The Illicit Love of a Courtesan

Chapter Three

Ellen watched Millie brush her hair in the mirror on her vanity chest, the maid’s long rhythmic strokes running from her crown to her waist. These nightly caresses were the only constant in her life. Usually they calmed her, but tonight she was wound tight like hemp rope. It was agony to sit still, her thoughts writhed and her fingers twisted in her lap.

Edward had promised to help her. Lord Edward Marlow. She savoured his name. Life would be so different with a kind protector.

Gainsborough had taken her tonight but she’d shut him out and clung to an alternative—Edward. Edward had created hope and on it she was building an illusion, she imagined tenderness and devotion, love, not sex.

And she was not risking those dreams. She would not contact Edward until she was certain it was safe. This opportunity was too precious.

It was days later when the chance finally came and Ellen’s fingers shook as she penned the short note, blotted and folded it, her eyes darting to and from the door where Millie stood ensuring no one could enter unexpectedly.

Ellen had lived on edge for three weeks while she waited for this moment. Gainsborough had returned to his estates today. She knew for certain he would not be back for days. It was safe, but would Edward come?

They’d not spoken at all in the intervening weeks. He’d taken no more risks. She’d seen him less than half a dozen times at Madam’s, and when he was there she’d not even dared to meet his gaze.

Holding the short note to her breast she willed him to feel the same—to come. He was life and breath to her now. She’d written nothing other than that she could meet him, where and how, and signed herself E, afraid someone else may see it.

She prayed he would come.

“Please take it to White’s, the Gentlemen’s club on St James Street, Millie. Hand it to a footman there. Say nothing to him other than that it must be placed into Lord Edward’s hand. Here.” She drew two shillings from her reticule and gave them to the maid. “Give one to the footman to ensure he does as you ask and there is one for you.” Ellen had begun stealing shillings from Gainsborough’s purse as he slept for just this cause. Millie knew she had no money. Now Millie knew her mistress was both a whore and a thief.

“Yes, Ma’am.” The maid bobbed. Millie was aware of the risk Ellen was taking too. “Thank you, Ma’am.”

“Thank you, Millie. Go, hurry. Do not speak to anyone.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Millie confirmed, curtsying again before leaving the room.

Leaning back in the chair, Ellen looked to the moulded plaster frieze edging the ceiling, uncertain how to pass the time until tomorrow. What if Edward was no longer in town? It had been days since she’d seen him. What if he’d lost interest in her? What if he had thought better of becoming embroiled in her life? She could hardly blame him if he chose not to come. He owed her nothing.

And yet she hoped. It was a living, breathing, deep-seated sensation inside her. She had tried so hard to quell it, but she simply could not. Hope had been unleashed and it would not go back into its cage. It was a constant turmoil of emotion roiling inside her, waiting desperately for its chance to run free. She’d barely slept and hardly eaten, her thoughts reeling.

Now she must wait again and try to tame it.

~

Leaning back in the armchair, Edward shifted the ankle of one booted foot to the knee of the other, watching his cousin, Rupert, read the Times. Edward’s stomach rumbled. He had been living on nervous, restless energy for days, with no appetite for food, or anything in fact. His fingers commenced a rhythmic drum, flowing from one to the other in a line on the leather-clad arm of the chair.

A letter had arrived from his brother, Robert, yesterday, requesting both Edward’s advice and return. He’d been thinking all night over whether he should go. After all he’d heard nothing from Ellen. She wouldn’t even meet his gaze in Madam’s, so rather than torture himself he’d stopped frequenting the place, refusing to sit there and watch Gainsborough paw her. And Edward wasn’t stupid; he knew Gainsborough was staking his former claim, flaunting Ellen and telling Edward she was beyond his reach. But Edward rejected the notion. He was not accepting it.

Damn it. He’d done what she’d asked. He’d stayed away until she deemed it safe, but if she did not contact him soon…

I will what? Kick her door down? Steal her away? Call Gainsborough out? There must be something I can do other than just sit and wait? The tedium of it was excruciating.

“You are not attending, Ed!” His cousin’s sharp tone cut through Edward’s thoughts, abruptly interrupting them. “I’ve been speaking to you for an age. I said, what are your plans for today? I’m going to Manton’s in Dover Street this afternoon, to the shooting gallery, I wondered if you wished to come?”

It was a haunt Gainsborough favoured.

Edward shook his head. “I will probably go to Jackson’s.” The pugilist master’s studio in Bond Street was a good place in which to vent his recent frustration.

“And I shall leave you to it, after yesterday.” Rupert rubbed at his jaw in reminder of the blow he’d taken.

“I apologised, Rupert. I told you, I lost my concentration.”

“Believe me it did not feel as though you were not attending, it felt as though you intended to kill.”

It was true enough. Edward laughed. Gainsborough’s son-in-law had walked through the door and caused a distraction. The blow had been for Gainsborough.

A month ago Edward had prided himself in being level headed. But since Ellen Harding had possessed him, he was someone else, someone he wasn’t comfortable with. He was no longer certain of who he was at all.

He lifted his ankle from his knee, set his foot back on the floor and lifted the other leg, his fingers continuing their rhythm on the arm of the chair.

“For God sake, what is wrong with you, Ed?” his cousin challenged, peering over his newspaper. “You’re fidgeting. I asked you if you wished to meet afterwards.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’ll do later.”

With a suddenly intent gaze, Rupert folded the paper and threw it aside, leaning forward in his seat. “Ed, is something wrong? You act odder by the day.”

Yes, Edward laughed again, inwardly. He did feel very odd, as though there was a hole in the region of his chest and if he told his cousin he’d fallen head-over-heels-in-love with Gainsborough’s courtesan, Rupert would think him touched in the head. He was mad to love her. He knew that himself. But love her he did. He could not help it, nor deny it any longer. The obsession he had for Ellen Harding had to be love and not just lust. He’d certainly never encountered such all-consuming emotions before.

“Ed! You are wandering off again.”

Edward smiled at his cousin’s expression of genuine concern, “I’m tired, Rupert, that’s all,” lifted his ankle from his knee and set both feet on the floor, then pushed on the arms of the chair to stand. “In fact, I think I’ll go. A drive will clear the cobwebs from my head. I’ll bid you good-day.” He bowed. “Rupert.”

“Ed, for God sake, take care, don’t drive your damned phaeton off the road, you’ve no concentration lately.” Nodding vaguely, Edward walked away and Rupert leaned back in his chair looking exasperated and lifting a hand in parting.

“My Lord.” A young footman stopped Edward in his path to the exit with a bow. Then he held out a piece of folded paper. “I was given this for you.”

Edward felt his heart slam against the wall of his chest and took the note, then discreetly slid it into the breast-pocket of his morning coat, before exchanging it for a coin. “Thank you for your discretion.”

Within minutes, Edward was steering through the streets in his curricle, his mind not at all on the task; the paper burning a hole in his pocket.

He flicked the ribbons and sprung his bays, but the capital’s streets in the afternoon were irritatingly busy with heaving humanity, of all classes. Turning a corner he marginally missed a small boy who’d run across the road, as well as very nearly dislodging the groomsman balancing on the phaeton at the rear. Admitting defeat, Edward reined in the horses and set a more even pace, utterly at odds to the pulsing need for an outright gallop coursing in his blood.

When he finally pulled into Bloomsbury Square, where his brother’s townhouse stood, Edward called back to his groom to take the reins and wait in the street. Then he leapt down, ran up the steps to the door and rapped the knocker impatiently until Jenkins drew it open. Already drawing the letter from his pocket Edward irritably thrust his brother’s butler aside and crossed the chequered marble floor to the drawing room.

His attention on the paper in his hand he was deaf to the butler’s request for his hat and coat and blindly ignored the footman’s bow as he passed. Instead he read, his strides pacing across the room, his heart thumping in his chest.

She proposed a meeting, at one tomorrow, at the gates of Green Park. He looked at the clock. The note had been written yesterday. It was now already nearly twelve.

Thank God I went to White’s this morning.

He squatted down at the hearth, the hem of his coat dragging on the floor, touched the edge of the letter to the flames and watched it begin to burn. He let it fall into the hearth and waited until he knew it was just ash, then walked away.

She had asked him to come alone, not to trust his servants, not even to ride in his own carriage but to take a hackney. He suddenly felt incredibly cold. Perhaps I am insane to get involved in this— involved with her. He knew if he met her again there would be no turning back.

Hell, there was no turning back now. The woman was already too embedded in his blood. Whether he willed it or not, Ellen Harding was a part of his life now—a part of him. He had no choice but to go to her.

~

He’d been waiting ten minutes when he saw her. She was simply and elegantly dressed, her appearance nothing like that of a courtesan. The long dark navy pelisse she wore was to keep her warm in the chill, early March winds. Spring was still as yet unbroken.

The demure garment hung to her ankles, with double breasted buttons across her chest, and an upturned fox fur collar framed her beautiful neck and face. Her hands were within a matching fox fur muff at her waist. The dark navy hat, sitting high on her ebony hair, was decorated with jay’s feathers that swept up from the brim above her left ear. A narrow, navy veil, woven in a fine net, was drawn down over her eyes and nose.

His hands curled into fists inside the pockets of his thick, many-caped greatcoat as he watched her, waiting for her to notice him.

She had thought to hide herself, he guessed, but he would know the curve of her jaw, that mouth, the column of her neck, anywhere, even within a crowd. He had committed it to memory half a dozen times in recent weeks and lain awake night after night recalling every detail.

She looked over her shoulder, glancing back up the street, as if she half expected to be followed. Then she looked to the traffic in the road, waiting until it was clear before she crossed to the park gates. She’d still not seen him.

Within her muff he imagined her hands clasped together, her thumbs circling one another. He’d seen her tendency to fiddle when she stood at Gainsborough’s back. She was forever twisting and turning her fan; never comfortable, nor secure. The other courtesans he’d seen in London were women of excessive confidence, bold, never meek and maidenly in their manner as Ellen always seemed. With Ellen he could not even lay her lack of confidence at the door of her age. She was older than him, and yet her nervous behaviour made her seem half a dozen years younger.

She was on the path some distance before him now, her short, quick strides slicing at the skirt of her pelisse. Her gaze was on the pavement ahead of her, oblivious to the men who passed her and looked back, as nearly every man did, even with her beauty covered by a veil.

She looked up.

The moment she saw him, he could tell she’d not thought he would come. It was in the sudden drop of tenseness in her shoulders and the smile opening her mouth as if she would speak and acknowledge him from afar. But such an outburst would be folly, even though he had come as asked without acquaintance or equipage, someone may know him. Her mouth closed on the exclamation as she increased her pace, weaving through people walking the other way.

He silently cursed every man who looked at her twice. But then she was clearly a woman of standing, walking alone, the conclusion was obvious. A protective wave of masculine hormones ran through his blood, an instinctive need to defend his territory.

Angry at himself he turned to walk through the gates of the park, sensing her follow him. Fool, she isn’t yours. She was Gainsborough’s, and when he spoke to her he must not forget it.

He’d walked nearly two hundred yards before she drew alongside, and when she spoke her voice was breathless but full of joy he’d not heard in it before. “You came. I didn’t think you would.”

A vice like grip contracted tightly about his heart as his senses were filled with the scent of her, the sound of her. “You had no need to be in any doubt. My feelings are unchanged, Ellen.” His voice was harsher than he intended in response to the need and longing ripping through his chest.

“You are angry though?”

He’d chased away the pleasure from her voice. “No,” he answered, smiling, looking sideways at her, “just desperate to be alone with you.”

He ached to reach for her hand but made no move to touch her, following her lead. It was hardly the fashionable hour and a less frequented park so they would be unlikely to meet anyone he knew, but even so he was aware of her concern for caution.

She held herself slightly away from him while they walked along a path on the edge of the open grass. To their left was a dense shrubbery of evergreens. Ahead of them other couples laughed in flirtatious conversation.

“I thought because you have stopped coming to Madam’s…” her words trailed off.

“Because I cannot bear to watch you with him, that’s why. I was beginning to wonder if you had changed your mind.”

Stopping suddenly, she turned and met his gaze for a moment before looking away to watch a couple further on, as though unable to accept his observation. “This has been the first opportunity. He’s gone for several days.”

She started walking again, a little ahead of him, her eyes fixed on the distance where the white winter sky met the horizon of the city’s park.

He felt the meaning of her statement hanging in the air between them. He began walking too. She was so uncertain of herself, he realised, she didn’t even dare presume he would wish to see her more than once, despite the fact he had only a moment ago declared his feelings were unchanged.

He followed her, a step behind, his open hand hovering at her back, not touching, as if to protect her from what the world had thrust upon such slim and unsubstantial shoulders.

That living this life was not her choice, couldn’t be in doubt.

“How long do we have?”

“I must be back before dark. If I am not, the servants may tell tales.”

“But then we have a couple of hours.”

He caught her elbow and gently drew her aside into the privacy of the less dense branches of a large rhododendron bush. Inside the cavity, surrounded by its evergreen leaves, they were at least afforded some privacy. He lifted her veil, tipping it upwards over the rim of her hat. No make-up. No bruises. Only beauty. More than beauty, magnificent perfection.

His head bent and he kissed her, a kiss she freely gave. His hands settled on the curves of her hips, drawing her body closer. Already his groin was aching, heavy with the weight of his need for her.

“Ellen.” His voice was breathless as he rested his forehead against hers. “God, I’ve missed you. I can think of nothing else but where you are, what you are doing. I think I’m going mad.”

She smiled, a hesitant look, suggesting she was as much affected by him as he was by her. One hand left her muff and her fingers traced the line of his jaw then settled on his lips. She was thinking something, but she did not speak. Her hand fell.

“We could go to an inn, find a room?” For all his confidence and authority he felt like a child begging for a treat.

She nodded. He bestowed another brief kiss on her lips, took her hand in his and squeezed, then let go. “You go first.” He held out his hand. “I will follow and meet you at the gate. But you will have to take my arm from there. I will not leave you walking through the streets alone.”

An overwhelming rush of warmth raced through Ellen. He was everything her imagination had hoped; concerned and considerate. She walked from the cover of the branches before him and made a path directly to the gate. But when she crossed the road she felt his fingers touch her elbow. On the opposite path she slipped her fingers from the muff and laid her gloved hand on his arm. It felt good, normal, like any other couple in the street.

They walked at least a dozen streets before he finally turned into the doorway of an inn.

Inside she stood watching, her hands clasped within her muff, while Edward leaned to the landlord’s ear and money exchanged hands. Then she caught the landlord’s sideways glance at her. It was swift, narrow-eyed and presumptuous, obviously judging her a harlot, and implying indecent thoughts.

She longed to slap him. He made what she’d seen as beautiful seem suddenly sordid. She was not normal. She wasn’t a lady with her beau. What she was, was a whore about to be bedded. There was nothing romantic in this. Whether it was Gainsborough or Edward, the outcome and the position were the same. She’d been stupid imaging it as anything else—painting this affair as a picture of love and devotion. It was not that, no matter what Edward said or what she thought, he could not rescue her from this life and nor could he take back the intervening years of pain. She had better learn to accept this for what it was, a brief opportunity for escape, an interlude, not an affair.

Edward took her elbow, his fingers as gentle as ever, unaware of her change of heart. “I ordered food, I didn’t know if you’d already eaten. I thought just bread and cheese, and ale. I’m sorry the place is humble, but it seems clean. I didn’t think you would wish to risk looking for anywhere more luxurious. We are certain to meet no one who would recognise us here.”

She nodded.

His fingers at her elbow, he guided her into a dingy hall and led her upstairs. The paint was tarnished and chipped in places, but he was right, it was clean.

Edward stopped at the second door and bent to set a key in the lock. The door creaked as he pushed it open and then he stood back and held out his hand, encouraging her to pass.

Her breath caught in her lungs as she stepped inside, remembering what they had done before.

A single tall, thin, window in the far wall let in light and the muted sounds of the street. The room was still grey though, as the day was cloudy. It smelt a little of stale tobacco and was simply furnished, but she had hardly expected a palace. The narrow double bed stood against the back wall. In the opposite corner a single wooden chair faced a small square table, which from the ingrained ink stains, had often served as a desk. A flat topped wooden chest stood at the end of the bed. She crossed the room pulling her hands from the fur muff, discarded it on the desk and walked to look from the window, down onto the busy pavement and street below.

She felt Edward’s hand rest on her waist, his fingers urging her to turn to him. She did, her hands lifting to his shoulders as his head lowered and his lips found hers.

His hand slipped from her waist and splayed at the small of her back, while his other settled on her side, the heel of his palm resting at the edge of her breast, his fingers curving about her ribs.

All self-pitying thoughts over the inadequacy of their surroundings, or the opinion of the landlord, vanished, absorbed and diminished by his kiss. As long as she was with Edward, in whatever capacity, she found she didn’t care. Her lips parted for his tongue and her fingers gripped his hair as his hand slid between the two of them, searching for the buttons of her pelisse. His leather clad fingers were cold as they skimmed the curve of her breast which swelled above the square neck of her gown. He broke the kiss, smiled and looked down at the front fastening of her dress. Then he bit one finger of his glove, tugged it off and tossed it onto the desk.

She laughed at the roguish smile he cast her before returning his concentration to the buttons of her bodice. Once they were free he recommenced their kiss and slipped his fingers into her bodice. A rush of desire slid through her stomach.

A hard knock struck the bedroom door, then without bidding she heard the sharp, sudden creak as it opened.

Edward broke the kiss abruptly and turned, setting his body between her and the door.

Her fingers touched her lips and looking down she saw the milk white skin of her breast as a stark contrast to the dark navy of her pelisse and day dress, she felt like a whore again—I don’t care.

“Set it down and go!”

“Sir, as you wish,” the gruff landlord answered in a mocking tone.

Undoubtedly the man had deliberately entered to see more. When the door shut Edward crossed the room and turned the key in the lock, then he collected the tray and set it down on the chest.

Ellen’s shaking fingers withdrew her hatpin and removed her hat. She set it down by her muff, then pulled off her gloves and set them down too. Next she slid off her pelisse while he poured two mugs of ale and moved to light a fire in the hearth.

This situation was dream like. She did not feel like herself at all. Laying her folded pelisse over the back of the single chair, Ellen watched the flames catch the wood in the hearth. She was reminded for a moment of nights beneath the stars with Paul, around an open campfire. Life had seemed so simple then, despite their poverty and the hardship they’d endured daily. She had felt like a queen because Paul loved her, all else, all other worries, had paled into insignificance. And now?

Edward’s task complete, she watched him rise from his haunches and shrug off his heavy wool greatcoat. It was the height of male fashion. On Gainsborough it looked rather ridiculous, on Edward it extolled his muscular physique.

Discarding his other glove with hers, he then laid his coat over her pelisse before rubbing his hands together, warming his fingers.

“Had you been waiting for me long at the park?”

“No.” He smiled, clearly offering reassurance. “Have I been waiting for you for long before the park? Yes, all my life.” He let the statement fall as though it meant nothing, as though it was a joke at his own expense, but his tone implied it was more than that. Then, as if regretting his revealing jest, he immediately crossed to the tray, offering to cut her a slice of the sweet scented fresh bread. She accepted and watched him cut some bread and cheese and set it on a plate with a spoonful of plum chutney.