The press had reported on her exploits and made her husband a laughingstock. She had damaged Gregory’s reputation too openly, too flagrantly, to be forgiven. She was to be punished.
She had written to her family but they had chosen not to help her. Her friends, it seemed, were not friends at all, for they did not want to know her anymore. The only two people who might have helped her were abroad and out of reach. Gregory had paid handsomely for the case to be hurried through the courts, and on the day that the divorce had been granted he had served notice on her to leave her house. She was destitute. And through all of the long, painful process of the divorce she had not quite believed it was happening.
She believed it now, now that she was ruined.
Hagan was approaching, chest puffed out, his tread confident. Mrs. Tong was wreathed in smiles now, bowing him into the room. Lottie clutched the folds of her negligee to her throat.
“My dear Lottie, what a delight to see you once more.” Hagan was fulsome in his triumph, bowing over her hand with pretense of gentlemanly conduct, this hypocrite who had watched her fall into the gutter and now came to exploit her. His eyes roved over her transparent wrap, dwelling on the swell of her breasts and dropping lower. Lottie’s mouth felt dry, her heart beating so hard she shook. She bent her head and fixed her eyes on the riotous pattern on the carpet.
“One hundred guineas,” she heard Mrs. Tong say and saw the madam hold out her hand for the money.
“My dear Mrs. Tong.” Hagan sounded pained. “I have heard stories that our little harlot here—” spite colored his voice “—can be somewhat disappointing. I’ll pay afterward, not before, and only if I am satisfied.”
Mrs. Tong was hesitating. Lottie could feel the heat of Hagan’s palm on her shoulder through the thin material of her wrap. She shuddered deep inside. When it had come to a choice between starving to death or selling the one remaining commodity she still had, she had not hesitated. It had been her choice, if one could dignify a decision to which there was no alternative with the word choice. She had sold her body in order to survive and she would have to do it again, over and over until she was old and raddled and nobody wanted her. And that would not be long, for as Mrs. Tong had pointed out she was scarcely in the first flush of youth…. The cold shudders rippled down inside her again as she thought of the future.
Hagan’s hand slid to her breast, fumbling. She could hear his breathing change and grow heavier with excitement.
The future starts here.
“A moment.”
They all jumped.
A man was standing in the doorway, one shoulder resting against the jamb. He was in black-and-white evening dress, and against the raucous color of the brothel with its damask walls and peacock drapes he looked stark and almost too plainly attired. He was tall with black hair cut short and eyes of a startling, striking blue in a lean, watchful face. Lottie felt Hagan stiffen, as though sensing a rival.
“Sir—” Hagan withdrew his hand. His face had reddened. “You intrude. You must wait your turn.”
The stranger’s eyes met Lottie’s. His gaze was so bright and piercing that she felt her breath catch. Odd, she thought, that in that moment there was something in his eyes that looked almost like reassurance. Odd and impossible, an illusion, for then he smiled and any impression of gentleness was banished. He strode forward, self-assured, dangerous.
“Oh, I do not think so,” he murmured. “I don’t wait in line.”
Hagan opened his mouth to speak but it was Mrs. Tong who intervened now, a sweep of her hand silencing him.
“My lord.” Lottie could not quite place the tone in the bawd’s voice. There was deference there, certainly, but something else too. Wariness? Lottie had known all manner of men, from overrefined dandies to brutish bucks, but she had never met a man whose presence felt quite so elemental. There was danger in the room. She felt it in the air and with a prickle down her spine. Suddenly the atmosphere was alive.
“I am sure Mr. Hagan would not mind waiting,” Mrs. Tong said smoothly. “If you would be so good, sir. Can I offer you a glass of wine perhaps? On the house?” She was already shepherding Hagan toward the door. The newcomer stood aside with studied amusement to allow him to pass. Lottie let out her breath on a sigh she had thought was silent until the man cast her a quick, appraising glance.
The door closed.
“You are Charlotte Cummings?” the stranger asked.
“No,” Lottie said. “Not anymore.” The only thing she had wanted from Gregory was money. He could keep his name. It was no use to her. “I am Charlotte Palliser now,” she said.
The man inclined his head. “I had heard that the Pallisers had disowned you.”
“They cannot take my name,” Lottie said. “I was born with it.”
He did not reply at once. He was watching her with that same acute interest that he had shown from the moment he had set eyes on her. His gaze held no sexual appraisal, only a cool calculation that made Lottie shiver for there was no softness in it at all.
“May I?” He gestured to the armchair. She was surprised he troubled to ask permission. Such courtesy sat oddly with the sense that this was a man who would take what he wanted whether anyone opposed him or not.
He sat down and crossed one ankle over the other knee, lounging back with a casual grace. His whole body, so long and lean, looked elegantly relaxed and yet Lottie thought it would be a mistake to dismiss him as yet another fashionable Corinthian. There was too much forcefulness beneath the surface, too much power and intensity banked down.
“Who are you,” Lottie said, “that Mrs. Tong allows you to dictate to her and does not even make you pay in advance?” It appeared that he was not intent on hurrying her into bed, whoever he was.
He laughed. “Ethan Ryder, at your service.” There was a wicked spark in his blue eyes. “And I pay afterward.” He raised an eyebrow. “I do believe you’re blushing. How singular—in a courtesan.”
Lottie turned her face away. He was right. She felt vulnerable, almost shy. This was a man who seemed to be able to strip her feelings bare with no more than a look, and she, no matter what people said, was no brass-faced strumpet.
“Mrs. Tong called you ‘my lord,’” she said. She knew that she sounded doubtful. He looked more like a horse master than an earl, for all his fashionable attire. At one time she had known the entire peerage and she had never met him before. She knew that she would have remembered him.
“How quick of you to notice.” He still sounded amused. “It’s no lie. I am the Baron St. Severin. Oh, and the Chevalier D’Estrange for good measure.”
“You’re French?” Lottie looked up, startled. He did not sound French and it was beyond unlikely. She had no grasp of politics and no interest in gaining one, but even she knew that there was a war on.
“I’m Irish.” He smiled at her, full of charm. “It’s a long story.”
“An Irishman with a French title?” Lottie said. Something clicked in her mind then, a memory of her drawing room in Grosvenor Square and her bosom bows gossiping over the latest on dit, picking at it like
