Read Online The Courtesan's Secret by Claudia Dain - Free Book Online Page B

thoughts back to Louisa, the pearls, and women in general. Here he'd tussled with Anne Warren, a woman who, no matter who she was currently engaged to, was obviously enamored of him , no matter that she'd not reacted to his kiss and no matter that she'd shown him nothing but cold civility since that kiss, not to mention that she'd hurriedly gotten herself engaged to a peer of the realm.
    Ridiculous. The whole thing was flatly ridiculous. He knew she wanted him and, what's more, she knew he knew.
    Women really were, as a whole, incapable of subtlety and most assuredly not of secrecy. Why, they wore their desires and intentions all over their rather lovely faces. Not only was it endearing, it was supremely useful.
    Take Louisa Kirkland... well, actually, he could take Louisa Kirkland any time he wanted. Poor Blakesley could hardly say the same. Dutton snickered and closed his eyes with a smile.
    "Something amusing?" Blakesley asked blandly.
    Though slightly more foxed than was usual for him at this time of day, Dutton was not so completely in his cups that he would descend to the vulgarity of plain speaking about the very obvious Lady Louisa.
    "I was just wondering to what lengths Louisa Kirkland would travel to regain the Melverley pearls. She's not a woman given to half measures, is she?"
    Blakesley, his face rather too carefully composed, said nothing.
    "It should make for a very interesting Season for me, not that I don't always find something to amuse me while I'm in Town," Dutton said.
    "Don't you mean to say ‘someone'?" Blakesley said.
    "Actually, yes," Dutton said with a soft smile, studying Blakesley over the rim of his now empty glass. "Someone."
    Blakesley leaned forward and filled it with whisky . An obvious attempt to get him completely foxed, but, really, it was fine whisky . Dutton took a healthy swallow. Blakesley took a sip of his drink and watched him like a hawk watches a snake. Though he was hardly a snake and didn't enjoy being compared to one, even if he had made the comparison himself.
    Dutton put his drink down on a side table. He might have been more deeply into his cups than he had at first thought.
    He decided in the next instant that he didn't care.
    "Now, if you were to find yourself in possession of the Melverley pearls, then you might have an interesting Season in Town," Dutton said.
    "I don't need help in finding amusement," Blakesley said softly, his icy blue eyes glittering in the candlelight.
    Dutton didn't care what Blakesley's eyes did in the candlelight. He picked up his glass and took another swallow of whisky, his plan forming in somewhat liquid fashion as he swallowed. Liquid plans were the best, the brightest, the most dependable. Odd how he'd never made that connection before.
    "But perhaps a bit of help with Lady Louisa wouldn't be amiss," Dutton said. His voice sounded sloppy to his own ears. He didn't care about that, either.
    Blakesley smiled. Or it looked remarkably like a smile if he closed one eye.
    He closed one eye.
    "You're foxed," Blakesley said.
    "Not enough to matter."
    "Open both eyes and say that," Blakesley said pleasantly.
    Dutton opened both eyes and leaned his head back against the chair cushion.
    "I propose a bargain," Dutton said.
    "Didn't you propose a similar bargain with Ashdon?"
    "Which is the reason I now find myself in possession of the Melverley pearls."
    "And not in possession of a woman to wear them," Blakesley said.
    "Ridiculous. I can have any woman I want, with or without pearls."
    "Can you?"
    "I can have Louisa Kirkland, certainly."
    Blakesley leaned forward, his eyes increasingly icy. "You bandy her name about with unpleasant regularity and familiarity, Dutton. I should stop that, were I you."
    "Which is the entire point, Blakesley," Dutton said, ignoring icy eyes and the outraged tone. He had a plan and he was going to make it work, no matter Blakesley's stubbornness over tedious and inconsequential details. "Take the pearls. Give her a reason to