A Counterfeit Courtesan Read online

  The door closed behind her with a click and she pivoted to face it with her heart in her throat. The masked man was leaning against it now, watching her as she reached out a trembling hand to support herself on the back of a close-by chair.

  “Changed your mind,” he pressed, “now that you’re here?”

  “Have you?” she asked.

  “You know what I’ll do, don’t you?” he all but purred as he stepped toward her. When she didn’t answer right away, he continued, “I’ll strip that gown off you. You’ll be naked before me. Then I’m going to touch you all over until you’re arching, until you’re begging. And then I’m going to put my cock in you.”

  She winced at the bold language he used. And yet the soft, sensual tone of those words excited her, too. After living her life without such blunt address, she found she actually liked it.

  “Tell me you want that,” he said.

  Her thighs clenched at the order, said in such a gravelly tone. “I-I think my coming with you to the room tells you that.”

  He shook his head slowly. “No. You’re not a courtesan. I thought it before, I know it now. So I need the words. Say the words to me.”

  Her cheeks felt like they were on fire as she stared at him. He couldn’t really want her to repeat those wicked things. She’d never said those kinds of statements before. “I can’t—”

  “Say it,” he repeated.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. This was her last out. She could pretend offense and stomp from the room. He was all but daring her to do so. Or she could surrender to exactly what had brought her here tonight. Give herself over to the things this man promised and change her world, only this time on her own terms.

  “I want—” she whispered.

  “Look at me,” he interrupted.

  She let her eyes open and glared at him. “I want you to strip me naked. I want you to touch me. I want you to put your…your…” She huffed out a breath because her face felt like flames were devouring it. “I want you to put your cock in me. Please.”

  She added the last bit out of habit. A lady always said please. But his smile fell as she did so. He drew in a long breath and set his shoulders back slightly. She had displeased him somehow, it seemed. Though she didn’t know how. She’d done what he’d asked, hadn’t she? She’d said what he wanted her to say.

  “Sir,” she began.

  He jolted slightly, and then he reached up and, without preamble, tugged his mask away. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open as he did so. Because she knew this man. Knew him far too well for her own good.

  And he knew her.

  “Ellis…Mr. Maitland,” she stammered, taking a long step away from him.

  He shook his head slowly. “Miss Juliana Shelley,” he said softly. “Just what the hell are you doing?”

  Chapter 2

  Juliana knew she was gaping at the man before her like a fish, stunned into silence by his being here, by his question spoken like a scolding governess, not a wicked pretender. Not like the man who had crept into her wildest dreams ever since the last time she saw him.

  The man she hated herself for dreaming of. He had harmed her family, after all. His actions had led to…

  She lifted a hand and let it touch the place where her scar hid under her mask. He flinched when she did so, his gaze breaking from hers at last. At least she could breathe again.

  “You have no right to question me,” she said through gritted teeth. The door was behind him, but he wasn’t entirely blocking it. And what she needed to do right now was run. As far and as fast from this man as she could.

  She marched forward, hoping she looked more determined than she felt, and started around him toward escape. He didn’t allow it. He caught her arm as she passed him. Not roughly, but gently, and her mind blasted her back weeks before, when he had held her against his chest, whispering words of comfort warm and close to her ear. Even through her pain and shock and fear, she’d noticed he smelled of leather and fresh linen that day. The same scent wafted to her nostrils now. How had she not known it was him immediately?

  He dragged her toward him just an inch and stared down into her eyes with that hypnotic blue stare. “Juliana,” he growled.

  When he said her name, her entire body twitched. She jerked her arm away and swung without thinking. Her palm hit his cheek with a crack that echoed in the room. He turned his face, his defined jaw setting as he released her.

  Everything felt like it slowed to half-time as he looked down at her again. She could have run, but she didn’t. It seemed he didn’t have to touch her to hold her where he wanted, he just had to look at her and she was frozen. With rage, with regret, with desire that she hated herself for more than anything.

  “Explain yourself,” he said at last, drawing out each syllable.

  She turned away from him because she couldn’t look at that handsome face anymore. As she did so, she lifted her own mask away. It seemed she didn’t need it. He’d seen right through it, piercing the heart of her that she hadn’t wanted to share. Putting himself in the middle of her pain, as well as her longing. He wasn’t wanted in either place.

  “I don’t owe you anything,” she said softly as she stared at the fire across the room.

  He was silent behind her for what felt like a lifetime. Then he said, “Perhaps not, but you owe yourself. Go home, Juliana.”

  “No!” she burst out as she pivoted toward him. She knew her eyes were wide, her face lined with desperation. She saw him recoil from that dark emotion.

  He shook his head. “Juliana—”

  She stepped closer even though it went against every instinct of self-preservation she had in her body. “You will not take this from me, Mr. Maitland. Not when you have taken everything else.”

  He had barely reacted when she hit him, an action she regretted already. But those words hit the mark far harder. His expression crumpled slightly, his lips tightening at the reminder that her destruction had been his doing.

  She took the opportunity to move past him. This time he didn’t touch her. He didn’t argue against her. He let her go without so much as a word as she slid the mask back over her face and ran. Away from this place of ill repute. Away from the emotions and desires it stirred in her.

  Away from him.

  Ellis followed Juliana from the back room at a distance, far enough that she might not be aware of his attention. Close enough that he could intervene if she were bothered. The idea of her going back into that room and finding some other man to take her body was…

  Troubling wasn’t the word for it. It was something much darker and uglier.

  Only she didn’t stalk a new lover. He watched as she rushed across the room, not even looking at the increased debauchery of the club around her and fled through the doors she had entered what felt like a lifetime ago.

  She was gone. And he should have felt relieved, but instead he was bereft. He’d been so close to…well, a heaven he didn’t deserve. He’d touched this woman only a few times. Even when she slapped him, it was far more than a man like him deserved.

  He had to remember that.

  And hope that he had put her off going to dangerous clubs to find a man for her bed. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to forget the fantasy of being that man.

  Then he turned and went across the room. There was a guard at the bottom of a long set of stairs.

  “Is he in?” Ellis asked the liveried servant who was staring straight ahead like he was part of the King’s guard.

  “He don’t take visitors,” the young man replied.

  “Tell him Handsome Maitland is looking for him.”

  The use of his nickname brought the young man’s eyes to him, wide and, Ellis thought, impressed. There were benefits to a reputation, it seemed. Or perhaps it was past relationships. He’d known Rivers since they were children, after all. Street recognized street, even when it dressed as something else.

  He waited as his message was taken upstairs, and a few moments
later the servant returned and motioned Ellis toward the office above. He climbed the stairs and entered above after a light knock.

  Marcus Rivers was sitting behind a huge desk, papers strewn out before him. He had a frown on his face, but as Ellis entered, he rose and a rare grin lit up his face and brightened his green eyes.

  “There he is.” Rivers held out a hand to Ellis without hesitation. “You haven’t darkened my club’s doors for what feels like forever.”

  Ellis shook the offered hand and forced a smile. “I’ve been…busy.”

  He tried not to think of the last year and all he’d done and destroyed. Including the woman who had just stomped off away from him, probably never to be seen again.

  Rivers frown deepened, but he crossed to a sideboard, where he poured them each whisky. As he handed over the tumbler, he motioned to the chairs before his fire. They sat together, and Rivers sipped his drink before he leaned forward, draping his elbows over his knees. “You look tired. And you’re injured.”

  Ellis shook his head. Fucking Marcus and his ability to see every damned detail. It had served him well when he was stealing for a bastard named Jack Quill many, many years ago. It served him better as a man who ran an establishment built on sin and secrets.

  Ellis shifted his shoulder and tried to ignore the pain that still lingered there. A few weeks had helped considerably, but a through and through injury like the one he’d suffered took time to heal completely.

  “It wasn’t anything,” he lied.

  Rivers lifted both brows and downed the rest of his drink with a grunt. “I’d rather hoped you’d gotten out of the life, my friend. Your cousin did, didn’t he? Married recently, I think. To a respectable lady.”

  Ellis snorted into his glass. “Oh yes, he did that. Only a few days ago, actually. The fact that it’s already reached your ears…”

  Rivers shrugged. “Means nothing. I hear everything first. It behooves me to do so.”

  “Well, it’s done and I wish him well.” Ellis sighed, thinking of the betrayal in his cousin Rook’s eyes the last time they’d spoken. Rook had offered him a way out. Ellis had known he couldn’t take it. Even then he’d been aware there was only one end to this. “But it’s the pirate’s life for me, I think. I’ll keep playing my games.”

  “Until they kill you,” Rivers said.

  Ellis shifted, for that statement reminded him of why he’d really come here. “I need a favor.”

  Rivers set the empty glass down on the table beside him and leaned back. His dark green gaze never left Ellis’s, but it was inscrutable. Then the corner of his mouth quirked up a fraction. “Don’t you owe me one already?”

  Ellis shrugged. “Yes. Now it will be two.”

  Rivers nodded slowly. “What is it?”

  Ellis drew in a long breath because in a moment Rivers wouldn’t be inscrutable at all. He would be livid and questioning and pushing. “Winston Leonard.”

  Rivers’ expression went flat in an instant, all emotion leaving his entire countenance except for his eyes, which immediately lit with rage. His hand twitched at his side, pulsing into a fist that he rested on his thick thigh. “That bastard isn’t allowed in my club,” he growled.

  Ellis nodded. “I know,” he said softly. “I heard what he did.”

  “It took three of my men to keep me from killing him. I wish they’d failed,” Rivers said. “You don’t mess with women in my club.”

  “You’ve always been firm on that.”

  Rivers jumped out of his chair, the action sending it screeching backward across the floor. He ran a hand through his hair as he paced to the window that overlooked the club floor and glared down at his domain. Ellis heard his friend taking long breaths to calm himself.

  “How could you involve yourself with such a man?”

  Fuck. So Marcus knew. Ellis stood slowly. “I bolloxed it, Rivers, what can I say? I saw what I thought would be easy money.”

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard you were working with him,” Rivers growled. “You should have known better.”

  “Well, I’ve paid the price, I assure you,” Ellis said, wincing. “And so have a lot of other people who didn’t deserve it. I’m trying to set it to rights, do you understand? I’m trying to fix what I did. But I can’t do that if I can’t find him.”

  Rivers’ boot tapped against the wooden floor as he held Ellis’s stare evenly. “What are you going to do, Handsome?”

  Ellis shook his head. “What I should have done in the beginning.”

  “Maitland,” Rivers said, his tone a warning and a worry at once.

  Ellis shrugged. “It’s better if you don’t know. You’re almost respectable, friend. You’ll need deniability.”

  “Fuck.” Rivers stared up at the ceiling for a moment, drawing a few breaths to calm himself. “So you want me to let him back in my club.”

  Ellis nodded. “If you can.”

  “I can do anything—it’s my bloody club.” Marcus sat down at his desk and stared at the papers. Then he grabbed for a ledger at the corner of the desk and flipped through it. He scanned the lines before him and glanced up. “He still has money on his books for membership. When I kicked him out, he demanded it back but was refused.”

  “Well, he’s a greedy prick,” Ellis said as he stepped to the window Rivers had abandoned and looked over the kingdom of seduction his friend had built for himself. “I suppose money might bring him around.”

  “It isn’t the money. It’s winning over me,” Marcus said with a long sigh. “I’ll have my man Abbott send word to his people that the remaining membership will be honored if he can control himself. I don’t know if it will bring him out, but you’re welcome to him if it does. Whatever you plan to do, though, I hope you won’t do it here.”

  “I owe you too much to do that. I just need to get him out of whatever hole he’s been hiding in.”

  Marcus shrugged. “I’ll keep you apprised.” He leaned back in his chair. “I saw you with a lady tonight.”

  Ellis groaned. “Christ, were you spying on me, you degenerate?”

  “You didn’t pick a room where I could spy on you, even if I wanted to do such a thing,” Marcus laughed, though there was a glint in his eyes when he referred to the rooms where lovers could be watched. “But I saw you circling her from up here. Saw you go into the back rooms. Didn’t seem like you were back there long enough for much fun.”

  “No,” Ellis agreed, picturing Juliana’s face when she’d lifted the mask away and glared at him. God, but she was beautiful. “The lady, I’m afraid, hates me.”

  “After so short an acquaintance?” Marcus said with another chuckle. “Smart woman, figuring you out so swiftly.”

  “She is that,” Ellis agreed. “No, she knew me before tonight. She doesn’t belong here.”

  “Half the ladies who attend don’t belong here,” Marcus said. “That’s the fun for them. They love to come somewhere so low and find what they can’t get up high.”

  “This one might hurt herself in the process,” Ellis sighed.

  “You care?” Rivers couldn’t cover the surprise in his tone. “I thought you lived for the love games.”

  “I lived on them. But I never picked innocents.” Ellis flinched as he thought of the lie in that. “Well, I tried to avoid them unless it was absolutely necessary. Tried to pick women who wanted what I offered and didn’t care about the price. Or deserved the price they’d pay. But this one…she’s neither of those things.”

  “Do you want me to let you know about her, too?” Rivers asked.

  Ellis pivoted to face him. “How would you know her?”

  “I can figure out what name she gave at the door. If she returns, I’ll send for you. And have her protected if she requires it.”

  Ellis considered the offer. He ought not to take it. Juliana Shelley wasn’t his responsibility, after all. She didn’t want him to take care of her. She claimed she didn’t want him at all. Except that he’d seen the flare of de
sire in her eyes, and not just when she thought he was a stranger.

  Want and need were different things.

  “Yes,” he said. “Tell me if she returns.”

  Rivers stood up and extended his hand again. “Be careful.”

  Ellis shook the offered hand, then turned to the door with a burst of humorless laughter. “I never am.”

  Chapter 3

  Juliana stared out the parlor window, down at the Earl of Harcourt’s garden. Normally she would enjoy the view, for she’d always loved a peaceful garden. Today, her mind wasn’t on the beautiful flowers or the finely shaped bushes. Nor was it on the conversation going on between the members of her family behind her.

  No, her thoughts were lost in a back bedroom of a notorious club, with a man who had made promises about what he’d do to her and then not kept them. Of course, that man was a liar, so she shouldn’t have been shocked. Or still so titillated about what it would have felt like if Ellis Maitland had actually touched her instead of pushed her away.

  “Don’t you think, Juliana?”

  She jolted at the sound of her name and turned to find her sisters standing together, watching her with expectation. As triplets, they had spent their life as the Shelley Sisters. A unit. One she’d taken comfort in, just as she had taken comfort in sharing the same face with two people she loved more than anything.

  But in the past few weeks, everything had changed. She was no longer part of the unit of the Shelley Sisters. Thomasina was now Countess of Harcourt, and Anne had married Constantine Maitland on their way to London just a few days before. Ellis’s cousin, the one called Rook.

  Juliana was happy for them. She could be nothing but. Despite troubled beginnings, they were both blissful in their marriages, and she never would have wanted anything less for them. But their sudden and heavenly unions had the effect of severing the sisterhood in a way she had always feared would happen: their strongest bonds were with their husbands now.