Her Secret Lover (Aphrodite's Club 2)

“I don’t know.”

Gabriel would be there. She had stayed away from him once she knew he was going to be all right, after Lord Appleby’s attack. She hadn’t wanted to go, but he had his family about him and he didn’t need her. Best to cut herself off, she’d decided, and to return to her own life. There would be nothing worse than hanging about him and wearing out her welcome.

But now it seemed churlish to deny Aphrodite, who had been such a good friend to her. And surely there’d be plenty of other guests there. She could mingle in the crowd and stay well away from Gabriel. A quick hello and a smile and then it would be over.

He’d probably forgotten her anyway.

For Cecilia’s benefit she forced a smile. She seemed to be forcing herself to smile a great deal these days. “I don’t know if I need to go, Cecy.”

“Yes, Nette, you do. You must go. I will be perfectly all right. You mustn’t worry about me.”

“Of course I don’t worry about you.”

But she did, and Cecilia knew it.

“Please go, Nette. I’ll never forgive myself if you don’t. We will all be waiting for you when you come back; it’s not as if anything will change here. Nothing ever changes,” she added, with a dissatisfied grimace.

“Do you miss Mayfair then?” Antoinette teased.

“No. Yes. I suppose I do, in a way. Sometimes it is very quiet here, Nette.”

Cecilia was growing up. Soon she would want to fly the nest, meet people, live her own life. Antoinette would be alone, her life constant and unchanging. Now why did that depress her?

“I will go,” she said, making a sudden decision. And once she said she would, there was no turning back.

London hadn’t changed; it was just as noisy and busy and smelly as ever. She took a room at one of the finer hotels and arrived at Aphrodite’s Club the afternoon of the supper, as requested.

Aphrodite met her at the door and hugged her.

“I am so happy to see you, Antoinette! Look, you see we have made changes.”

Antoinette laughed and hugged her back. “I see you have a new door, Madame. The last time I was here it was hanging by a thread.”

“Huh, Lord Appleby has much to answer for. Well, he is locked away now.”

“And Lady Appleby? I have not heard much of what happened after…afterward.”

“Didn’t Gabriel tell you all the news, my dear?”

“I have not seen him, Madame. I have been at home in Surrey.”

“Lady Appleby was living in the Mayfair house but she will probably have to sell it, to pay her husband’s debts. Life is unfair, oui?”

“Very unfair. Love is unfair, Madame.” Antoinette wondered where that had come from; it seemed Aphrodite was having her usual effect.

The courtesan sighed and shook her head at Antoinette, as if she were a hundred and Antoinette still a child. Perhaps, to a woman of her experience, that was how it seemed.

“Antoinette, does love frighten you? That is no way to be. You must seize life and hold on to it tightly, not hide away from it.”

“Well, I have seized it, and I am here.” Antoinette changed the subject before she could be further lectured to. “You asked for me to come early. What was it you wanted me to do, Madame?”

Aphrodite laughed. “Come, you will see.”

“I don’t like surprises,” Antoinette said quickly.

“You will like this one,” Aphrodite assured her, slipping her arm through Antoinette’s, and leading her across the foyer.

Antoinette was beginning to wonder whether she had stepped into a dream. There was a modiste named Elena, whom Aphrodite called her oldest friend, and the two of them fussed about her and circled her, studying her figure and discussing her as if she wasn’t there.