Virginia Henley (29 page)

There was no clock in the room, but she had been playing for a couple of hours and gauged the time to be about six, when a female strolled in who could only be described as stunning. She was sleekly beautiful, with champagne-colored hair swept up into a sophisticated French roll. She wore a low-cut evening gown in a shade of sable, and her throat and wrists were adorned with topaz jewels. Alex guessed who she was before she exchanged pleasantries with the gentlemen who called her Charlie. Alex experienced a sharp stab of envy, mixed with jealousy, as she suspected this woman knew Nick Hatton . . .
most likely in the biblical sense!

A young female, dressed as a maid in a frilly, short skirt, was regaled with cheers as she went to a sideboard and took out a chamber pot. Alex stared in disbelief as the girl carried it to the gaming table where she was sitting. The blonde handed it to the gentleman sitting on Alex’s right, who stood up immediately to relieve himself. Alex looked down into the pot and saw a pair of eyes painted on the bottom, one eye closed in a suggestive wink. She stood up immediately, almost knocking over her chair, and the dealer cashed out her chips, pushing her winnings toward her. Alex scooped up her money and fled.

As she strode through the busy reception room, her steps slowed and she chided herself for being a coward. She had come to learn about the prostitutes who worked in this high-class brothel, and unless she struck up a conversation with one of the females employed here, she would learn nothing. Taking her courage in her hands, Alex sat down on a divan in an alcove and glanced about for Reggie. Finally, she spotted her. She was now wearing a white muslin coat dress that opened all the way down the front. Beneath it she wore a matching white corset, white stockings, and fetching black garters. When Alex beckoned to her, Reggie flashed her a radiant smile and came across the room.

“Were you lucky tonight, darlin’?”

“Extremely lucky; I won thirty pounds!”

Reggie laughed. “Ooo, that will buy you five minutes of my time, luv.”

“Are you teasing me, or are you serious?” Alex asked, aghast.

Reggie sat down, crossed her legs, and stroked Alex’s thigh. “Now I’m teasing you.”

Alex captured her hand to hold it still. “How much do you get for . . . you know . . . pleasuring a man?”

“It varies. Usually a hundred guineas, unless you want to stay all night—then it’s five hundred.”

Alex’s mouth gaped open, then it snapped shut. “Do you enjoy the work here?”

“Well, it certainly beats being a bloody servant for starvation wages. Actually, I
am
in service, but my working conditions are better than anyone else’s in London. Shall we go to my room, luv?”

“Er . . . I’m a little short.”

“Ooo, darlin’, don’t let that worry you; men come in all shapes an’ sizes. Don’t be shy.”

“No, no, I mean
a little short of money,
” Alex explained lamely.

“Oh, I see!” Reggie laughed good-naturedly. “Well, luv, come back an’ see me when you scrape enough blunt together.”

Alex made her way back to Berkeley Square in a bemused daze. Some of her ideas about prostitutes and their plight had been turned upside down. Apparently there were whores, and then there were
whores
. They had a pecking order, and the intelligent ones at the top of their game flourished from the fruits of their labor.

When Alex arrived home, the house seemed empty. She ran upstairs to her chamber and found a book and a note from her grandmother:

Alex smiled; her grandmother had left her the book about Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson. She decided that she would work on the lampoon and asked Sara to bring her dinner upstairs. As she tried to concentrate on Prinny, her mind kept wandering back to the brothel in Pall Mall. A full-blown picture of Charlotte King wearing the fabulous topaz gems came into her head.
The wages of sin are not death, after all; they are jewels!
It gave her an idea for the lampoon.

Alex sketched Prinny with wheels and pedals, as if he were a bicycle. Then she drew his mistress, Lady Hertford, riding him, adorned with all the Crown Jewels. Beneath the lampoon she wrote: ENJOYING THE FRUITS OF HER LABOR.

She took a bath and climbed into bed to enjoy the exploits of Emma Hamilton. Suddenly, she remembered the letter for Dottie that she had stuffed into her reticule the previous evening. Alex got out of bed, found her bag, and extracted the torn envelope. It was addressed to Lady Longford and came from Coutts Bank. Alex, consumed by curiosity, was tempted to read the letter. Guilt at such a despicable act stayed her hand . . . for about thirty seconds.

Alex couldn’t quite make out the signature, but it looked suspiciously like
Thomas Coutts
. She let the letter slip from her fingers, totally confused. Why on earth, with Dottie’s wealth, had she taken out a loan from Coutts Bank? In any case, wasn’t Barclays her bank? And if she had taken out a loan for some eccentric, whimsical reason, why hadn’t she paid the interest due? Alex ran her fingers through her curls, absently noticing that her hair was no longer short.
I must have a serious talk with her in the morning
. She picked up the book, and soon all thoughts that tried to intrude were banished as she lost herself in the story.

When Alex awoke the next morning, her first thoughts were of Champagne Charlie’s Vaulting Academy. Her subsequent thoughts were of Emma, who had become Horatio Nelson’s mistress. Then she remembered the dunning letter from Coutts Bank. She slipped a chamber robe over her night rail and tapped on Dottie’s door. She found her grandmother in bed, enjoying her morning chocolate. “Was the gallivanting good?” she asked, tentatively.

“Relentlessly! After the usual regimental piss-up, we engaged in mindless pranks like sticking our arses out the window.”

“Dottie, please be serious. I am in a serious mood.”

“Ah, I cannot be serious after the hilarity Lady Spencer and I enjoyed last night. We were invited to play mah-jongg at Melbourne House. When we arrived we realized Liz Melbourne was showing off the new chinoi serie
décor
. It is in such execrable taste that it will make the Prince of Wales feel perfectly at home. My face almost cracked from trying to hide my amusement, and the mah-jongg tiles rattled merrily in my hand as I strove to keep my laughter silent. The conversation was an orgy of pejorative blather; there was enough hypocrisy in the air to choke a rhinoceros!”

“I’m so glad you enjoyed yourself.” Alex handed her the letter. “This was among the mail I delivered to Rupert the other night. He opened it by mistake, then gave it back to me.”

When Dottie read the letter, she did not even raise an eyebrow. “Darling, perhaps we
should
attend the Hardings’ dinner. Wouldn’t it be absolutely divine if we both wore puce?”

“It would be more divine if you could stay on the subject. What’s all this loan nonsense about?”

“You’ve put your finger on it exactly, Alexandra. It is a jest. Thomas Coutts is a dear old friend of mine. Once offered me
carte blanche
. . . must be in his second childhood!”

Alexandra wanted to believe her, but some intuition told her to probe deeper. “It’s not a jest, Dottie. It is a demand for money, and if the money is not forthcoming, it threatens legal action.”

“Tush, darling! You mustn’t fret about such things. I’ll take care of the matter in a trice.”

“Dottie, I know that you are older and wiser than I, but I’m no longer a child. Please talk to me, woman to woman.”

Alex saw a speculative look come into Dottie’s eyes, as if she were assessing her granddaughter. The look changed to one of acceptance, then complete capitulation. “You would be much happier not knowing, darling. But if you are the young woman I believe you to be, the truth will not destroy you. I only hope it won’t make you feel as desperate as I do sometimes.”

Alex touched Dottie’s liver-spotted hand. “Tell me.”

“My wealth is a myth, a mirage. It was true once upon a time, but it slowly evaporated into the mists of time. Your grandfather drank and gambled away his fortune. To his credit, he set aside a sizable dowry for your mother, but the untitled lout she married followed in her father’s footsteps. When the money was gone, he left her with two children, and to solve her problem, she ran off with another untitled lout. Fortunately, she left you behind.”

“Fortunately?” Alex asked softly.

“Most fortunately. She left behind the real treasure—one of purest gold. Oh, death and damnation, I’ve sunk to being maudlin! Russell left me Longford Manor, and when the well dried up at Barclays Bank, the furnishings, the paintings, and finally the servants slowly evaporated. Your suggestion that we come to London bought us time. I closed up the manor and left it with trustworthy caretakers. I took out the loan with Coutts to help Rupert secure a rich wife, and to set aside a small dowry of a thousand pounds for you, darling, which I will not touch on any account.”

Alexandra felt as stunned as a bird flown into a stone wall. Then her thoughts winged back to the signs that should have told her Dottie’s actions were more frugal than eccentric! “The solution to our money problems is staring us in the face. If you sold this town house, it would bring a very good price, certainly enough to safeguard Longford Manor. This London house is a luxury we must manage without.”

Dottie’s bark of laughter was sharp. “Ah, darling, if only it were that simple. Lord Staines owns this town house. He pays the servants’ wages, even pays the food and wine accounts. It’s a well-kept secret; Neville is generous enough to allow people to believe it belongs to me.” Dottie heaved a sigh. “Well, at least Rupert’s money problems are solved.”

Alexandra’s eyes widened. “Rupert married Olivia for her money. Of course! That answers so many puzzling questions. How naive I was to think he married her for love.” She sat down on the bed as a horrendous thought struck her.
I offered to marry Nick Hatton so that he could share my fortune! Good God, how utterly humiliating if he had accepted me!
His rejection still stung.
How very fortunate that he was not attracted to me!

“Love, Alexandra, is a bigger myth than my wealth. I’ve attempted to instill that since the day you came to live with me. I imagined I was in love with Russell Longford, your mother imagined she was in love with Johnny Sheffield, and look where it got us both. Men don’t fall in love, darling; they marry for expedience, then take their pleasures where they find them. A woman, if she has any intelligence, will do the same. And I do credit you with intelligence, Alexandra.”

“That’s the reason you made me promise to marry Christopher Hatton. It’s not just the title; it’s the money and security.”

“Exactly! Thank God you understand. But you must keep this secret as sacred as I have. In Society, money is everything. The
ton
will fall on us like a pack of hounds and rend us apart like foxes, if they discover we are not wealthy.”

Nick said the same thing when I was the only one who would sit with him!
She heard his words clearly:
As well as tenderhearted, you are endearingly naive. The worthy matrons of the ton are not snubbing me because I shot my father; I am being ostracized because I now have no part of the Hatton wealth.

Alex gathered her thoughts to focus on the problem at hand. “We must pay the interest on this loan. I have thirty guineas I won at cards, and I have expectations of a little more with my latest lampoon. Did you win anything at mah-jongg?”

“A couple of pounds. I shall take it round to Coutts to shut them up. We shall manage somehow, darling.”

“I suppose you pledged your precious jewels for this loan.”

“Jewels, my bum! I had to sell those long ago. I pledged Longford Manor; what else did I have?”

Alexandra’s heart plummeted.
Judas Iscariot, Dottie! You’re not just eccentric, you’re raving mad!

Dressed again as Alex Sheffield, she delivered the lampoon to the newspaper. When she was paid only five shillings for it, her despair deepened. On the way back to Berkeley Square, it dawned on her that she would never be able to earn enough to get Dottie out of debt. The amount of money she earned from scribbling wouldn’t even feed them, let alone keep a manor like Longford from being devoured by the wolves. Circumstances had left Alex homeless when she was a child, and the specter of it happening again frightened her. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t even asked Dottie how much she had borrowed, nor the interest rate she was being charged.

When she got home, she ran up to Dottie’s room but found that the bird had flown. She tried to control the rising panic within. She glanced up at the portrait of her grandmother and murmured, “What have you done?” The naked redhead gazed back at her with an enigmatic smile, and Dottie’s words from the past floated back to her:
A little sin in the soul makes a woman irresistible.
Alex realized that this painting was displayed above the fireplace because it belonged to Neville Staines.

Back in her own chamber, Alex rifled through the pages of the book about Emma Hamilton until she found the chapters she was looking for. As she reread them, the glimmer of an idea began to form in the back of her mind. She put down the book and stripped off her clothes, then she stood in front of the mirror and assessed her naked form with critical eyes. What she planned would take more reckless daring than anything she had ever contemplated in her life. She knew it would entail bundling up her morals and firmly casting them aside.