Page 26 of Cora
“Pass me Titi’s lead, will you?” Cora said.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
CORA
Amoment later, Cora and Honey bustled out into the street with Titi trotting as fast as her paws would carry her.
“This way,” Honey took her elbow and led her not very subtly to the corner. “The countess bought two townhomes, if you can believe it, and had them combined. In Mayfair, no less! Can you imagine the expense?”
Cora had never really considered how much money that must have cost. “No. I am not that crass,” she said, then made a face. “I am beginning to sound like my mother-in-law.”
“How is she?” asked Honey distractedly.
It was on the tip of her tongue to sayhorrible, but the last thing she needed was a rumor of rancor being passed around theton. Instead, she said, “Tolerable enough.”
“There is a carriage house in the back with a secret entryway,” Honey told her.
“It can’t be that secret if you found it.”
“Shh!” Honey gestured—again, with no subtlety whatsoever—at the boy standing watch at the corner.
“She pays them to shoo people along if they attempt to see over the garden wall,” Honey lowered her voice, and Cora had the fleeting hope that her friend had finally caught on to the concept of secrecy. It did not last. “I only know about it because the other day, I was out for a walk when I saw an archbishop going in through this door”—she pointed at a small, unassuming wrought-iron gate—“and I thought, that is very strange! Why wouldn’t he go to the front? This isn’t even the servant’s entrance. That one faces the alleyway.”
“What you are saying is that there are three entrances and exits to a double mansion,” Cora said dryly. “How remarkable.”
“That we know of!”
Two of the boys stationed at the corner of the garden pushed off the wall and began following them. Their glowers promised trouble if they lingered. Cora took Honey’s arm and dragged her across the street.
“Let’s go and pay the countess a visit, shall we?”
“No!” Honey squealed, half-scandalized, entirely thrilled. “Me? An unmarried lady?”
“I, however, am married. Furthermore, I believe my husband is on the premises. That means we have a chaperon.”
Honey’s eyes went so wide that Cora briefly feared they might pop right out of her skull.
“Could we? I have been ever so fascinated by the countess, but my parents loathe her. They won’t permit me to acknowledge her socially.”
Despite herself, Cora was intrigued by the idea that the countess was running a clandestine brothel smack in the middle of Mayfair. Dove Street was a coveted address. Her brother had loaned Lady Oreste the funds to renovate it, and they continued to have some kind of business arrangement. If Gideon was here, the most logical explanation was that his visit was related to the bank merger.
But if he was here to avail himself of Belladonna’s services…
She needed to know just how badly Gideon found her wanting.
* * *
Gideon
“Her ladyship is away,”the butler, Starke, informed him. There was something off about the man. He did not have the obsequious demeanor of a typical manservant of his status. Moreover, he was almost as tall as Gideon and even more muscular. He looked more like the bouncer in an underground fighting club.
“Still?”
The holidays were long over. March loomed, and while many aristocrats wouldn’t return to London until the spring Season began in earnest, those with business dealings to attend to usually returned soon after Twelfth Night marked the end of Christmas festivities.
“Still. Sir.”
The honorific was added belatedly.
