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PART ONE
Aphrodite & the Rose
CHAPTER ONE
Lady Ophelia Anne Fitzroy Godwick—Lia to her friends—called the emergency meeting of the Young Ladies’ Gardening & Tennis Club of Wingthorn Hall to order.
“If I could have your attention, please,” Lia said to the three young ladies in her bedroom. “We might have a problem here.”
“No alcohol at this meeting,” Georgy muttered as she scrolled through her phone. “That’s a massive problem.”
“I’m not joking,” Lia said.
She met their eyes, one by one, so they could see she was serious.
Georgy—blonde, buxom and wearing strapless yellow tulle—sat prettily in Lia’s armchair. Rani, brown-skinned, dark-eyed, tall and slender, lay in her red satin best across Lia’s bed. Jane, the bookish brunette with secret talents hidden behind cat-eye glasses, leaned against Lia’s bedpost in off-the-shoulder ivory.
Lia, in a vintage party dress of palest rose pink, stood with her back to the fireplace facing all three of them—a general addressing her troops, a knitting needle in her hand in lieu of a swagger stick.
“What’s the problem, boss?” Rani asked.
“Fourteen,” Lia said. “The three of you and fourteen of them.”
Rani’s eyes widened.
“Fourteen of our clients are coming?” she repeated.
That got the ladies’ attention. For the Young Ladies’ Gardening & Tennis Club of Wingthorn Hall was not a gardening club, and they didn’t play much tennis, either. The YLG&T Club was, in fact, an escort agency.
“Which ones?” Jane asked.
Lia quickly rattled off their names, ranks and identifying proclivities.
Georgy tucked her iPhone into the bodice of her gown, muttering, “If Sir Trevor tries to lick my feet during dinner, I’m not going to be happy.”
“Nobody is licking anybody’s feet at dinner,” Lia said. “Except maybe Gogo.”
Her dog, an enormous gray deerhound who looked perpetually confused, raised his head at the sound of his name.
“Go back to sleep, boy.” Obedient to his mistress, he laid his long face down onto his paws and closed his eyes. “As I was saying, we have clients coming here tonight so we need to be on our best behavior. When you go downstairs, just remember, this is my graduation party, not an orgy. And this is Wingthorn Hall, not a brothel.”
“Could have fooled me,” Georgy said. Lia ignored her.
“Not only are fourteen clients coming here...so are their wives. Thus, you’ve never met these men before, right? When you do ‘meet’ them, be polite and then disengage quickly. Feel free to fake food poisoning and run for it. Stick together. Don’t post any pictures online. And whatever you do—” and here Lia paused to look directly into Georgy’s eyes “—do not flirt with anyone.”
“What?” Georgy sat up straighter. “No flirting? You mean, at all?”
“At. All.” Lia punctuated those two syllables by slapping her palm with the knitting needle.
“But, boss, what if he’sreallyhandsome?” Georgy asked.
Lia shook her head.
“What if he’s literally the most handsome man in the world?” Rani asked. “Andrich.”
“Flirting is banned until further notice.”
“What if,” Jane said, “he’s handsome, richandDTFMEL?”
