Alfred shifted in his chair, the light from the sconce on the wall glinting off the thinning patch of hair atop his head. Six years older than Heloise’s twenty-five, he’d never been married and had fallen deeply in love with his mistress. So in love that he’d married her. “We’ll remove to the country,” he said.
Heloise sank onto the settee beside Mirabelle, her shoulders drooping in defeat. “But we just returned from Nottinghamshire yesterday.”
“I thought you liked it there,” Alfred noted, his brows shooting up.
“I loved it,” Heloise said softly. She turned her head toward Mirabelle. “Truly, I’ve never felt more at home. It reminds me of how Mama used to describe our house in France.”
They’d been born in the countryside, not that either of them remembered it. Heloise had been three and Mirabelle just a babe when they’d emigrated to England with their mother and her maid. Their father, a chevalier, had been killed in the revolution.
“I look forward to visiting it someday,” Mirabelle said, despite never feeling a pull toward France or the countryside or anything else their mother had talked about. Probably because Mirabelle didn’t remember her. She’d died when Mirabelle was three, and they’d been raised by Nadine, their mother’s maid, who’d cared for them in their cramped but cozy lodgings near Compton Street in Soho.
“You are welcome to come with us now,” Alfred said. He’d generously offered to bring Mirabelle into their household so that she would no longer have to be a paramour. Mirabelle had followed her sister into the same profession after Nadine’s death. The choice between seamstress and courtesan was easy when one considered the opportunities available to the latter. A seamstress’s life might be more reliable, but it was long, hard work for little pay.
Furthermore, Mirabelle wasn’t particularly skilled with a needle. Not like Nadine had been.
Mirabelle gave her brother-in-law an appreciative smile. “Thank you, but I can’t see myself living anywhere but London.” It was the only home she’d ever known. Indeed, she’d never even lived outside Soho.
“I do hope you’ll come visit,” Heloise said. “Particularly since it looks as though we’ll be living there permanently.”
Mirabelle took her sister’s hand in a fierce grip. “I’m so sorry. But listen to your husband. In the end, it doesn’t matter what these people think of you. Go to Nottinghamshire where you will be happy. Promise me you’ll be happy.” She needed Heloise to do that. One of them had to be.
“I promise.” Heloise leaned her head toward Mirabelle and whispered, “And you will be too.”
Heloise’s disappointment and ire stayed with Mirabelle long after she and Alfred left. Anger still simmered when her lover strode into the parlor. Mirabelle stood at the window and spared him only a brief glance.
“You’re upset.” Lucien moved to the cabinet where she kept her wine and spirits. He brought her a glass of sherry. “What’s the trouble?”
Mirabelle turned from the window and snatched the glass from him, nearly sloshing sherry over the side. “Your bloody Society. Nasty vipers, the lot of them.”
“Agreed.” He slipped his arm around her waist. His familiar touch, warm and steady, did nothing to soothe her.
She sipped her sherry and walked away from his embrace. His silence prompted her to turn. He stood in the same place, his brow furrowed beneath the wave of dark hair crowning his forehead. With his exceptional height, broad shoulders, and nearly black, piercing gaze, he presented an intimidating figure and a commanding presence. He was also sin incarnate.
Lucien wasn’t her first protector, but he was by far the best, and not just because of his skills in the bedchamber. He was considerate, caring, and, most importantly, he treated her like an equal person whose thoughts and opinions mattered to him.
Pushing out a breath, Mirabelle strolled to her favorite chair near the hearth. Orange coals burned, radiating a warmth that didn’t permeate her exterior. “My sister and her husband visited earlier. They were given the cut direct at Hyde Park today.”
A colorful epithet darted from Lucien’s mouth. Mirabelle stared at his lips a moment—they were far more beautiful than a man deserved, lush and soft, almost feminine, except the sharp edge of his jaw and angular lines of his cheekbones kept them from being so. She was going to miss feeling them on her body.
She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “I want you to go.”
He strode toward her, stopping a foot or so away. “Let me stay. I’ll help you forget about Society’s nonsense.”
Gripping her sherry glass, Mirabelle hardened her gaze. “Is it nonsense when it’s my sister’s very life? She did precisely as she should—she married one of you. She elevated herself to a position of respectability.”
His jaw clenched. “Not all of Society are like the harridans in the park.”
“Far more of the ton are like them than like you.” She sipped her sherry, but it did nothing to alleviate her irritation.
“Which is why you choose to spend your time with me.” His tempting lips curled into a satisfied smile. He moved forward, lessening the space between them.
Mirabelle skirted him and walked back to the window. “I spend my time with you because that’s what you pay me for.” She heard his intake of breath but didn’t turn. Instead, she stared out the window and fixed on the lamp across the street.
“That’s all I am to you?”
She knew he cared for her, as much as a protector could care for the woman who warmed his bed but with whom he would never share a lasting relationship. Perhaps not never. Heloise had found that one-in-a-million gentleman who’d truly fallen in love with her. He’d seen the woman beneath the courtesan, the vulnerable girl who’d been forced from her home and scraped to survive in a foreign land.
While Lucien saw those things too, it was different. He didn’t love her. Nor did Mirabelle love him. She did like him, though.
Pivoting halfway from the window, she glanced in his direction.
