A Regency era courtesan gives up her empire for love and discovers how truly binding her connections are to the noblemen she used to serve.
*****
In the sequel to Courte...
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With my residence secured, thanks to a promise from the duke, and with severance documents signed, I stood on the front stoop bidding my former benefactors farewell, knowing the most difficult challenge still lay ahead. I had left a rather agitated Captain Thompson waiting in a wingback chair, and when I arrived to attend him, the sitting room felt as if Jasper had built a fire in the hearth using every log on the pile.
I returned to my seat and found Jules staring at the rug without flinching. I daresay he didn't notice my presence until I picked up my glass of port from the tray cart. At the moment our eyes met, I felt his pain through the stormy grey lens of his gaze.
"Is that all of them, then?" he said softly.
I wanted to tell him yes. I dearly wished for his suffering to be over, but I could not leave out the reverend. Although we did not engage in sexual congress, we had entered into a formal contract. "There is one more. But his is a special case. Our arrangement does not involve activities of a...carnal nature."
His eyebrows bunched like clouds over turbulent seas. "What type of arrangement is it?"
"One that involves a trade. His wine for my company."
His eyebrows reversed direction, lifting toward the sky. "Are you speaking of Reverend Lawtey?"
"I am."
"And you're saying he gives you wine in exchange for conversation?"
While the details of my contracts were not open for discussion, I felt compelled to put his mind at ease. "As I told you some months back, I remind him of his wife who passed. He offered to supply my household with wine if I spent time with him in the home they shared. We play games. Drink wine. Sometimes... Oftentimes, he asks that I undress for him. That is, typically, as far as he carries the intimacy."
"Typically?"
"Captain, please. I am bound to my benefactors to keep our agreements confidential. I have already offered more than is respectful."
He sighed. "You're right. It is my responsibility to deal with these tortured thoughts, not yours." Draining his glass of port, he set it on the tray and stood. "Can we take a walk? The room is beginning to feel like a funeral pyre."
I could not have agreed more, and with a springtime breeze carrying the smoke away from Piccadilly Street, we enjoyed a pleasant promenade. He asked if I had heard about the new steam locomotive, Puffing Billy, built in Newcastle upon Tyne. And when I told him I had, he enquired if I might be curious to see it in action. I knew he was trying to manage his tortured thoughts, so I responded with ready interest.
Quite unexpectedly, he pulled me into a bookshop and purchased Jane Austen's new novel, explaining that I might enjoy it during my free time. Was he anticipating I would have more free time now that I was not attending to benefactors? I dared not ask. Things were going too well.
