Seventeen

Whores, All of Us

“My dear, the whole town is raving about your card game at the Selwyns’s! Frau Walmoden was simply beside herself that you got not only what she intended as a delicious new cicisbeo, but her treasured diamonds as well!” Jane was breathless and her eyes alight for the latest on-dit.

“They say she absolutely trembles at the thought of telling the king. He’s such a volatile little man, you know. Freddie says that in a true fit of pique he snatches off his peruke and kicks it about the room!”

“Can you envision it, Jane? The king in such an infantile tantrum?” Susannah laughed hollowly and Jane perceived the forced effort at mirth.

“What is it, Sukey? You appear blue-deviled when I’d have thought you’d be looking like the cat that got the canary after such a night. You must show me this necklace! I’m told the diamonds are of the first water.”

“Oh, but they are! Or were,” Susannah lamented.

“What do you mean… were?” Jane’s expression was horrified. “Don’t say you’ve lost them!”

“No such thing. They were never truly mine to begin with.”

“But I heard it straight from Albinia Selwyn. Her mother has been mourning her loss for days, and need I warn you, you’ve no friend in that quarter, my dear.”

“Mrs. Selwyn? What do I care about that malicious woman? She set me up, you know. She and the countess were confederates to gain my emeralds. If it were not for Philip—”

“Philip, eh? It seems you are on quite intimate terms now. I suspected as much.” Jane smiled slyly.

“It is not what you think, Jane!”

“The lady doth protest much!” Jane chuckled. “I shan’t judge you. As long as you both maintain discretion, who is to know?”

“As I said—it’s not what you think and besides, it’s unlikely I’ll ever see him again.”

“You don’t say he stole the necklace!”

“Lud, how you do jump to conclusions! No. He offered it to me and I refused it. The necklace is in his hands because he rightly won it.”

Jane pressed a hand to her friend’s forehead. “Are you febrile? Or is your mind disordered of a sudden? Why on earth would you refuse a diamond necklace?”

“Mayhap my mind is disordered. I certainly haven’t the lucidity of thought I had a month ago.”

“It’s him, isn’t it? You do want the young rogue.”

Yes. She did, she thought deprecatingly. Here she could have almost any man in the peerage, including the prince himself, and she pined over a penniless adventurer. “He hasn’t a farthing, Jane,” she said, “and besides, I won’t be beholden to a man. The necklace would have bound me to him.”

“Twaddle! Many women accept gifts from men without a second thought.”

Sukey retorted without thinking, “Indeed. And what does that make them?”

Jane’s expression lost all humor. She wished at once she could take back the words.

“You think me equal to a common whore, Sukey?”

“Jane, you know that’s not what I meant!”

“No, it’s precisely what you meant, just not what you meant to say.”

“I never meant to imply…” Susannah raised her hands helplessly.

“That since I accept gifts I’m a whore, Susannah?” she replied caustically. “I have done what I deemed necessary to provide comfort for my family and still move in the highest circles. I am one of Princess Augusta’s closest confidantes and she will one day be queen.

“And look at the prince who will one day be king—he lives rapaciously out of the hand of Bubb Doddington and his ilk, repaying his cronies with political appointments and sinecures. Whores. The House of Commons has half its members on the Lord Treasurer’s pay, or in some lord’s pocket.

“Just look around you! Have you lived among us for so long, inured to the reality that we are all no better than whores? Our fathers and their lawyers are no better than pimps in arranging our marriages. God knows Hogarth rightly lampoons the practice. Need I say more?”

“Jane—” she implored.

Jane’s lips formed a rigid line. “Think of me what you will, Sukey, but I am not ashamed. Just remember, my dear, when you place yourself on such a pedestal, someone may be tempted to kick it from under you. Now, good day to you, Lady Messingham.”

Lady Jane Hamilton swept defiantly out of the room, leaving Susannah feeling more alone than she had ever felt in her life.