Lord of Pleasure (5 page)

It was time to go.

Alexander stepped up onto the landing beside Caldwell and clapped him gently on the back. “So sorry. I really should not have overreacted the way I did. And though I fully support whatever path you choose, with whichever sex you choose, I am simply not that sort of a friend, and I hope you understand.” He paused, quickly removed his hand, and pointed straight at the carriage behind them. “And I should go.”

Caldwell jerked toward him, his expression lethally serious beneath the rim of his top hat. “Don’t flatter yourself, you asshole. Even if I was that sort—
which I’m not
—you’d hardly be worth my time. Now I’m asking you to be patient with regard to this situation. I know none of this makes sense. Hell, it still doesn’t make any sense to me, either. But it’s already complicated enough without you turning it into bleeding Waterloo.”

Alexander’s brows rose. By God. What sort of trouble was the man in? Caldwell only referenced Waterloo when things were downright bad. That, coupled with the urgency in both Caldwell’s tone and dark eyes, was what ultimately kept Alexander from leaving. “All right. I’ll stay.”

Caldwell hissed out a breath, withdrew his calling card from his breast pocket, and snapped it out toward the butler. “We’ve an appointment.”

The portly, gray-haired man observed them rather dubiously from beneath the thick, fuzzy tufts of his brows, then reached out and took the card. After reading it, he glanced over at Alexander, then averted his gaze back to Caldwell.

The servant cleared his throat again. Only this time a bit more theatrically. “I apologize, but the appointment is set for only one. No one else, no matter their esteemed lineage, is permitted to enter at this time.”

“Mr. Hudson.” Caldwell stepped toward the butler. “Madame de Maitenon and I have an agreement. Surely, she must have informed you of it.”

Alexander’s brows came together. Madame de Maitenon? Miss Charlotte wasn’t French, was she? He paused. What if Miss Charlotte no longer lived here? Actually, what if Miss Charlotte had
never
lived here? Oh hell. That would explain all the returned trunks. Aside from that corset he sent, that is. That thing somehow never did make it back.

The butler glanced over his shoulder, toward the open door behind him, then quickly turned back to them, nobly setting his plump, aged chin. “Forgive me, Lord Caldwell, but I don’t recall a thing.” He lowered his chin down onto his stiff collar, grouping the loose folds of skin beneath his neck all into one, and whispered, “Though a few pounds might help.”

“Pounds?”
Caldwell muttered something beneath his breath, dug into his inner coat, and withdrew his leather satchel. “Whatever happened to a man asking for a shilling?” Yanking out several coins, Caldwell tucked the satchel back into his coat pocket and held out the coins for the man. “Here. Take it, you mercenary. We’ll talk about this later.”

The butler paused, then brought up a gray-gloved hand and rubbed his fingers together. For more.

Caldwell grumbled, “I must be mad,” then pulled out the satchel and shoved it all at the man. “Here, you bloody thimblerigger. Now let us in! Thanks to you, all of London already knows we’re here.”

The butler tsked. “Such language.” The old man peered past them and toward the street. Seeing no one, he stuffed the leather satchel into the pocket of his dark blue livery. He then glanced expectantly at Alexander, turned up his palm, and held it out.

Since when were cards collected at the door? Alexander hesitated and eyed Caldwell.

Caldwell turned and delivered him a pointed stare.

Alexander knew that look all too well. He called it the Waterloo stare. When a British soldier desperately needed Prussian reinforcement. And he, of course, was the Prussian reinforcement.

Alexander blew out a breath, dug into his own breast pocket, and withdrew his calling card. “Exactly how much will it cost
me
to get in?”

“Not a groat.” The butler plucked the card out of his hand and stepped back, opening the door all the way as he gestured for them to enter. “I was, after all, born a gentleman, with a prayer book in one hand and a drink in the other.”

“Yes, and clearly the drinking hand is getting the better of you.” Alexander removed his hat and stepped in first. As if being first would somehow give him a claim to the mistress of the house. That is, if she even lived here anymore.

He paused when he reached the middle of the hall foyer. The sweet smell of wine teased his heightened senses. The rich, playful scent did not match the memory of the simple penny soap he’d last breathed upon her skin. Whatever happened to Miss Charlotte? He didn’t know why, but his stomach actually sank at the thought that he had somehow failed her. Had left her to a fate she did not deserve.

Caldwell paused beside him as the entrance door closed, darkening the quiet foyer. “You owe me money. Perhaps even a new nose.”

“I owe you nothing. You’re fortunate I’m still standing here. This is what I call a true testament to our friendship.”

“Yes, and I suppose I should expect a blow to my bollocks next.”

A clock chimed thrice in the distance, somewhere upstairs, then clicked back into silence.

Alexander slowly turned toward the adjoining room, not knowing what to expect next. He leveled his gaze at the room.

A single piece of furniture, a gilded chair, was set in the middle of the parlor. And nothing else. There were no carpets or side tables or vases or lamps.

Instead, the fuss had been put into the expanse of the brocaded, coral silk walls. Large, gold-framed paintings of Greece, the Parthenon, various Greek temples, as well as an array of naked Greek goddesses that ranged from Aphrodite to Athena, graced every inch of the walls.

To be sure, it was a bleeding Greek temple.

Alexander blinked as he stepped toward the room’s doorway, noting some of the other contents in the room. In particular, four life-size marble statues of well-muscled, nude men—with absolutely no fig leaves covering the lower regions. All of them had been strategically placed about the parlor.

He honestly didn’t know what was more astounding, the nudity or the fact that fashion accessories had been strategically placed on every one of those statues so as to better emphasize their sculpted assets.

One wore a beaver hat angled over his left eye. Another wore a silk red cravat meticulously tied mail-coach style about his neck. One had an unbuttoned evening waistcoat, displaying the well-defined muscles on his chest and stomach. And draped on the outstretched arm of the last of the four statues was an unlaced corset.

Alexander squinted at the corset. Bone rot him, it was the one thing that had never been returned. The corset he’d bought from a shop for more money than he ought to have paid. The same corset he had then meticulously folded into a trunk, along with various other dresses and banknotes in a frenzied hope of saving Miss Charlotte’s virtue. What little good that did. The presence of that corset did mean one thing: That Miss Charlotte most certainly still lived here.

The butler cleared his throat from behind. “Your hat, Lord Hawksford.”

Alexander turned toward the servant and hesitated. He shouldn’t stay. He ought to leave. Before the last thread of reason he’d been clinging to snapped and sent him flying in a direction that he could not afford to go. And yet…

He genuinely wanted to see her. Wanted to know what this was all about. For he refused to believe that the woman he had met and left on that doorstep would actually resort to this sort of life. Not with the sort of vicious pride she had.

Alexander grudgingly handed over his hat and hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.

The butler turned away and carefully positioned Alexander’s hat onto its own red velvet cushion which lay atop a walnut hall table just outside the parlor. Right beside Caldwell’s hat, which already sat on its own red velvet cushion.

Alexander’s eyes suddenly widened. For there were not two, not three, but actually
four
red velvet cushions all sitting in a row. Confound it, how many other male hats had been here before his?

The very thought of it made him want to growl. No. Not growl. Roar. For it appeared that the woman preferred to sell off her body rather than accept any of his gifts.

The servant turned, then regally strode to the other side of the foyer. He removed one of five lit glass lanterns that were affixed to the left side of the corridor wall on brass hooks. With the lantern in hand, the man proceeded farther down the corridor, just past the stairs, and paused at what appeared to be a misplaced door in the wall.

The butler opened the door wide, held out the lantern for them to take, and gestured toward the darkness. “Mind the step. The passageway will lead you to the other side, where you will be appropriately greeted by Harold.”

Alexander glanced over at Caldwell, who had glanced over at him. “The other side of what?”

Caldwell shrugged. “Hell if I know. Must be part of the school.”

School? Alexander stepped by him and grabbed hold of his arm. “What do you mean? What school?”

Caldwell winced but didn’t answer.

Alexander leaned in toward him. “Caldwell, I swear to you that if you don’t tell me what this is all about, I’ll rope you naked to a tree in the middle of Hyde Park and sell tickets.” He delivered him a hard, pointed stare. “To love-starved women bearing horse whips.”

Caldwell shuddered and pulled away. Shaking his head, he reached into his inner vest pocket and yanked out a neatly folded cream-colored parchment. “With all of your new responsibilities this past year, I knew you wouldn’t come unless I manipulated our wager to my advantage.”

Alexander pointed at him. “You son of a bitch. You cheated. Did you pay the woman to try to rape me, too?”

Caldwell blew out a breath. “Hawksford, I only assisted in getting her into the house. The rest she willingly did all on her own, I assure you, and for it I apologize. Now I promise I’ll try to explain all of this later, but in the meantime, I beseech you to enroll. Here.” He shoved the parchment at him. “I’m in the last stage of enrolling myself.”

Alexander paused, sensing Caldwell’s unease, then took the parchment and quickly unfolded it. He leveled the printed letters and read aloud.
“Madame Thérèse’s School of Gallantry. All gentlemen welcome. Learn from the most celebrated demimondaine of France everything there is to know about…”

He drew his brows together. Was he even reading any of this right? Well, yes. There it was.
“Love and seduction. Only a limited amount of applications are being accepted at 11 Berwick Street. Discretion is guaranteed and”
—He could barely finish the last word as the remnants of his patience completely dwindled—
“advised.”

Oh, he’d bloody advise the woman, all right. Was she mad, outright inviting all of London to her door like this?

Alexander crushed the parchment in his fist at the realization that his oh so clever Miss Charlotte, who had so innocently and desperately propositioned him on the street, was now caressing the trousers off every man in London.

He didn’t know why he felt so wounded. She wasn’t
his
mistress, and yet for some absurd reason he felt a horrid responsibility to actually do something.

Which, of course, he wasn’t going to.

“Your brain must be completely made out of cork if you think I’m going to attend such a thing.
And with you
.” Alexander shook his head and marched back toward the main entrance. “You and your bloody wagers and secrets and schools. I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.”

Caldwell jumped in front of him to prevent him from going any farther, snatched the crumpled parchment out of his hand, and shoved it back into his inner vest pocket. “Hawksford. Please.” He adjusted his coat. “Don’t do this to me. It’s important you stay. It’ll make sense later. I swear.”

With that, Caldwell hurried past, grabbed the lantern from the butler’s hand, and stepped down into the darkness and disappeared. The faint golden light from his lantern flickered out into the corridor for a few moments, then faded.

How important could it be? He certainly wasn’t in need of any damn lessons. And if Caldwell needed them, then hell, that was
not
his problem.

The butler continued to patiently hold open the door. “Will you be joining him, Lord Hawksford?”

Alexander shifted his jaw at the idea of coming face-to-face with Miss Charlotte again. Clearly, playing the part of a widow hadn’t won her much applause, so she had moved on to far greater roles. Madame de Maitenon. A French courtesan. Indeed.

He knew the moment he’d laid eyes on the woman that she’d disturb the peace of every man. And how.

“You’re damn right I’ll be joining him.” And with that, Alexander marched straight for the door.

Alexander snatched one of the four remaining glass lanterns off the wall on his way over. Brushing past the butler, he slowly descended the spiraling, narrow, stone stairway. Descended down into the dank darkness that reeked of earth, dry rot, and stagnant moisture.

The door slammed shut behind him, and he knew. Knew there was no saving Caldwell from his own stupidity. Though he wasn’t by any means more intelligent for following him.

At the bottom of the stairs, he stooped to avoid the low ceiling. Though not in time.

“Bleed me!” Alexander winced and rubbed with his free hand at the dull, throbbing pain that nipped the top of his head.

Forget about being rational anymore. He was going to kill Caldwell. With his own two hands. Then bury him. Then dig him back up and kill him again. All in the name of a woman who wasn’t even his and some damn secret he still knew nothing of!

Alexander paused, holding up the lantern, and blinked at the thick darkness before him, which his light refused to cut through. Where the blazes were they going? The Orient?

A faint light and the movement of a shadowed figure in the far distance caught his eye, assuring him Caldwell was in fact still determined to get to the other side. He only hoped that Miss Charlotte wasn’t tying up men, emptying out their pockets, and then stacking them all here to die. Though there hadn’t really been reports of large groups of wealthy men going missing.

Alexander held up the lantern toward the moss-ridden, slate walls and wrinkled his nose. “Caldwell!” His voice boomed all around him. “For God’s sake, why are you doing all this? Your perspective on women isn’t
this
bad!”

The light in the distance swayed then stopped. “If this is too much of an adventure for you,” Caldwell’s voice echoed back, “then leave! Go! I’m certain your mother could use your help setting up for tea. Or better yet…
a champagne party!
”

A champagne party? His mother wasn’t
that
far gone. Alexander gritted his teeth and charged forward into the musty darkness, trying to keep the glass lantern steady before him. “How is your nose, Caldwell? Any better? Or shall I offer you one last complimentary blow?”

“I dare you to try to cuff me again! I bloody dare you!” There was a notable pause. “Hey, now. I actually found a door. Fancy that.”

Alexander snorted. A door? To bloody where? He kept charging forward until he came upon not only Caldwell but what was indeed a rough oak door.

Caldwell, who was also stooping, glanced back at him with a quirked brow, then raised a gloved hand and rapped on the door. As if they were making a respectable visit.

Alexander paused beside him in disbelief. “Are you missing a part of your brain?” He gestured toward the abyss of the tunnel behind them with his lantern. “Doesn’t this all seem rather…
barmy
? Even to you?”

Caldwell sniffed as he stared at the door, awaiting entrance. “You’ve no sense of adventure anymore. None whatsoever. The Hawksford I grew up with would have gladly knocked on this door.”

Alexander scooted closer beside him and leveled his gaze at him. “Yes, and the Caldwell I grew up with wouldn’t have knocked on it at all.”

Caldwell glared at him, lifted a fist, and pounded on the door as if to prove otherwise, the lantern in his other hand swaying.

Alexander rolled his eyes. “Caldwell, why are you doing this to me? Is it because you don’t want to enroll alone? Is that it?” Hell, he hoped it was. Because anything else would have been…well, disturbing.

Caldwell glanced at him and smoothed down the side of his cloak with the hand that wasn’t holding the lantern. He opened his mouth, then paused and drew his blond brows together. “Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“
Obviously
. Hell, you still haven’t told me what this is all about!”

“I know, I know. I…” He rigidly turned to him and looked him straight in the eye. “Hawksford. The truth is, I’ve involved myself with a woman.”

Alexander paused before letting out a much-needed laugh. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“No, it’s not!” Caldwell’s voice boomed in the tunnel. “And it’s not funny! Stop laughing!”

Alexander stopped laughing on command and blinked at him, noting that he was rather upset. He lowered his voice. “You, man, are beginning to worry me.”

“Forgive me, I…” Caldwell swept his hand across his face and let it drop back to his side. “Hawksford. I’ve involved myself with a woman I shouldn’t have. I’ve involved myself with…” Caldwell winced, as if he couldn’t say any more.

“
With?
” Alexander prodded, now rolling his hand, hoping the man would just say it and spare them both.

Caldwell eyed him, then blurted out, “With an American. And needless to say, I’m having trouble coping with her heritage.”

Alexander choked and almost dropped the lantern.
That
was his secret? “You’re really not making any sense. At all. What the blazes does an American have to do with me?”

Caldwell groaned and threw back his head. “Someone please shoot me. Now.”

A loud clank vibrated the door before them. It then creaked open. A massive, heavyset man with a mop of curly brown hair and sharp brown eyes peered down at them.

Alexander stepped back. By God. Who needed a lock? The man was his own fortress.

“Card,” the man gruffly intoned.

Caldwell yanked out his calling card and handed it to the man. “You must be Harold. How are you?”

Harold glanced at the card then bowed from his place beside the door, his dark blue livery shifting against his mountainous movements. “Welcome to the other side of the school, Lord Caldwell. Congratulations on getting this far.”

“Uh…yes. I suppose.” Caldwell nodded, held up his lantern, and hurried past the man, toward the set of winding stairs just beyond.

Alexander moved for the door with every intention of keeping Caldwell within sight at all times. For he was not about to trust the man alone to Miss Charlotte. Hell, he wouldn’t even trust himself alone to the woman.

Harold stepped into the small opening, blocking Alexander from going any farther, and blankly stared down at him. “There is only one appointment scheduled.”

Alexander shifted, growing rather tired of his hunched position, and eyed the servant as best he could. “My good man, I can assure you, I am not here to apply. Merely to spectate.” And defend whatever was left of poor Miss Charlotte’s virtue.

“This is not the circus,” Harold rumbled out. This time, he aggressively stepped out toward him, his massive body stooping in an effort to enter the small tunnel. “Inform Mr. Hudson on your way out that whatever he was bribed with, I shall not only remove it from his pimpish flesh, but gladly snap him into several pieces. No one betrays my Madame.
No one
.”

Miss Charlotte had gathered quite the ardent crowd, hadn’t she? Alexander held up both hands and stepped back, sensing this was about to get complicated. “I assure you, I mean no harm. Especially to your…
Madame
. She knows me, actually. Quite well.”

“
I knew it!
” Caldwell interjected, hopping up and down from behind the giant in an effort to see over his body. “I bloody knew it!”

Caldwell pointed at Alexander from around Harold. “
That’s
why you up and cuffed me! Because you’re involved with the woman!
Unbelievable
, Hawksford.
Unbelievable
.” Caldwell patted Harold’s shoulder from where he stood and peered in on him. “My good fellow. Understand that this is a matter of great import. I ask that you permit Lord Hawksford entrance at once. I assure you, Madame de Maitenon has given me permission to share this appointment with him.”

Alexander smiled up at the giant, reached out, and patted the thick arm before him in a friendly manner. “You see. I have permission.”

Harold’s gaze narrowed. He held out a large, gloved palm the size of a table. “Your card.”

Alexander yanked out one of the three calling cards remaining in his pocket and set it onto his open hand. “There. My card.” Anything to keep the ox happy.

Harold glanced at it then slowly stepped aside. Caldwell grinned at Alexander and then disappeared up the spiraling stairs.

“Thank you.” Alexander hurried in through the door and into a small, candlelit passageway. He straightened, eager to be out of Harold’s way, then pressed himself toward the nearest wall, trying to move himself around the giant. The man turned, reached out, and grabbed hold of the lantern, freeing Alexander’s hands.

Edging near the spiraling stairs that led upward, he mounted them, then sprinted up the suffocating stairwell. He finally stumbled out into a corridor. Of what appeared to be another house.

The wonder of Miss Charlotte never ceased to amaze him. Alexander slowly walked past a staircase that led toward the upper floor and made his way into the grand foyer, where Caldwell stood with his hands behind his back, looking about.

Alexander paused beneath a large crystal chandelier. The scent of fresh flowers permeated the air, though none were in sight.

“This way.”

Harold’s deep voice startled Alexander. The oversized beast mounted the red runner stairs of the mahogany staircase with unexpected grace and dignified charm.

Caldwell stepped toward Alexander, drew back a fisted hand, and punched him hard in the shoulder, sending Alexander staggering backward. “
That
is for giving me grief about Lady Waverly. Close the gates after fifty, my ass. Since when do you go about bedding women old enough to be your grandmother?” He tsked and shook his head. “For shame, Hawksford. For shame.” Caldwell turned and marched up the stairs.

Alexander rubbed the top of his now sore shoulder and hurried up after Caldwell, confused. “Old enough to be my…Now look here, man! I don’t think we’re discussing the same woman.”

“Oh, I think we are. You know, the French charmer with the silver hair and the nice, large breasts?”

“No, no. Who is that anyway? She wasn’t French, and she most certainly wasn’t old. Do you mean to tell me that some French mab now lives here? Whatever happened to the woman before her? Do you even know?”

Caldwell paused on the stairs and glanced back at him. “The woman before her? Hold now. Who is this woman you keep referring to?”

Miss Charlotte’s face appeared in his mind’s eye, once again, as he had last seen her in the hackney. His pulse jolted just at the thought of her. His steps slowed. “I don’t think she provided me with her real name, which is just as well, but I’ll never forget what she looked like. She had bundled black hair. Beautiful, dark, expressive eyes. Oval face. Perfect, pale skin. Full lips. Good, straight teeth. Sizable breasts. Slim in all the right places even without a corset. And petite. Hell, I’ve never met a more ravishing woman in my life.”

“I gathered as much,” Caldwell flung over his shoulder as he reached the landing. “I thought you’d never cease braying.”

Alexander inwardly winced. He supposed he’d gone on. More than he’d meant to.

Caldwell wagged a finger at him, now trotting backward into the hallway. “With that description, I do believe you must be referring to the conductor of admissions. Lady Chartwell.” He chuckled. “When did the two of you become acquainted? Before or after her husband was shot?”

Alexander almost stumbled on the last stair. The Earl of Chartwell had been Miss Charlotte’s husband? The same stupid son of a bitch who’d been shot by a female in his own opera box last year before two hundred people? That couldn’t be right. “I really don’t think we’re referring to the same lady.” Alexander paused beside him. “Chartwell wasn’t married.”

Caldwell smirked as he followed Harold. “Of course he was married,” he flung back at him. “For about six months before he was unceremoniously popped off by one of his nuns. Hell, your memory has lapsed quite miserably since the death of your father, hasn’t it?”

Alexander blinked. Chartwell had been married? And to his Miss Charlotte, no less? Or, rather,
Lady
Charlotte. Alexander stood stunned for a moment longer before he was able to force himself to follow Caldwell and the servant down the corridor.

Caldwell paused before the entrance of what appeared to be a bedchamber and grinned. He mouthed “
There she is
” and then disappeared inside.

Alexander hurried in after him and found himself in a room whose walls were draped with luxurious, brocaded red velvet. Coming to a frozen halt beside Caldwell, his eyes snapped to the center of the nearly empty room. Several leather wingback chairs were set in a semicircle.

And there, sitting in a red velvet–upholstered chair behind a small, letter-writing desk was none other than Lady Charlotte. She was exquisitely dressed in black silk and satin, her full skirts perfectly arranged around the chair. Her eyes were cast downward toward a sizable stack of papers that she held in her small ungloved hands.

Alexander tensed as the temperature of his body slowly rose at the memory of her soft body pressed against his own. He could still hear her pleasured breaths in the darkness of the carriage and feel the rise and fall of her heaving chest beneath his hands.

It had all been real.
She
had been real.

Her dark, thick hair, which had been unconventionally let loose, cascaded down her slim shoulders, past her tightly corseted waist, and disappeared toward her bum, which was fitted in her seat. Without a doubt, her quiet serenity not only enhanced her beauty but personified it.

“Lord Caldwell is here,” Harold offered, breaking the tense silence within the room. “It appears he brought along an acquaintance. I apologize, but he claims—”

“You needn’t worry, Harold,” Lady Charlotte replied, still occupied with the stack of papers before her. “Madame has already informed me about it. You may go.” She took up the quill from the inkwell and scribed something.

“My humblest apologies, Lady Chartwell. I didn’t know.” Harold bowed and departed, his heavy steps fading down the corridor.

Alexander blinked. So she
was
Chartwell’s widow.