Polly prodded her impatiently. “You’d better get a hurry on and choose a handful. Mrs. Erskine wants you ready by tomorrow.”
Tom crept through the gloomy hallway to his dark corner once more. He had struggled with his conscience all night, but in the end it had made him return.
The young woman he had met here yesterday weighed on his mind. She was young and gently bred, the daughter of a curate, and he had left her here in the power of a noted bawd. It would be on his head if her sweet innocence was corrupted and turned to debauchery.
He should have swept her out of the salon and taken her far away from Mrs. Erskine’s bawdy house. With the contacts he had all over London, he could have helped her to find respectable employment. Sweet and gentle as she looked, she was sure to be a delightful nursemaid, bathing babies and helping little children to spell out their lessons. Even if nothing else could be found, she was pretty enough to stand behind a shop counter and sell ladies’ gloves and other feminine trinkets.
Such a sweet daisy as she was would surely hold out against the lure of sin for as long as she was able. Her defense would be stout—she would not yet have succumbed to vice.
Her innocence deserved a white knight to protect it. He would be her white knight—he would find her and rescue her before she fell headlong into the pit of corruption that was Mrs. Erskine’s bawdy house.
Sarah clutched Polly’s arm with a death grip as she walked into the brightly lit salon with the other coffee house girls. Despite the layers of frothy undergarments she was wearing, she felt horribly exposed. Her satin skirts, cut short to show her ankles, swished around her calves, her bodice dropped so low that her breasts were half falling out of it, and her arms and shoulders were bare. Only the fear of being thrown onto the streets stopped her from turning tail and fleeing back to the safety of her room.
A group of gentlemen in frock coats stood at the far end by the fire, watching their approach avidly. Some of them, hats in hand, started forward to meet the girls as they entered.
A shiver went down her spine as the men approached and she stopped dead, clutching Polly’s arm as if it were her lifeline. “Do not leave me,” she whispered.
“Don’t be a goose,” Polly whispered back, giving her a little pinch on the arm and dragging her forward. “Just remember what I told you. Act like a lady, be nice to the gents, and everything will work out fine.”
A pair of gentlemen made a beeline for the two girls. One of them took Polly’s arm with a possessive air while the other, a portly gentleman whose waistcoat barely buttoned up over his large belly, made a stiff bow at Sarah. “May I?” he asked, offering her his pudgy arm.
Polly dropped Sarah’s arm to cling to her partner’s with both hands, and gave the fat gentleman a roguish wink. “This is Sarah. She’s new here tonight.”
“How new?” he queried anxiously.
“New to the whole game,” Polly confirmed.
Sarah’s gent took her arm and placed it in the crook of his. “Then I am glad to be the first to make your acquaintance, Sarah.” His tongue rolled over her name as if it were a sweet treat. “My name is Sir Richard Eddington. You may call me Dickon.”
He smelled of sweat and small beer. “I am p-pleased to meet you,” she stammered.
At that moment, Mrs. Erskine stepped into the center of the room. “Welcome to my coffee house, ladies and gentlemen, and to the evening’s entertainment.”
She gestured to the round tables set up in front of the fire. “Gentlemen, please choose a partner and take your seats at the table of your choice. This evening we will amuse ourselves with a game of cards.”
There was an instant rush as the men claimed their partners. Amid the hubbub, the portly gentleman led Sarah to one of the tables by the fire. She looked helplessly after Polly as she was led away by her escort to a table on the far side.
Sarah’s partner gave her a predatory smile as he showed her to her chair. “I shall enjoy playing cards with you, my dear.” His lips were fat and they glistened with grease where he had not wiped them properly after dinner.
The heat from the fire could not stop the goose bumps from forming on her arms. She gave him a tremulous smile back. “Thank you, but I am not very good at cards.”
His smile widened noticeably, sending a trickle of icy suspicion creeping down the back of her spine. “So much the better.”
Once they were all seated around the tables, a cry went up from the gentlemen. “What game? What game?”
Mrs. Erskine hushed them all with a wave of her hands. “Ecarte,” she pronounced.
There was a general groan of disappointment from the gentlemen and some mutterings about how they may as well have stayed at home. Sarah felt herself relax just a little. There was nothing too scary about playing straight ecarte. Polly had explained the rules to her last night—it was simple enough if she kept her wits about her.
“We shall be playing not for money, but for forfeits,” Mrs. Erskine amended, with a faint smile on her austere face. “Clothes or kisses or other favors, make them what you please.”
The groans turned to cheers, her partner joining in the general revelry. “Let us play for clothes, my dear.” He leered greedily at her. “At least at first. Who knows what may happen later.”
Sarah felt her heart leap into her throat. Polly had warned her that playing for clothes was one of the gents’ favorite games. She had hoped to escape it on her first evening, but it seemed luck was not with her today.
Mrs. Erskine approached their table, cards in her hand.
Sarah could hardly manage to give her a civil greeting. Her wits had completely deserted her—her only thought was how to keep all her clothes on her back.
Mrs. Erskine shuffled the pack and dealt a hand to each of them, leaving the rest of the pack on the table between them. Sarah stared at the cards on the table with grim fascination, silently praying that God would have mercy on her and send her a good hand.
When she had finished dealing out all the cards, Mrs. Erskine moved to the middle of the room and clapped her hands together. “I will leave you young things to play cards together now. Do not get into mischief as soon as you are unchaperoned. I shall be in the next room if anyone needs me.” And with a brief curtsy to her clients, she left.
Surreptitiously Sarah wiped her damp palms on her skirts and picked up the cards in front of her. She could do this. Indeed, there was little choice about it—she had to do this.
The fire was warm on her back, but she was as cold as ice inside. She stared at her cards blankly, wishing with all her might that her father had been less set against all forms of gambling. A sketchy explanation of the rules of the most popular games from Polly the previous night was no substitute for knowing what she was doing.
Opposite her, Sir Richard was looking at his cards with a frown of concentration on his face. She watched with fascinated disgust as he absentmindedly took a large silk handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his sweating forehead. If her partner had been a little less gross and a little less leering, she would feel more comfortable. But Sir Richard? Would she have to undress for this overblown glutton of a man?
She forced herself to focus on her cards. A pair of sevens. A faint smile crept over her face. A pair of sevens wasn’t so bad. She could win this hand.
She discarded her odd card. “One, please.”
Sir Richard dealt her a card and took one for himself.
Her new card was a disappointment. Her hand still only had a pair of sevens. It was good, but would it be good enough?
With shaking fingers, she pushed a chip into the center of the table.
Sir Richard grinned at her and pushed in two chips.
Her heart pounding with fear, she looked intently at her cards and bit her lower lip. Should she raise the stakes and risk losing the lot? Or play it safe and lose just a little at a time?
“Will you match me?”
The eagerness in his voice decided her. Throwing her cards facedown
on the table with a grimace, she forfeited the hand. “I fold.”
His pudgy hands gathered the chips from the table. “You owe me a forfeit. Three forfeits, to be precise.” With a piggish gleam in his eye he studied his prize. “Turn around for me. I will unfasten three buttons from your bodice.”
Reluctantly she turned her back to him. He leaned over the table and unfastened three buttons of her bodice, his fat fingers lingering unpleasantly on her neck, his whiskery sideburns scratching her skin. She turned back to him as soon as she could, brushing his fingers away.
With a look of satisfied anticipation, he gathered up the cards and shuffled them together. “Shall I deal this hand?”
From the other side of the wall, Tom watched the game with growing fury.
His mystery girl of yesterday claimed she was an innocent? Hah—he wanted to spit at her dainty feet.
No innocent miss would be sitting down at a card table playing ecarte for her clothes and letting Sir Richard Eddington undress her, one button at a time. Or smiling in the rascal’s face as he did so.
He ground his teeth together. Sir Richard Eddington was a rake of the first order. He had a fashionable wife and a nursery full of babies waiting at home for him, not to mention at least one pretty young house maid who was expecting his child as well.
By God, if she was determined to act the whore, she could do better than Sir Richard.
If she wanted to act the whore, she could do so with him.
The card game continued with Sarah losing every hand. She was not the only woman to be doing so. While some of the gentlemen had lost their top hats and their jackets, and a particularly unlucky one had already discarded both his shoes, most of them were still fully dressed. The women, however, were unfastening bodices and shedding stockings and slippers at a great rate. Polly had already completely discarded her bodice and corset and was now giggling in her shift and petticoats.
At length Sarah had only one button left to her bodice—and not so much as a pair of twos in her hand.
One glance at her face and Sir Richard pushed two chips into the center.
She looked despairingly at her cards and tossed them facedown onto the table.
He grinned widely as he leaned over the table to unfasten the last button. “I have won another forfeit, I fear. Your bodice is mine, now.”
All of Polly’s warnings had not been sufficient to prepare her for this moment. Slowly she pushed her bodice first off one shoulder and then off the other.
Sir Richard’s tongue snaked out to lick his lips.
She clasped her bodice to her chest, unwilling to let it fall.
“Excuse me, sir?”
Sarah looked up, startled, straight into the eyes of Tom Wilde. She clutched her bodice tighter to her chest with fingers that shook slightly.
Sir Richard frowned at the interruption but did not take his gaze off her chest. “What do you want?” His voice was harsh.
“You are Sir Richard Eddington?”
“What do you want?” he repeated.
“There’s a messenger outside asking for Sir Richard Eddington. As I was coming inside anyway, I volunteered to fetch you.”
That brought his attention away from Sarah’s chest. He looked straight at Tom. “A messenger? For me? Did he say what he wanted?”
Tom coughed. “He said something about you being needed in the House for a vote. I told him I would pass the message on.”
Sir Richard swore under his breath and rose from his chair with alacrity. “Excuse me,” he said to Sarah. “I am needed elsewhere.” Without further fuss, he clapped his hat on his head and waddled self-importantly out of the room.
Tom sat down in the chair that Sir Richard had just vacated. “Now, where were we?” he asked, a glint of wickedness in his eye. “Ah, yes, I remember, you were just about to take your bodice off.” He waved his hand in the air. “Please continue.”
Sarah was rooted to the spot. Her face burned worse than the hottest horse radish mustard. “What are you doing here?”
“As your partner, Sir Richard Eddington, the right honorable Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent, seems to be needed elsewhere, I am playing the part of a gentleman and taking his place.”
“You should not be here,” she hissed at him.
One eyebrow rose in a query. “Why ever not?”
“You have not been invited.”
His laughter rang out through the room. “My dear girl, anyone with money in his pocket can get himself invited to Mrs. Erskine’s entertainments. I have money in my pocket, therefore I consider myself duly invited. Now, about that bodice.”
She clenched it even more tightly to her chest. “I cannot take it off in front of you.”
“Why not?” His voice was hard. “Is it not enough that I have paid Mrs. Erskine? Do you want me to pay you, too?”
Tears filled her eyes at the sneer in his tone. “You…you are not a stranger to me. I have met you. I know your name. I cannot show you my breasts.”
He took up the pack of cards and shuffled them with a practiced hand. “You only fuck strangers for money? Is that it?”
Tears were rolling down her cheeks now. “You are shaming me. Do not do this to me.”
He dealt the cards onto the table and took up his hand. “Come, take your cards. If you win this hand I will let you put your bodice back on again.”
His kindness was more than she had expected. She looked up at him through her tears. “You will?”
“I promise.”
Slowly she let her bodice drop, taking heart from Tom’s apparent indifference to her seminakedness. He did not stare at her greedily as Sir Richard had done, but kept his gaze on his cards.
Her eyes widened in delight as she picked up her own hand. A pair of tens. This was the best hand she had had yet.
Hastily she discarded her remaining card and picked up another. To her disbelief, another ten stared back at her.
With growing excitement she pushed a chip into the middle of the table.
Tom watched her with hooded eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Sarah. Sarah Chesham.”
“You disappoint me, Sarah.”
Miffed at his tone, she raised her head from her cards. “Why?”
“You are so cautious, so afraid.” He pushed a stack of his own chips into the center alongside her lonely one. “You do not have the courage of your convictions but play timidly, for small stakes, when you could be bold and win everything at a single stroke.”
She stared at the pile in the middle of the table. If she were to lose, she would be nigh on naked. “I do not care to win except to get my bodice back,” she said with a pout. “I have no wish to rob you of your clothes.”
“You do not wish to strip me naked?”
She pursed her lips. “No.” His question brought all sorts of naughty images unbidden to her mind. The thought of seeing Sir Richard’s naked rolls of flesh made her shudder, but Tom Wilde was a much better figure of a man. He was lean and wiry where Sir Richard was grossly fat, and his whiskers were dark and neatly trimmed, far removed from the bushy auburn monstrosities that Sir Richard wore.
Ignoring the throbbing in her pussy, she clamped her legs together to stop them trembling at the thought of Tom standing before her with no clothes on. She was a respectable woman still, despite her dodgy profession, and she needed to remember that.
His mouth quirked into a smile at her denial. “You are a liar as well as a coward.”
She was not a liar. She did not want to see his bare chest, his strong legs, or to see his member spring up at her touch. She did not want to see him as naked as the men in those naughty stereoscope pictures, or to have him do unspeakable things to her as they were doing to each other in the pictures. Or if she did harbor a secret desire, it was only out of curiosity, not lust. “You are no gentleman to say that to me.”
“Even though it is true?”
She glared at him and pushed an even larger handful of chips
into the middle of the table. “It is not true. Match that if you dare.”
He counted out a stack of chips to match hers and pushed them in. “Done. Now show me your hand.”
Triumphantly she laid her cards face up on the table. “Three tens. Now start undressing. We shall see how well you like being stripped naked in company.”
He laid his own cards facedown on the table. “I think not.”
A trio of jacks. She looked at them in disbelief. Fate was playing a cruel joke on her.
He reached out to the pile of chips and began to count them, slowly and deliberately. “Come here,” he instructed her. “Around to my side of the table. I want to claim my forfeit.”
Her gaze was glued to that pile of chips. No wonder her father had disapproved of gambling so strongly. It only led to ruin and damnation. If only she had not let Tom goad her by calling her a coward and a liar. Now she would have to undress for him until she was as naked as the day she was born. Her whole body felt hot and flushed at the thought. “You will claim them all?”
“Every last one.”
3
“You are not a gentleman,” she complained, though her pussy was already beginning to drip in anticipation. If she had to lose her clothes, she would far rather lose them to Tom than to Sir Richard the gross. Sir Richard disgusted her, but Tom? She could not quite put her feelings for Tom into words. “You are a scoundrel.”
“I’m a scoundrel,” he agreed complacently. “I’m a cad and a rotter and a no-good wastrel, but I have also just won a game of cards and I am about to undress you one garment at a time and I will enjoy every minute of it.”
“I’m glad that one of us will enjoy it,” she muttered under her breath as she rose from her chair and came to stand beside him. She could not bear to let him suspect that she was half looking forward to having his hands on her, undressing her bit by bit. His opinion of her was low enough already. Such evidence of her wantonness would shock him further.
Parlor Games Page 3