Seven Nights of Sin As the madam of Aphrodite's Grotto, the most infamous brothel in London, Coral Smythe knows everything possible about men's needs and desires. Yet she's never experienced the love of a single man-not even that of Captain Isaac Wargate whose hawk-like eyes stare at her with both condemnation...and lust. Seven Nights of Ecstasy Captain Wargate heartily disapproves of the sensuous madam who always wears a golden mask. She lures his officers from both his ship and their duty. But when Coral herself is offered up as the prize in a game of chance, Wargate impulsively enters...and wins. Seven Nights of Love Now the puritanical navy captain has just seven nights to learn everything he can about the mysterious madam and what she knows of a man's desires. But when Coral is threatened by the new owner of Aphrodite's Grotto, will Wargate take a chance on the woman beneath the mask...and on love?
Release date:
August 15, 2010
Publisher:
Forever Yours
Print pages:
120
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Once upon a time, in a land far, far from here, there lived a princess made entirely of ice….
—from The Ice Princess
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 in their pockets than sense. But few men were as irritating, provoking, vexing, or aggravating as a puritanical naval captain.
An attractive, puritanical naval captain.
With one finger, Coral touched the gold mask covering her face, 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, with Aphrodite herself frolicking overhead 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 word 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 self-made
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 cocked hat under one arm. He surveyed the room expressionlessly, but Coral knew
there was disapproval in the hawklike 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—and 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 ladybird 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 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 here only 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.”
“Mmm. 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.”
Over the captain’s shoulder, she caught the eye of Big Billy, one of the Grotto bullyboys. 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 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 amiss.
She turned back to the captain.
Who was frowning down at her. “My officers gamble and wench away here what little pay they have.”
“Is that my problem?” She shook her head sorrowfully and spread her hands. “I but 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 little 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.
. . .
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