The Courtesan's Daughter Read Online Free PDF

darling, you’ve decided what?”
    “That I want to be … I intend to become … a courtesan.”
    The words, far from shining with promise and excitement in the air between them, fell like lead shot to plunge into the parquet floors beneath their feet.
    “A courtesan,” Sophia repeated solemnly, blinking.
    “Yes. Like you.”
    What was intended as a compliment of sorts came out rather more like an indictment.
    “Like me? Your declaration has something to do with me?” Sophia said, her voice rising.
    “Well, actually, what I meant to say was that, well, it seems a likely start for someone like me.”
    “You mean someone of your upbringing, education, and privilege ? ” Sophia said, her voice crisp with sarcasm.
    “Someone of my limited prospects,” Caro said.
    “You have the prospect of a life of ease before you, married or not, that is certainly true.”
    “But I don’t want to live an aimless life, Mother. I want to do something, be someone in my own right.”
    “In your own right? You clearly have no understanding of what it is to be a courtesan, Caro,” Sophia said stiffly.
    “Then tell me. Teach me,” Caro said, rising from her stool and walking to her mother across the luxurious bedroom so that she could sink onto her knees at her mother’s feet. “I want to succeed at something, Mother. I would wish to be a wife to a worthy man, but if I cannot, then let me at least be the object of a worthy man’s attention. Teach me how to make a man want me. Teach me how to make a man besotted.”
    Sophia sat back upon the chaise, rubbing her ring finger over her lower lip, deep in thought, her dark eyes upon Caro. Caro could never read her when she assumed that look, that contemplative, lost-in-speculation look. Her father had claimed to have feared that soulful introspection, but she didn’t believe that. Her father had feared nothing, not even the scandal of marrying Sophia Grey, courtesan.
    “Does Richborough have anything to do with this?” Sophia asked.
    “Nothing at all,” Caro answered honestly.
    “And your conversation in the yellow salon with him this morning? ”
    “Dull beyond description,” Caro said in brutal honesty.
    “You want me to believe you’re serious.”
    “I am serious,” Caro answered.
    “Then you’re a fool,” Sophia said dismissively.
    “Not a fool, Mother, just desperate,” Caro said, meeting her mother’s darkly penetrating gaze. “I want a man to want me. I want to be desired and pursued.”
    “And caught,” Sophia said. “To be a courtesan is to be pursued and caught, and caught, and caught.”
    “But at least pursued, and caught only when I decide. Isn’t that so?”
    “It is usually your empty stomach that decides for you.”
    “I just want to be like you, Mother.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous, darling. There is no one like me. I arranged that most deliberately,” Sophia said softly, her dark eyes looking quite mysterious all of a sudden.
    Caro actually didn’t care what her mother’s eyes did in that precise moment; she was not going to be distracted or discouraged. She was going to become a courtesan, and she was going to become famously wonderful at it.
    “Mother, I am going to do this. I am going to be a courtesan.”
    Sophia smiled and patted her on the head. It was meant to be insulting, and it most definitely was. “You have everything now, at your fingertips, that a courtesan works for. You have money, a lovely home, jewels, protection. What do you think this is, Caro? A game? Women become courtesans because of what they lack. You lack for nothing.”
    “I lack purpose.”
    “A courtesan’s purpose is to find a protector and to keep him happy.”
    “I can do that,” Caro said, hoping she wasn’t blushing.
    Sophia shrugged and walked across the room. “You shall have no opportunity to find out. I’ve lived the life you seem determined to pursue. I know what it is. I will not throw my daughter into it. Besides,” she said, turning, her