Chapter One

London, 1762

The madam of an infamous brothel has to handle many types of difficult men, Coral Smythe reflected. Drunken lords, arrogant merchants, callow youths teetering on the crumbling edges of their own personal disasters, and just too many men with more money than sense in their pockets. But few men were as irritating, provoking, vexing, or aggravating as a puritanical naval captain.

An attractive puritanical naval captain.

Coral touched the gold mask covering her face with one finger, checking as she always did that it was in position. Thus satisfied, she descended the staircase into the gilded hellhole that was Aphrodite’s Grotto. Business was brisk tonight. The curving grand staircase spilled into the main hall. At the far end were the great double front doors to the Grotto, overhead Aphrodite herself frolicked in painted pink clouds, surrounded by her well-endowed mythical lovers, and below…

Well below was bedlam of course.

Ladies—some of the evening, some quite real swanned about in demi-masks, their faces much more decorously covered than their bodies. Gentlemen –one used the term loosely here – strutted and shouted and fell over themselves in drunken revelry.

Coral lifted her upper lip beneath the mask. Easy marks, every one of them. All these men just waiting to lose their money. And for what? A handful of soft breast? A warm wet mouth sucking on their cock? Foolish, ephemeral pleasure that disappeared with the light of the next morning. Men were such idiots, so alike in their base desires and loud demands. Dukes or coal merchants, they threw back their sweaty heads and laughed at Aphrodite, smiling down from her clouds.

All except that one puritanical naval captain.

Captain Isaac Wargate stood like a gloomy black rook of doom at the side of the hall. He still wore his long naval cape, despite the heat in the crowded hall, and held his crocked hat propped under one arm. He surveyed the room expressionlessly, the Coral knew there was disapproval in the hawk-like eyes that peered beneath heavy black eyebrows.

Irritating man.

She sauntered toward him, aware somehow that he knew of her presence, though he didn’t deign to look her way. She could study him thus – his nose large in profile, his full lips compressed just slightly, his dark hair pulled back into a tightly braided queue, the lines about his mouth deep and cynical --- she could feel and acknowledge that traitorous bit of heat that pooled low in her belly every time she saw him. Damn him.

“Goodness Captain, we haven’t seen you here for half a year or more.” She called sweetly when she was within a few feet of him. “Have you found a lady bird for the evening?”

“You know I don’t sample these wares, madam” he growled in reply.

He didn’t bother looking at her, despite the low cut of her glittering black-and-gold dress. Her nipples were rouged tonight and peeked from the top of the square-cut bodice, a startling crimson contrast to the black material and her own white skin. She had the eyes of every other man in the room. But not his.

Which only irked her more.

Beneath her mask she smiled and infused contrition into her voice. “Oh, of course. How silly of me to have forgotten.” She leaned closer to him, his broad, cloaked shoulders at the height of her forehead, and said conspiratorially, “You do know I can supply boys as well, don’t you?”

He turned then, his dark blue eyes hitting her like a physical blow. “I’m not interested in the trade of any human flesh, ma’am.”

“Then one wonders what you’re doing in a brothel.”

“I’m only here to round up my junior officers,” he said shortly. He nodded to a bantam man across the room−one of his sailors. “As you very well know.”

“Mm, I’m probably alerted before your admiral when the Challenger docks. All those lovely officers in their pretty uniforms come streaming off your ship and in my doors.”

She caught the eye of Big Billy, one of the Grotto bullyboys, over the captain’s shoulder. The bullyboys were employed to keep the rough out and, when needed, to help the finer hurry home when they’d overstayed their welcome. To look at Billy −a huge, hulking man with almost no forehead −one would never think that he was actually quite sharp. He brushed the tip of his nose with a thumb −a prearranged signal meaning trouble in the offing. Coral nodded imperceptibly and glanced about. The man in front of her was the only trouble she could see, but Billy knew something was up.

She turned back to the captain.

Who was frowning down at her. “My officers gamble and wench away what little pay they have here.”

”Is that my problem?” She shook her head sorrowly and spread her hands. “I provide the enticement. They come here of their own free will. I can hardly turn those poor, lonely boys away.”

“Can’t you?’ He eyed her thoughtfully. “I’d’ve thought you could do whatever you wished in this place.”

She shrugged, her nipples rising above her bodice for a second. “Looks can be deceiving Captain. I’d’ve thought a man of your years would know that.”

“Oh, I know it well enough.” He glanced away from her as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her white flesh on display, “If I could keep my men from coming here I would, damn you.”

“So stern,” she crooned. She reached up and trailed a gold-lacquered fingernail through the strict folds of his black neck cloth. It gave her a thrill– like petting a great bird of prey who might bite at any moment. “Is there nothing I can do to relax you, Captain?”

His hand caught hers in a move so swift she started. His hand was big and hot, his fingers entirely enveloping hers. For a moment he stared at her, his blue-black eyes narrowed and watching.

Then he abruptly let her go. “You can refrain from touching me, ma’am.”

And the awful thing was she felt a pang of hurt from his words. Stupid, really. She’d been a whore since the age of fourteen. Had withstood far worse insults without turning a hair. Yet the clipped words of a puritanical naval captain could hurt her.

Fortunately, her golden mask hid everything but her eyes. She let her hand fall carelessly as her eyes trailed down his person. His cape was thrown back, revealing the dark blue of his coat, trimmed with bright gold braid, a pristine white waistcoat, and white breeches. Her gaze settled there, below the waistband of his breeches, and she cocked her head, examining the magnificent bulge under the white cloth.

Then she raised her eyes to his blue-black stare. “You do not want my ladies; you do not want my boys. I’ve heard that you are not married−”

“Widowed,” he snapped.

She inclined her head. “So tell me Captain. Is that padding to make your uniform fit properly? Or do you actually have a cock and balls like any other man, for I declare I am in doubt.”

She expected anger− even rage. Many men of her acquaintance would’ve struck her for such a shameless insult.

Captain Wargate smiled. His full lips widened and parted, revealing strong white teeth. She caught her breath. The man was astonishingly handsome when he smiled.

“You’re insulting my manhood, ma’am? I must’ve truly rattled you. Your repartee isn’t usually so crude.”

She glanced away uneasily, and again caught Big Billy’s eye. He nodded to one of the sitting rooms off the main hall. She should go find out what had Billy so worried. She should tend to her business.

Instead she turned back to the captain and purred, “you must forgive me, sir, but I’ve not seen any evidence of your, er, manhood as you so delicately put it. Quite the reverse in fact.”

Stupid. She needed to find the threat, not stand here and trade ineffectual gibes with a man from a world entirely different from her own.

He shifted and suddenly, the broad expanse of his white waistcoat was all that was in front of her face. She glanced up, startled.

To meet too-perceptive dark blue eyes. “Who’re you watching for?”

She opened her mouth, intending to deny or confess, she wasn’t sure, but a loud male voice spoke behind her before she could.

“Gentlemen!”

Coral turned, already knowing the source of that high, excited voice, already knowing what Billy had been trying to signal her.

A lithe Youngman in powdered wig and blazing orange coat leaped to the top of a table. He spread wide his arms. “Gentlemen!” Kindly lend me your ears, for I have an announcement you won’t want to miss!”

By this time the entire room had turned to look, the laughter and shouted talk gradually dying.

Captain Wargate was at Coral’s back and she felt the brush of his chest as he whispered in her ear. “That’s the one you were watching for, isn’t?”

She gave a single jerky nod.

“Who is he?”

“Jimmy Hyde,” she said grimly.

“And what is he?”

But there wasn’t time to answer and she wasn’t sure she could in any case.

Jimmy was talking again. “Tonight, gentlemen, you are very fortunate. Very fortunate indeed! For tonight you’ll witness a game of chance like no other.”

“What kind of game?” a tall elderly man in a full-bottom wig shouted.

“Loo, sir!’ Jimmy called back.

“Phht!” A thin-lipped dandy in black and scarlet shrugged a discontented shoulder. “I can get a game of loo in any gambling house in the city.”

“True, sir, very true!” Jimmy might be a spawn of Satan himself, but he knew how to work a crowd. He grinned and raised his right hand with a flourish. “But I’ll wager, sir, you’ll not find a pot like the one Aphrodite’s Grotto offers tonight.”

“And what pot’s that?” a royal duke drawled.

Jimmy turned and in the second before he spoke, Coral met his evil little eyes. “Why, gentlemen, we offer up Aphrodite herself!”

She staggered, though no one but Captain Wargate would’ve noticed since he caught her at once about the waist to steady her. What nasty plan had Jimmy come up with now? She hadn’t sold her own body in over two years. He knew that. He knew how much she hated it.

Which, obviously, was his point.

Jimmy grinned again like an impish monkey bent on destroying what soul she had left. “Seven full nights, gentlemen! Aphrodite will serve the winner for seven nights of bliss in any and every way he wishes!’

A buzz began in the crowd, like flies swarming to a wounded deer. Jimmy jumped from the table and held out his hand to her, graceful, indolent, the command almost entirely hidden. “Won’t you my dear?”

And there wasn’t anything she could do. He held the majority share in the Grotto. Four months ago a fire had raged through Aphrodite’s Grotto. She’d been very lucky. No one had died; all the girls, and boys, and the marks had gotten out; and only part of the building had been lost. But the back wing had needed to be rebuilt and furnished, and then when the Grotto opened again, she’d thrown a grand celebration to show she wasn’t down. Coral Smythe wasn’t out of the business.

But all of that had taken money. Too much money. She’d borrowed from Jimmy Hyde, only later finding out that several of her original backers had already sold their portions to him. By the time she’d realized what he was doing, he’d held the majority share in the Grotto. In effect, he owned Aphrodite’s Grotto. Which meant he owned her. If she refused, Jimmy was quite capable of tossing her out in the street. Without her, the Grotto girls and boys would be unprotected− and subject to Jimmy’s less then tender mercies.

Coral calculated and decided quickly. If she showed reluctance, he’d be twice as gleeful at her misery. That much she’d learned about Jimmy Hyde in the last four months.

So instead of trembling, instead of balking or running away, Coral threw back her shoulders and stepped away fro, Captain Wargate’s protective hands. She sauntered forward and placed her hand in Jimmy’s and then she looked about the room, her head held high.