Fair Cyprians of London Boxset: Books 1-5: Five passionate Victorian Romances

by Beverley Oakley

She could, perhaps, leave a note.

  But what if there was a delay and Miss Thistlethwaite was left waiting even five minutes longer than she need be.

  When she reached the black wrought-iron railings of the handsome, white-painted dwelling, Violet wasn’t sure whether to take the stairs down to the servants’ basement entrance or knock boldly on the front door.

  She swallowed nervously as the deferential nod of the butcher’s boy decided her. If he considered her good enough to enter by the front door, she was not going to join him on the journey below. She was dressed neither as a whore nor a servant. She’d be received by the butler; she was sure of it.

  Two minutes later, with that ordeal behind her, she waited in even more trepidation as the parlourmaid knocked on the drawing room door to announce her.

  And she was fully braced for Max’s surprise—or was it shock?—when she was admitted.

  What she wasn’t expecting, however, was to become the focus of not just Max, but an elderly gentleman and a plain but pleasant-faced young woman.

  “Forgive me the intrusion, but I am a friend of Miss Thistlethwaite,” she explained, before elaborating on the nature of her visit. “I couldn’t leave her alone, unattended, without seeking someone’s assistance, yet I have another important engagement I must meet.”

  She glanced at Max when she said this and saw the telltale clench of his jaw. He knew exactly what she meant, and she suddenly longed for him to stride across the room and take her in his arms before declaring to the gathering that he’d decided to make her his wife.

  In name, and in reality.

  Of course, it didn’t happen. However, he did thank her, and then announced to the man whom she was not surprised to learn was his grandfather, and to Miss Dulwich—whom she was certain was the infamous Mabel—that he’d accompany Miss Lilywhite to his aunt.

  “That was a clever way of garnering my attention,” he remarked when they were alone and walking briskly towards the park, though it seemed Max didn’t believe Violet was motivated by concern for his aunt until she told him she really did have to go.

  The furrows between his eyes deepened. “I thought this was a ploy for us to be together.” He sounded genuinely disappointed.

  Violet laughed as she pointed towards the gated park. “Go to your aunt, Max. She needs someone to help her back home, and I can assure you Madame Chambon would not think that a good enough excuse to keep me from earning her the diamonds and furs needed to add to her consequence.”

  Her tone was light, but the set to Max’s mouth was grim as he suddenly gripped her hands.

  “I care for you, Violet,” he muttered. “Is there nothing I can do to help you escape that dreadful woman’s clutches?”

  “You’re marrying me tomorrow.” Violet strove for lightness as she tossed back the thick brown ringlet that fell over her shoulder. “And you’re paying me well for it. Now, good night and send my good wishes to Miss Thistlethwaite for I should have been at Madame Chambon’s ten minutes ago.”

  Chapter 12

  Max was glad to find only the ladies when he returned to the townhouse for the old men had left for their club. It was, he decided, a good sign. If they’d suspected anything between Violet and himself, his grandfather would have had no compunction in grilling him on it in front of everyone.

  “Miss Lilywhite is very lovely, Max,” Mabel remarked with a sly look as he accepted the tea she poured him. “Where did you meet her?”

  “At a mutual friend’s establishment. She is a very modern young lady and believes a chaperone unnecessary since she works for her living.” It was easy to trot out the lines he had ready. Not so easy when Mabel asked him, “Are you very much in love with her?”

  He barely knew what to say, and Mabel laughed when he had to tip the tea from his saucer back into his teacup.

  “I hope you’re less clumsy as an escort,” Mabel said. “Miss Lilywhite looks as regal as a queen. I can’t believe she has not been snapped up already and must work for her living.”

  “My understanding is that her family hails from Middlesex. Ruislip, I believe.”

  Max sent a sharp look at his aunt. “She is estranged from them,” he said quickly, “and they will not be coming to the secret ceremony.”

  “Ceremony!” Mabel gasped. “Why Max, you sly thing! You’re going to elope? Goodness, your grandfather—”

  “Must not suspect,” he shot back.

  Mabel’s sudden blush and Aunt Euphemia’s evasive look prompted him to ask suspiciously, “They made no remark about my accompanying Miss Lilywhite part way home? I’d have made such an offer to any unaccompanied young lady; they must surely know that.” Nervously, he straightened his collar. “You won’t say anything, will you, Mabel?”

  “Of course not.” She bit her lip and nodded vigorously. “I’m sure everything will be fine, Max.”

  “At least I know Miss Lilywhite will not leave you at the altar, my dear boy.”

  “No, I don’t anticipate it.” He only realised that the sentiment might be misinterpreted by Mabel when his old friend said, “And I have done you the greatest service, Max, and will do everything in my power that you win the love match you deserve.”

  His aunt sighed. “If ever there was a young lady in love.” Her voice trailed off, and she dabbed her eyes.

  It was hard not to be affected by Aunt Euphemia’s emotion, which was touching, and Max had to admit it, curiously painful. But while he’d set out to please her, and it was gratifying to see her vicarious pleasure in helping facilitate a happiness she’d never experienced, Max felt a scoundrel for duping her.

  “Really, Aunt, I think Violet could have found herself a much better catch than me.” He was embarrassed. Not only was he cheating his aunt, but he was also cheating Violet. Yes, she’d agreed with the terms. But that was then.

  So much had changed.

  “What a splendid looking young woman.”

  Lord Granville accepted the tea Euphemia handed to him while she tried to keep her expression impassive before attempting to turn the topic. She was not quick enough.

  But suddenly, there was Mabel making things a great deal worse.

  “Did you see the way Max looked at her? He certainly never looked at me like that, Grandfather.” Mabel turned an appealing look towards the door as her grandfather entered the room. When Euphemia had been surprised by the unannounced arrival of the two elderly friends who’d had travelled down from the country together, she’d been right to fear the worst. Neighbours for more than fifty years, they had always been set upon a match between their respective grandchildren. She shifted in her seat, her expression combative. Mabel was docile so much of the time but when she dug in her heels, she was the most stubborn creature Euphemia had ever met. She both admired and abhorred this trait in the girl she’d known all her life. Sometimes Mabel was her own worst enemy.

  “It’s why I refused him,” Mabel went on in a self-righteous tone that would set up the bristles of the two elderly gentlemen, Euphemia was certain. “I believe that in 1878 it’s not unreasonable to desire a love match. I think of Max more like a brother than a potential husband.”

  If ever there was an occasion when Euphemia wished young Mabel was as discreet as she was usually in the presence of her elders, it was now.

  “Admiration is one thing. Choosing a suitable mate requires a great deal more than that.”

  It was Septimus who answered, and his look was not nearly as indulgent as it had been. His beetling grey eyebrows jutted over his bulbous pale-blue eyes as he turned towards his sister. “Tell me, Euphemia; what do you know of Miss Lilywhite?”

  Euphemia began to shake under the glare of his scrutiny, though she tried hard not to let her usual fear show. Septimus had an uncanny knack of ferreting out her weak spots, making her gabble all sorts of indiscretions through pure terror.

  She pressed her lips together. Not this time. No, she would not reveal anything that would jeopardise Max’s chance at happiness.
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br />   Unable to meet his eye, she said in a tone barely above a whisper, “It’s true she works for her living, but she is a good, honest young woman who has fallen on difficult times.” She forced herself to concentrate on her hands in her lap rather than his face. The hardness of his gaze would undo her; she knew. Her throat felt swollen as she tried to push out the words with a false lightness. “I don’t know that Max knows her at all.”

  “But isn’t she—?” Mabel put her hands to her lips before the words were out, causing Septimus to narrow his eyes as he swivelled his head in her direction.

  “Isn’t she what?”

  Now it was Mabel’s grandfather who was demanding filial obedience. “What do you know that you’re not telling us, Mabel?” He was like Septimus. Uncompromising. Demanding. A man who expected a dutiful granddaughter as Septimus expected a dutiful sister.

  And grandson.

  And that’s why it was so important that Euphemia not be the faulty cog that consigned Max’s hopes of happiness to cinders.

  “I’m sure I wasn’t going to say anything.” Mabel’s feigned innocence was even more jarring in the tense atmosphere. For Mabel knew not the first thing about lying, and it showed. “Max has said nothing, he’s only intimated…I mean, when he said he couldn’t marry me, it wasn’t because there was anyone else and certainly not Miss Lilywhite…”

  She was gabbling now, making things worse, just as Euphemia might have had she lost her nerve. Mabel knew it, and Euphemia knew she knew it, but the girl was unpractised and as terrified of her male guardian as Euphemia was of hers.

  “Euphemia.”

  Septimus’s tone was low and quiet, but it reverberated around the drawing room like a foghorn in the horrified stillness broken only by the rattle of Euphemia’s teacup against the saucer in her trembling hands.

  "Yes, Septimus." She could barely get the words out. She was cowering; she knew. And Mabel was looking on in horror as if Euphemia really was about to receive a lashing. Abject creature that she was. The self-loathing was like a living organism, slithering through her body, threatening to choke her.

  "Miss Lilywhite is a friend of yours, she says? An unusual type of friend for someone such as you, Sister. I wonder if perhaps you have helped facilitate an even more unusual friendship between my grandson and the young lady?" He waited. And when Euphemia didn't answer, her silence seemed to corroborate his apparent suspicions. With chilling import, he went on, "And I wonder what else you might have facilitated between the young lady if Max is suddenly so anxious to separate himself from our worthy Mabel, whom he was to have married only three short weeks ago."

  And now the moment was nearly upon her.

  Her marriage.

  Her sham marriage.

  Violet stared miserably at her veiled reflection, immune to the gasps of admiration from the girls who gathered round her in Madame Chambon’s reception room.

  Even Madame Chambon was suitably impressed.

  “The first bride I’ve ever despatched to anyone better than the butcher’s boy, my girl. You’ve done well even if it is a sham wedding.” She rubbed her hands together, and Violet imagined her doing the same thing in the solitude of her study as she ran gold coins through her fingers.

  It had been impossible to conceal the transaction, though initially, Violet had tried. However, Miss Thistlethwaite’s numerous requests for fittings and other requests to Miss Violet Lilywhite at 56 Albemarle St could not be kept secret for long.

  Madame got her cut on every transaction made by her girls, meaning the pecuniary rewards from the contract Violet had made were considerably diluted. It was true that Max had transferred funds directly into an account set up in her name, but Madame was not stupid. She’d calculated her due, even if she wasn’t aware of the exact amount Max had paid Violet.

  Which meant it was just as well Violet had Lord Bainbridge’s offer to fall back on when Max was out of her life.

  A thought that made her heart cleave and tears spring unbidden to her eyes.

  Foolish girl. She’d known love could never be her destiny the moment she’d thrown away her reputation. Well, the moment she’d presented herself at Madame Chambon’s. She just hadn’t expected to feel so much.

  “You’ll be the only one of us who ever takes away a wedding dress as your best memory of working here,” remarked Charity wistfully. “But perhaps you really will persuade Lord Belvedere to make an offer that occasions donning the beautiful creation. For real, I mean, when he sees how beautiful you look.”

  This brought both sighs and snickers from the other girls, but for Violet, it was only another reminder of how bleak her future really was. Lord Bainbridge, not Lord Belvedere, would keep her in the short term, and he was not a man for whom she had a particular liking. He was mercurial and viewed their relationship in terms of a transaction that was solely to his benefit. No doubt for as long as Violet was pleasing and kept her looks. Violet was, after all, only a whore.

  With a sigh, she turned back from the mirror while the girls who’d crowded around parted to let her make her way to the bed where she’d laid out her black cloak. Charity helped her into it and, carefully, she drew the hood over her veil and smoothed the concealing folds of her exquisite silk confection.

  “Are you ready, Charity?” she asked.

  “Are you ready, Violet?” asked one of the girls. “I don’t expect you back tonight. You look a proper princess ripe for kidnapping.”

  “You’d better come back as you’ve not accounted for all that you owe me,” Madame Chambon warned, putting her hand on Violet’s shoulder before offering her a rare compliment. “You look beautiful, Violet, and Lord Belvedere is a fool if he doesn’t want to see me and negotiate a settlement. But yes, I know the story. The foolish boy thinks he needs to sow his wild oats in Africa in a bid to untie himself from his grandfather’s apron strings. See if you can persuade him otherwise, Violet.”

  But Violet knew she could not. Regardless of how entranced Max might be with her, and consider her a vision from paradise tonight, he would be boarding a ship for Cape Town in a couple of days, and Violet knew there was nothing she, or anyone else, could do to persuade him otherwise.

  Sadly, though with beating heart nevertheless, she walked the short distance from the house to the hackney where it was waiting on the damp cobblestones, horses snorting and breath steaming in the cold and swirling fog.

  Yes, a common hackney cab for her sham marriage to a young lord with a heart full of kindness and a soul that dreamt of adventure.

  Sham marriage. What a detestable term, she thought as the jarvey helped first Violet, then Charity, into the sour-smelling interior.

  “Reckon I’m about to drive London’s most beautiful ladies to meet their hearts’ desires,” he remarked as he slammed the door and tightened his muffler.

  Which Violet thought was rather ironic and bittersweet under the circumstances.

  “Is your heart beating as painfully as mine?” Charity whispered after a few minutes of silence. “Our hearts’ desires,” she repeated with a sigh. “We could imagine it was so.”

  Violet heard the effort it took the girl not to cry and the hitch in her voice as she went on, “We could pretend, just for a few minutes, that we really were within reach of all we ever wanted. Couldn’t we?”

  In the dim, waxy yellow light, Charity looked so much younger than her years. She’d lived at Madame Chambon’s for more than eighteen months, but she’d known only the faithful love of one man. Until now, she’d been a symbol of hope and optimism, but with her future looking suddenly as bleak as Violet’s, the wistfulness in her voice was heartbreaking.

  Violet could endure but could Charity, who was about to be thrown to the wolves? Only the previous night, the detestable cousin of Charity’s young man had swept into the brothel demanding that he be pleasured by ‘Hugo’s fancy piece’. Violet didn’t know whether it was kindness on Madame’s part, or the consideration that Charity might give better value if she were
broken in by someone less vulgar and obviously drunk as Mr Algernon Black, but Charity had been given her reprieve. Tonight, she was accompanying Violet to say her meaningless vows. Another reprieve.

  But what about tomorrow?

  She clasped Charity’s hand and pretended, for what was the harm? “Lord Belvedere would be a catch, even if he were the butcher’s boy. He understands me, and he loves me, and tonight he’s marrying me, despite the opposition of his grandfather.” She forced a smile. “Doesn’t that prove how much he loves me? That he’d oppose even his grandfather and risk family opprobrium for the sake of true love?”

  “He does love you.” Charity’s voice was low and fierce. “And don’t you believe otherwise. I saw it in his eyes. That very first night. The way he looked at you wasn’t the way most men look at the girls at Madame’s.” She shook her head. “There was real admiration there. He thought you the most splendid creature to cross his orbit. And even if he isn’t really marrying you, he would if he could. If he were not Lord Granville’s grandson.”

  Violet laughed and leaned back against the squabs, releasing the girl’s hand to wipe an errant tear from the corner of her eye. “Darling Charity, you are the sweetest girl I know.” She looked fondly at her friend. “You have a good heart, and you deserve only the very best. I am beyond redemption but you…you are still within reach of your happy ever after. You heard the girls at breakfast gossiping that their gentlemen admirers said Hugo had been tricked? Well, doesn’t that bear investigation, for if it’s found to be true, then the villain will be unmasked in time for you and Hugo to be together before he leaves to run his uncle’s landholdings across the sea.” She felt suddenly very protective and very determined. “If I can’t get my hearts’ desire, Charity, I shall do everything within my power to ensure that you do.”

  With a lurch, the carriage drew up in front of a dark, squat building, shrouded in fog. The ghostly substance seemed to snake its way into the carriage as the door was opened from the outside.