A House East of Regent Street Read online

  “P-perhaps,” she whispered. “I don’t know. My corset’s awfully tight, perhaps…”

  “I’m putting you to bed,” he told her.

  Easiest simply to pick her up, carry her into the yellow room, and deposit her on the bed. Later, of course, he’d marvel that he’d managed all that without his cane to lean on, but right then, the only thing in his mind was to get her off her feet – to pull off her boots, loosen her corset. Hell, take it off entirely; luckily, the strings were tied in a bow that was easy to undo. Take off her stockings too, and tuck her under the covers. She’d told him, before they started, that there was a flask of water in the red room. He fetched it now, held it to her lips.

  Her eyes were dark, defeated. He kissed the ashy skin beneath them, the soft flesh below her chin.

  He got into bed with her, pulled the coverlet over them both.

  Hugging her to him, he tried to restore some warmth and vivacity to her trembling body.

  Her voice came in a hoarse whisper. “I am so sorry. I don’t know what happened to me. What must you think?”

  “I don’t think anything. You laced yourself too tightly, that’s all. Tried too hard to give me an adventure. Exhausted yourself, I expect. For a while, though, it was astonishing. You were astonishing.”

  “I lost control. For a moment I thought I was going to faint. What would have happened to us, Mr. Merion, if I’d fainted while you were chained up like that?”

  “I would have had to wait until you revived. Awkward, standing about like that, but hardly life-threatening. And then I would have yelled out the escape word, just as you told me to do, and you would have freed me, just as you did. Don’t worry. We’re both all right.”

  She started to say something. He held her tighter.

  “And don’t call me Mr. Merion. Jack’s my name. Call me Jack.”

  “You’re being very good. But I failed. I didn’t keep my end of our bargain.”

  “It wasn’t a just bargain I imposed upon you.”

  She didn’t say anything in response.

  It was up to him, he expected, to free her from the obligation, propose a rent Soulard could afford, sign the papers and wish them… What had he said, last Monday night? Ah yes, he’d pompously and sanctimoniously told her he’d wish them all due prosperity of the property.

  And never see her again.

  “It was unjust,” he repeated, “unkind, and certainly ungentlemanly, but then, I never pretended to be a gentleman, did I?

  “And so I shall hold you to the agreement. You’ve pleased me very well these past four days. Don’t protest – yes, even today, for all its strangeness. Today was…”

  The sound of falling rain saved him from having to find a word to describe what had gone on today.

  “Has the rain just started up?” he asked.

  “No, it’s been falling for some time.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “It began very lightly,” she told him. “But I believe it will be quite…” She laughed. “Silly of me, to tell a sailor when to expect a storm. As silly as leaving the window open.”

  Wonderful to hear her laugh.

  Wonderful simply to be in the same bed, under the same coverlet, the same good, strong roof.

  “I’m glad you left it open,” he said. “I like how the city smells when the weather’s stormy.”

  They lay quietly, listening to salvos of rain beating down across roofs and eaves. Together, they breathed the smells of wet paving stones and of drenched leaves blown from their branches.

  They held each other beneath the covers.

  He could feel the marks in her flesh, impressions the too-tight corset had left on her flanks and lower back. He’d noticed them earlier, when he’d unlaced her. He lifted the coverlet, to look at her. To kiss the angry red ridges. To use his lips and fingers and all his senses to try to understand who she was – in the small ways available to him, by deciphering the marks her life had left upon her.

  “I like a naked woman in my bed.” His whisper was barely audible above the rain, the winds and the shuddering of the trees.

  They made slow silent love, in the warm yellow room.

  The winds had calmed somewhat but the rain was still falling when they finally wrested themselves apart.

  She dressed herself quickly.

  “Don’t go,” he pleaded. “Stay the night. You’ll catch your death in all that wet.”

  Lord Crowden had invited him to a late supper. Well, damn Lord Crowden then.

  “I can’t stay,” she told him. “Philippe would be anxious. And as for getting home, there’s a cab waiting downstairs. At least I hope there is. The driver knows to wait for me, should I be a bit detained.”

  “A cab. Yes, of course. I haven’t been thinking how you get yourself home these dark early evenings. Well, you’ve run up quite a few additional expenses in the course of this week, haven’t you? We can settle them up…”

  She smiled. “You keep excellent accounts, Jack.”

  He supposed he did.

  It was only after she’d gone, and as he was dressing for his supper with Lord Crowden, that he realized they hadn’t decided upon a room in which to meet tomorrow.

  Crowden was in one of his peevish tempers tonight. Perhaps due to the effect of the filthy weather on a new pair of breeches. Or because he’d spent the greater part of the afternoon being hauled over the coals by his father’s man of business – such a bore, he grumbled, and for absolutely the most trifling set of debts. As if a gentleman of spirit needed to concern himself with such matters.

  “Though,” he said now, nodding to the servant to refill his and Jack’s glasses, “it appears that you have taken quite brilliantly to such matters.” His eyes narrowed. “Or so our solicitor informs me. Wonderful, Jack, the head you have for money.”

  News traveled quickly through London’s commercial circles. The building, the shares in the wool business: the week’s investments had evidently met with the family solicitor’s approval.

  Jack nodded dutifully, painfully aware that Crowden wasn’t finding him nearly so much fun to take around as when he’d been charmingly ignorant of which fork or glass to pick up. And when he’d come to supper well supplied with a sailor’s ribald anecdotes, more humorous and adventurous in the telling than it had been in the living.

  Tonight, in fact, as his lordship was making increasingly clear, Jack was no fun at all, having so little to say about buying the building that had been a brothel, and offering only a weak smile when Crowden, in high hilarity, proposed that Jack go into the brothel business himself.

  “If I weren’t temporarily financially embarrassed, we could do it together, take the profits out in trade, what?” He took a pinch of snuff and proffered the chased silver box.

  “Thank you, my lord, no snuff.”

  Permissible to refuse the snuff. But Crowden’s condescending jibes were not to be challenged. Best to continue wooden, polite, and noncommittal, while the viscount prattled on, enthralled by his fancy of “taking it out in trade” – which was, after all a fancy that Jack had to admit he’d also entertained, before dismissing it as an insult – to himself, and to… well, to everything that had gone on this past week.

  Too bad he couldn’t tell his lordship any of that. Accompanied by a swift kick to the seat of those new breeches.

  But he couldn’t. And anyway, there was no need. For the truth was simpler, if rather bleaker.

  He didn’t want her that way.

  Five days and five days only were all that he’d contracted for. And tomorrow, the last day left to him, was all he wanted. Before embarking on the steady, responsible, prosperous life course he’d so proudly, so carefully and joylessly charted for himself.

  Saturday, and the Days Following…

  But where was she? He’d arrived early today, but by now – he checked his watch – yes, it was past three. Only a minute and a half past, but unquestionably past the hour. He owned a very good watch and he
kept it precisely set. The fact was that she was late.

  He paced the entrance hall.

  At ten past, he began to grow angry.

  When bells chimed half three, he became alarmed.

  Five minutes later he forced himself to think clearly.

  He’d go to the property office, find Wilson if need be, see if they had an address for Soulard. He assured himself that it was very likely – yes, of course there would be an address, or at least some general sense of where they lived.

  Find her. Perhaps she was in trouble. Perhaps the Frenchman’s health…

  For the first time, he considered that Soulard might not be well at all. And that she’d spent the past afternoons here in this house, rather than at home with her companion. According to their bargain, she’d had to. She hadn’t had any choice in the matter.

  Selfish. Even cruel, he thought. And he’d do it again if he could.

  Cane in hand and hat on his head, he was on his way to the door when he heard it rattling from the outside.

  He felt vast relief. Followed by fury. How dared she cause him such anxiety? A rap, now, on the brass knocker – had she lost her key? He opened the door.

  The tall French valet informed him that Monsieur Soulard, Prince d’Illiers, had died in his sleep. Sometime around dawn, they thought.

  Madame hadn’t sent any other message. No, none at all.

  The property office did have an address. He sent a letter of sympathy. Well, what else could he do? Anyway, she knew where to find him.

  And indeed, he arrived at the house at precisely three the next day. He didn’t expect to see her, but his own attendance nonetheless made him feel as though he was keeping faith. They had an agreement. Was he deceiving himself, or did they have something more than an agreement?

  He wandered up and down stairs and through the empty rooms. The kitchen was scrubbed, the pots all hanging from their hooks; the only reminder of their feast was a coil of orange rind on the deal table, shedding a faint sweetness as it dried.

  I was a char, in this very neighborhood.

  In the front parlor, the poor little settee lay supine under its holland cover. He was glad they’d broken it; if he could do it again, he’d break a few more pieces of furniture, create further havoc as a record of what had gone on here.

  Touch me. Touch me a little before you fuck me.

  He paced the room, breathing the stale residue of cigarette smoke.

  The next day he arrived at noon. And earlier still, the following day. In case she came looking for him. He wanted… well, he really didn’t know what he wanted.

  He stopped reading the newspapers. Notes, invitations, and inquiries piled up unread in the front hall of his lodgings. His life had narrowed to this single daily errand. To come here. To wait.

  It hadn’t been so bad, she thought, while she’d been occupied with the funeral – the arrangements, and then the thing itself; it was gratifying how many of their friends, and even some neighbors, came to pay their respects. They’d had a small, affectionate circle, mostly French. Some, émigré nobles like Philippe, had chosen to remain in England even after the war ended and the monarchy was restored. Others were from Huguenot families – their great-grandparents had immigrated, establishing homes and businesses in Soho more than a century before. Some of the women had started out like her – don’t worry, her friend Christine had told her, you won’t go unprotected, we’ll make up a list of likely gentlemen, we’ll drink coffee and we’ll talk. Next week, chérie, when you’re up to it.

  She wasn’t worried.

  She was stunned rather, aghast and even a bit amused by the spectacle of her own foolishness. All that plotting and planning, the columns of figures, the care she’d taken to prepare for every eventuality – except this one, the most likely one, the one that had been staring her in the face all the time. She hadn’t seen it coming. Her mind had simply refused to countenance the possibility. And then, those few last days – well, during those days with Jack Merion, she hadn’t considered anything except her secret, and her guilty and probably futile attempts to hide it.

  Had Philippe known he was dying?

  Had he guessed the other thing as well?

  All too likely, on both counts. He’d been a clever and an honest man. And he’d been so in love with her that he’d contented himself with her friendship, her admiration, and the pleasure she took in his company, both in and out of bed.

  Nothing sharpens the senses like inequity in love. It’s a hard thing, she thought, when the person less loved possesses the finer sensibility. Philippe had undoubtedly known what she’d been feeling these past few days. Probably he’d been able to smell the happiness still clinging to her body, even when she’d bathed herself – scrubbed herself raw – after returning from Soho Square.

  How alone he must have felt, in his silent, tactful intimations.

  How selfish she’d been, in her stupid, guilty happiness. And given the chance, she’d do it again.

  She’d explain the whole thing to Christine and Bernadette, tomorrow, over very strong coffee. Her woman friends would understand, she thought.

  Tomorrow, Jack told himself, he’d give up this hopeless vigil. Tomorrow he’d pay Evelina a visit, see if he could explain away the week’s inattention. He supposed another attack of malaria would serve well enough.

  Tomorrow he’d also see about subdividing the house and putting it up for rent. Tomorrow he’d get everything shipshape and back on course.

  Tomorrow. Or next week for certain.

  It had felt good to be out walking, Cléo thought, as she reached the door of the house she’d shared with Philippe. And the owner of the pastry shop had been most sympathetic, offering his condolences on the prince’s death and not even charging her for the petits fours she’d be bringing with her on her visit to Christine later that afternoon.

  “But leave the cake box on the table here,” she told Georges when he took her cloak, “as I’ll be going out again in an hour.”

  “Yes, Madame.” The manservant bowed, and she suppressed a sigh. He’d always rather despised her for not loving his master more totally, and she could hardly blame him. Still, at least his future was no problem. He’d easily find employment in some great house in Mayfair. Philippe had probably already written him a reference.

  But why, after putting away her cloak, had he come back to the front parlor?

  “Madame?”

  Perhaps he wanted to give notice today.

  “Yes, of course, Georges.” She motioned for him to sit beside her on a cane-backed settee. He hesitated for a moment; to her knowledge he’d never sat down in the presence of an employer before. She congratulated herself for having chosen a stiff, straight-backed piece of furniture. He couldn’t have managed anything more comfortable.

  He allowed himself a small grimace – one corner of his mouth only – before seating himself. The grimace indicated mild appreciation and not a little surprise, at her grasp of the niceties of the situation. He hadn’t expected so much, she thought, from a girl who still occasionally forgot her table manners.

  “All right, Georges. What did you want to tell me?”

  “Two or three things, Madame, that Monsieur had said. He was going to write a note, but he hadn’t quite found the words. He wanted me to listen, while he worked out his thoughts. But it tired him. He put off writing the note, and, in the end, he didn’t get the opportunity to write it. Still, I’ve decided you should know what he was thinking about.”

  She peered warily at him.

  “He was in some physical pain,” Georges continued, “though he was quite skilled at hiding it. He was very weak. It worried him, to think of leaving you alone.”

  She nodded. “He was very good.”

  His eyes told her not to interrupt. “Which is why Monsieur was grateful that you’d found someone to take care of you.”

  “I found someone?”

  “He seemed to think so, Madame.”

  “What el
se did he say, Georges?”

  The valet hesitated for a moment.

  “He said he’d always believed you were searching for someone you lost years ago. And that the man in question must be of the same type. Very English, Monsieur le Prince supposed he’d be, with that eager, naïve English look about him.”

  “Monsieur le Prince was always a bit too subtle for me, Georges. After all, I’m English, too.”

  “He understood that, Madame. He accepted that. He wanted to tell you that he took comfort from the fact that he wouldn’t be leaving you alone.”

  “Do you think he really was comforted, Georges?”

  “I think he tried very hard to be, Madame.”

  “Thank you for telling me this, Georges.”

  “Je vous en prie, Madame.”

  So Philippe had known. Not everything, of course, but as much as could reasonably be deduced.

  Odd that he’d been able to read her so accurately. Before she’d met him, the other girls in the house had considered her a sort of actress – a performer, able to turn herself, chameleonlike, into whatever a particular man might want on a particular day. It was where her exotic nickname came from. Cleopatra, the slutty Egyptian queen who gave her men a lot of variety. They’d called her Cleo, before Philippe had Frenchified it to Cléo.

  She’d always enjoyed her little acting turns, particularly in the red room, where you could draw upon the lessons life had taught you, to turn loss into lust or pain into power, but where it was you, at least for the duration of the performance, who kept all the power for yourself. She’d been glad Jack had asked for a taste of it. Not only would she give him a splendid time, but she’d leave him wanting more. And in truth, it had begun exceedingly well; she’d quite thrown herself into her role. Until she’d mouthed that bit about selling him to some lady, and she hadn’t been able to continue.

  Because in Jack’s case there was a lady – a rich young lady, no doubt, with a father who’d buy her anything she asked for.