Page 1 of A Courtesan Countess Worth the Scandal
Prologue
Astorm clattered the shutters against the windows of Keswick Manor, while heavy rain hammered on the panes in a violent percussion. Lamplight flickered in the hallways, vulnerable to the icy draft that whistled through the darkened house, casting seemingly somber shadows across the floor.
Everyone within the household had gone into hiding, hunkering down to avoid the roll of thunder and the flash of lightning that splintered through the black of night. After all, there was no one for the servants to take care of. The Countess had retired to her bedchamber hours ago and her husband, Liam Westwood, the Earl of Keswick, was not due to return for several days.
So, there was no one to witness the front door burst open, revealing a sodden, dripping silhouette. Eyes straining with fatigue, his limbs trembling from the cold, Liam had ridden day and night, stopping only to change horses, in order to reach his northern seat.
It cannot be true. The rumor must be false. Élodie would never betray me. She is my beloved, my wife, my companion in this world… surely, it is a lie.
And yet, the suspicion had been enough to drive him here without delay, the very moment he had heard that she was making a fool out of him. He convinced himself that he just wanted to prove to the gossipmongers that she was as faithful a wife as any man was like to find, but no amount of self-coercion could rid him of the nerves that shivered through him.
“You married a Frenchwoman, Westwood,” his so called acquaintance, Lord Frostrup, had said, with a smirk. “What else did you expect? They cannot be tamed. They are feral creatures, who will do as they please, and decimate your fortune until you would like nothing more than to send them back from whence they came.”
Lord Frostrup’s drinking partner, Sir Arnold, had nodded in agreement. “You take a Frenchwoman for a lover, Westwood. You do not marry the girl!”
The raucous, mocking laughter still rang in Liam’s ears as he stalked across the hallway of his Lake District Manor, leaving wet footprints across the parquet. Careful to avoid making a sound, he crept up the curving stairwell to the first floor and paused at the top.
“Prove them wrong, My Love,” he pleaded in a tight whisper, as his gaze fixed on the long, shadowed corridor ahead. His wife’s bedchamber was the last door on the right. A room he had chosen himself, for it had the finest view of the rolling countryside beyond the perimeter of his estate.
All he had to do was put one foot in front of the other and have faith in his wife. Gulping, he shuffled forward a few paces, while the howl of the wind played tricks with his mind. Every scream and wail sounded like cries of passion, while the subtle creaks of the storm-thrashed house emulated the moans and pants of unbridled pleasure.
“They are mistaken,” he told himself, pressing on. “Élodie would never do such a vulgar and disrespectful thing, not after all I have done for her. She is in want of nothing. She has my heart, my loyalty, my fidelity. She would not cast that aside for… servants.”
The last thought made his stomach roil, for he had endured scorn enough when he had announced his marriage to a Frenchwoman of little means. If it was discovered that she had broken their vows with men of no station whatsoever, he did not know if his reputation, or his pride, would ever recover.
But she has been acting peculiarly of late. Fits of violent temper, and hysterical sadness that follows without warning. Then, she tears at my clothes as though I am her prey.
The change in her temperament had been impossible to ignore, considering she had been such a dear, sweet darling in the first six months of their marriage. Always singing, and smothering him with delicate kisses, finding wildflowers, or baking delicious fruit tarts that she thought would please him. He did not know when she had begun to alter, exactly, but she was certainly not always the same young lady he had pledged his life to.
Still, that does not mean she would attempt to wound me by laying with others. That is not in her nature, regardless of how troubled she can be at times.
“She suffered a great deal at the hands of soldiers, in her homeland. Who would not have spells of strangeness, after seeing so much bloodshed and conflict?” he murmured, trying to steel his resolve.
Growing more determined, and surer of his wife’s fealty, he strode the rest of the way down the hall, until he came to his wife’s bedchamber door. There, he paused, his hand poised to take the brass doorknob.
From inside, he heard laughter; high and feminine, blending with a throatier, deeper tone. His wife was not alone. To add insult to injury, she was not alone in a room that he was prohibited from entering, when he was at home and not in London for business matters. Whenever they shared in the physical acts of man and wife, it was always in his bedchamber.
“This is my private realm, mon chéri,” she would tell him, in her accented voice. “If you desire company, you have only to send for me.”
He had occasionally tried to entice her to remain in his bedchamber, and suggested they share it as a matter of habit, but she had refused. Back then, when he first brought her here as his wife, there was nothing he would not have done to make her more comfortable. And so, he had agreed, finding her reasoning to be fair.
“I must have my rest, mon amour,” she would explain. “I will not sleep if I am beside you always. You would not have me become tired and haggard, would you? Allow me my privacy, and you shall have a contented wife.”
Overwhelmed by a wave of fury, he grasped the door and wrenched it open, only to immediately regret his decision. Perhaps, things would have been easier if he had not seen, if he had not invited that image to sear into his mind forever.
Lying naked upon the bed that he had never shared, his wife was entangled with the bare form of another man. One of the household’s footmen, though Liam could not remember his name.
“Élodie… no,” Liam hissed. “How could you?”
He had expected his wife to scream or at least attempt to cover herself and show some sort of remorse at being discovered. The footman yelped in alarm and tried to escape his lover’s embrace, but she clung onto his muscled body, and peered around his arm to stare at Liam.
“Mon chéri, you have returned early.” She grinned manically, as though she had hoped this might happen. “Why not join us?”
The footman tried to get away again. This time, his efforts were rewarded, and Élodie let go of him. He jumped off the bed and grasped for a blanket to cover his nudity, before standing in the center of the room, as cowed as a schoolboy who was about to receive a cane to the palms.
“I’m sorry, My Lord,” the footman murmured, shamefaced. “She called me to her bedchamber and… I didn’t think I could refuse. She’s the Countess.”
Liam shot him a dark look. “Not anymore, she is not.”
