Suzi Love (42 page)

“Oh, yes, Your Grace. I understand perfectly. And may I say, Your Grace, that you have chosen extremely well.”

Jenner nodded his head to where Becca hung upside down on Cayle’s broad back, her red curls swinging in disarray as she bounced. Once again, Cayle had decided the most expedient way to get Becca where he wanted her, in his bedroom, was to pick her up and sling her over his shoulder. Cayle gave him a huge grin.

“I think so too, Jenner. It’s about time Martin House saw a bit more life. Time it embraced scandal rather than hid from it.”

“Indeed, Your Grace. Indeed.” He peered around Cayle’s side to Becca’s upturned countenance.

“And may I wish your soon-to-be-duchess every joy in her married life.”

From her rather indecent position, Becca managed to lift one hand from Cayle’s thigh to give a little wave and splutter, “You may, Jenner, and … ah … thank you.”

Cayle grinned again; satisfied with his world at last, and determined Becca would linger under the title of future duchess for as short a time as possible. As soon as Laura, Lottie, and Aunt Aggie could arrange their wedding, Lady Jamison would also become, Your Grace. With all his heart, Cayle longed for that moment. He heard Jenner humming to himself as he hustled away to the kitchen to spread the good news to the rest of the staff.

Things would be different from now on. Martin House was about to gain a new mistress. And not just any mistress, but a lady known to advocate reformed conditions for working class people throughout England. Right about now, the Duke of Sherwyn imagined his butler was informing the servants how, perhaps one day very soon, he’d whisper a word in the new duchess’s ear about the sorry financial plight of some of his family in Scotland.

Continuing his hurried strides upwards to his bedroom, Cayle entered, and then pushed the door shut with his shoulder.

Dropping Becca on the bed so hard she bounced, twice, he followed her down and pinned her with his weight.

“Now, repeat after me. I … Rebecca Jamison … am marrying Cayle St. Martin, Duke of Sherwyn, in three days’ time. I will love, and obey him, all the days of my life.”

“Hmm.” Becca pondered for a minute. “I will love, and work with him … ”

Cayle contemplated her troubled expression. She’d given up so much to be with him that he could at least do this for her. He amended the vow to, “I will love him, work with him, have children with him … and make his life endlessly entertaining.”

She solemnly repeated the vows and then lapsed into a tiny silence. He looked at her in amazement and was about to comment that it was the first time he’d ever been able to stop her talking, when she spoke. Naturally!

“Ah, Cayle.”

He was chuckling as he complained, “Good Lord, Becca, are you ever going to let me get in the last word?”

The love of his life mulled over that possibility for a few seconds but then shook her head and gave her usual honest reply. “Probably not. But, Cayle?”

Her petite hand in the middle of his chest stopped him from lowering himself fully to her, from feeling her breasts squeezed tightly against him, as he was now so desperate to do. Precisely three hours and twenty-four minutes had passed since they’d made love in their private train compartment and it was too long, far too long for his sanity.

After an agonised groan, followed by a resigned mindset, he asked, “Yes, Becca, my love, my adored one.”

“I love you. Love you so much.” She leaned up to kiss him and repeated her sister’s mantra for marriage. “I love you madly, and gladly, and, without any doubt, passionately.”

The rest of the chant drifted away into a whispered promise as he proceeded to make not only her knees, but also her whole body tremble with the force of their passion.

“For the rest of our lives,” she murmured, giving a contented sigh.

In that moment, Cayle decided that Becca could always, always, have the last word, if she’d say those specific words to him.

Each, and every, time.

Suzi Love, who is also the author of
The Viscount’s Pleasure House
, is trying to make history fun, one year at a time. History for her isn’t dull or boring, but vibrant and alive and filled with characters whose stories may sound stranger than fiction but who really did conquer oceans and travel the world.

Suzi is an Australian author whose life-time fascination with all things old, weird, or exotic led her to travel extensively and to then write about all the exciting things she discovered along the way. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy the journey with her.

Early in the reign of Queen Victoria

Hawkesbury House in Belgravia, London

“Remove that hideous gown!” Justin Tremayne, known in amusement-seeking society as Handsome Hawkesbury or the Virile Viscount, struggled to hide his rising frustration. “I need to examine your body. All of it.”

The woman, clad in unrelenting black and looking more like a newly grieving widow than an enchanting bird of paradise, had pushed past his butler and stormed into his library as though claiming her right to be seen and heard. As if she feared her late arrival might have cost her the chance to strut around the room with the other peacocks and show her wares. And as if her life depended on him offering her employment.

He, of all people, knew how fear of failing drove a person to take rash chances and how desperation to achieve something could drive a man, or woman, to extreme lengths. But to his surprise, the strange woman had come to a dead stop a few feet inside the room, dug her feet into the carpet as solidly as a scarecrow staked into soil, and turned her head, ever so slowly, to stare at the girls posing around the periphery of his library.

Below the chin length veils, Justin could see her long, thin neck rise and fall in pronounced swallows. He watched, amazed, as she clenched and released her fists. After her headlong rush into their presence, she now appeared to be waging some sort of inner battle, most likely torn between picking up those ghastly skirts and leaving or tossing off that ugly outfit, and her inhibitions, and joining the other girls.

Justin stood before the woman in his rumpled disarray — evening coat discarded, shirt tails hanging, booted legs spread — and threw his arms wide. Looking up, he appealed to the smiling gold cupids frolicking in naked abandon across his plastered ceiling. “Why me? Do I not have enough problems in my life?”

The gala at his club opened in three weeks — his grand finale — and the smallest disruption to his schedule could mean everything he’d worked so hard for could slip through his fingers. During week-long performances at the Pleasure House, every fat-pursed gentleman in the city would visit, drawn by promises of spectacles more ribald than any of their fantasies. His potential buyers would be so impressed with the club’s earnings that they’d throw their money at him and fall to their knees and beg him to sell the club to them.

After four hide-thickening years, Justin could retire from the loathsome industry of flesh-peddling and be free to concentrate all his energies on locating his lost family. But he’d expected to be hiring his thirty extra girls tonight and setting them to work practicing their parts in the exotic fantasies he had planned. His annoyance rose once more and he felt ready to erupt, much like the storm threatening to explode in the square outside.

At least six of the twenty girls parading around his library pretended to earn their daily bread and butter by hawking oranges to theatre patrons around Covent Garden. In truth, their money was earned by enticing well-heeled gents away from their friends and giving them some extra entertainment in the surrounding alleys. It worried him that performing as a group wasn’t their usual field of expertise but with time running out, he’d decided if he couldn’t provide top quality ladybirds for his customers, he’d have the men’s eyes popping out of their heads and their senses overwhelmed with a large quantity of performers.

Dammit. That meant he couldn’t afford to kick anyone out of his house and back to the street. Perhaps the woman in black truly was a widow. City streets teemed with women left in dire financial straits by men who gambled or drank too much and forced the women to take up streetwalking to feed their family. The cumbersome layers of neck to ankle clothing proved she wasn’t comfortable with flaunting her body like the more seasoned girls were doing.

He tried for a more encouraging tone this time. “I’m rather short of time, my love, but I need workers, and you need work. Now, let’s remove that repulsive costume so we can see what you’ve been hiding.”

The woman straightened her shoulders and appeared ready to speak, but instead of words coming out her lace veil sucked into her mouth and she choked and coughed. Justin moved to help but the woman frantically waved her hand to keep him away.

He turned away to allow her time to recover her breath and spoke to Bart and Thomas, his best friends since their days at Eton when they’d banded together to fight off bullies. Lord Bartholomew Branxton, now the tenth Earl of Brimley and as comfortable in low-class brothels as high-class ballrooms, lay sprawled across an elegant French settee with one long leg dangling over a spindly arm. Thomas, outranking them both since becoming the Duke of Rowbrough after the recent death of his father, balanced his considerable girth in an armchair that was equally unsuited to hold anyone but a petite lady.

“What the hell am I going to do? Billy used all my spare money to grease the palms of those madams. And all he managed to find me is twenty performers.”

“Brothel keepers can never be trusted,” Bart said with a grin. “Giving money to your competitors was bound to come back and bite you in the bum.”

“The alternative was standing on street corners and doing my own procuring.”

“That would have only earned you a knife in the ribs, not any hirelings.”

“And,” Thomas said, “it’s far too dangerous for a gentleman to loiter on any street in those seedier districts. Sort of thing only thieves and brothel keepers do.”

Justin looked at Bart and rolled his eyes. No point reminding Thomas that Justin had owned his own bawdy house for the past four years because Thomas preferred to cover his ears rather than discuss the seedy ways a viscount had been forced to earn his money.

To some extent, Justin agreed with his friend. Owning a Pleasure House, the haunt of the richest of the upper ten thousand, and catering to a vastly different clientele than a common whorehouse, didn’t make him a brothel keeper … though he’d collected his first real money on his back and servicing the rich and lustful, just as his girls did now.

Ignoring Thomas’s well-meant but always uncomprehending comments, Justin spoke to Bart. “The three rooms for the Sultan’s Harem require a minimum of twenty slave girls. And the fetish rooms will be open all week.”

He watched the girls strut around the room’s perimeter, bodices removed or pulled wide to display their bountiful assets, thoroughly enjoying themselves. They played to their audience, only three men this evening, but they flaunted and posed as if the room were filled with eager patrons. Billy had followed his orders to some extent because they all had vibrant coloring and, as prostitutes rarely wore undergarments, each time one bent, lifted, arched, or pointed a leg, they revealed swatches of hair, often dyed in vibrant colors to match their head. But for Justin, pussies — painted, plaited, bald, or plain — had become commonplace.

“Lovely girls,” Justin said, summoning his most winning smile. “You are all exquisite. Gentlemen attending my gala will be charmed by your beauty.” Their squeals of delight made him laugh. “So yes, you’re all hired. You’ll be given lessons on how to act like harem slaves and taught to dance with veils.” More tittering from the girls. He glanced back at the ghoulishly dressed woman and shuddered. “Unfortunately, we don’t have enough performers yet. And it appears my man found the only working girl in London who is too shy to disrobe before a crowd.”

“My lord! You misunderstand!”

Her words surprised him. “Ah! Finally. She speaks.” The woman sounded confused and upset, yet she spoke with a cultured voice.

She hurried forward a few steps to the center of the room. “I’m not one of them.” She waved a hand toward the other girls. “I’m not a pr … pros … ”

She broke off and looked around the line of girls who stared back at her. Their faces showed a mix of defiance, anger, or amusement but hers showed terror. Her gaze fixed on the wall above the girl’s heads, as if she’d swoon if she focused on their bared chests.

Sucking in deep breaths, Justin prayed for patience. “Everyone here tonight is auditioning for a role in my theatrical. Slaves for the Sultan’s Palace.” Her eyes went wide and she gasped. For the first time he considered the possibility that she may not be a working girl of any description, experienced or newcomer, and that she may not be one of the endless parade of rich women who tried to sneak into his bed. “Why have you come, if not for that?”

She appeared to be again searching for words. Uneducated, or merely shy? He circled around her and inspected her figure and face. Whoever she may be, her above average height and long straight neck would make the perfect employee for the discipline room. It never ceased to amaze him how gentlemen who suffered daily haranguing from their wives at home appeared on his doorstep the moment they heard a more ferocious whip-wielding female had been hired. Majestic women he could appreciate. Stern or brutal ones, never.

Justin’s favorites were like those now being appreciated by his two friends. Or at least, his tastes had run toward large breasted and loud-laughing women in the past. His two friends presently wore identical grins of blissful contentment as their laps overflowed with the ample rear ends and bouncing breasts belonging to four Covent Garden actresses. Though Bart and Thomas were as different as the devil and an angel, both loved having this unique chance of helping Justin cast ladybirds to act in his exotically named Sultan’s Harem.

Justin studied the woman again, uncaring that his scrutiny seemed to make her uncomfortable. Any female who brazenly pushed her way into a viscount’s residence deserved to suffer the consequences. He’d been forced to reveal his address to several people tonight, knowing his stern and forceful butler usually delighted in evicting any unwanted intruders, but he already regretted breaking his own rule.