring her long, pale neck. His gaze drifted lower to where her nipples were only partially obscured by a thin fichu. By rouging them, then covering them, she had achieved a neat juxtaposition of the virgin and the wanton. The cagey lady drew his eye to her pert charms more effectively than if she’d laid her silken breasts bare.

For a moment, he remembered gazing down on the ink- stained bosom of that fascinatingly curious girl outside the Society’s meeting. At least, he’d thought her fascinating till he’d discovered she was Daisy Drake, all grown up.

Miss Drake was nothing but trouble. Especially since his father had conceived a hatred of all Drakes.

Lucian shoved aside the memory of the maddening girl, now grown into a maddening woman, and stole another glance at the courtesan’s peekaboo décolletage. Her rouged areolae were like ripe strawberries. His mouth watered. If this was a sample of what he’d missed by not attending this sort of fete, perhaps he’d have to swallow his pride and show himself to society more often, threadbare gentility exposed or not.

“Do you talk only to yourself, monsieur?” she asked, still in French and still not deigning to look directly at him. “If so, I must apologize. It is the height of rudeness to eavesdrop on a party’s conversation with themselves, don’t you think?”

“No, I mean, yes, I was talking to myself,” he responded in the same tongue. “But I’d much rather talk to you. I fear you caught me admiring your . . . costume. That red is a bold colour, even in this dim light.”

Behind her feathered mask, her eyes flicked toward him. He wished the hall were lit well enough for him to determine their colour as well.

“I am a bold woman, monsieur,” she said. “But you have mistaken me. This is no costume.”

So she was precisely what she seemed.

“Clever,” he said. Like her beguiling nipples, this courtesan hid in plain sight.

Lucian wished his financial state allowed for a dalliance with a woman such as this. His father had always said every man needed an experienced mistress at least once in his life. A woman to teach him the subtleties of fleshly love with no further expectation beyond the exchange of gifts and mutual pleasure.

Of course, his father said a great many things that were totally impractical.

Lucian made a smooth, courtly leg to her. Even though he teetered on bankruptcy, he could still afford the manners of a gentleman.

“Viscount Rutland, your servant, mademoiselle.”

“So forward, sir? This is a masquerade. Our true selves may be on display, but our identities are supposed to remain the gravest of secrets.” She flicked open her fan and waved it languidly before her décolletage—now hiding, now exposing herself to his gaze. “Would you speak so to any other woman to whom you have not been properly introduced?”

“But you just told me that you were . . .” His jaw gaped slightly. “I crave your pardon if I have offended you. I simply thought—”

“You thought a member of the Cyprian corps wouldn’t insist upon civility?” she said archly. “Monsieur
le Vicomte,
a woman in my line of employ must require polite discourse, for who will guard her dignity if she does not?”

“Surely your ardent admirer would,” he said, fascinated by this exotic creature. She seemed a quixotic blend of worldly and naive, insisting upon a proper introduction while driving him mad with stolen glimpses of her breasts. “I certainly would.”

“Then I shall forgive you,” she said simply. “Ah! But here comes our hostess. Lady Wexford, if you are acquainted with this gentleman, please introduce me to this . . .
pardonez-moi,
what shall your costume be?”

“A Puritan.”

“Then I stand corrected when I said that in the concealment of the masquerade our true selves were on display, for I suspect yours is far from pure,” she said throatily.

“The lady is as astute as she is beautiful,” Lucian countered.

“Well, you two are getting on famously without benefit of introduction. It seems a shame to disrupt what is so seemly begun.” Lady Wexford arched a silver brow at the courtesan.

“Please, Madame. I did not come all the way from Paris not to meet a few well-chosen people.”

“Very well,” their hostess said. “If my eyes have penetrated your disguise, I believe I have the honour to present Lucian Beaumont, Viscount Rutland. Milord, this charming creature is my dear . . . friend, Blanche La Tour.”

The lady extended her gloved fingertips to him, and Lucian bowed over them, pressing his lips ever so lightly to her perfumed knuckles.

“Enchanté, mademoiselle,”
he said, surprised to feel a slight tremble in her hand. It was what he might expect of a nervous debutante rather than a woman who exchanged her favours for rich gifts. He found the tremor amazingly endearing.

“Actually, your meeting is highly fortuitous,” Isabella explained. “Blanche, dear, this is the gentleman whose interest in Roman art I told you about.”

“Indeed? Ancient art is my passion.” Blanche’s red lips curved into a wicked smile. “One of my passions.”

Lucian didn’t imagine the teasing sparkle in her eyes behind the plumed mask. Definitely a top-tier Cyprian. If he had it to give, he’d willingly part with whatever she demanded for the privilege of being initiated into her passions.

“Then permit me to tell you more of it. Actually, my work might be more aptly described as antiquities rather than ancient art.”

“Ah, but it is the art of the ancients that is oh, so naughty, is it not?” she countered.

The salacious couples and trios ringing the mosaic he’d displayed for the Society of Antiquaries flashed in his mind.

“Naughty indeed,” he agreed. “And I have unearthed some unusual pieces. Perhaps you’d care to see them.”

“I should like that very much. Oh!” Her head turned as the string quartet launched into a fresh set. “Is that a minuet?”

“I believe it is.” He extended his arm. “Would you dance, mademoiselle?”

“I’d adore dancing, especially the minuet, for it means you shall have to kiss me very soon, milord,” she said, laying a slim hand on his.

Lucian led her onto the dance floor, silently blessing the nameless dancing master who devised a dance with kisses built into the prescribed steps. True, it would be no more than a chaste peck, but he’d feel the petal softness of her lips beneath his and dream of more.

Perhaps much more.

“Please call me Lucian,” he urged.

“Lucian,” she said softly, with barely a hint of an accent before she continued in her own tongue. “And if you are planning to show me naughty art later, perhaps you should call me Blanche.”

“In the banquet of love, a kiss is the appetizer.”

—the journal of Blanche La Tour

CHAPTER FIVE

Daisy was panting with exertion when they finished the stately set. Her stays so constricted her breathing, the courtesan’s dress wouldn’t have allowed for a reel. Besides, she feared she might turn an ankle on the narrow platforms strapped to her feet. Nanette had assured her the tall shoes were all the rage in Venice, but they seemed almost suicidal on the dance floor in London.

At least the gavotte allowed a dignified glide. She couldn’t bear the thought of her nearly exposed breasts bouncing along in public. Each time she caught Lucian gazing at them, her nipples drew up so tight, she was tempted to cover them with her palms to ease the ache.