Behind the Courtesan's Mask. Marguerite Kaye

polished to a sheen. “Can I help you?” Her voice sounded breathless, she noted.

      “I most sincerely hope you can, madam.” Troy Templeton, the Earl of Ettrick, pushed the door wide enough to allow him to enter, then firmly pulled it closed behind them.

      “What are you doing—I do not recall inviting you in, sir,” Constance said, trying to keep the panic from her voice.

      “Given the nature of my business with you, I do not consider it appropriate to conduct it on your doorstep.”

      Troy strode over to the door on the right, giving his unwilling hostess no option but to follow him. It was a pretty salon, decked out in rose pinks, all gilded chairs and knickknacks, a deliberately feminine room, designed to complement the artfully feminine woman who plied her trade in it.

      He had only been in one such salon before. At nineteen, a Johnny Raw in every sense, he had been experiencing the delights of his first London Season when he was introduced to the Incomparable Stella Margate, the Season’s highest flier. As a result of their acquaintance he was left scarred for life, when it came to affairs of the heart. Stella had taught him a harsh lesson and certainly not one he would wish upon any other green young whippersnapper. Which, he thought to himself purposefully as he dragged back the curtains of the pink salon to let in the light, was precisely why he was here.

      He took his time inspecting this most notorious and highly paid of London’s highfliers, noting the fiery streaks in her thick curls, the heaviness of the loose top knot. Her hair was long, it looked as if it would reach all the way down her back. Perfect skin that seemed to owe nothing to artifice. That surprised him. Her beauty was famed, but still, the freshness of it, the heart-shaped face, her huge almond eyes, the plumply sensual curve of her mouth, took him aback. Here was no painted whore. Seeing her now, he understood quite clearly why she was so infamous, and why that young fool of a boy who was the ambassador’s son was so besotted.

      “So, you are the infamous La Perla.”

      Constance flinched. It hadn’t occurred to her, as she opened the door in Annalisa’s finery, that she would be taken for her, but now she realized how foolish she had been. Was this handsome stranger a prospective lover? Did they customarily turn up on the doorstep like this? Were all her lovers so very attractive? Sinfully attractive. Sin. The word would not leave her alone. Annalisa would sin with this man, and men like him. Her own sister. She shivered, but not from cold.

      “Will you at least tell me who you are, sir,” Constance asked.

      The stranger hesitated. “You may call me Troy.”

      Unusual enough to be anything other than true, Constance reasoned, but he obviously intended to give little else away, for whatever reason. It made her hesitate to declare her own identity. “And what precisely is the nature of your business here? What do you want with my—with me?”

      “Isn’t it obvious?” Troy had been leaning against the window, but now he closed the gap between them. The dress she wore was low-cut, revealing just enough of her full breasts to make him want to see more. The pearls caressed her skin, nestling in the dip of her cleavage. “La Perla,” he said, catching the end of the long strand, lacing it through his fingers. “Cool and smooth,” he murmured ambiguously. Her bosom rose and fell hypnotically. He was surprised to find himself hardening. Knowing what he did of her reputation, he had not expected to find her so attractive. In his book, such women were as out of bounds as other men’s wives. He wound the pearls round his fist, drawing her toward him. “La Perla. I hope you are not, like these famous beads of yours, beyond price.”

      “Let me go.” Constance fought to control her breathing. She was not frightened. He thought she was Annalisa. She was beginning to think it herself, the way he was looking at her, the way he was touching her, the way she was allowing him to do both. No, she was not frightened, but she was—she was—something. She didn’t know what. His physical proximity was unnerving. He was too male. Too big. Too powerful. Heat and something else emanated from his body. Something almost feral. She reached for the pearls, tried to tug them from him to free herself, tried to muster the resolution to put him straight as to her identity, but his hand closed over hers. A large hand. Warm. Long, strong fingers.

      “Let me go,” she said again, though even to her own ears, her request sounded just a bit unconvincing.

      “You know you don’t mean it.” Troy coiled a strand of her hair round his other hand, effectively binding her to him. “Mock resistance is your stock-in-trade.” And it was working. He didn’t want to let her go. What he wanted to do was kiss her. She was intoxicating. The brush of her breasts against his chest, the rustle of her silks against his legs, the scent of her, like an exotic flower. It occurred to him, serendipitously, that if she kissed him back it would be evidence of a sort. But he needed more tangible proof than signs and indications. He released her.

      Constance sank onto one of the fragile-looking chairs, but her relief was short-lived, for now he loomed over her. She sat up straight, trying to dispose her skirts more elegantly, but the silk and lace rustled seductively, and the pearls seemed to glow against her skin, where he had touched them. Touched La Perla. Touched her. “What do you want?”

      “You.”

      The answer, so starkly put, gave her goose bumps. And a shocking frisson of excitement. No one had ever said such a thing to her before. No one was actually saying it to her now. Troy wanted Annalisa, not Constance. But Constance was Annalisa, for now, so he wanted…

      “Me?”

      “Why else would I be here?” Troy dropped onto the chaise opposite her, crossing one elegantly booted leg over the other. Almost, he could believe her surprise to be genuine. Diplomacy and dalliance, Troy excelled at both, but if this was part of her act, as surely it must be, then he had never encountered a more accomplished performer. No wonder the ambassador’s lad had been so taken in. Soon enough the boot would be firmly on the other foot. The moment she agreed to his offer, La Perla would discover, to her cost, that she had made a fatal mistake. “I’ll give you five hundred guineas,” he said casually.

      “Five hundred guineas?” Constance repeated faintly, for surely she had misheard.

      “For one night with you. The infamous La Perla.”

      “But I’m not….” She hesitated, her wits thrown into disorder by the unexpected turn in the conversation. To one whose entire housekeeping budget for the year had been two hundred and five pounds, such a sum was unimaginable. So unimaginable as to seem quite unreal. Was it customary for one to barter over such arrangements? How high would he go? Not that she had any intention at all of accepting, but she couldn’t resist the impulse to discover the value he gave to her company—La Perla’s company.

      “You are not what?” Troy asked, sounding impatient.

      Constance bit down the bubble of slightly hysterical laughter and managed a very credible shrug. “I am not available for such a derisory sum.”

      “A thousand then.”

      She caught her jaw just before it dropped. “Pin money,” Constance heard herself saying, astonished at her ability to dissemble, wondering if this was what Annalisa would do, instinctively feeling as if it was. Across from her, Troy uncrossed his legs. He had good legs. Too many men were either too fat or too thin to wear these knitted pantaloons, but not this man.

      “Fifteen hundred.”

      “I’m still not interested,” Constance replied, quite intoxicated now with her game, too taken up with it to notice the very real excitement quivering through her body. He really was incredibly well-built, this man who desired her to the tune of fifteen hundred guineas—an astronomical sum. He was not much older than herself, maybe early thirties. His skin would be smooth, not wrinkled like Granville’s. His muscles would feel hard against her skin.

      “Two thousand, then. And I know you are interested.”

      Low in her belly, a flicker of fire licked its way into her blood. As her gaze clashed with his, she encountered something there that made her