Secrets of a Gentleman Escort

Chapter Two

Sussex, England

Annorah Price-Ellis had a month to live. Really live. She could feel it in her bones and it wasn’t the first time. She’d been feeling it creep up on her since April and here at the last she was powerless to stop it. The inevitable was going to happen although for years she’d been in denial. Now it—even at this late point she couldn’t call it by its rightful name—stared her in the face, a big red date on her mental calendar.

Of course, she’d sought help. The experts she’d consulted all concurred with the same diagnosis. There was nothing left for her to do but accept it. Such news had forced her to make concessions and, along with concessions, preparations as well, which was why she sat in her sunny drawing room at Hartshaven on this beautiful June afternoon, prettily dressed in a fashionable new gown of jonquil muslin, looking her best and waiting, an odd occupation for someone for whom time was running out.

Annorah glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was nearly four. He would arrive any minute and her nerves were entirely on edge. She’d never done anything as daring or as final as this. As that damnable red date approached, she’d thought long and hard about what her final acts would be, what pleasures she wanted one last time. She was rich. She had piles of money. She could afford anything she desired: Paris, the Continent, beautiful clothes. In the end, all that wealth wouldn’t save her. She couldn’t take it with her without condemning her soul to a certain hell. So the question had loomed. What did she want? In her heart, it hadn’t been that difficult a question to answer.

She was thirty-two, at least for another two weeks, and past her prime by at least a decade. She didn’t feel it. She hoped she didn’t look it. She had very little to show for the last ten years, at least not when it came to the things a woman should have at her age—a husband and children. She’d been close a few times. Once, she’d managed to get her heart broken and another time she’d cried off, unwilling to risk a second heartbreak, or maybe it had been the lack of such a risk. After that, she’d retreated to Hartshaven, withdrawing from society a little more each year until it had been ages since she’d set foot in London and longer still since she’d taken an interest in anyone or anyone in her.

It was a lonely way to live. What she did have, however, was a beautiful estate in the country and piles of money to keep her company. What she lacked in social currency, she more than made up for financially. In terms of creature comforts, she had everything a woman could want, except a man. That was about to change. In a few moments, a man was going to come down the drive. She’d ordered him from London much as one orders a gown, and if she had misgivings about such a process it was too late now.

Annorah mentally went over the carefully drafted letter she’d sent one last time, every word committed to memory.

Dear Sirs,

I am looking for a discreet association with a man of breeding and manners. Must be clean and well-kept, an informed conversationalist—in other words, educated—and enjoy the quiet of the countryside. Will pay handsomely for five nights of companionship.

She’d taken three days to draft those few lines. It seemed like the letter should be longer for her efforts. She hoped the agency would know exactly what she meant. The small advertisement she’d seen in a magazine suggested the agency was very good at reading between the lines and knowing precisely what was required in any given situation. Still, those meagre four lines were the most audacious words she’d ever written.

‘It’s time, Annorah. Stop being such a goose.’ She felt her courage start to flag. If not now, when? She knew the answer to that. Never. If she wanted to know the mysteries of passion before it was too late, she had to take matters into her own hands. So here she was, waiting for her birthday present to arrive; the perfect man—one who wouldn’t break her heart, who wouldn’t pretend to love her for her money, one who would understand what she wanted was a temporary liaison in which she could experience the joys of the flesh without the regrets.

Five nights of pleasure should be enough. Then she would reconcile herself to her fate, a fate the best of England’s legal minds had assured her she could not avoid: Marry by her thirty-third birthday and keep her estate and wealth intact, or should that fail and she remain single, the estate and much of her fortune was forfeit to the church and other charities. The house would become a school and she’d be left with a cottage and a comfortable portion to live simply, but not grandly. Gone would be the days of fine gowns and the option to do anything she wanted.

Either way, she stood to lose her life the way she knew it. Marriage meant her fabulous wealth went to her husband. Remaining unwed meant it went to the church. Last time she checked, neither of those parties was her. In response to her demise, she’d gone shopping and purchased an outrageous number of dresses and all the necessary accessories, including a man to go with them.

Gravel crunched on the drive and her pulse quickened. Out of the window, Annorah caught sight of a chaise pulling up in front of the steps before it was lost from view, blocked by the large semicircular stairs leading to the front door. One could only see the drive fully if one was standing at the window and Annorah did not want to be that obvious.

Her butler, Plumsby, appeared at the doorway. ‘Miss, your guest is here. May I say he is quite handsome for a librarian?’ She’d not been able to admit the truth to her staff for fear of disappointing them. Instead, she’d professed a desire to catalogue the library one last time, an inventory list of sorts should she opt to leave everything to the school.

‘Thank you, Plumsby. I will be right out to meet him.’ Her pulse began to race, her thoughts latching on to Plumsby’s last words: He was handsome. She played out how she wanted to greet him in her mind. She would be modern and sophisticated. Annorah took a final look in the mirror on the wall to make sure her hair was in place, her face free of any errant smudges. She took a deep breath and stepped out into the hall, suddenly feeling overly bright in her jonquil muslin against the muted blues and Italian marble of the hall. But there was no time to change now, no time to slip away on the backstairs unnoticed. He’d seen her.

Annorah smiled and swept forwards. ‘You’re here. I trust you had a pleasant journey?’ She clasped her hands tightly at her waist, hoping to hide her nerves, but she could feel a blush creeping up her cheeks. Handsome didn’t even begin to cover it and she was already at a loss for words. He’d think she was a bumbling idiot. One minute into their association and her power of speech had failed her.

Tea! Her mind grabbed the idea. ‘Plumbsby, have tea brought to the drawing room. I can see to our guest from here.’ As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she had erred. ‘Forgive me, I’m getting ahead of myself. Here I am ordering tea before we’ve even had introductions. I’m Annorah Price-Ellis.’

She stuck her hand out for him to shake in a businesslike manner, but he took that hand and bent over it instead, lips skimming knuckles, eyes holding hers as he took her gesture and turned it into something more than a greeting. Under his touch it became a prologue, a promise. ‘Nicholas D’Arcy at your service.’

At her service. Annorah swallowed hard. He was here and he was gorgeous! Dark-blue eyes looked up at her over her hand, riveting and intense in their regard; black hair roguishly pulled back to reveal high-set cheekbones and the most perfect mouth she’d ever seen on a man; a thin, strong upper lip, a slightly fuller lower lip, full enough to invoke a certain sensual quality, full enough to make a woman want to trace that mouth with her finger.

Good lord, her thoughts were running fast! They’d barely met and she was already tracing his mouth in her mind. Annorah recalled her manners soon enough to fumble through an awkward curtsy, only to wonder if that was the correct response. Did one curtsy to such a man? But that was just it. What sort of man was he? A gentleman down on his luck or a bounder in fine clothing merely apeing his betters? Perhaps she should curtsy simply to preserve the façade and why not? This was her fantasy. She could play it any way she wanted.

What she couldn’t do was stand around the hall, staring like a looby. Years of good breeding finally caught up with her in a single thought: now she could get them in to tea and everything would resolve itself. Tea would take some of the edge off her nerves. There would be a natural progression of questions to ask: Did he take cream? Did he prefer sugar? Would he like a cake or a sandwich? It would ease the transition into conversation and give her a sense of starting to know him.

Annorah gestured towards the wide doorway on her left and said in what she hoped were sophisticated tones, even if the message was slightly repetitious, ‘Plumsby will have tea set up for us in the drawing room. You can take refreshment and we can discuss business.’ Surely that was the appropriate next step. It would be best to get the particulars out of the way before things progressed much further.

Nicholas D’Arcy’s blue eyes twinkled, the edges crinkling up delightfully as he smiled. He leaned in with a conspiratorial air, his body close enough for her to catch the scent of him—the sweet hay of a fougère mixed with the tang of lemons, quintessential summer. ‘This is business?’

Suddenly it was hard to think. She was vaguely aware she was rambling on about clients and contractors and negotiating the parameters of association for both their sakes. A gentle finger pressed against her lips.

‘There’s a lovely summer day waiting for us outside, Annorah. Why don’t you show me the gardens? We can talk while we stroll.’

‘Will it be private enough?’ Annorah hedged politely. Talk about their arrangement outside where they might be overheard? She hadn’t exactly been truthful with the staff when she’d told them about her visitor.

‘We’ll put our heads together and whisper.’ His eyes were laughing again as he offered her his arm, a very firm arm encased in blue superfine, another reminder that his clothes and bearing were immaculate. His dark head lowered to hers until they were almost touching, his voice quiet at her ear. ‘Besides, I find the risk of discovery adds a certain spice to even the most mundane of outings, don’t you?’

‘I will have to take your word for that, Mr D’Arcy.’ A delicious tremor shivered through her at the very notion, tempered only slightly by the reality that the man dressed in expensive blue superfine, fashionable buff breeches and highly polished boots was definitely not a gentleman at all.

‘Please, call me Nicholas. My father was always Mr D’Arcy. Shall we?’

How quickly she’d lost control of the conversation. It was something of a marvel, really, how smoothly he’d taken over. He’d been standing in her hall for a handful of minutes and already he was assuming command. He didn’t even know where the gardens were and yet they were heading out of the bank of French doors as if he’d lived here his entire life. She’d not expected him to show such ease. She’d expected to have the upper hand. This arrangement was to be conducted entirely on her grounds, literally and figuratively. When she’d sent her letter, she’d assumed a modicum of security in knowing he was the guest and she the host. But now it was clear those roles could easily become blurred.

* * *

The gardens restored her sense of balance. He asked questions, pausing now and again at certain flowers to comment on their blooms, and she answered, feeling more in control, once more the host.

Nicholas halted at one flower. ‘Ah, this one is very rare indeed. A rainforest iris, if I’m not mistaken? Very wicked, is it not, with its stamen jutting straight up from the bloom?’

Annorah blushed furiously at his less-than-veiled reference to a man’s phallus. ‘All flowers have stamen, Mr D’Arcy.’

‘Yes, but not all of them have stamen that are so blatantly displayed. Take this delicate pink blossom over here. The stamen is neatly shielded by the petals closing around it. But not this fellow.’ He gestured back to the iris. ‘He’s a bold one, sticking straight out from the flat bowl of the blossom, tall and proud for all to see.’

‘Flowers are hardly sexual beings, Mr D’Arcy.’

‘You don’t think so? I must respectfully disagree. They are perhaps the most sexual, most promiscuous...’ he stopped here to arch a dark brow her direction, emphasising promiscuous ‘...creatures in the living kingdoms. Think about it—they pollinate and cross-pollinate with multiple different partners every day, all for the purpose of casting their errant seeds to the wind with nary a care for where they land.’

Social protocol demanded she put a stop to such ridiculous conversation, but she could not bring herself to do it. He had the most pleasant of voices, a sibilant tenor that caressed each word, creating decadent images with his sentences. If he could turn her legs to jelly with talk of botany of all things, chances were rather good that this voice of his could make any subject seductive. Still, she should try to maintain a civil face to their interactions. ‘Mr D’Arcy, this is hardly a decent subject for discussion.’

‘I insist again that you call me Nicholas,’ he chided her gently. ‘And to be blunt, you didn’t invite me here to be decent.’

It was a well-timed comment. There was no better opportunity to bring up the nature of their association. They’d begun walking again, leaving the phallic iris and the flower garden behind. They were further from the house now, wandering down a tree-lined alley towards a roman folly in the distance. Their privacy was complete. For a moment it crossed her mind he’d manoeuvred the conversation in that direction on purpose.

‘No, Nicholas, I didn’t bring you here to be decent. But neither did I bring you here to indulge in a sinful gluttony of an orgy either.’ This was where her directness ran out. She was no retiring wallflower afraid to speak her own mind. She’d charted her own course in life thus far, but this was new conversational territory. She’d never once expressed such feelings, such desires to anyone before, let alone a handsome man who stared at her with the full attention of his eyes.

Of course she had his full attention! She gave herself a stern admonishment. This was his job. She should be worried if she didn’t have it.

‘I understand,’ Nicholas answered solemnly, covering her hand in a comforting gesture where it lay on his arm. ‘What have you told the servants?’

‘I’ve put it about that you are here to assess my library collection. It’s quite extensive and it hasn’t been catalogued since my grandfather had it done half a century ago.’

The grin he flashed filled her with satisfaction. She’d thought long and hard about the ruse she’d use to welcome a visiting male into her household. ‘Very nice, Annorah. You painted me with the sheen of a scholar, a bookish sort, which will certainly allay suspicions that I have ulterior motives for your person. You’ve given me a project that requires me to closet myself away with you daily and, best of all, you’ve given me the perfect reason to be seen escorting you about the countryside. No one would expect you to keep your guest all to yourself.’ He winked. ‘I know how country folk work; a newcomer is cause for excitement and must be shared.’

Annorah felt herself blush under his praise. They turned away from the folly and headed back towards the house while he continued.

‘As for us, Annorah, we will not speak of such arrangements again. You and I are to dedicate ourselves to becoming friends. We cannot be bothered with anything as base as a business transaction.’ He wrinkled his nose in a show of humorous distaste that made her laugh.

‘All that aside, though, we must be serious for a moment.’ He turned and faced her, bringing them to a full stop, the house in view over his shoulder, a reminder that when they returned to it the ruse would begin in truth. The point of no return began at the garden’s edge and her body trembled with the knowledge of it.

He took both her hands in his, his grip warm and strong, his gaze sincere. ‘We are about to embark on a wondrous and intimate journey together, Annorah Price-Ellis. I am honoured to share that journey with you. It will change us both. You have no doubt given it much thought, but I must ask one last time—are you ready? Is this what you truly want? You’re not forced to it in any way either implied or explicit?’

This must be what it’s like to stand at the altar and look up into the eyes of the man you love, knowing he feels the same. The thought had come to her out of nowhere and without reason. She knew logically he must be compelled to ask for one last show of consent. She knew, too, that there was nothing about love or marriage or altars behind his request. But that knowledge did nothing to dispel the impression they were taking vows of a sort, pledging themselves to one another, even if only for a short time. After tonight, he would always belong to her, always be with her in a way no other person would. For the rest of her life, she would carry a piece of Nicholas D’Arcy in her soul, as her first and perhaps only true lover.

Annorah nodded, her voice quiet in the still of a summer’s late afternoon. ‘I am ready.’

Nicholas raised her hands to his lips. ‘I am, too.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. Perhaps he’d heard the tremor in her voice. ‘Rest assured, Annorah, I know exactly what you want.’

Chapter Three

She wanted the wedding night, the honeymoon; the pleasure of lovers learning one another for the first time, savouring one another in both body and mind. It was one of the more difficult scenarios to enact. The trick was to create an intimacy that went beyond the physical without exposing oneself to feelings. He dealt in sex, not intimacy, by preference.

Up in his room, Nicholas opened his valise, the one piece of luggage he’d not let the footman assigned to act as his valet unpack. Nicholas surveyed the tools of his trade with a contemplative sigh, laying them out on the dressing table in his room like a surgeon preparing his scalpels and saws: the tiny glass vials of scented oils, the expensive imported sheaths from France made of thinnest lambskin, the silk ribbons, the soft feathers. Often, he used them as much for him as his clients. All were designed with one goal in mind: physical pleasure. They were his insurance that he could please even when he wasn’t all that interested in a woman. With the right woman, though, they could be extraordinary.

There was no question of delivering the physical adventure Annorah sought. The other, the sharing of a mind, would be more difficult. He was a guarded person by nature. Drawing others out had been an early acquired skill of his. It had served double duty as a means of learning others and as a means of protecting himself. When people were busy talking about themselves, they had little time to wonder about him.

Nicholas tucked the items into a bureau drawer, carefully hidden among cravats. Librarians did not carry feathers and ribbons with them. He smiled. A librarian? That was a new one. He’d pretended to be a lot of things before, whatever his clients needed. In the process, he’d become an adept chameleon. In this line of work, a person did a lot of pretending, which wasn’t all bad especially when the fantasy was better than a reality full of debt and worry and even guilt.

There was no place for those feelings here. He pushed those thoughts away and shut the clasp firmly. His mental efforts would be better spent planning his strategy. He would not need these tools this evening. She was not ready in spite of her words to the contrary.

He’d sensed her nervousness from the start, as if she couldn’t believe someone had actually answered her letter. He’d touched her immediately and often after that, bowing over her hand with a kiss, keeping a hand on her at all times as they strolled. She’d been skittish and he’d feared she might change her mind, a prospect he could not afford now that the money had been mentally allocated in his mind by the time he left London.

He understood full well the power of touch to ensure acceptance. In his experience, people were far more likely to do what he wanted if he touched them while asking. By the time they’d returned to the house and he’d garnered her pledge, she’d started to thaw.

Not that she was cold or that she wasn’t pleasantly disposed towards him. He’d seen the race of her pulse when she’d sighted him in the hall. He’d noted the blush on her cheeks in the garden when they’d discussed the iris. She knew very well the way of things. But the codes of decency had been drilled into her head over the years and, as much as she wanted to cast them off ever so briefly, it was proving to be more difficult than she’d likely anticipated. Well, he could certainly help her with that. What he really wanted to know was why? Why had she written the letter?

Nicholas moved to the bed and stretched out his long form, tucking his hands behind his head. He had two hours before dinner and he needed to use them to think. He mapped the evening in his head like a general before battle. Tonight’s arena would be the dinner table. That was easy enough. There were myriad ways to stroke the stem of a goblet, to cup its bowl, to eat one’s food and drink one’s wine that stimulated sexual interest, all the while talking, drawing her out, getting her to relax, to think of him more as a man than a machine who’d been sent to fulfil a need.

His goal tonight was twofold. For her sake, he wanted to dispel any sense of artifice about their association. For his, he wanted to figure out what had driven Annorah to write such a letter. More than that, why had such a letter even been necessary?

A request of this nature was not made idly. He thought of the pistols packed in his bags and ran through the usual reasons. Was this an act of revenge on her part? Would there be people who would resent her decision? It would not be the first time a woman had tried to avoid an unwanted marriage in this way. These arrangements were seldom straightforward.

The letter itself had been unremarkable. He’d studied it line by meagre line on the way here. There had been little to offer in the way of clues. The line about enjoying the countryside had made him laugh at the irony. The word quiet was a bit more insightful. What did it signify? Was she a recluse? Did she actually prefer the solitude of the country, unimaginable as such a concept was? Simple deduction made that an easy scenario to discard. It was hard to imagine a recluse, someone who deliberately shunned the company of others, requiring a conversationalist. Upon arrival, he’d been proven correct. He had to discard that notion even if the logic hadn’t fallen short. She might have been nervous, but she wasn’t a recluse.

Nick considered another option. Had she been forced into seclusion? Was she someone who had been abandoned to anonymity? Someone craving human contact? Perhaps that was too extreme. Sussex was hardly the ends of the earth. It was a mere five hours from London. Surely a woman with a thousand pounds to spend on five nights of pleasure could afford to come to London if she so chose.

That was the other thing that niggled. Motive. London had its own plans for women possessed of a fortune. It was called the Marriage Mart and it would certainly resolve any penchant for intimacy by providing an heiress with a husband; especially London in June. The city was teeming with men looking for money and marriage. It called to mind the line from the Austen novel his female acquaintances were so fond of: ‘A single man in possession of a good fortune must also be in want of a wife’, or something like that. In this case, a woman in possession of a fortune was an odd thing indeed without a husband.

If she was not naturally reclusive or forced to seclusion, that left option three: she was in the country by choice. Of all the scenarios, this was the most mysterious. Why would anyone choose the countryside if they didn’t have to? Why would someone choose to engage in paid intimacies with a stranger when a potential marriage awaited just five hours down the road?