The Ice Princess (Princes #3.5)

The Ice Princess (Princes #3.5)
Elizabeth Hoyt



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?”