How to Handle a Scandal (7 page)

“No,” Meg said.

“But our girls—”

“Don’t need me to look fashionable.”

“No, of course not. But we do want them to appreciate the importance of a polished appearance.”

Meg pressed her lips together. “Do you hear yourself, Eliza?”

Eliza blushed. “What do you mean? I’m only trying to be helpful.”

Meg heaved an exasperated sigh. “You know I love you. We’ve been the best of friends since your first season, when you jumped in that fountain at the Hartwells’ party and needed a towel.”

“Ugh. That wasn’t a good time in my life.”

“Wasn’t it? Because you seemed a lot happier then.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t happy then—I was making myself into the most scandalous girl in the
ton
.”

“Very well, you couldn’t have gone on forever like that. But now…”

“Yes?” Eliza said with more than a little irritation. First Anna and now Meg—why was everyone insisting they liked her better when she was a disaster?

“Did you have to go so far in the other direction?”

“How can you suggest that I’m not going in the right direction—that what we’re doing at Truehart Manor isn’t of the utmost importance? What could be more important than having a life filled with purpose?”

“I agree it’s important, but what about laughing? Dancing? Playing?” Meg said. “Making mistakes?”

“You’re not making any sense.”

Meg sipped her coffee. “I’m just beginning to feel that you’ve set some sort of impossible standard for us all—the girls, me, and especially you. None of us will ever measure up to the ideal of perfection you have.”

“We have to set high standards for the girls if they’re to improve enough to go to school.”

“But reading five books a week?” Meg pressed. “Some of them don’t like to read, and pushing too hard may extinguish any moderate interest they have.”

When she was a girl, Eliza had told herself books were for boring people and given herself permission to become the biggest flirt in Malta. “Nonsense. They just need more exposure.”

Meg frowned. “What about our meals? Cook says you told her not to cook with salt anymore.”

“Dr. Henley says it’s better not to eat salt,” Eliza pointed out, though she missed it as well.

Meg huffed. “Fine. All those things are just details, but this makes me truly worried: you told Mary that if she laughed too much, people would think she was a flirt. She’s ten years old—she’s supposed to laugh! We all are.”

Eliza frowned more deeply. Mary was a sweet girl, but she could be unbridled, and she didn’t yet understand that needing to capture other people’s attention was a road to becoming ever more outrageous. “I just want the girls to be happy in life. People need self-discipline to be happy.”

“I agree. But I think you’re being too hard on them. It’s as though somewhere along the line, you decided pleasure was a bad thing.”

That was because it
was
a bad thing. Her self-indulgence had cost her Tommy’s friendship and driven him away from his family. But Meg was making her sound like someone who couldn’t enjoy herself, and that wasn’t true.

The serving girl arrived with a plate piled with treacle tarts, shortbreads, and cakes slathered with cream. Meg took two cream cakes and a tart, which she dolloped further with cream. Eliza selected a piece of shortbread and nibbled it.

“See?” Eliza said. “I like to indulge.”

“You chose the dry cookie instead of the creamy delight,” Meg said over a mouthful of cake.

“I happen to like shortbread.”

“Or you’ve taught yourself not to want more.”

“Than shortbread?”

Meg groaned. “Eliza, I can’t help but feel that the single most important thing in your life is starting to be self-discipline.”

Eliza flushed. “I thought you liked being my friend.”

“I do! If I didn’t love you so, I wouldn’t say anything. It’s not pleasant telling people difficult things, you know.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Go to a party or a ball. Go to someone’s house for dinner. Say something stupid and frivolous.”

“You mean go back to the way I used to be? I won’t do it.”

“Of course I’m not suggesting that you behave like a sixteen-year-old.” Meg poked her fork into another chunk of cake. “But don’t you ever think of taking a break from Truehart Manor? What we do can be challenging, and neither of us has had a holiday for a long time. You have money—you could see the world, meet some new people.”

“
You
haven’t taken a holiday either,” Eliza pointed out testily.

“But I mean to. You know I’ve been making plans to go to Italy this winter. Maybe you should come with me.”

“Who would stay with the girls?”

“Mrs. Trinkett could manage for a few weeks.”

Italy sounded lovely, and it was true that Eliza hadn’t taken a holiday for years. But the thought of a holiday—with no schedules and nothing to do but try to enjoy herself—sounded foreign, and she knew she’d be a drag on Meg’s fun. Still, she appreciated that Meg meant well.

“I’ll think about it,” she said, smiling a little.

“Good,” Meg said, looking relieved.

Eliza felt tempted to tell her friend about her plan to go to the brothel that night—Meg would certainly see
that
as a sign that Eliza wasn’t always focused on being perfect—but she knew she couldn’t. If Meg didn’t decry the whole idea as insane, she would want to come as well, and Eliza couldn’t let her take that risk. As a widow who would never marry again, Eliza could afford a hint of scandal. Meg could not.

Late that night, Eliza paused before the dark back entrance to Madame Persaud’s brothel. She wore a black velvet mask and a deep-pink satin gown with a low bodice that she hadn’t worn since she was seventeen. The gown was snug and cut lower than the dresses she wore now, and she’d kept it as a reminder of the person she didn’t ever want to be again. At least now it would serve a good purpose.

She’d powdered her hair heavily and pulled it into a loose knot, turning her red-gold tresses into an indistinguishable pile of white on her head, but she’d decided against any face paint, hoping to look unremarkable among the other women, who would doubtless look more purposefully enticing. With the black mask on, Eliza didn’t think she looked recognizable. She hoped, with a giddy sense of unreality, that she’d pass as a prostitute, if only one who wouldn’t attract much attention.

Her conscience made one last effort to restrain her by pointing out that if she was discovered and became a scandal, the work of Truehart Manor would be ruined, but she ignored it. If they were going to continue losing girls to the lure of prostitution, their work would have little effect anyway.

Since the brothel catered to the tastes of wealthy gentlemen, it was in a respectable part of town. Eliza had her coachman drop her a block away from the large house, with instructions to drive around the neighborhood and check back for her at intervals. She made her way to the deserted mews behind the row of houses, found the back entrance Nancy had told her about, and slipped in, unnoticed as far as she could tell.

She moved along a narrow corridor, following the sounds of voices and music. The prostitutes would gather in the drawing room to welcome the clients early in the evening, which allowed the men to circulate as they arrived and ponder which women they would choose for the evening. It was nine thirty, so Eliza had half an hour to step into another life and ferret out the sort of details that would help her take away the glamour that places like this held for girls like Franny and Thomasina.

She emerged into a long foyer with two doorways and a staircase that led upstairs. There were two women in the foyer dressed in boldly colored dresses like Eliza’s and wearing masks. Her stomach dropped at the sight of them—this was her first contact with anyone in the house—but when they merely glanced at her and went back to talking to each other, she repressed a sigh of relief and kept moving.

Masculine laughter issued from the far room, which had to be the card room. As she drew close to the nearer doorway, she confirmed that it led to the drawing room and moved inside. As she made her way toward a large plant that she hoped would offer a little concealment, Eliza counted a dozen women standing about in groups, laughing and chatting. The prostitutes’ lips were rosy with lip paint, and rouged cheeks peeked out from the bottom edges of their masks. They were all nearly falling out of their gowns, and Eliza could feel her cheeks burning as she realized the tops of their nipples had been rouged as well.

She stationed herself behind the plant without drawing more than a passing glance from anyone and prepared to take an inventory of tawdriness. She had expected cheap furnishings and bad taste, but as her eyes lingered over the room and its occupants, she was disappointed to find that everything was remarkably tasteful. There was a handsome carpet on the floor, and several beautiful landscape paintings adorned the walls. The settee that stood near her would not have been out of place in her own drawing room.

Neither did the women seem coarse, aside from the exaggerated allure of their clothes and faces. Their hair was prettily styled, and though she had steeled herself to withstand the sort of odors to be expected from a place that employed desperate women to fulfill the desires of men, she smelled nothing but the sorts of floral scents favored by society women. She frowned.

A group of three women moved closer to her as they cleared a space for a couple who had started dancing the waltz. Here, at last, was something she might use to discourage the girls, because the dancing prostitute, whose pretty lips and softly rounded jaw suggested she was about twenty-five, was dancing with a fat, balding man of at least sixty. She might even have been Nancy, though because of the mask, Eliza couldn’t have said for certain.

As the couple passed near Eliza, she was startled to see that the man was Lord Renfrew, a prominent judge. Renfrew was a nice man married to a very nice woman. What on earth was he doing in this place?

What he was doing, apparently, was enjoying himself. He was smiling at his partner, and the woman had curled her hand over Renfrew’s shoulder in what looked like affection. But how could it be? She was being exploited.

The three women standing on the other side of Eliza’s plant laughed.

“Millie will keep him busy tonight,” said one of them, a brunette with full, painted lips.

“Oh, be serious, Daniela,” said one of the others, a blond whose petite nose peeked pertly from the bottom of her mask. “You know Renfrew just wants to talk and rub her feet.”

Rub her feet?
Eliza nearly burst out laughing. Why would he want to do that?

But instead of laughing, the three women shook their heads sadly. “The poor, sweet man,” the brunette said. “To think that when his wife told him she wouldn’t lie with him anymore after the spare heir was born fourteen years ago, he just accepted it. All she wants to do anymore is shop. I wouldn’t have their wealth for all the tea in China.”

“If you had their money, you could
have
all the tea in China.” They laughed again, and Eliza wondered at them. They were driven by poverty to sell their bodies—how could they be so jolly?

The blond spoke again. “Look, there’s Steventon.” The three women turned their gazes to the doorway and emitted a collective sigh as a tall, handsome gentleman entered.

“
He
doesn’t need to pay,” the blond said. “I tell you, what that man can do. There’s kissing, and there’s better kissing, and there’s the
other
kind of kissing.” Husky laughter greeted this comment, and Eliza frowned. The woman was clearly talking about something sexual, but Eliza didn’t know what she meant.

She found herself mortally curious. What was this other kind of kissing? Gerard had kissed her many times, but it had never made her want to sigh with husky delight.

In truth, Eliza would never have used the word
delight
about what had happened in her marriage bed. Still, she hadn’t minded submitting to Gerard’s brief attentions. He’d been endlessly respectful about the whole thing, as though he hadn’t particularly cared for it either.

“Sorry about this, my dear,”
he’d say several times a month,
“but we’ve got to make the effort for an heir.”

Listening to these women, though, Eliza couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to sexual relations than she’d experienced.

“Steventon’s the reason I’ve so much put away for later,” the brunette said. “I’ll be buying that house by the sea before too long, see if I don’t.”

Eliza frowned. This sounded too much like the way Franny and Thomasina had painted prostitution, and she knew it couldn’t be right. Aside from the risk of pregnancy and disease, a woman who sold her body risked being a social outcast, never mind the reality of having to make herself available to all kinds of men who might do whatever they liked with her body.

“Now then, my dear,” said a male voice from just behind Eliza, “you must be one of the new girls. I like your look. Shy, aging virgin, is it?”

Eliza’s stomach dropped. She slowly turned her head and saw that there was now another man in the room, who’d apparently found his way to her. He was perhaps forty, with brown hair and the well-fed air of a nobleman. A playful smirk hovered at the edges of his thick lips.

As his words registered more thoroughly, she repressed a spike of irritation.
Aging?

He was waiting for her to reply and flirt with him, and if she didn’t respond, she would appear suspicious. How ironic: in attempting to accomplish something of worth, she was going to have to revert to the flirt she’d once been.

“Oh, my lord,” she said, adopting a breathy, girlish voice to disguise her own and also play into the
aging virgin
that she apparently looked like. “I can’t begin to imagine what you mean.”

He laughed. “Can’t you, dear, innocent lady? Tell me, what is your name?”

“Er…” She said the first name that came into her mind, which was, appallingly, “Victoria.”

Wonderful. She’d just used the name of Will’s three-year-old daughter as a cover for herself in a bawdy house. Good God, if he ever found out about any of this…

“Victoria. Very nice. I’m Roundswell, and very pleased to make your acquaintance. Sweet, innocent Victoria, allow me to say that I would be pleased to be your guide in all things unknown to you.” He grabbed her hand and looked intently into her eyes.

Dear heaven, she had an interested customer!

“Oh, my lord,” she said as alarm raced through her, “I’m not ready for such…” She racked her brain for what to say, but everything seemed awkward and she finally blurted, “doings.”

“Doings?” He guffawed. “Innocent and diverting. And you’re blushing, too. Don’t know how you manage that on command, but I must have you.” He consulted a watch hanging from a chain over his substantial paunch. “Good—it’ll be time for the choosing in ten minutes.”

Oh no, the choosing! She must find a way to discourage him so she could escape before then. She laid her free hand over her heart in a fearful gesture and tugged at the hand he still held. “In truth, my lord,” she said, “you will wish to choose someone else. I am clumsy and unschooled in the arts of the bedchamber.”

His eyes glittered, and he squeezed her hand. “Even better,” he said in a low voice. “I shall enjoy teaching you everything. Already the evidence of my desire—” he began, but then shut his mouth with a wicked smile. “But such words are not for shy virgins. You shall discover for yourself.”

“Oh, er, yes,” she whispered hoarsely, her mind recoiling at the thought.

“I have to collect something from the card room,” he said. “Wait here, and I’ll be back before ten.” He squeezed her hand again before finally releasing it. “I’ve reserved room number six.”

She nearly shuddered, but she forced herself to smile feebly. “Until then.”

At which point, thank God, he turned and made for the door to the corridor.

She had to get out of this place. She might not have discovered the kinds of things she’d hoped to find, but now she had an admirer whom she wouldn’t be able to escape if she wasn’t gone by ten.

Eliza was almost to the door that led to the corridor when her arm was caught in a sturdy grip, and she spun around, her heart hammering, certain she was about to be exposed.

It was Lord Adderbrooke. She knew him from church.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry, missy?” he asked in that voice she’d heard pronouncing “Amen” and singing about the day of the Lord.
He
was here too?

“Oh,” she said in her breathy strumpet’s voice, “er…the retiring room.”

It almost came out as a question, but he didn’t seem to care, or maybe that was why he laughed.

“It’s not that direction. You must be new.”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“And your name?”

Oh, not again. Surely at any moment she was going to be felled by the gods of propriety. But then, she would never have been a favorite of theirs anyway. “Victoria.”

He smiled. “Well, Victoria, I’ve reserved room number four. We can retire there together after the choosing. It’s only a few minutes away.”

Another
customer? What was wrong with these men? She looked like a dusty virgin, apparently.

She remembered then what Nancy had said about how there would be a bidding war if two men wanted the same woman. She had barely two minutes left before ten, but how was she to escape? The only thing that came to her was to simply rush into the corridor and make for the exit, praying she reached her carriage before any pursuers could catch her. But such a desperate measure would draw attention.

She was saved by the arrival of a gentleman who hailed Adderbrooke. When Adderbrooke turned to greet him, she quickly moved into the corridor to escape. But she immediately saw that the way to the exit was blocked by a party of men talking to each other.

Panic crashed over her. Any moment, Adderbrooke was going to turn around, or just as bad, Renfrew would emerge from the card room. In the drawing room, the music came to an end and there was an expectant murmur that could only be the beginning of the choosing.

Inspiration struck when she saw a serving girl going up the stairs to the second floor with a pile of folded linens. Spying her only means of immediate escape, Eliza scrambled behind her and made her way upstairs.

Once in the second-floor corridor, Eliza opened the first door that wasn’t marked with a six or a four and peered inside. Wildly relieved that the room appeared to be unoccupied, she rushed inside and closed the door with her heart hammering. She could not expect to be safe in there for long, but she could gather herself to make an escape plan. Maybe once everyone was assembled in the drawing room, she could sneak back downstairs and make a run for the exit. If nothing else, the room had a window, though as she peered out at the ground two floors below, the prospect of leaving by that route did not appeal.

* * *

Tommy hadn’t intended to end up at Madame Persaud’s that night, but he was with two old friends—Matthew Dearden and Stephen Elliot—and they seemed intent on visiting every gaming spot and club in London.

Tommy didn’t mind Madame Persaud’s. The place had a fine card room, as well as a lounge where gentlemen could converse undisturbed. It was a place he’d been more than once when he was young and eager for the kind of experiences a man could have there, even though he’d never gone upstairs with any of the prostitutes. He’d liked looking at the women, though, and talking to them.

But he wasn’t much interested in bawdy houses anymore, and he could easily have done without coming there. He did, however, enjoy cards and gambling.