1
“May I speak to you, sir?”
“Of course, Ambrose. What is
it?”
Christian Delornay looked up from the
accounting book he was studying and considered the worried face of
his normally unshakable aide-de-camp. According to the clock on the
mantelpiece it was already past midnight, but the noise from the
upper floors of the pleasure house had not yet abated.
He directed a frown at Ambrose. “Why
are you still here? You are supposed to be off duty.”
Ambrose shrugged. “Because there were
matters that required my attention. Why are you still
here?”
“Because my mother is not, and she’s
left me with all the monthly bills to pay.”
“You like it when she’s away. You fight
less.”
Christian found himself smiling
reluctantly at that truth, but Ambrose didn’t smile back. “What
exactly kept you?”
“There’s a woman in the
kitchen.”
Ambrose’s upper-class drawl held a hint
of the warmer cadences of his West Indies homeland that only
emerged when he was perturbed.
“There are always women in the
kitchen.” Christian put down his pen. “Should she not be
there?”
“She is asking to speak to Madame
Helene.”
“Did you tell her my mother isn’t
here?”
Ambrose hesitated and came farther into
the room. “I did not. I think you should see her
yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because she is sorely in
need.”
“Of what? A man?” Christian grimaced.
“Then she scarcely needs me. There are plenty of willing guests
upstairs for her to choose from, no matter what her
tastes.”
Ambrose shut the door behind him with a
definite bang and advanced on Christian’s
desk. “That wasn’t the kind of help I had in mind.”
“Does she want money, then—or worse, a
shoulder to cry on?” Christian’s smile wasn’t pleasant. “I’m not
known for my soft heart. I leave that to my mother and
sister.”
Ambrose held his gaze, his warm brown
eyes steady. “I would still ask that you see her.”
Christian leaned back in his chair.
“She obviously had quite an effect on you.”
“She . . .” Ambrose hesitated. “She
reminds me of myself—how I was before you took me off the streets
and offered me a job and a home.”
“She’s a pickpocket and a thief,
then?”
Ambrose’s smile flashed out, his teeth
white against his dark skin. “I doubt it. She seems to be a lady,
but there is something in her eyes that reminds me of how it feels
when you can see no future for yourself. I’m not sure if she has
the will to last another night.”
Christian sighed. “A lady, you say? I
can scarcely fail to help a damsel in distress. Send her
in.”
Ambrose paused as he opened the door.
“You will be gentle with her, sir?”
“As gentle as I was with you when I
caught you picking my pocket all those years ago.”
Ambrose chuckled. “You threatened to
strangle me and drown me in the Thames.”
“Ah, that’s right.” Christian nodded.
“I promise I will listen to what she has to say. Will that satisfy
you?”
“I suppose it will have to. I’ll go and
fetch her from the kitchen.”
Christian returned to his accounts
books half hoping that the woman had taken off, preferably without
stealing anything too valuable. He was soon engrossed in the
complex figures, and it was only when he heard Ambrose gently clear
his throat that he remembered to look up again.
The sight that met his eyes wasn’t
unexpected. Working, as he did, on the less salubrious edge of
society, he’d seen plenty of desperate women. But Ambrose was
right: She was different, and he’d been trained to notice the
smallest details. Her clothes, although soiled, were of high
quality, and her skin was as pale and unlined as a lady’s. She
briefly met his gaze and then raised her chin as if he was beneath
her notice and looked beyond him to the window.
Her profile was quite lovely and
reminded him of a Titian angel. Christian yearned to stroke a
finger down her jawbone and touch the shadowed hollow of her cheek.
Her hair was dark and braided tightly to her head. She was far too
thin, of course, and probably on the verge of
starving.
“Mr. Delornay,” Ambrose said. “This is
Mrs. Smith.”
Christian nodded. “Thank you, Ambrose.
I’ll call if I need you.”
He received another stern look from
Ambrose, but refused to respond to it, his attention all on the
woman in front of him.
“Mrs. Smith, it is a pleasure. How may
I assist you?”
Her gaze came back to meet his, and he
noticed her eyes were slate gray without a touch of blue to redeem
their steel.
“I was expecting to meet Madame
Helene.”
Her voice was low and cultured, with a
slight accent underlining her status as a lady.
“My mother isn’t here tonight. I’m Mr.
Delornay. May I not help you instead?”
She swallowed and brought her hands
together into a tight clasp under her breasts. She had no gloves,
pelisse, or bonnet. Her only outer garments were a thick woolen
shawl and muddied half boots soaked through with filth. She’d
probably pawned the rest of her clothing. The question was why?
What had brought her to living on the streets?
“I need employment, Mr.
Delornay.”
Christian sat back and studied her.
“And you thought my mother might provide it for you?”
“I was told she might,
sir.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, you look
a little frail to manage either a job in our kitchens or as an
above-stairs maid.”
She moistened her chapped lips with the
tip of her tongue. “I understood that this is a brothel.” She
glared at him. “Doesn’t a brothel always need new
flesh?”
Christian slowly raised his eyebrows.
“You are a whore?”
“I am whatever I need to be to survive,
sir.”
Christian poured himself a glass of
brandy. “But my mother does not run a brothel. She runs an
exclusive pleasure house, which is available to the very rich for
an extortionate fee and even then she personally vets every
member.”
“But surely these men still need women
to . . . to . . .”
“Fuck?”
She flinched at the word, and he
wondered whether she might run. “If you are indeed a whore, my
dear, you should hardly be shocked by my language.”
“I’ve heard that word before, sir. I’m
no shy virgin.”
“That might be true, but you are
scarcely a common trollop, either, are you? You look more like a
rich man’s mistress.” He waited, but she said nothing. “What
happened? Did your lover abandon you?”
Her smile was small and desperate.
“Alas, I almost wish that were true.”
“Then what is the truth?” She pressed
her lips together and stared at his desk. “You expect me to employ
you without you telling me anything?”
“I was widowed. My husband’s family
were unwilling to support me, so I left.”
“You left?” Christian frowned. “What an
incredibly stupid thing to do.”
“I had no choice, sir.”
“I find that hard to
believe.”
A small, choked laugh escaped her, and
Christian tensed.
“Do you truly believe I would be
standing here begging you for the opportunity to sell my body to
any man who wants it if I had another choice?”
“As I have already told you, this is
not a brothel. No one sells herself. In truth, they all pay a great
deal for the privilege of having sex with anyone they
want.”
“Why would anyone want to pay for
that?”
Christian smiled. “Because they
can.”
She shivered and wrapped her arms
around her waist. “Then you have nothing to offer me?”
She was shaking now, her whole body
swaying like a willow tree in a storm, and he feared she might
swoon. “I can offer you a hot meal and a decent bed for the
night.”
She raised her head to look at him.
“Your bed?”
He considered her for a long moment,
until a faint blush stained her hollowed cheeks. Then he smiled.
“In your present pitiful state, I fear you wouldn’t survive the
night, my dear.”
“But then you know very little about
me, don’t you?”
She stepped forward until she was
almost at his side. “I am quite happy to prove my worth to
you.”
She started to descend to the floor.
Christian reached forward and grasped her by the elbows, bringing
her back to her feet. He kept hold of her and stared into her gray
eyes. Ambrose was right: There was no hope there, only desolation
and desperation.
“I’ll keep your generous offer in mind.
When did you last eat?”
She blinked at him. “What does that
have to do with anything?”
“I can scarcely throw you out on the
street in this condition. My mother’s reputation would be
ruined.”
“Not yours?”
“Mine is already beyond redemption.” He
patted her shoulder and moved away from her to ring the bell. “We
will talk again when you are rested.”
While he waited for Ambrose to
reappear, Christian retreated behind his desk and picked up his pen
again. His visitor was visibly shivering now, one hand gripping the
back of her chair as if she would fall without the support. He kept
a wary eye on her until he heard Ambrose’s welcome footsteps in the
hall.
“Yes, Mr. Delornay?” Ambrose
asked.
“Would you provide Mrs. Smith with a
warm meal and a bed in the servants’ quarters? I will see her again
when she is restored to health.”
Ambrose bowed. “Of course, sir.” He
smiled encouragingly at the woman. “I would be delighted to assist
you.”
Mrs. Smith continued to stare at
Christian. “I’m not sure why you are being so kind to me,
sir.”
“I’m not being kind. As I said, you
appear to be at death’s door. I cannot afford to cast you out and
have your lifeless corpse found anywhere near my mother’s pleasure
house. It would be bad for business.”
She nodded, and Ambrose took her by the
elbow and led her gently out of the room. Christian sat back in his
chair and contemplated the silence. Mrs. Smith—and somehow he
doubted that was her real name—was a mass of contradictions. Her
blunt offer to sexually service him had confounded his previous
opinion that she was a well-brought-up woman down on her
luck.
And he didn’t like being
wrong.
He found himself smiling. As Mrs. Smith
said, desperation made a hard master, but he wasn’t sure how he
could help her. Luckily, his circle of acquaintance was extremely
wide and he was certain that he would be able to find her some form
of employment if he couldn’t persuade her to rejoin her
family.
The thought of trying to convince her
of anything made him smile. Despite her bedraggled state he’d
sensed a core of steel that had impressed even his cynical cold
heart. For the first time in a long while he was looking forward to
meeting someone again.
“Mrs. Smith? Are you
well?”
Elizabeth struggled to focus on the
anxious face hovering over her. The struggle not to swoon in front
of the obnoxiously handsome and silver-tongued Mr. Delornay had
used up the last of her meager resources. He’d seemed far too
golden and perfect to be real—until he’d revealed a dark sense of
humor that she’d been unable to deflect in her present state. Now
all she wanted to do was lie down in the nearest gutter and give
up.
“I am quite well, Mr.
Ambrose.”
He guided her down onto a bench in the
warm kitchen, where she’d accosted him earlier. The smell of baking
bread and pastries curled around her, and she was suddenly
nauseated. There was no sign of any of the staff she’d seen before,
and she was glad not to be observed.
“Call me Ambrose. I don’t have another
name. Now bide here while I fetch you something to
eat.”
That stirred her interest, but she
didn’t have the resources or the energy to question him now. She
folded her hands on the solid pine table and stared down at them.
Her nails were ragged, and despite her best efforts, her skin was
never quite clean. She’d never considered water a luxury until
she’d been forced to do without it.
“Here you are, ma’am.”
Ambrose slid a bowl of porridge topped
with brown sugar and milk in front of her. Elizabeth swallowed
convulsively as he handed her a spoon.
“Take it slow, ma’am, and you’ll be
fine.”
“I’m not sure if I can eat anything
anymore.”
Ambrose took the seat opposite her and
smiled. “Yes, you can. Your stomach is probably the size of a
walnut, but you can at least manage a few spoonfuls.”
Her eyes filled with tears at his
unexpected kindness. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve been starved myself.” His
smile died. “If it hadn’t have been for Mr. Delornay, I would’ve
died on the streets.”
Elizabeth licked the rough brown sugar
from the spoon and some of the porridge and wanted to moan at the
influx of rich tastes against her tongue.
“Does Mr. Delornay make a habit of
rescuing waifs and strays?”
“Despite what he might claim, he
follows his mother in that respect. No one is ever turned away from
the pleasure house without a crust or a coin.”
“Or a bed for the night, in my case.”
Elizabeth ate two whole spoons of porridge and for the first time
in weeks she felt warm inside. “I am very grateful for that.” She
glanced across at Ambrose. “I had no more coin to pay my rent, and
my landlord took all my remaining possessions until I could come up
with the money.”
“We can probably get them back for
you.”
“I’m not sure how.” Elizabeth sighed
and ate another spoon of porridge. “I still have no
money.”
“I’m sure Mr. Delornay will have some
ideas about that, too, when you talk to him.”
Elizabeth put down her spoon as her
appetite deserted her. “He said I was too weak to work here in a
menial capacity and that he didn’t employ whores.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, he does
have a point. You are indisputably a lady.”
“And ladies whore in different ways,
don’t they?” she whispered. “They are sold into marriage and cannot
deny their husbands sexual congress.”
Ambrose stood and came around the table
to her. “I think you should go to bed, ma’am. I will escort
you.”
She took his proffered hand and looked
up into his face. She reckoned they were of a similar age. “If you
are just Ambrose, will you call me Elizabeth?”
“If that is your wish, I would be
honored.” He kissed her hand. “And now let’s get you somewhere safe
and warm to sleep. If you leave your clothing outside the door, I
will arrange for it to be laundered and returned to you
tomorrow.”
“Safe . . .” Elizabeth sighed as he
walked ahead of her. Mr. Delornay was right: She’d been a fool to
run away without taking the things she valued the most. Getting
them back seemed impossible now. She swallowed another inconvenient
wave of tears. It was impossible to think in her current state, but
at least she didn’t have to worry about anything until the
morning.
