the twister that had given him his limp had brushed close without killing him, instead pinning him with debris. I’d found him in my sweep for survivors, pulling him free. I’d even, somewhat outside of my norm, taken him to a doctor and paid the fee, which had wiped out all of my savings.
At the time, I hadn’t known he had earned Mansfield’s favor. He also believed in life debts.
I considered him and his words, wondering how far I could trust the debt he perceived but I never acknowledged. I’d heard of courtesans before; any woman with a grain of sense in her head knew about the slave trade and what might happen to her if she was picked by the powers that be to serve society as a possession rather than as a free-willed citizen.
However, courtesans weren’t just slaves—when they got lucky and weren’t treated like sex slaves, they were princesses without kingdoms, queens in the making, and future wives of the powerful or wealthy.
“That is the dumbest damned thing I’ve ever heard, Noah. Me? A courtesan?” To make it clear I was not courtesan material, I turned a circle before gesturing to my non-existent chest. “Why the hell would anyone want to turn me into a slave with a potential future?”
I understood my luck. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all. I wouldn’t be a princess without a kingdom, a queen in the making, or the future wife of someone—anyone. I’d ditched the East the instant my parents thought I might be good fodder for a betrothal, a fate not much different from a courtesan’s.
I would’ve been married, likely to someone I’d never met, at the suggestion of someone my parents, assholes that they were, wanted to impress.
I understood how life worked enough to know I preferred salvaging and scraping to get by.
“You misunderstand, Jade. You wouldn’t be a courtesan. You’d be an uncontested courtesan.” Noah smirked, which warned me my ignorance was about to slap me upside the face. He challenged me, and the only way I could avoid some of his typical barbs was to suck it up and ask without dancing the dance.
Sometimes, I wished I’d left the bastard to a tornado’s mercy.
“All right. I have no idea what an uncontested courtesan is.”
“It means, instead of a cool twenty thousand a courtesan a family will spend on a second or third son, you’re worth a hundred thousand or more and will go to the eldest son, the family’s heir. An uncontested courtesan cannot be sold outside of a few exceptions, she cannot be abandoned, and her new family’s honor is tied to her health, her care, and her wellbeing. She is the intended bride of an heir, the future matron of a house, and a true jewel. That hundred thousand is only the bounty hunter’s share. You will sell for far more than that on the block. The average is a quarter of a million. Treasured uncontested courtesans sell for four hundred thousand, rarely more. How much you sell for becomes the pride of the house you will join. Typically, the matron or patron of the house will handle your purchase and be your owner until your intended groom properly earns you.”
My mouth dropped open.
No wonder bounty hunters had been hot on my heels and drooling over me like I was a choice piece of meat. My bounty would be enough to retire on in the Alley—and pay for a place within Asylum with extra to spare. I couldn’t blame Sandro for risking a storm to catch me.
But then his interest in abandoning the bounty to keep me stole my breath.
What sort of idiot would pass up a hundred thousand to keep someone like me? Not only did the hot ass bounty hunter need a trip to an eye doctor, someone needed to give him some serious instruction on the value of money.
A hundred thousand would drive most people in the Alley to commit murder. Few would think twice about selling a woman into slavery.
Noah chuckled. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? How much do you know about courtesans?”
“They’re women sold to rich families for marriage, typically. Or to produce children.” I grimaced at that. Nobody wanted to talk about the other side of courtesans—the dark side, where a woman might be passed from family to family to provide children to family lines. The rumors claimed that was rare.
Families didn’t like sharing bloodlines, and once a woman