Aphrodite looked up as Max entered the salon. He looked the perfect gentleman, although his hair was a little rumpled, and his necktie slightly askew. He caught her eye and gestured to a private alcove on one side of the room. Frowning, she excused herself from her cluster of guests, and made her way toward him. He took her hand and bowed over it, a wry smile twisting his handsome face and his dark eyes apologetic.
And she knew something had changed.
Her heart turned cold with fear for her child, but somehow she managed to keep a smile on her face.
“Your daughter says she is ruined, Madame, and that she wants to be a courtesan.”
“That is so, my lord.”
“I want to marry her.”
She closed her eyes and opened them again, but the handsome Lord Roseby was still standing there, his gaze frank and a little amused—as if he mocked himself for his own words.
“I don’t think Marietta would agree to that…Max,” she said bluntly. “May I call you Max?”
“Of course.”
“My daughter has sworn off love and marriage. She has her heart set on following in my footsteps.” But she was watching him as closely as he was watching her. One would have thought Max Valland had enough problems of his own. It was reckless of him to fix his sights on the daughter of a courtesan who had already disgraced herself once and was threatening to do so again, but Aphrodite wasn’t as surprised as she pretended.
“Maybe, but I can change her mind,” he said.
“Maybe you can, but all the same I doubt your family will be as eager as you to claim her as their own. I had heard that when your cousin Harold discovered who she was, he barred her from your house.”
Ah, he hadn’t known that then. She watched the anger come and go in his face, as he put it aside to be dealt with later.
“Madame, I admit I am no great catch as a husband,” he began, a bleak little smile on his mouth. “If you had any doubts about my current situation then let me put you straight. I have very little money, I have been disinherited and have lost my lands and titles, and my prospects for regaining them are…nil. On the positive side, I have property in Cornwall—my mother’s gift to me—and plans to make it pay, I am young and healthy, and I would treat your daughter with the utmost respect. I know this does not sound like much, but surely,” he bit his lip, as if he was uncertain how to proceed without causing offense.
Aphrodite, who was fairly certain she already knew what he was going to say, waited.
“Surely it would be far better for Marietta to marry me and live with me in Cornwall, no matter how little we had, than to become a courtesan.”
She raised an elegant eyebrow at him. “Are you planning to save her from herself, my lord? I would think you would know better.”
He gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry. I mean no disrespect, Madame, but I have come to know Marietta and she is not the sort of woman who could live such a life. It would destroy her.”
Aphrodite relented. “It is possible that I agree with you, Max, although if you tell Marietta that I will deny it. My daughter’s heart is generous and easily broken, and, yes, I do worry for her. But she is also a woman of strong character and she is determined on her course of action. You may find it difficult to persuade her to accept your proposal, no matter how well meant.”
Max frowned, glancing over her head into the salon where a number of eyes were watching them curiously.
“Is that why you are thinking of marrying her? Because you wish to be the hero and ride your charger to her rescue?”
He met her gaze. “At first, yes, I suppose that did cross my mind. I wanted to talk her out of being a courtesan, but she wouldn’t listen. She has been too badly hurt to easily trust again. I see now that the only way to make her happy is to teach her that she need not fear to love, that here is a man who will never let her down. If she would marry me and come to Cornwall, I am certain she would not regret it.”
“I see.” Aphrodite wasn’t sure that she did. “Tell me, Max, do you love my daughter? Or do you just want her body?”
Max felt uncomfortable. Aphrodite’s eyes were dark and penetrating and he wasn’t used to a woman speaking to him so frankly. Apart from Marietta, that is—was this where she had inherited her forthrightness? The truth was he didn’t know whether he loved her or not; he had never been in love.
“We are both victims of scandal,” he said at last. “We can find solace in each other. We are well suited, I think, and I know we could be happy together. Is that love? Perhaps.”
Aphrodite gave a little smile, and kept her counsel.
“I should tell you,” Max went on, “that she and I have been intimate in a physical way. We are lovers in every sense of the word and I do not think either of us is capable of halting matters now.”
It was as she had feared. The temporary affair was no longer a light-hearted matter; it was a full-blown, passionate amour between two people—a grandee passion—and such things were far more difficult to control. It could well end in heartbreak for one, or both, of them. Or it could end in a joyous marriage.
Aphrodite had met Max a number of times, but she had never looked upon him as a prospective son-in-law. She did so now. Outwardly he was handsome and well made. She knew he was a gentleman, and there had never been any unsavory gossip about him. In short he was as good and honest as it was possible for a duke’s son to be—almost too good and honest to be true. It was a pity he had been disinherited…Marietta had said something about him being hurt, about there being danger, and Jemmy had been looking into the attack outside the club…Aphrodite frowned.
“My daughter thinks you are under threat, that someone has been attempting to harm you, Max. Is that true?”