The Perfect Mistress (54 page)

but you'll have to tell me what is going on."

He stared down at her bewilderment and spoke to himself as much as to her.

"A miscarriage of justice… that's what's happening," he declared, realizing it was true. "As we speak, Gladstone is being drugged and dumped in a bed full of women, in a brothel. And just after midnight, several leading men will burst through the door and discover him there with a group of prostitutes who will swear he's been their regular patron."

"But that would"—her eyes darted over the scene being conjured in her mind—"humiliate him, ruin him."

"That, I believe, is the idea," he said grimly. "When the news is carried to the palace and reaches the newspapers, both his career and his government will be finished."

"But that's vile. He's a decent man. I'm convinced of it. Perhaps he doesn't show the best judgment where prostitutes are concerned. But, in that regard, he has the company of at least half of the men of London!" She looked up at him. "Pierce, two wrongs never make a right. It is only when you do the right thing for the right reasons that things are truly
good
."

He could feel those words echoing through his heart, calling him to do what was good and right despite his personal feelings toward the man. The trust in her face, collected into his heart, became a moral imperative. He pressed a quick, hard kiss on her lips, then released her and rushed for his clothes.

"Life was a hell of a lot easier when I was a hedonistic, amoral wretch," he muttered, shoving his feet into his stockings and his legs into his trousers.

"What are you going to do?" She slid from the bed, watching him dress.

"I have to try to stop it."

In a heartbeat, she was in the dressing room, pulling out a dark blue serge skirt here and a white cotton school blouse there. He found her wrestling into her petticoat and fumbling with her blouse buttons.

"And just what do you think you're doing?"

"I'm coming with you," she declared, drawing her skirt on over her head and settling it around her waist. He seized her arm as she reached for her jacket.

"The hell you are! The Pavilion is a brothel… a fancy one, perhaps, but a pleasure pit all the same. And I'll not have my wife setting foot inside such a place."

"And I won't have my husband setting foot inside one without me," she declared defiantly. "If something goes wrong and disaster strikes, at least we'll be in it together. Besides, you might need a witness of some sort. And who better to vouch for you than your wife?"

There were times, Pierce realized, as he bounded into the carriage after her minutes later, that being a tyrant had definite appeal. Then he felt her hand insinuating itself into his and looked over at her. Her eyes glowed with pride and determination. On the other hand, being a reasonable and indulgent husband had its good points as well.

The Pavilion was housed in a large brick building situated squarely between clubmen's row and the theater district of the Haymarket. Outside, it was singularly undistinguished and to the untrained eye might even have passed for a warehouse or shop of some sort, with apartments making up the top floors. Inside, however, it was arrayed in lavish style and was widely considered to be the poshest brothel in all of London. It admitted only the most select clientele to its drawing and gaming rooms and bar on the first floor. And only those with plenty of coin to pave the way were provided for in the twenty or so private rooms upstairs.

When the carriage pulled up by the rear door in the alley, Pierce checked his watch—eleven fifty!—and ordered Gabrielle to stay in the carriage. She promptly joined him on the pavement, resettling her prim bonnet and refusing to be left behind. Grumbling to her to keep behind him, he approached the heavy door and knocked. Gabrielle was glad for his presence between her and the gargantuan figure who answered that summons. To her surprise, that man-mountain seemed to recognize Pierce. A bit of haggling ensued, and Pierce made up a story about wanting the use of one of the more exotic rooms for a bit of "private sport."

"Madam won' like it," the huge fellow declared, eyeing Gabrielle darkly.

"You bringin' in yer own piece. She'll 'ave my ears if she finds out." But in the end, the money was too good and he relented. "As long as yer in an' out in an hour."

He led them up an unpretentious set of back stairs to the top floor and bade them wait by the door while he checked the corridor and located a suitable room. He returned shortly and beckoned to them. They followed him down a luxuriously appointed hallway filled with exotic odors of perfumes and incense and an even more potent musklike scent that a seasoned voluptuary would have recognized at first breath.

They heard someone coming. The hulking fellow quickly pushed them into a mirrored chamber constructed around a huge silk-clad bed covered with pillows. Palms and gilded screens and Moorish arches set along the mirrored walls were meant to suggest a Persian harem, with all its fleshy delights.

While Pierce put his ear to the door, listening, Gabrielle examined the room in amazement. "Is the entire place like this?" she whispered, touching an ornate lattice arch and quickly drawing her hand back. "Look at all these mirrors. They must have cost a fortune."

"They don't stint on setting the right mood," he said with a wry whisper.

"That is part of the attraction here. Each of the rooms on this floor is done in a different decor. This is the Arabian room. There's a room modeled after the hall of mirrors at Versailles, one after a pharaoh's pleasure barge, another after a Viking longship—liberally supplied with furs. For more exotic tastes, there's a slave market in the Casbah and a monk's cell, rather unusually equipped. There is even an exact duplicate of the queen's bedchamber at Osborne House… complete with the wreath and memorial to Albert pinned to the headboard."

"Really?" Then her eyes narrowed. "Just how do you know so much about this place?"

He blinked. "Some… shameless and depraved acquaintances of mine told me all about it." He turned quickly back to the door, listening, and she turned back to the mirrors, fascinated by the way they reflected into each other, casting multiple images of her through the walls themselves.

"Say, wouldn't it be interesting to actually… someday… come here and—

"

"Gabrielle!" he whispered. "We don't have any time to lose. I would guess Gladstone is on this floor, in one of the more exotic rooms." He opened the door, peering out into the vacant hallway, and took her by the wrist. "Stay close. We'll just have to try the doors and see which has been left open to invite 'visitors.' "

They crept along the hall, trying doors, finding several locked, with shocking noises coming from inside. They finally found one open and empty—a room made like an Egyptian pleasure barge with oddly shaped golden chairs and huge fans made of feathers. "Have you ever seen anything like that in your life?" she whispered, her eyes as big as saucers.

Pierce declined to answer, dragging her away from the door. Voices in the hallway, around the corner sent them scrambling back into a doorway, pressed against the panels with their hearts pounding. But whoever was in the hall soon disappeared down the stairs.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled her around the corner and into another long corridor. A large, ornate staircase descended from the middle of the passage, and the sounds of music and laughter wafted up from the floors below. They tried two more doors before discovering one at the end of the hall… unlocked… and occupied.

Pierce spotted four striking young women clothed only in camisoles, drawers, and striped stockings, lounging around on a huge bed and on the sofa at the foot of it. Unaware of his presence, they seemed faintly bored. He heard one ask if the old boy had "come to" yet, and another checked and answered that he was beginning to waken. Pierce pulled back and nodded to Gabrielle.

"The bastards have a warped sense of humor," he said irritably. "Knowing how Queen Victoria despises his politics, they've put him in the replica of her bedchamber."

25

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T
aking a deep breath, he barged inside and pulled Gabrielle into the room after him. They found themselves in a bedchamber nearly filled by a massive mahogany bed with a stately wooden half canopy hung with floral bed draperies. Along one wall was a huge painting of a reclining nude, and there was a low-backed sofa at the foot of the bed. The prostitutes lounging on the sofa and chairs flew into action at the first sign of motion by the door.

Climbing onto the bed, they laughed and made ribald comments and frolicked around a half-clad form that lay prostrate on the covers.

Gabrielle was stunned, but Pierce hurried to the bed and began pulling the women from Gladstone. "Get off him, for God's sake—the old man's half comatose!"

"Now he is," one of the tarts said with a wicked smile, snatching up the camisole she'd discarded only a minute before. "But you should have seen him an hour ago."

"Save the act," Pierce declared irritably. "I know what you've been paid to do, but the plan's off—every bit of it."

"The hell, ye say!" One hard-eyed professional inserted herself on the bed between him and Gladstone. "We was promised a fine bonus for this little piece of work. And we ain't goin' nowhere 'til we get it."

At the sound of their raised voices, Gabrielle rushed to the bed. "Pierce—

we don't have time to argue. They'll be here any moment." She turned to Gladstone and began patting his leathery cheek and calling his name. His eyelids fluttered and his slack mouth moved with a low groan. "He's coming awake." She pulled the prime minister's arm and tried to lift him to a sitting position. "Mr. Gladstone, wake up! We have to get you out of here—you're in grave danger!"

"Help us get him dressed and out of here without being seen," Pierce told the women as he hurried to help Gabrielle, "and I'll
double
your bonus."

The women glanced at each other, then fell to their aid. Gladstone was limp and heavy, but with one person under each arm and another holding him up by the back of his trousers, they managed to put his arms in his coat and button his vest. They were halfway to the door with him when they heard the sound of male voices outside, growing louder, coming their way.

"It's them," Pierce said with a groan. "Lock the door!" One of the women sprang to the door and turned the key while Pierce looked frantically around the room. "Is there no other way out?" When the courtesans shook their heads, Pierce looked to Gabrielle, who looked desperately to the bed.

"We'll have to hide him," she declared, abandoning the prime minister to Pierce's and the others' grasps while she hurried to the bed and lifted the bed skirt. "This is the only place big enough to hold him. Quick—put him under the bed!"

"If they search, that's the first place they'll look," Pierce protested.

"Not if we find a way to distract them." She looked at their four accomplices. "That will be
your
job." They balked at the idea, until she declared: "For three times your bonus."

Gladstone chose the moment they began stuffing him under the bed, to come to life. "Oh, no! Somebody will have to keep him quiet," Gabrielle insisted, tugging on Pierce's arm, indicating he must go under the bed with Gladstone. When he protested, she gave him a wicked glare. "I'm not strong enough to hold him… and I doubt your reputation could stand the strain of being caught in a brothel with five women. They won't know me from Eve, so—"

"Why do you always have to be so damned logical?" He knelt and slid under the bed with the prime minister.

She turned to the women, who regarded her and her demure bonnet and proper serge skirt and jacket with expressions ranging from sly smiles to blatant contempt. What did she do now? What was a plausible excuse for a respectable woman being caught with four prostitutes—on a bed, in a brothel, in the dead of night? Pounding on the door and raised voices demanding entry shook an idea free in her head.

"A book!" she declared, looking frantically around the room at the heavy mahogany furnishings. "Is there any sort of book in here?"

"Oh… yeah," one of the women said, turning to rummage about in the bedside cabinet.

"Onto the bed, all of you. And if they come near it, do something—

anything—to distract them." The women complied, frowning at one another and shrugging. Gabrielle accepted the book and settled on the foot of the bed facing the four of them. "Now, try to look a bit repentant. I want them to think I've come to read to you and to try to get you to change your ways."

That was how Gabrielle came to be sitting in a fancy brothel, on the foot of' a facsimile of Queen Victoria's personal bed, holding an ornate edition of illegal French lithographs, and pretending to read a sermon from it on the evils of the flesh… to four scantily clad and rather bemused prostitutes.

The door crashed open moments later, and four gentlemen, accompanied by two uniformed constables, burst into the room. Gabrielle turned with a start and a look of great indignation.

"How dare you break in on us—like… this?" She found herself looking straight into a face she recognized… a face that set her blood draining from her head.