Chapter One
London, Summer 1818
Constance gazed admiringly at the portrait. A likeness, she noted, taken by one Thomas Lawrence in May 1817. Barely a year ago. The subject, with her famed rope of pearls providing a lustrous contrast to her olive skin, was reclining on her stomach on a red chaise longue, her luxuriant auburn hair trailing down over the curve of her back. She was all but naked, a lace peignoir draped casually over her bottom, her back, ankles and feet bare, and so much of her full breasts on display that Constance was almost certain she could see a hint of nipple. The smoldering beauty was not looking directly out of the portrait, but at some other point, some male lover perhaps, her heavy-lidded gaze seductive, her full lips pouted into a lazy smile.
It was a provocative portrait, blatantly erotic, which Constance found somewhat disturbing. Touching the pearls, now worn around her own neck, she felt as though she was looking at another version of herself. A mirror image she had not known existed. A sensuous alter ego that had been trapped, for all those years, within the constraints of the respectable life she had led.
A gauze of tears blurred her vision. Annalisa! She had never known her in the full bloom of beauty and the notoriety that had made her La Perla, the most sought-after and exclusive courtesan in London. The frail woman who had arrived so dramatically and unexpectedly on Constanceâs doorstep had been a pale shadow of the lustrous beauty in the portrait, her body wasted by the consumption that was eating its debilitating way through her body.
Annalisa. La Perla. Her identical twin.
Constance wiped her eyes on a lace-edged kerchief. Annalisaâs kerchief, as was the house she was occupying, the dress she was wearing. It had felt strange at first, this urge to inhabit her sisterâs life, but instinctively she felt that by doing so, even just for a few hours, she might somehow come to know and understand the exotic creature whose very existence she had been unaware of until six months ago.
Turning away from the portrait, Constance ran a hand over the satin bedcovers. Crimson. Scarlet. Vermilion. The color of sin. A frisson of excitement shivered like a puff of summer wind across her skin. Sinful. Redolent of sin. That is how Granville, her departed husband, would have described Annalisa if he had ever met her. Granville, the man of the cloth, who had performed his marital duties as he performed his Sunday confessions, with something akin to fastidious distaste. Yet the little Annalisa had disclosed about her sinful life had made it sound illicitly and shockingly pleasurable, enough to make Constance wonder, to make her wish, just once, to experience such pleasure for herself.
Above the bed, fitted into the ceiling, was a large mirror. Beside the bed, in a polished walnut chest, lay a selection of exotic items, the uses for some of which Constance could not even begin to imagine. Rope sheathed in velvet, large plumes of colored feathers. The sweetly smiling faces and elaborate dresses of what she took at first to be dolls concealed a length of carved ivory shaped to simulate, Constance realized blushingly, a manâs shaft. Not that Granville had ever been so hard or so large.
Dipping her fingers into scented oils, slipping her wrist through what looked like a swansdown manacle, Constance tried to conjure up the dark and pleasurable world that her sister had inhabited. What would it be like? How would it feel to be her? To sin with a virile man, a potent man, a desirable man? A man who found no shame in indulging his desire? She closed her eyes, caressed her cheek with the feathers of the manacle and shivered. Here in this temple of the flesh, which was Annalisaâs domain, it was almost possible to imagine the exquisite pleasure that might result. Arousal rippled through her.
Giving herself over to the decadent ambience, Constance wandered through to the dressing room, where
London, Summer 1818
Constance gazed admiringly at the portrait. A likeness, she noted, taken by one Thomas Lawrence in May 1817. Barely a year ago. The subject, with her famed rope of pearls providing a lustrous contrast to her olive skin, was reclining on her stomach on a red chaise longue, her luxuriant auburn hair trailing down over the curve of her back. She was all but naked, a lace peignoir draped casually over her bottom, her back, ankles and feet bare, and so much of her full breasts on display that Constance was almost certain she could see a hint of nipple. The smoldering beauty was not looking directly out of the portrait, but at some other point, some male lover perhaps, her heavy-lidded gaze seductive, her full lips pouted into a lazy smile.
It was a provocative portrait, blatantly erotic, which Constance found somewhat disturbing. Touching the pearls, now worn around her own neck, she felt as though she was looking at another version of herself. A mirror image she had not known existed. A sensuous alter ego that had been trapped, for all those years, within the constraints of the respectable life she had led.
A gauze of tears blurred her vision. Annalisa! She had never known her in the full bloom of beauty and the notoriety that had made her La Perla, the most sought-after and exclusive courtesan in London. The frail woman who had arrived so dramatically and unexpectedly on Constanceâs doorstep had been a pale shadow of the lustrous beauty in the portrait, her body wasted by the consumption that was eating its debilitating way through her body.
Annalisa. La Perla. Her identical twin.
Constance wiped her eyes on a lace-edged kerchief. Annalisaâs kerchief, as was the house she was occupying, the dress she was wearing. It had felt strange at first, this urge to inhabit her sisterâs life, but instinctively she felt that by doing so, even just for a few hours, she might somehow come to know and understand the exotic creature whose very existence she had been unaware of until six months ago.
Turning away from the portrait, Constance ran a hand over the satin bedcovers. Crimson. Scarlet. Vermilion. The color of sin. A frisson of excitement shivered like a puff of summer wind across her skin. Sinful. Redolent of sin. That is how Granville, her departed husband, would have described Annalisa if he had ever met her. Granville, the man of the cloth, who had performed his marital duties as he performed his Sunday confessions, with something akin to fastidious distaste. Yet the little Annalisa had disclosed about her sinful life had made it sound illicitly and shockingly pleasurable, enough to make Constance wonder, to make her wish, just once, to experience such pleasure for herself.
Above the bed, fitted into the ceiling, was a large mirror. Beside the bed, in a polished walnut chest, lay a selection of exotic items, the uses for some of which Constance could not even begin to imagine. Rope sheathed in velvet, large plumes of colored feathers. The sweetly smiling faces and elaborate dresses of what she took at first to be dolls concealed a length of carved ivory shaped to simulate, Constance realized blushingly, a manâs shaft. Not that Granville had ever been so hard or so large.
Dipping her fingers into scented oils, slipping her wrist through what looked like a swansdown manacle, Constance tried to conjure up the dark and pleasurable world that her sister had inhabited. What would it be like? How would it feel to be her? To sin with a virile man, a potent man, a desirable man? A man who found no shame in indulging his desire? She closed her eyes, caressed her cheek with the feathers of the manacle and shivered. Here in this temple of the flesh, which was Annalisaâs domain, it was almost possible to imagine the exquisite pleasure that might result. Arousal rippled through her.
Giving herself over to the decadent ambience, Constance wandered through to the dressing room, where
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