A House East of Regent Street Read online

  His favorite chophouse was just on the next street. Beef and beer were just what he needed, he thought, to keep up his stamina. Though in truth, it wasn’t only stamina she appeared to crave from him. Who would have thought that he’d be able to please her some of those other ways? Astonishing to find himself imagining new ways he might touch her, wring cries and sighs and (then, afterward) sleepy, satisfied smiles from her.

  Nice to have such a woman in his life – and remarkably easy to get accustomed to. Well, in a few years he’d be able to afford a full-time mistress – not her, of course, but someone almost as good. For the next bit, though, he’d have to content himself with getting a wife, making decent, respectful love to her, producing a brood of children to inherit the fortune he was amassing, the solid investments and properties. As always, the rows and columns lined up neatly in his mind: not enough funds to allow him to keep a woman on the side right now, but he’d say one thing for Cléo – she’d certainly given him an idea of the sort of woman to look for when that day came.

  Still, why think of that day at all, when today was a perfectly good – even a splendid – day in itself? The ledger pages he’d been imagining dissolved from his inner vision. Why not simply marvel at the changing light bouncing off shop windows as he strode past, the dramatic clouds fleeting by in the sharp brisk air? His blood hummed in anticipation of the afternoon’s encounter, his only worry (but mostly he’d kept it at bay) being whether he’d really let her slip off his drawers.

  She’d awakened early, done her marketing, and brought a load of washing to the laundress. A hen was stewing on top of the range; she’d check on it as soon as she finished totaling the last column of figures she’d drawn up.

  Muffled in an eiderdown, Philippe was reading Lord Byron by the fire. Poor darling, she thought, his body didn’t retain heat well, and today the air had an edge to it. The year had passed the equinox; it was unmistakably autumn now, even with the uncertain sunlight making a garish show of itself through the back parlor window, illuminating her calculations. The weather was going to change.

  But the numbers, in any case, were reassuringly solid. With luck, the new business would succeed. It would be a difficult undertaking, but possible nonetheless.

  Of course, she wouldn’t be the sort of generous madam a girl preferred to work for. “Stingy old bawd,” she imagined some fresh young eighteen-year-old muttering under her breath. But after all, hadn’t she muttered similar things herself once? Similar and worse.

  Well, too bad for them. Make no mistake about it, she told herself: any girl who worked for her would learn to keep her room nice. And not to expect the house to supply bonbons or other luxuries. She paused, reconsidered. No, a desirable girl would demand a treat once in a while. There would have to be nice things, little presents for birthdays and Christmas anyway. But nothing more; they’d have to depend on their gentlemen for candied violets or Pears Soap.

  She changed a few figures, frowned at the higher totals, and shrugged her shoulders. A little worse, but at least the calculations were honest. Better to know now rather than be surprised later.

  Still, the general plan was good; all in all, it was a neat piece of budgeting. She’d allowed a reasonable amount for medical care, for example – damned if she’d be one of those madams who were too delicate (or too lazy) to look out for the girls’ health. Her girls (once she had them) would be able to come to her, consult with her about missed periods, bad discharges, strange itches and irksome rashes. There would be sponges and all the most advanced potions to douche with. And lots of information about how it all worked.

  Sympathy, shared information, and a sharp eye for disease were good investments. Just so long as no one expected her to care about the occasional broken heart.

  She sighed. Well, it was the way of the world, wasn’t it? You took care of others when you could, but you put yourself first.

  What was important was her future – and Philippe’s, of course. During the hard times one looked out for oneself. And one was selfish and strong-minded about it. Just look at Jack Merion.

  Look at him indeed – without his clothes, if possible.

  And in a real bed.

  Astonishing, humiliating, and almost wonderful, how much she’d loved having him in a real bed. Staircases and settees were all very well in their way, she supposed, and men seemed to find them proof of a certain impetuosity, but when a woman reached a certain age…

  A beam of sunlight shone from behind a cloud, slanting across her writing table and blurring her calculations. She pushed the papers away, rather more abruptly than she’d intended. Startled by her sudden gesture, her companion looked up from his reading. She turned to him, pouting so as to create the effect of comic befuddlement. Or so she hoped.

  “Well, it’s hard work, all these numbers,” she murmured. A weak excuse; she’d had very little education, but Philippe knew she could handle a column of figures. Still, she had to blame her emotional volatility on something. Until Philippe’s last bout of illness, computing their expenses had been his responsibility.

  He nodded. “You’re very good, mignonne, to take it on. Perhaps tonight I’ll be able to go over it.”

  If she’d made him feel guilty, he wouldn’t burden her with the knowledge.

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  The clock on the mantle struck eleven.

  The really hard work, she thought, would be getting through the next four hours.

  She was right. After that it was easy.

  For when three o’clock did finally come around, Jack had only to take one look at her, sprawled carelessly upon the big Elastic Bed in a brief bright dressing gown – red Chinese silk this time – her eyes shining, legs spread open…

  “Put down the cigarette,” he growled. And she had not the slightest difficulty getting him to part with his drawers.

  “You distracted me,” he told her afterwards. “You astonished me, the way you looked in that red thing you had on, with your black, black hair, you know, in the middle of this yellow room.”

  She hadn’t closed the curtains. The room was flooded with rosy golden late afternoon light.

  Her head rested in the space below his collarbone. She kissed his chest and stroked a finger down toward his belly.

  “Thanks, luv,” she said. “Glad you liked the red peignoir. It’s a bit on the artistic side, I expect.”

  “But then,” her finger was making its slow way downward, “you created quite a distraction yourself, you know, with that big stiff cock you had on you. Right inspiring, it was; I could hardly spare the time to look at your battle scars.”

  He laughed, clearly pleased by the word “inspiring” but still a bit anxious.

  “Though of course,” she continued, “you’re right that the scars aren’t very pretty.” She could feel his sharp intake of breath. “But they’re really not as bad as you led me to fear.”

  His sigh of relief was more intense still.

  “Truly,” she said.

  He relaxed against the pillows.

  She touched a smooth and rather nasty bright pink patch of skin on his right thigh, where he’d been burned in the pitch of battle. “It doesn’t hurt when I touch it, does it?”

  He shook his head. “The nerves are dead.”

  “So I can’t comfort you there, much as I’d like to.”

  She leaned over to kiss the battered flesh, and then to nuzzle his cock, now spent and docile between his legs. “Still, the nerves are quite alive here, aren’t they?”

  “Quite.” He shivered.

  “But all in all, you’re not as shy about showing yourself to me as you thought you might be, I take it?”

  “No, I’m not. Thank you. I thought you might faint or scream, you see. Well, perhaps I’ve been exaggerating how bad it looks, but…”

  He stopped, suddenly unsure of what he wanted to say, and drew a long breath.

  “Come here,” he said, pulling her back into his arms. “Of course, I don�
��t know if I can promise quite so much inspiration this time.”

  She giggled and mussed his hair. “You’ll be all right, I reckon. And as for inspiration…” She let the lascivious curl of her lip finish the sentence for her, and he laughed too.

  “I want you on top of me this time,” he said. “Yes, that’s right. So I can watch you when, you know…”

  He’d come to understand that some of the ways she smiled were merely tricks of her trade, a repertoire of pleased and excited facial expressions, each donned in turn for a customer’s entertainment and enjoyment. But he’d quickly learned the difference between these and the real ways she had of evidencing her gratification. The way her back would arch, her nipples pucker, her blue eyes turn black and almost opaque, like an opium eater’s. Not to speak of how her cunt would open and soften to him, the better to grasp and cradle him when he’d gone deep within her. He’d begun to think that in truth their lovemaking was quite a bit nicer after a day’s first go-round, when he was no longer so frenzied, so absorbed in his own arousal.

  When he was able to make new discoveries. For it seemed there was an infinity to know about her. Places and ways she loved to be touched, sometimes softly, but sometimes not so softly; there were pinches and bites, he’d found, squeezes and tiny slaps that would delight her. Sometimes, making love to her wasn’t a soft business at all.

  Making love? Could one say one made love to a prostitute?

  Well, no matter about the words. Sad, though, that there were only two more days of it to go. Less time ahead of them than the time that had gone before.

  Rather like their lives.

  But she was staring at him curiously – and no wonder, he chided himself, the way his mind had strayed from the business at hand.

  Not that he’d ceased his energetic plowing. But there was no doubt that he’d gotten lost in his thoughts – and it must have been pretty obvious.

  He smiled his apologies, putting out his arms to draw her closer to him. Slippery, beaded with sweat, her heavy breasts tumbled over his chest. Her mouth met his in a teasing, biting kiss as he caressed her flanks, her bum and thighs.

  She moaned, paused for an instant.

  Had she climaxed, he wondered?

  No. Not now. Not yet.

  For here she was, still tight and warm around him as she levered herself back onto her haunches, smiling down at him in clear and evident delight to have recaptured his attention so totally. Tremulous, giddy with power, she lifted her arms, putting her hands behind her neck to give him a better view of her. For he had said he’d wanted to watch her come, hadn’t he?

  Well then, her smile said, have a good look.

  And so he did.

  If I reach out to touch the tip of her breast, he thought, she’ll explode in my hand.

  And so he didn’t. Clenching his fists, thrusting his hips even harder, he stared up at her from the pillows, delighted to share her moment of pleasure, pride, and vanity, and thrilled to help her make the moment last. Spectacular, that fleeting instant when a beautiful woman knew, absolutely and exactly, how beautiful she was.

  But now it was clear that she couldn’t hold back any longer. Gasping, trembling, she tucked back her shoulders, thrust out her breasts; she was all one sinuous line now, from curve of neck to the hot, tight places inside her. Her face, neck, and breasts flushed bright pink. He heard the low growl in her throat.

  Heard her – for he couldn’t see her any longer. Now he could only feel the weight of her body collapsed against his, the soft, shivering, almost sobbing laugh in her throat and against his chest.

  And all he could see now was the warm dark night, the unearthly constellations of his own soaring climax.

  “I brought a bottle of claret,” he said a bit later. “I could open it if you’d like.”

  “Ummm.” She smiled lazily. “And I brought us some bread and cheese.”

  They bustled about, producing their treasures and then arranging themselves against the pillows, treats ready at hand. He’d remembered to bring a corkscrew, but hadn’t thought how they’d actually drink the wine. For of course there were no glasses in the room.

  “Stupid of me,” he said, “not to bring some along.”

  “I could go downstairs to the kitchen,” she offered.

  “No matter, we’ll drink it from the bottle.”

  “Passing it back and forth” – she smiled here – “like a pair of mudlarks in the gutter.”

  He took a healthy swig and passed it to her.

  As though he’d challenged her, she tried to take as large a swallow as he had. The wine dribbled down her chin. “Here,” he said, and licked it up. Whereupon she licked back – at his cheeks, chin, and neck as well – though he hadn’t spilled a drop on himself.

  And as difficult as it had been to talk to her in the kitchen yesterday, that’s how easy it was today. Perhaps because they weren’t staring at each other across a table – he liked sitting next to her, against the pillows; there was something companionable about passing a bottle back and forth.

  Whatever it was, he heard himself telling her things he hadn’t told anyone, things he hadn’t even quite known he needed to tell.

  A little about his childhood at first, the village where the men were too stupid not to go down into the colliery. And where lots of them died, too, but he’d be damned if he would.

  But mostly – perhaps because she’d seen his scars – he discovered that he wanted to explain a thing or two about that much-vaunted heroism of his. Enlighten her, so to speak, about his so-called marks of honor.

  “It was never my intention to go to war. When I was young I was in the merchant force, and did some smuggling too – well, that’s really where I made my money…

  “We were pressed into the damn Royal Navy, me and Eddy, a few years ago, one night when we were out carousing in Wapping. I’d rather be on a ship that actually ships something – hauling coal, well, at least it keeps people warm, those who can afford it anyway.

  “No reason to join up to fight the Frenchies, not of my own free will. To my mind it was bloody all right, them deciding they didn’t need a king or lords anymore. I might’ve been more inclined to risk my neck for England, if the lord that owned the colliery had risked a few guineas, put ’em to shoring up the tunnel down to the mine.”

  He shrugged. “Not what ‘a grateful nation’ wants to hear from one of its heroes, I expect.”

  “But you did risk your neck. You rescued Viscount Crowden, after all.”

  Which caught him up short. For a minute anyway.

  “I rescued more men than him. What else could I do, let them die? Nobody cared, though, that I saved some ordinary seamen, and what did it matter? I couldn’t save old Eddy.”

  But he’d already told her too much. He’d almost told her that he’d thought of Eddy as a sort of dad, his own having died when the mine tunnel collapsed. And, then, given half a chance, he might have rattled on about his dad being half-dead for years before that, the cold silence in the house after Mam and the baby died, and what was eight-year-old Jack supposed to do about that, damned if he knew even now… Well, at least he’d managed to salvage a bit of his self-respect by keeping quiet about all that.

  She lit a cigarette for each of them, from the lamp at the side of the bed. The white wisps of smoke drifted about the darkening room.

  “I expect you’re from London,” he said finally.

  “The rookery in the parish of St. Giles.”

  Quite the vilest quarter of the city. He turned to stare at her, with increased respect, for her having survived it.

  She laughed. “Good of you not to jump out of bed in horror. Or check the sheets for some antiquated lice. I ran away when I was very young. Became a char in this very part of town.”

  Difficult to imagine her as one of the pale, pinched little girls one saw everywhere, hauling big bundles of washing and pails of water, wielding mops and brooms, scrubbing floors. Or perhaps not so difficult. Something
about the lift of her chin, the wariness of her gaze. He leaned forward, to look at her.

  She turned her head away. “But in time I found an easier way to support myself, as you see.”

  “Yes, well, and good for you, too.”

  “The madam liked to advertise me as a sad case of child molestation – ‘ruined by a vile and villainous stepfather,’ that sort of twaddle. As though I’d ever even had a stepfather, or any sort of man staying with my mum longer than a night at a time. But the gentlemen loved it. I had to wear pinafores, sing sentimental ditties in the parlor until I was almost twenty, when I finally rebelled against it. I wanted a decent corset, like the rest of the girls. And I hated having to hide my cigarettes.”

  He’d seen the advertisements the fancy brothels printed up. Crowden had picked up a few that had circulated at his club. “How did they advertise you after that?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “As the girl whose mouth could accommodate anybody.”

  “Not very poetical of them.”

  “True enough, though. Well, you’re proof, after all.”

  Uncomfortable, that. Not that he didn’t enjoy the compliment. But he didn’t like thinking of all the men who’d preceded him. Especially the one who actually mattered to her.

  But he’d agreed to leave Soulard out of this.

  He took a long swig from the wine bottle, passing her the little that was left in it.

  “It’s an excellent claret,” she told him.

  “I think so too,” he said. “Well, we’ve both come pretty far, I expect, even to be able to tell a claret from a Madeira.”