IMPERFECTION by Ray Clark (good books to read for women TXT) 📕

gown glittering as she swept into a correct curtsey. Ash caught his breath. Her audacity took him aback, rendering him speechless.

She paid more attention to Juliana. “I am La Senza. May I know your name?”

Juliana paused. “My name is Anna Ross. My friends call me Anna.”

“Well met, Anna. I do not know you, do I?” She glanced at Ash, one slim brow raised. “This is not like you.”

La Senza was the reigning queen of the demimonde. She chose lovers, rather than the other way about. She was beautiful and intelligent, with the taste of a duchess. Every red-blooded man in London wanted her, and not a few women as well.

And yet, Ash knew her true name.

She stood tall, her blond hair lightly powdered, her mask the flimsiest possible, a mere strip of gauze over her eyes. For why should she hide such a beautiful face? Her vivid blue eyes were hard and calculating.

Ash made his move. “This is a lady I need to protect. She was acquainted with a gentleman who was recently the talk of London.”

Ash spoke quietly, in case they were overheard, but he needed to tell the lady what he was doing here tonight.

La Senza spared him a glance. “I see. The late, I will not say lamented, gentleman does not need a mistress anymore.”

“I do not mourn him,” Juliana said evenly.

La Senza gave a harsh laugh. “If I had the acquaintance of you before you knew him, I would have warned you away. I tell you frankly, he ran through women like shit through a milk-fed heifer.”

The epithet was far more earthy than anything heard in a society ballroom. Despite that, Juliana did not flinch. She smiled and nodded. “I was not with him for long.”

They moved aside as someone passed them, and fortunately, La Senza remained with them instead of drifting away. “You are fortunate. He uses them up and tosses them aside.” She addressed Ash directly. “Why did you not come to me directly, instead of coming here?”

“You know I cannot do that.”

“What do you want?”

“What do I always want? Information, nothing more.”

Juliana watched and listened. Something lay between the lovely La Senza and Ash; an invisible spark flashed between them. And his final words, snapped out as if he was losing his temper, sent a wave of shock through her.

Had he been her lover? Did he want to be so again?

She had not imagined the connection. People standing nearby glanced over, so others had noticed. Here, as in every other ballroom she’d ever been in, people watched and listened.

La Senza deployed her fan, shading one cheek with it and looking away in a graceful gesture. “I read about you. You need to know about his shadier activities, do you not?”

“Yes,” Ash answered her, terse and short. “I need to know if what he did was habit or unusual.”

“So anything I say is hearsay. I will send someone to you who knew him more intimately.” She regarded Juliana and shook her head. “Then you should leave. You don’t have it quite right, my dear. You’ll be found out if you stay too long. You’re clinging to him too much, and your comport is too rigid. You don’t laugh enough.”

“Will you make enquiries?” Ash asked, ignoring her comments.

La Senza gave him a gracious nod.

It was Juliana who murmured, “Thank you,” as the courtesan moved away.

Another violinist had joined the first and they struck up a tune meant for dancing. Ash led the way off the floor. Juliana glanced at him. “We aren’t here for our own pleasure, but despite that, I am hugely amused.”

He turned to her. “You are enjoying this?” He sounded deeply surprised.

“Of course I am. What did you expect? You’re here, looking after me, and I have never seen anything like this before. It’s like a parody of polite society. The women pretend modesty while wearing gowns open down to their navels. It is funny, and far more enjoyable than a stultifying evening being told who I should dance with, and what I should say.” She turned her head and met his eyes. “I trust you to take care of me.”

“Oh.” That was all he said, but his eyes held warmth. “I thought you would want to leave as soon as possible.”

“This is better than what I left behind. I was sold, as these women are, but they choose who they sell themselves to. And it’s an honest transaction, a service for a price.”

“Here it is. But there are other places...” He let his words drift away.

“I know that. I read the journals about raids, girls forced to do unspeakable things. They were poor girls with little choice. I was a rich girl with no more choice than they had. So I understand.”

“You had a bed, and food every day. You had people to dress you, to wash you. You did not go into the streets with fear in your heart.”

Anger throbbed in his voice. He felt for these unfortunates, saw them as people, not objects. She respected him for that. And was ashamed at her own ignorance.

“But not here,” she said, wanting to turn him from his thoughts back to this half-civilized gathering.

Men and women laughed, danced and took far too many liberties with each other, but apart from the couple she’d seen on the way in, and the scandalous costumes some wore, she saw very little difference between this and an assembly in a hired ballroom. Or a fashionable masquerade, for that matter, when her peers took similar liberties, and also wore costumes verging on the scandalous. Her mother had never allowed her to go, but she knew about them, all the same.

“No, not here.”

The wistful note in his voice made her turn her head to see what he was looking at. He was watching La Senza dancing, her elegance and joy for life evident in every turn, every smile she bestowed on her partner. “Did you love her?”

“I did. I do.”

That should not hurt. But it did.

With a