Julia laughed, her face brightening with pleasure. “Oh, green! A lovely spring green would be so happy.”
“For you?” Arabella reached out to boop a fingertip on her sister’s nose. “Anything.”
“I was asking you who you were considering for your next protector,” Evelina said. “While you stared off into space thinking about paint and wall hangings.”
“Yes, you never go long without one,” Julia said, and her face fell a fraction.
Shehad been without a protector for over a month. Arabella’s younger sister was far more selective than she was. Or at least had fewer resources to catch herself a new gentleman within hours of her last. Sometimes Arabella worried about her. She was such a romantic at heart and that was the way courtesans ended badly. Not that Julia would ever be unprotected. She and Evelina had been ensuring that all their lives.
“Well, I like having someone rich and powerful on my arm,” Arabella said. “I let them think I’m the decoration for them, but it’s the opposite. As for picking a new one, I know my worth. I’ve watchedthemsniff around me and place their wagers and claim that they would have me since the moment Geoffrey stepped out my door. There will be a frenzy in a few more days. I’ll have my pick.”
“And what doyouwant?” Evelina asked as she wrinkled her brow. She had been with the same lover for nearly two years now, the Duke of Southwater, who they all cheekily called Harry after his given name, Harold.
“Whoever pays the best settlement and benefits, I suppose,” Arabella said with a wink, though for a moment she had a flash of a memory that wasnotnew. The man in the garden all those years ago, his green eyes meeting hers and holding there in the heights of his pleasure. She pushed the thought away. She could savor it later, as she often did when she entered the realm of fantasy.
“Is that all?” Julia asked. “You’ll only look for some man’s pocketbook?”
“Well, fun is also nice,” Arabella said. “And satisfaction if it’s possible.”
“Someone who will appreciate your wild,” Evelina said quietly.
For a moment, Arabella was struck silent by the sting of her sister’s words. What she and her sisters called her “wild” was a topic of great contention amongst the men who had bedded and kept her over the years. Almost as much contention as it had been with her father, though she had far more power in those relationships than she ever had in the one with him.
“They all appreciate my wild until they have it,” Arabella said. “Then it becomes about who can stifle it. Bridle it and keep it just between the sheets. Until they realize I won’t give it away and it all ends.” She shrugged. “C’est la vie.”
“Oh, Arabella,” Julia breathed softly.
Arabella caught her sister’s hands and spun her around in the circle with a laugh. “Don’t you take that tone with me, Miss Comerford! I am not pitiable and I shall not be pitied.”
Julia giggled as they came to a stop and she rebalanced herself. “Of course not.”
“Oh look, here comes Simone,” Evelina said, waving off toward the crowd.
Arabella looked in the direction that she indicated and her smile widened as her old friend and mentor started across the room toward them. She was wearing a gorgeous dark blue silk that brought out the absolute perfection of her skin. Arabella could only hope she would age so well and still be so sought after at the long end of her thirties.
“Simone,” she said, and hugged her friend. Her sisters did the same and then stepped away to talk with another friend and give the two of them privacy. They were all close to Simone, but her sisters knew that Arabella and Simone were the closest. “My God, you are a vision. I’m desperately jealous.”
Simone barked out a burst of laughter and linked arms with her. For a moment they looked out over the group of courtesans.
“We might need to offer a little assistance to Beatrice Holms,” Simone said. “She’s not had much luck with her choice of protectors and her last didn’t settle her well.”
“Oh, poor Bea, she’s so new,” Arabella said with a sigh. “Yes, I’ll be on the lookout for her.”
“What about yourself?” Simone asked, repeating the question Arabella’s sisters had just posted, but with far more experience behind the words. “Who will you pick, do you think?”
“Oh, it’s early days yet,” Arabella said with a knowing smile. “I’m not allowing anyone near.”
Unlike her sisters, who had seemed troubled by the answer, Simone nodded knowingly. “Ah, so you let them work themselves into a froth for you. Fight over the honor of your attention. You increase your value.”
“I learned from the best,” Arabella said.
“Hmmm,” Simone replied. “That’s a lovely compliment, but I think you’ve surpassed me in your reputation and accomplishments in these last five years. You are the ultimate courtesan and one we all strive to emulate.”
“You shall make me blush,” Arabella said with a shake of her head. “I didn’t think I still knew how to do that.”
Simone laughed and then squeezed Arabella’s arm gently. “I do have some information for you that might just change your thought process on your next lover.”
Arabella’s eyebrows lifted. “Really? And what is that?”
