She took the envelope and turned it over. On the back was written “John.” Except it wasn’t John’s economic handwriting, but a fine-penned, elegant hand.
Her fingers shook so badly she could scarce open the letter.
It read, Garth is desperate for a walk. Vivienne’s face heated. Her head jerked up, meeting Dashiell’s gaze.
“Did you receive a letter from your sisters?”
“Oh no, no,” Vivienne said, trying to sound casual. “It’s just John reminding me that he will attend church with us tomorrow.”
“Such a decent, God-fearing man, just like Mr. Bertis. How happy he shall make you.”
“Yes,” Vivienne said weakly.
“I say, why does that evil man still linger?” her aunt asked. “Just look at him.” Her voice lowered as she gripped the head of her cane. “Just look at him. So very handsome, but I swear, he is the devil underneath.” She paused and then tilted her head. “Why, I think he is staring at you.” She turned to Vivienne.
“I say, the light is awfully bright from the window,” Vivienne stammered. “I’m having a hard time reading my Bible. May I close the drapes?”
“Please,” her aunt said slowly, suspiciously.
Vivienne rose and strolled to the front window. Dashiell raised the brim of his hat and peered through the glass at her. He waved his hand, beckoning to her. Inside, she tingled as if he were some gravitational force pulling the tide of her blood.
Her hands trembled. Oh God, give me strength. She untied the sash and let the curtain fall.
***
Dashiell continued to mill about the square, feeling rather ridiculous as nosy neighbors came out and inquired if he were well, then offered him tea and biscuits. “No, thank you. Just enjoying the day and the fresh air,” he said. After a while, even the pigeons gave up on him and wandered off in search of other crumb-laden squares.
She never came out, never opened the curtain, never even sent a reply to “John.” He could feel her, huddled inside with her Bible, praying that she would never have to speak to him again. A wise decision, since he couldn’t trust himself around her anymore. Surely some sort of divine hand had intervened last night and pulled his body from her before he could ruin her.
No, he would have ruined her, broken her heart, and driven her to sobs the way he managed to do to every woman who had warmed his bed.
John may be a blackguard, but the roots of Dashiell’s family tree ran straight down to the devil in hell. Vivienne needed saving, but not by him.
It hurt his heart to know he had caused her pain, to feel bad about herself. He just wanted a chance to tell her that she was beautiful and loving and innocent. There was no excuse for his behavior. He knew better, but she didn’t. She was absolved. Nothing happened that couldn’t be undone.
The temperature was dropping as night came on. The gold and orange tones of sunset fired behind the haze of coal smoke, hovering like a blanket above the chimney pots. Dashiell dug into his waistcoat pocket and fished out his silver pocket watch. Five o’clock. Again he scanned Gertrude’s windows, checking for any signs of life, any jiggle or swish of a curtain. The place remained as still and silent as a mausoleum.
He rose, dusted off his clothes, now powdered with dirt the wind had whipped off the pavement, and started toward Hyde Park. He rubbed against the current of shopkeepers, clerks, and laborers crowding the sidewalks and packing the lines of omnibuses, flowing back to the east side of the city.
As he neared the park, he veered off and headed for the heart of Mayfair.
He stopped at a tall white confectionary cake of a house with five stories of bowed balconies overlooking Green Park. A black iron railing ran across the entrance. An old-fashioned torch hung beside the door, illuminating a shiny name plate. There were no initials or names etched on the brass—just a simple pair of angel wings.
He pulled the bell, and the door cracked open. A bald-headed flashman with a thick neck and drooping eyelids gazed down at Dashiell. He had a silver toothpick sticking out the side of his lips.
“I’ve come to see Angelica Fontaine.” Dashiell plucked a pound from his pocket and tossed the coin at the man. He caught it in his large palm, bowed his polished head, and stepped aside to let Dashiell slip through, then quickly shut the door behind him.
The pungent, sweet scent of fresh gardenias and perfume assaulted his nose. A pianoforte trilled an ornamented French Baroque piece, weaving a ribbon of plinking notes through the laughter and chatter.
“Welcome to heaven,” came a soft, feminine voice from above.
Dashiell jerked his head up. A petite lady with silken pale skin balanced above him on a tightrope strung across the entrance hall. She was nude but for a tinsel halo and gold bow and arrow. She flashed him an impish smile and dipped her slippered foot to give his cheek a tiny caress. Stationed below her, a trio of gentlemen with pudgy bodies and ruddy complexions that bespoke of easy, country-bumpkin living roared at her little trick.
Beyond the tightrope walker, a gold-painted stairwell zigzagged up the back of the house. Ladies clad in flowing white silk led men across the balconies to the legendary chambers. The names promised adventure: The Wilds of America, Silk Road Splendor, and African Safari.
Dashiell didn’t find his pleasure in brothels. Yet tonight he could easily devour two or three of these comely women to sate his hunger. Vivienne was undoing him. He couldn’t have her, and he couldn’t leave her alone. It was a nasty cycle that needed to end. Tonight.
But first he had to take care of a little business. A small way to apologize to Vivienne.
“Lord Dashiell, I saw you come in.”
He spun around. Angelica Fontaine stood behind him in her outlandish heavenly splendor. She must have been watching through a peephole. He wouldn’t have missed the madam in her wings of gold-painted ostrich feathers and matching turban. She was a tiny, delicate woman, but her long neck and rigid posture created the illusion of height. Black kohl lined the lids of her hooded, narrow eyes, giving them an oriental slant. Her mouth was a thin, shapeless line over which she had painted generous red lips.
“I feel shunned by you,” she said, sauntering toward him. “I entertain princes and dukes, but not the elusive Lord Dashiell.” Her tight mouth smiled. “Come, you needn’t bother with these common girls.”
Wrapping her small, strong fingers around his elbow, the famous madam guided him under the tightrope to the other side of the hall.
“The India parlor, for my more discriminating guests,” she said, opening the door to a room paneled in rich, shiny oak inlaid with carvings of leaves and vines. The lulling, warm gold of candlelight reflected on the surface of the etched crystal decanters, chandeliers, and gold-framed mirrors. Languid women draped the furniture, creating a rather artistic composition of bare skin and flowing silk.
“These girls are what I call my reserve,” she said. “Are they not the most sublime creatures you have ever seen?”
The women gazed at him from under their lashes, sultry smiles curving their lips. Lovely, yet not one could rival Vivienne. “Yes,” he lied, as his grandfather’s words echoed in his head: You can pretend.
“Best pretty girls in world,” declared a hefty man with long whiskers and a husky Russian accent. He squeezed the pocket-sized redhead sitting on his lap. She squealed and wiggled on his thigh.
“Thank you, your Highness.” Fontaine curtsied. “The Prince is visiting from Russia,” she said in a breezy, casual manner, but then peeked at Dashiell to see if he were duly impressed.
She gestured toward an empty, red brocade sofa. “Please.” Scanning the room, she selected four ladies with a slight nod of her head. The beauties slinked over and curled like silky felines about his body.
Fontaine cleared her voice and spread her arms in a grand, dramatic gesture. “Welcome to Seven Heavens,” she boomed, as if she were on stage and not three feet away. “You know only good boys go to heaven. Have you been a good boy, Lord Dashiell?”
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He winced. All he wanted was some information and a little niggle, not some hackneyed Drury Lane production. “I just want to talk.”
“Of course you do, my lord. A little intellectual stimulation can heighten the physical pleasure.” She stroked the curls of a dark-eyed, sullen beauty whose chin rested on Dashiell’s arm. “Lydia is a poetess. Recite one of your little poems for our guest, darling.”
Oh God, no. Dashiell detested poetry. “That won’t be necessary.”
Tears welled in Lydia’s eyes, as if his refusal had mortally wounded her fragile soul.
“Oh, very well,” he gave in.
She rose, clasped her hands to her heart, and rolled her eyes heavenward.
Oh rose, thy splendor in bloom hath ceased,
The snows of winter doth increase,
Thy red petals hath fallen upon the white,
As my heart doth bleed at the sight…
And so continued the torrid, romantic comparison of her heart to the withering of a rose in winter and other verses of such banal cliché. Dashiell felt his belly tighten. Wasn’t this supposed to be easy?
When Lydia finally bowed her head, signaling the end of the literary butchery, the Russian Prince, who, at most, probably understood a fifth of her words, violently clapped his fat hands. “Pretty girl. Pretty girl.”
“Very emotive,” Dashiell managed, and then turned back to the madam. “What I meant was might I have a word with you? It’s in regard to a private matter.”
“First, tell me which lady teases your fancy,” she replied.
So, she wasn’t going to budge until he put money on the line. The ladies pressed their breasts against him, giving him smoldering eyes and pouty lips. His tense muscles eased under their caressing hands. Oh yes, a little more of this would be the perfect medicine for his taut nerves.
“I can’t seem to make up my mind,” he teased, making the feather-fingered angels massage a little deeper in his muscles. They tried so hard, he felt terrible having to pick one over another. That didn’t seem gentlemanly. And besides, when he would finally mosey out of here in the early morning, he didn’t want to be capable of a single damn thought. He wanted every sexual impulse drained from his body.
“What about all four of them for the entire night?” he inquired.
Fontaine’s thin lips spread into a satisfied smile. “Girls, make the Egyptian room ready,” she ordered. “You should know our guest is an apt student of history.”
“Wait.” Dashiell held up his palm. He swallowed, feeling suddenly naked and vulnerable. “I also desire, that is… I would like a lady about this tall…” He raised his hand to Vivienne’s height. “…with curling black hair down to her breasts and green eyes. Do you have such a creature?”
“I have a similar item with icy blue eyes of winter,” she replied, and then cocked her head. “But you only desire a green-eyed girl, do you not?”
He knew from the dangerous, sweet inflection in her voice that his grandfather’s words in Rupert’s Club had managed to drift down a few blocks and into Fontaine’s ear. This woman loved the power of secrets. She must have used them to claw her way across to West London.
“Go, my girls.” Fontaine clapped her hands twice. “I’ll bring Lord Dashiell up myself.” The madam turned and beckoned Dashiell with her finger. “Follow me, if you please.”
She led him back to the entrance hall, up the stairs, and to a room on the first floor. At the very end of the corridor, a door opened and a young servant with a pock-ridden face emerged from the servants’ stairs holding an armful of folded white linens. “Take those to the Jungle Room,” Fontaine told her, nodding toward the series of doors along the balcony. Then she removed a bracelet of keys from her cuff, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.
A blur of white and pink flashed before Dashiell’s eyes. A fluffy cockatoo landed on Fontaine’s shoulder. Twisting its head, the bird studied Dashiell with one black, round eye. Then it opened its beak, stuck out a stubby red tongue and hissed, bouncing up and down. “Frederick, stop that,” she gently admonished, as she soothed its feathers. “Please excuse him. He doesn’t like men. I don’t know why.”
The nervous bird edged across Fontaine’s shoulder and put its beak near her ear. “I love you. I love you,” he cawed.
“I know you do, my darling,” Fontaine cooed to the bird.
Dashiell’s eyes scanned the study. It was an odd room. There was no fireplace and only the one, tiny off-centered window. The stagnant air smelled with that rotting sweetness of dying roses. This room, like most of the others in the upper floors, must have been partitioned from the original construction. Paper printed with a pale gold oval pattern covered the walls. Clustered about a round, white marble table were a green cushioned sofa and two matching wingchairs. A dainty writing desk and ladder-back chair were set off to the side. Beside it was another door. About the walls hung paintings and illustrations.
“There you go, my little baby.” Fontaine raised her arm and gently nudged Frederick onto his perch. “Please sit down,” she said. “I’ll be but a minute.” She slipped into the adjacent room, closing the door behind her.
Dashiell studied the art on the walls. He had stopped before a plain charcoal sketch when Fontaine returned without her wings. Relieved of her turban, her hair was midnight black, like Vivienne’s, except frizzy with silvery threads running through the coils.
“That’s me a thousand years ago,” she nodded at the sketch and then tossed her head back in a terse laugh.
Dashiell studied the work. A heavy hand had outlined the contours of the scene and then shaded them with lighter, slanting strokes. A young Fontaine, with her hooded eyes and a slip of a mouth, sat on a window ledge, a rose lying across her palm. In the background, he recognized the obelisk steeple that rose above the tangle of roofs of Finsbury. The bottom of the sketch was concealed behind the frame, but he could make out the scrolling letters “James” rising at an angle from the bottom right.
“Beautiful,” he said. “The work of Lawrence James?”
“Yes,” she replied, having no emotion in her voice or expression for the man who had left her for a younger woman. She sat in the cushioned chair facing him, set her elbow on the carved wooden armrest, and leaned her temple against her hand. “And now, what do you wish to speak to me about?”
“It’s regarding a delicate matter,” he said. “Have you heard of an Eliza Cox?”
“Is this a runaway lover of yours?” She cocked a thin, curving brow.
“No woman runs from me.”
“They should.” She laughed. “You’re a no-good rogue. I can always tell where Dashiell’s been by the sound of sobbing married ladies or wagtail actresses.”
“They know what they are getting into.” Dashiell took the seat across from her, extended his legs out, and stuck his thumbs in his waistband. “Anyway, I’m on a fool’s errand to locate this girl. She’s the lover of an acquaintance. She’s young, maybe fifteen, a bit of a beauty, so I came on the off chance she might have floated your way.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
“I have some other names. Maybe you might know where I can find them.” He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper where he had scribbled the price of a statue of Ishtar. He tossed out a name he had heard circulated in the clubs. “Can you tell me where I can find a Joe Horton?”
“He doesn’t have a place. He lives with whomever he’s selling. Poor wretches, bruised up and scared. I feel sorry for them.” She paused while a thought clouded her eyes. “But what can you do?”
“Well, then Georgina Villiers. What about her?”
She laughed, a throaty, almost malicious sound. “You mean plain Martha Jones before she took up that establishment by Lincoln Inn Fields.”
“And, of course, you’ve always been Angelica Fontaine,” he teased. “That tiny trace of Irish in your voice is for show. You’re no Mary O’Malley from the dens of Finsbury.”
Hot anger flashed across her face. She didn’t appreciate fast, unexpected moves. Frederick sensed his owner’s edginess and started up with his “I love you” routine.
“I doubt Martha Jones, or whatever she calls herself this week, would have the girl,” Fontaine said. “Really, you are looking for a needle in a haystack. There are thousands of women in this city willing to accommodate a paying gentleman.” She rose. “And I have the best of them. Now, I believe you are keeping my girls waiting in the Egyptian room.”
“I have one more name on my list.” He didn’t follow her cue to leave but remained in his chair, turning so he could see her face. “What about an Adele Jenkinson?”
Her jugular tensed again. “No,” she said after a beat.
“She never brought you a girl to be debuted?”
“Perhaps she came by.”
“Do you know where I might find her?”
Her smile stiffened. Annoyance flickered in her eyes. “Lord Dashiell, I don’t keep the address of every low madam or pimp in London.”
Dashiell paused, searching her expression. Her eyes were tight slits, letting nothing out. He shrugged. “Very well. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
She bowed her head and performed a low curtsy. “Now, won’t you follow me to heaven?”
***
Dashiell trailed Fontaine’s tiny form down the corridor and across the magnificent balcony. Three massive marble statues of barefoot angels that could have been stolen from a cathedral gazed down onto the ground floor where the tightrope walker greeted newcomers.
He mentally reviewed his conversation with Fontaine. He had wanted a little more solid information to chew on. But her reaction intrigued him. She was lying. She knew Jenkinson and chose not to reveal it. Why? Rather than getting closer to any answers for Vivienne, he was finding murkier waters.
“Good evening, Mr. Vandergrift,” he heard Fontaine say, knocking Vivienne from his thoughts.
From across the balcony, he recognized the thin mustache and the self-satisfied gleam in the cold, bright eyes of Vivienne’s fiancé. A raven-haired limp rag of a girl, no more than sixteen, clung to his arm. Blackness spread from the edges of Dashiell’s vision, blocking everything in his periphery. All his thoughts merged into one: kill John.
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