Betina Krahn (8 page)

“Put me down, you brute!” she yelled, bashing his ox-like back as he trudged up the stairs. “I’ll have your guts for garters!”

“No, no, mamsab,” her huge captor assured her in heavily accented tones as his fleshy hand patted the back of her thigh and slowly worked its way upward. “Pretteee mamsab. Veddy nice.”

As they mounted the steps, he continued to pat and fondle her upturned bottom. She screamed, shoved, and tried to twist off her humiliating perch, all to no avail. Then, as they reached what appeared to be a huge marble-lined entry hall filled with well-dressed men and scantily clad beauties, Punjab paused to announce his findings in a booming voice to any and all who might be interested:

“Veddy fine bottom!” He demonstrated with a cupped hand and a jiggle. “Yes, yes … veddy nice.”

Laughter buffeted her from all sides. Through the blood pooling in her head, she managed to make out the fact that people were collecting along their route, clucking and calling out ribald bits of advice. Men in evening dress came rushing out of various rooms to see what the commotion was about, and several of the better lubricated patrons imitated Punjab’s example … hauling the closest available female up on their shoulders and charging up the stairs to squeals and coy shrieks of terror.

By the time they reached the upper hallway, hearing was the only one of her senses still fully functional. She managed to catch a blur of red as Punjab paused, and she heard a woman’s voice.

“Sorry about this, lovey but I need my Dungeon for an
important client.” Someone patted the back of her head. “You understand.”

Shortly thereafter, she was plopped into the middle of what seemed to be a prodigiously deep feather bed and she heard that same female voice issuing orders as the door slammed. Fighting her way up through a tangle of hair, engorged senses, and pillowy mattress, she surfaced to take stock of her surroundings.

She had been dropped into a veritable jewel box of a room. Richly colored velvet and shimmering gilt covered every visible surface; walls, curtains, bed and table, mirrors, settee, chaise, and chairs. The furnishings were French—Louis Quatorze—and thick Persian rugs covered the entire floor, except for a broad marble hearth on the far side. Light came from polished brass candelabra on either side of the huge bed, and over her head hung a stately half canopy bearing what appeared to be Louis XIV’s royal crest.

At first the abundance of color, form, and texture bordered on sensory assault. But as she looked around, that impression softened to one of unabashed luxury. She was loath to admit: It did seem to grow on her.

She fought her way out of the monstrous bed and walked around the room, examining the place while keeping an eye on the door. It wasn’t long before two young women arrived with a linen-draped cart laden with silver service. Behind them stood Punjab with his arms crossed, blocking the exit, his gaze fixed on the lower half of her anatomy. One of the girls saw Beatrice glaring at him and shooed him back outside, closing the door.

“Brought ye some food,” the girl said, turning back to lift a silver domed cover and reveal a steaming plate of what appeared to be prime rib.

“And some hot water,” the other girl added, stooping
to pull a pitcher and toweling out of the bottom of the cart.

Beatrice stared at the pair and recognition flooded her. One was the same girl who had assisted her abductors and tended her the first night she was here! Suddenly she was desperate to get the girl alone and ask her some questions.

“It looks lovely,” she said, her mouth watering as she ventured toward the cart and inhaled appreciatively. “But you know what I
really
need …” She melted with a longing that was all too real. “A bath.”

The young women looked at each other, shrugged, then asked matter-of-factly: “Milk or champagne?”

OUTSIDE IN THE
hall, where Punjab stood forbidding entry or exit, a gentleman with graying temples and a well-heeled appearance slowed to give the door and its turbaned guard a look. Then with a sniff of dismissal, he adjusted his tie, checked his cuffs, and sauntered on down the hall, giving the impression that he had just quitted one of the nearby rooms.

But in fact, the slight disarray of his garments had occurred as he raced up the steps behind Punjab and his indignant passenger, riveted to the sight of the screeching, thrashing woman on the eunuch’s shoulder. When the big Indian tossed Beatrice onto the bed in the Sun King chamber, he had been in the hall, craning his neck for a glimpse.

Now as he descended the main steps, he developed a calculating grin. It was her, he thought. In the flesh. Not a doubt in his mind. He arrived in the card room, paused in the doorway to search the gaming tables, then hurried to one of them and bent to his partner’s ear.

“You won’t believe what I just saw,” he said.

“Not now—” The squat, balding man waved as if trying to rid himself of a gnat. “Can’t you see I’m about to make a killing?”

“This is worth a dozen killings!” He yanked the cards from the player’s hand and tossed them facedown on the table, telling the others: “He’s out.”

“How dare you, Lynch?”

“You’ll thank me for this, Winthrop.” He pulled the sputtering card player to the side of the stairs, out of earshot of others. “You’ll never guess who I just saw here.”

“It better be the damned archbishop of New York,” Winthrop snarled.

“Better than that.” Lynch glanced furtively around them, savoring the revelation. “Beatrice Von Furstenberg!”

It took a moment to sink in. “You’ve gone stark raving mad. And just when I finally had a hand that—”

“You had a pair of eights; you’d have lost your arse.” Lynch held him back as he tried to leave. “I’m telling you, I saw the Indian carrying her upstairs, kicking and screaming. I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I followed them for a better look and there she was—standing there in her cincher and socks—bold as brass. It’s
her,
I tell you. Beatrice Von Furstenberg—on the hoof.” His eyes began to glow. “Caught smack in the clutches of sin.”

Financier Harry Winthrop stared at his fellow Consolidated Industries board member, Archibald Lynch, letting the ramifications of that astounding news unfold. He could scarcely count the times he had locked horns with Beatrice Von Furstenberg over business deals and been forced to bend to her righteous attitude and canny maneuverings.

“Good God, if it’s true—”

“It’s her, believe me.” Lynch’s smile bore the taint of malice. “It appears the high-and-mighty Mrs. Von Furstenberg has a secret taste for a bit of depravity.”

“Then we’ve got her—at last!” Winthrop’s fleshy face reddened as he threw back his head and laughed. “As of the next board meeting, Consolidated will finally be free of her damned ‘tyranny of skirts’!”

IT WAS WELL
into the next day before Beatrice got her bath or a chance to talk to the young woman who might be able to shed some light on her abduction. She had spent an uneasy night curled on the very edge of the mammoth bed, catnapping, trying to keep one sense alert at all times. She awakened tired and aching all over from the strain of her uncomfortable sleeping position, the constant tension of her situation, and her unsettling bouts with Punjab.

Worse still, she had no sense of whether she had been asleep for an hour or two or ten. When food arrived some time later, it was poached eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, biscuits, and coffee. She asked the old butler who brought the tray what the hour was and he surprised her with: “Noon.” They always had late nights at the Oriental, he mumbled, and even later mornings.

Her bath arrived some time later, brought by two older women in maid’s uniforms and the very girl she had hoped to interview. While the maids were filling the hip bath with water, Beatrice tried to draw the girl into conversation … starting with her name and how she came to be at the Oriental.

“Mary Katherine,” the girl answered in an Irish brogue, tossing her thick auburn hair back over her
shoulder. “Mary Kate, like half o’ Ireland. I come here on th’ boat when I was but a babe. Me ma had half a dozen mouths to feed, so she put me out in service soon as she could. Barely fourteen years I was, but looked a sight older.” She grew thoughtful. “Caught men’s eyes, I did. Wasn’t long before the master an’ his son was both creeping up the back stairs to me bed. The ol’ lady found them out an’ beat
me
black an’ blue for it. I went home and me ma stood in the door, sayin’ I was an evil girl who tempted men to sin. She wouldn’ have me around no more, an’ I had no place to go … no money …”

Beatrice sat on the edge of the velvet chaise, watching the girl dangle her fingers in the bath water, and she glimpsed in Mary Kate the pain that was usually hidden behind a saucy demeanor. Mary Katherine, like many girls of her class, had been used callously by men of wealth and privilege. When discovered, she had been condemned as the cause of her own corruption and turned out into the streets by her mother—when only fifteen or sixteen, Priscilla’s age. There were still traces of that vulnerable young girl beneath the powder and henna.

“I figured, if I was such a almighty temp-ta-tion, an’ my vir-tue was alwus in peril, I might as well get paid fer it.” Mary Kate lifted her head and squared her shoulders, with a defiantly lascivious grin. “And I get paid right handsome. I’m uncommon good at makin’ men hot and desperate, then makin’ ’em all cool an’ satisfied.” The girl’s pride in her carnal abilities dumbfounded Beatrice.

“But they keep you here—to let men vent their basest urges on you.”

“Keep me?” Mary Kate looked puzzled, then chuckled. “Nobody
keeps
me or
makes
me to do anything.” She jerked a thumb toward herself with her jaw jutting stubbornly. “I’d like to see a son-of-a-bitch who’d try!”

“But that Punjab creature—”

“Punny? He’s our protection. Grabby, but not a bad sort once ye get him to keep his mitts off yer arse. Got a thing for the old bum-cheeks Punny does.” She grinned, showing a healthy set of teeth. “But then, wot man ain’t? They all want to grab, don’t they? Punjab, he just
does
it.” She shook her head. “Nobody keeps us here. Nobody’d have to. Where else could we go?”

“You could be a shop girl … or a seamstress … or work in a …”

Beatrice halted at the scornful look on Mary Katherine’s face.

“Shop girls don’t eat steak every night an’ drink French champagne.” She held up the alençon lace on her flowing peignoir. “They don’t get fine silk clothes an’ French perfume. Nor presents from aldermen an’ congressmen … even full-blooded English noblemen. And yer seamstresses … they go blind by twenty-five, then to an almshouse … if the bloody place’ll have ’em.”

Beatrice resisted the girl’s logic, but was unable to refute it.

“Come on. Into th’ water with ye—what’s yer name again?”

“Mrs. Von Furstenberg,” Beatrice said, rising and submitting when Mary Kate turned her to get at her laces.

“Nooo, I mean
yer
name, not yer old man’s. Yer Christian name.”

“Beatrice.”

“Beeeatrice?” Mary Kate laughed. “Sounds like some old prune of an auntie.” That was annoyingly close to Priscilla’s view of her. “I’ll call you … Bebe. Yeah, I like that better. Step in and have a good soak, Bebe.”

The girl’s familiarity should have affronted her. But it had been a decade since anyone had called her by the
name her beloved sister had given her in childhood. Bebe. She was so distracted by the realization that it didn’t occur to her to take offense at the girl’s familiarity. She stepped into the tub.

“How about if I scrub yer back?” Mary Kate seized a sponge.

“No, that’s not necessary.”

“Oh, come on.” The girl jerked her dressing gown out of the way and knelt on the carpet beside the tub. She grabbed the soap, pushed Beatrice forward, and began to scrub her back. “This is one o’my specialties. I give gents baths all the time.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “An’ afterward I have to give some o’ them a nappy an’ a bit o’ the tit to get ’em ready for a right old tumble.” She gave a naughty giggle at Beatrice’s stunned expression. “Ye’d be surprised what some o’ yer fancy society men
fancy.
”

Beatrice was ready to wrestle the sponge and soap from her when she continued: “An’ anyway—I reckon I owe you—after what them two idiots went an did—kidnappin’ you and hauling you in here. The Muldoons ain’t never been long on brains. Ma always said that whole side of the family wus dumber than dirt. That Dipper—he must have got dropped on his head when he was a babe.”

Beatrice tried not to make her shock or her interest too obvious. “Dipper Muldoon. And what is his friend’s name?”

“Shorty? He’s an O’Shea. The O’Sheas—now there’s a lot destined for the hind tit of life.” She shook her head with a wry expression. “More than just a few fish short of a barrel. You weren’t in no real danger. Them two wouldn’t swat a fly even if it was bitin’ ’em. Say, Bebe, you got a real nice set of—”

“I believe I can take it from here!” Beatrice snatched the sponge from her enthusiastic source and turned away. “You’ve been most helpful, Mary Katherine. But, do you think perhaps you could find my clothes?”

Mary Kate scowled. “You won’t be needin’ clothes here.”

“I’m afraid I will. I’m supposed to meet with someone tonight and I’d rather not face him without proper clothing.”

“Him?”
Mary Kate studied Beatrice a moment, then she apparently remembered something she had heard. “It’s true then. The congressman’s comin’ to see ye.”

Beatrice was suddenly upright in the water and all ears.

“Congressman?”

“Ever’body calls ’im that. He ain’t been elected yet, but ’e will be, next ballot. Congressman Connor Sullivan.” She gave a wicked wink. “A prime piece o’ bully beef. Can stay up an’ in the saddle all night.” She laughed at Beatrice’s blush. “I’ll talk to th’ girls—we’ll find ye somethin’ proper to wear.”

It wasn’t long before Beatrice’s room was filled with a bewildering array of half-clad women bearing garments. Mary Kate introduced them as they offered up garments suited only to titillating the upper-crust male, and sundry items better categorized as equipment.