The Courtesan's Daughter by Claudia Dain Page B

wallpaper, seen once, admired, and then ignored. Until he had heard her confess to Caroline about her mother. Then, he had been all interest, all attention, all charm. So it always was at the start. It was at the finish that a woman had to be sharp and vigilant. Her mother had never learned that, but Anne had.
    Anne was not her mother.
    Anne, if she tried very, very diligently, might model herself after Sophia.
    Sophia would not allow Lord Dutton to distract her. Sophia would see the future, and the future was Lord Staverton and a life as a viscountess. That was a future worth aiming for. Lord Dutton offered nothing, nothing beyond a smile and a torrid kiss.
    It had been a torrid kiss.
    As long as she was being honest, she should admit, at least to herself, that her husband had not been very accomplished as a kisser. He had had other qualities to be sure, but kissing had not been one of them. That was it exactly. He had not been a quality kisser.
    She was not going to plan her future on the basis of a torrid and quite effective kiss.
    She was not even going to speculate as to what kind of kisser Lord Staverton was going to prove. A woman could live without kisses, but what she could not live without was a solid roof over her head and a table full of food. Her mother had never learned that, either.
    A scratch at the door that connected Caro’s room to hers interrupted her thoughts, and then Caro’s dark head poked around the corner.
    “Oh, good. You’re awake. I have so much to tell you.”
    “Yes,” Anne said, checking the mantel clock as she sat up fully in bed, “and you had best hurry since it’s just a bit more than an hour before you find yourself thrown upon the streets.”
    “Oh, that,” Caro said, coming over to sit upon the foot of the bed. “My mother and I have come to terms. I am not to be thrown out. I am to marry instead.”
    “I’m much relieved to hear it,” Anne said, though she felt a bit guilty for thinking of her own marital dilemma while Caro had faced being cast from her home. She was a selfish, self-serving woman and she must think more of others. And now that she had the problem of the tempting Lord Dutton settled, she would. “Are you to marry anyone I know?”
    “Of course you know him,” Caro said. “I will marry Lord Ashdon. Who else?”
    “Who else? Why, I would have thought anyone else. You refused him.”
    “I changed my mind,” Caro said brightly.
    “Why did you change your mind?”
    “Well, as to that, I’m not quite certain,” Caro said, her smile faltering. “It might have been the cut of his blue waistcoat, or the way his hair sort of tumbles about his eyes. He has rather nice eyes, don’t you think?”
    “They’re blue, aren’t they?”
    “Definitely blue,” Caro said, staring up at the ceiling with a vacuous look on her face. “The most incredible shade of blue that I ever saw.”
    Men with blue eyes ought to be outlawed. What color were Lord Staverton’s eyes? She was ashamed to admit that she had no idea; she tried very hard not to look at his wobbly eyes.
    “I thought you told me that he had put you off blue eyes forever,” Anne said.
    “Oh, Anne, try to keep up. That was yesterday ,” Caro said artlessly.
    Oh, Lord, Caro was going to marry a man she despised because she was taken by a pair of lovely blue eyes. Anne, unfortunately, knew exactly how that felt, only she was too experienced to fall completely. No, she had the wits and determination to pull herself out of the trap a pair of beguiling blue eyes could set.
    “Caro, what has changed between yesterday and today?” Anne said.
    “Well, for one, I slapped Lord Ashdon.”
    “You what?”
    “I slapped him,” Caro said somewhat proudly. “And he well deserved it, too.”
    “Then why do you want to marry him? ”
    “Because,” Caro said, grinning, “he wants me now. Desperately. ”
    “Because you slapped him?”
    “I don’t know if it was because I slapped him, but it certainly