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Page 4 of When the Marquess Needed Me (The Rake Chronicles #4)

Chapter Two

W hen Miss Beatrice Salisbury reached the bedchamber she had been given at Carrington Place, she resisted her desire to drop to the floor. Instead, she forced herself to sit calmly in an armchair. She couldn’t have Sally worrying for her.

“How was he?”

Beatrice allowed herself to close her eyes for a second longer than normal.

The truth was that he was extremely handsome. There was no denying it. Her preferences in men had never run to pretty nobs, but he was, she could admit to herself, more than that. If you just took in his features—brown eyes, nearly amber, the color of a tawny port wine; his mien noble; and his hair, dark and luscious, worn short, as was the style—he was stunning.

She couldn’t be upset that he would not be a pain to bed.

It was convenient to have such a good-looking man as her first protector. The only problem was that he appeared very reluctant to fill the role.

Because his sneering manner had made clear that he was only taking her as a favor to his friend. When she had first entered the room, his eyes had raked over her once and she had thereafter only seen cold distaste in his expression.

His sneer was the only thing that marred his storybook features.

That and the fact that he seemed like a bit of a coxcomb.

“He was acceptable,” she replied, opening her eyes.

“That is hardly an answer,” her half sister said, moving her hands off the bonnet she was trimming. “Was he kind?”

“No,” Beatrice said, with a sigh. “But he will be civil because—for whatever reason—he owes Lord Montaigne some kind of favor and doesn’t want to vex him.”

“Are you sure about this, Beatrice? It’s just that—”

“Sally, please,” she said, letting her voice express the same flash of irritation that it had in the drawing room. “I am perfectly sure.”

“But to sell yourself—to a man who isn’t even kind—”

“He is the most handsome man I’ve ever seen,” she bit off. “If that makes it any better to you.”

Sally gaped and moved towards her. Eighteen, lithe, and innocent, Sally had seen very little of life outside of their small town—or inside of it, as far as Beatrice understood. She was only six years Beatrice’s junior, but sometimes it felt like fifteen, given Sally’s innocence. Even though Beatrice was the one who had grown up in the manor house and Sally had spent the first twelve years of her life on a hardscrabble little farm.

“Really?” Her usually milk-white skin, sprinkled liberally with freckles, appeared even paler than usual. Of course, Beatrice reminded herself, if coming to Carrington Place had been a challenge for her, for Sally it must be equally so, despite her role as mere assistant.

“Yes.”

“Even more handsome than Fred Larkin?”

Beatrice laughed. Fred Larkin was a local farmer, a broad-shouldered boy of twenty, and he was handsome. But far from the most handsome man that Beatrice had ever seen. Clearly her sister didn’t agree.

“I always knew you fancied Fred.”

Sally blushed. “I am not saying—”

“There is no need to deny it. I don’t think you wanton.”

Her little sister had spent those first twelve years of her life under the roof of her maternal grandmother, a religious woman who had rued her granddaughter’s illegitimate birth and blamed her for it. Even though it had been years since her grandparents had died and she had come to live at Parkhorne Hall—nominally as Beatrice’s lady’s maid—Sally still had some of the reserve drubbed into her by these teachings.

“Beatrice!”

Poor Sally. She couldn’t even stand the sound of the word “wanton.”

“As I said, you needn’t worry. I am sure I will enjoy being his mistress for two weeks.”

“That seems unlikely, even if he is so handsome. If he is not kind…”

“Fred is always kind. I will give you that.”

“Beatrice,” she exclaimed again. “Be serious.”

“I have explained it to you, Sal. It isn’t the same for me as it would be for you. I’ve been with men before. I’ve told you that.”

In the drawing room, Beatrice had called herself ruined. And indeed, she was. She had been caught in flagrante at the age of seventeen with the local nobleman’s son. The tale itself was as true as it was hackneyed. Lord Gilchrist had been charming and urbane and had poured honey in her ear about their eventual marriage. She had been young and rebellious and out of her mind for him and so had let him under her skirts. When his father caught them on his grounds, he had told her father and refused to have his son marry her. Everyone in their town knew she was ruined—and the status of her paramour’s family had ensured that she could never go to London or elsewhere to marry, either. No respectable man would marry a girl who had thus sullied herself.

For six months, Beatrice had thought her life was over. In those six months afterwards, she had cried herself to sleep every night.

But then her father had died, of the disease that had been slowly killing him for years. She and her mother and her brothers were finally out from under his thumb. And the bastards, her siblings, that he had sprinkled around the town, Sally and Malcolm and Severn and Philip, they had come to Parkhorne Hall.

And her mother, her dear, beloved mother, who had never been ashamed of her, who had always loved her through it all, gave her the freedom her father had long denied her.

Beatrice had always loved the farm, the grounds, the water and wood of Parkhorne. And once her father was dead, she had become its steward. She rode in the fields and went to town for market and made the place turn a profit for the first time in years. She put everything into the land.

The people in her town, most of whom had no pretensions to gentility, put the scandal aside. They saw her only now for what she had become. What she had made herself into.

And, discreetly, for years now, she had taken lovers.

She had learned that the love she thought she had felt for Lord Gilchrist had been nothing but a common lust.

Her town was small and not many men came through it who caught her fancy. Nevertheless, since her own misadventure with Lord Gilchrist, at least one or two visiting men a year had been worth her while.

Somehow, she had found herself with what so few women in England had: freedom, pleasure, enough money, and all without losing her beloved family. She had everything.

Until, as usual, her father had ruined it all.

“I know, Bea. But this is different.”

Her sister looked at her with that steady gaze which, for all its innocence, also contained a resilient, steely quality. When Beatrice had first seen that glint in Sally’s eye, she had known they would be more than sisters—they would be friends.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “I know it is. But I have no choice. Once I settle the debt, we’ll have everything we need. With the way these men pay their mistresses, it will be three or four years at most. And with Parkhorne Hall turning the profit it does now, the boys will have everything they need in the meantime.”

She had demanded an absurd five hundred pounds for the two weeks with Lord Leith. It was only a fraction of what she needed, but as soon as she had the money, she would advance it to her creditor as a beginning.

Beatrice still couldn’t believe her daring. That she was here. And that she had demanded of Lord Montaigne an introduction to the man whose mistresses became famous, wealthy women: Lord Leith.

This plan suited her better than any marriage could have. She enjoyed the carnal act, and she never wanted to marry. No, she would rather grant a man access to her bed than to her entire life. Especially since, in the years since her ruination, she had discovered that she had talents in the bedchamber. If her lovers were to be believed.

Beatrice suppressed a wicked smile.

Three of her lovers since Lord Gilchrist had proposed marriage, claiming that they had fallen in love with her. She didn’t believe that—not exactly. But a woman’s passion, her uninhibited passion, was a powerful thing, it seemed.

In short, other than the fields and markets, there were few places she was more confident than in the bedchamber.

She just needed Lord Leith to show her a few courtesan tricks, the types of things that fine men wanted their mistress to know, and she was sure she would have the debt paid down in a few short years.

Sally sighed. “I am not sure it’s right, Bea.”

“Sally, please, we’re here, we’ve been over this—Parkhorne Hall is my home. It is the only thing I care about, aside from you and mother and our brothers. A few years as a rich man’s mistress is a small price to pay for it.”

Sally nodded and turned back towards the bonnet.

Beatrice swallowed the lump in her throat.

The truth was that it killed her to think that she would be away from Parkhorne for that long. Years. The idea knifed through her chest and made tears spring to her eyes. Years away from not only her family, and her mother, but the wide halls and ancient windows, and the rolling hills and well-laid crops and the little spring that hid inside the beautiful wood.

Beatrice shook her head, blinking back the tears, willing them not to fall.

She was being ridiculous.

It would be nothing.

She had to think of their survival.

She had to focus on learning everything she could from Lord Leith.