Rushed to the Altar

by Jane Feather

  She smiled at the coachman, wished him good night, and hurried to the door. The steward admitted her and she ran up to her chamber, expecting to find it cold and dark. Instead it was firelit, candles burning brightly, the bed turned down invitingly. Presumably the house worked on the assumption that a gentleman could accompany a lady to her boudoir at any time.

  She cast aside her hat and gloves and sat on the edge of the bed. She needed advice, and who better to give it than Emily or Maddy, or, indeed, any of the other women at work in this house. She pulled the bell rope.

  “What can I do for you, miss?” The maid stood in the door, her gaze studiously avoiding the bed.

  “Emily . . . or Maddy . . . are they with gentlemen at the moment?”

  “Miss Em’s not. She’s in the salon. Miss Maddy’s busy.”

  Clarissa had learned in her time at King Street that if a girl was not with a gentleman she waited in the salon, where gentlemen who had no specific lady in mind would come in off the street, take a glass of wine, engage in superficial conversation, and then pick a companion from among the available ladies.

  “Could you give Emily a message?”

  The girl looked doubtful. “Maybe.”

  “Ask her if she has any free time tonight to visit me here . . . Maddy, too, if she’s free later.”

  “Mistress Griffiths don’t close the front door till four,” the maid said.

  “No, I know that. But if by any chance either of them is free for a while, could you ask them if they would come here to me? It’s very important.”

  The girl shrugged. “If I can, I will. Anything else you want?”

  Clarissa shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  The girl went off and Clarissa undressed slowly. Naked, she stood in front of the mirror, wondering what a man would see when he saw her like this. Would he see what she saw? A slim woman with insignificant breasts, skinny thighs, long thin feet. There was nothing voluptuous about her body, nothing particularly arousing, she thought. But maybe a man might see something that she couldn’t.

  She wrapped herself in her chamber robe and climbed into bed. Might as well try to sleep until Maddy or Emily was free to answer her summons. But sleep wouldn’t come. She lay watching the flames flickering on the high ceiling, listening to the hiss and pop of the fire. What would she be feeling this time tomorrow night? How would she be feeling? Her body was filled with a restless energy that made her legs twitch until finally she got out of bed and went to sit on the broad window seat, watching the scenes in the street below. The revelers for the most part were good-natured, but there were one or two scuffles, and every now and again the shrill sound of a watchman’s whistle would rise above the sounds of revelry.

  Was her little brother asleep? Was he in a gin-soaked stupor, shivering in the freezing attic, his empty belly cleaving to his backbone? She couldn’t get to him until Sunday, the day after tomorrow. She had to have a safe place to take him, somewhere warm and comfortable where he could regain his strength, look once again like her little brother instead of the frightened waif he had become. Her heart swelled with hatred for her uncle. She would kill him given half a chance. But first things first. Francis could survive one more day. He must.

  She was so lost in her anxious reverie she didn’t hear the door open until Emily spoke softly. “Is something the matter, Clarissa?”

  “Oh, no . . . not really.” Clarissa returned to the present with a start. She jumped off the window seat, crossing the room with hands outstretched to her visitor. “Thank you for coming, Em. I desperately need some advice on a rather . . .” She gave a slightly embarrassed little laugh as she took Emily’s hands and drew her to the fire. “A rather delicate matter, and it’s quite difficult to explain.”

  Emily looked puzzled but sat down willingly enough. “Tell me.”

  Clarissa hesitated. “Would you like a glass of wine? . . . I think I would.” A tray with decanter and glasses stood on a pier table against the far wall. She poured two glasses of Madeira and brought them back to the fire.

  Emily took hers with a smile of thanks. “Tell me,” she repeated.

  Clarissa took a deep breath. “This is going to sound very strange, but I need to lose my virginity tonight.”

  Emily nearly dropped the glass. “What in the world can you mean?”

  “There are some things I can’t explain, Em, but this is the truth, even if I can’t explain it properly.”

  Emily listened openmouthed. Clarissa kept it as simple as possible, saying nothing about her true background, or about Francis and Luke, merely implying that she had agreed to the contract with Lord Blackwater for compelling family reasons of her own and now found herself obliged to fulfill the terms of the contract without his discovering that she was not what he believed her to be.

  “Does Mother Griffiths know you’re a virgin?” Emily was still staring in wide-eyed astonishment.

  Clarissa shook her head. “If she ever believed it, I’m sure she doesn’t now. Why would a virgin agree to a brothel contract to be a man’s mistress? But I do have my reasons, Em,” she added quickly. “I’m sorry I can’t explain them.”

  “Well, we all have our secrets in this business,” Emily declared with a tiny shrug. “And we don’t pry.” She stood up. “We need reinforcements. Trudy is not busy at the moment. I’ll fetch her.” She whisked herself out of the chamber.

  Clarissa sat down, sipping the Madeira, and waited, unsure whether she was right to trust the inhabitants of 32 King Street with so much of her secret, but she could think of no alternative.

  Emily returned in five minutes, accompanied by a very curious Maddy and a somewhat skeptical Trudy. “Maddy’s gentleman had just left, so I brought her too,” Emily said. “I haven’t told them much, there wasn’t time, so you’d better tell them what you just told me.”

  Clarissa did so, watching their faces somewhat anxiously. Their expressions ran the gamut of disbelief, astonishment, and finally amusement. When Clarissa fell silent, Trudy began to laugh. She had a deep laugh that seemed appropriate enough booming forth from her broad-shouldered, big-boned frame. After a moment, Emily and Maddy joined in.

  Clarissa looked for the humor in the situation and couldn’t find it, so she waited patiently until their laughter ceased. Trudy dabbed at her eyes, which shone with tears of laughter, and her shoulders still shook as she pronounced at last, “Well, this is a new one, isn’t it, girls?” She picked up Emily’s wineglass and held it to the light. “Madeira . . . I’ll have a glass, Mistress Virgin, if I may.”

  Clarissa filled a glass and handed it to her. “So, do you have a solution?” Her tone was a touch impatient; their laughter had galled her a little, although she wouldn’t admit it.

  “We’re more used to solving the reverse problem,” Emily explained. “Often we have to re-create virginity if a client demands a virgin. We all know how to do that, but this is quite different.”

  “How do you re-create virginity?” For a moment Clarissa forgot her own problem in this fascinating subject.

  “The midwives have ways of creating an artificial barrier, just some fine webbing. And there’s a little cubbyhole in the bedpost where we keep a vial of blood. The men are all so wrapped up in their own lust that as soon as they feel the barrier, they push like a ramrod through a portcullis and when their cocks break through, you should hear ’em crow.”

  Trudy shook her head with a scornful chuckle. “Fools, all of ’em. We open the vial and smear the blood about while they’re still crowing, and oh, how it suits their manhood to think they’ve spoiled a virgin. Some of ’em actually believe a woman will remember her first for the rest of her days. Makes ’em so proud.” Her lip curled in disdain for the entire male sex.

  Clarissa listened, wide-eyed in her turn. The world was full of tricksters, it seemed. And she was no better and no worse than the rest. “So, how do I achieve the opposite, Trudy?”

  “Simple enough.” Trudy got to her feet. “I’ll be bac
k in a moment.”

  “Have either of you ever done that?” Clarissa asked after the other woman had left. “Pretended to be virgins?”

  “Oh, I did, once,” Maddy said. “At first I wanted to laugh so hard, instead of gasping and shrieking so that they think it hurts, but then I remembered my real first time, and that made it easier.” Her expression darkened, her usually merry eyes suddenly shadowed by memory. “He was a brute.”

  Emily laid a sympathetic hand on her knee. “I was luckier. Mother Griffiths sold my virginity in an auction, but the man who bought it was a real gentleman. He kept me as an exclusive for a year after that.”

  Clarissa began to wonder how she had spun her tale of hardship to Jasper so glibly when the true tales were so filled with suppressed pain and horror. She looked up with relief as Trudy came back into the chamber.

  “You just use this,” she said, holding out a slim pointed object.

  Clarissa took it and looked at it blankly. “What is it?”

  All three stared at her. “It’s a dildo. Have you never seen one before?” Maddy asked.

  She shook her head. “What does it do?”

  “Use your imagination,” Trudy told her briskly. “You need to break the maidenhead . . .”

  “With this?” She turned the slender object around. It was made of ivory, very smooth and cool. “I put it . . .”

  “Yes, exactly,” Maddy said. “One quick thrust and it’ll be over. It’ll hurt, but at least you’ll be doing it to yourself.”

  “Unless you want me to do it for you.” Trudy held out her hand. “It’ll take but a second.”

  Clarissa shook her head. “No . . . no, thank you. I appreciate the offer, Trudy, but I’d rather do it myself.”

  “Then we’ll leave you to get on with it.” Trudy went to the door. “Come on, ladies, Mother’s on the prowl and she’s going to want to know why we aren’t in the salon.”

  The other two followed her to the door. Emily hung back long enough to murmur a whispered “Good luck” before closing the door behind them.

  Clarissa examined the ivory dildo. She drank another glass of Madeira, and then she climbed onto the bed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was very little blood, Clarissa was relieved to discover, and really very little pain, just a quick stab. She expected to feel a sense of loss, of finality at the change she had made in herself, but amazingly she fell asleep quickly once it was done, and to her astonishment slept deeply and dreamlessly until an hour after sunrise. She awoke filled with a pleasant languor, her limbs heavy and relaxed in the featherbed, wondering why she felt a sense of anticipation, a strange thrill of excitement.

  And then she remembered. She sat up against the pillows and peered at the clock on the mantel. Eight o’clock already. She rarely slept so late, but then the house was deadly quiet around her and there was still little noise from the street below, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising, particularly after the excitements of the previous night.

  She got out of bed and stood up slowly, tentatively taking a step towards the washstand. She felt no different this morning, just a slight soreness, and that would be eased by a hot bath. It seemed to have been weeks since she’d had that luxury. She contemplated the bellpull, but then thought of some poor maid hauling endless jugs of hot water upstairs to fill the copper tub in front of the fire and decided that in good conscience she couldn’t expect it. But one jug of hot water wasn’t too much to ask. She pulled the rope.

  It was answered surprisingly quickly. “You rang, miss?”

  “Yes.” She smiled at the young girl standing hesitantly in the doorway. “Could you bring me a jug of hot water, and some hot chocolate, perhaps, and some breakfast?”

  The girl nodded and vanished, reappearing in ten minutes with a steaming jug that she set on the dresser. “I’ll fetch up that breakfast now.” She disappeared again.

  Clarissa pulled her chemise over her head and poured water into the basin. She dipped the washcloth and sponged herself from head to toe. There were smears of blood on her inner thighs but no other visible evidence of her lost maidenhead. The girl came in with a breakfast tray and immediately went to rekindle the fire.

  Clarissa slipped into her chamber robe and poured hot chocolate in a fragrant stream into a delicate china cup. Thirty-two King Street was undeniably a den of iniquity, but it provided a most elegant and charming environment for the sinning. She had no reason to believe that Half Moon Street would be any less so.

  Her father would turn in his grave if he knew she was about to become a kept woman, the mistress of a philandering earl, and about to keep his son and heir hidden in the earl’s love nest to boot. But there was no safer place for Francis. He would be under the earl’s protection as much as she was, although Jasper would not know whom he was protecting. Luke would never think to look for his wards under his very nose in the center of fashionable London. And the idea that his niece was the mistress of the Earl of Blackwater was so farfetched there were no circumstances in which it could enter his head.

  Today had to be devoted to Jasper, to the business of becoming his mistress. The prospect sent shivers up her spine, part terror, part thrill . . . or were the two indistinguishable? However deeply she looked into her soul, she could find not the slightest reservation over the step she was about to take. Maybe she was truly a harlot at heart after all. The thought brought a grin to her face until she reflected that while she had taken care of the physical obstacle to a nonvirgin state, she had no idea how to behave, harlot at heart or not. She had no idea what a woman experienced in the ways of lust would do or say. Surely it would be obvious to any experienced man what a novice she was?

  Then she told herself there was no point worrying about something she could do nothing about. She would just have to rely on instinct, and hope that some things were simply ingrained from birth and would come naturally. She had to keep her eye on the reason for this deception. One more day, and she would have Francis out of that cesspit.

  But what if something happened to him in this one day? She felt the familiar nut of anxiety in her chest, a ripple of nausea in her belly. She couldn’t think like that. She mustn’t think like that. One false move today and all would be lost. She had to keep her eyes and her mind on the goal and somehow present the man who was about to become her protector with an untrammeled countenance and a light heart.

  But she was no longer hungry for her breakfast when she looked at the boiled eggs and bread and butter. She could think only of her little brother making do with a small piece of gingerbread given him by a kindly itinerant packman.

  One more day, Francis. One more day. She imagined that with a sheer effort of will she could project her thoughts across London to Francis’s wretched attic. Somehow he would hear her promise that he had only to hold on for one more day.

  The earl’s coachman arrived punctually at ten that morning. Clarissa was just closing her small portmanteau when Mistress Griffiths came into her chamber. “So, are you ready to leave us, my dear?”

  “I believe I have everything, ma’am.” She turned to face the woman. “I thank you for your hospitality, Mistress Griffiths.” Not that she hadn’t paid for it, she thought, but kept the thought to herself.

  “Not at all, my dear.” Nan ran an experienced eye over her. “Good, you’re wearing the gown Jasper gave you. I would offer you the sprig muslin, but I doubt you’ll need it. Blackwater is generous to a fault, and you’ll have no need of something so plain.”

  Clarissa was under no illusion that Nan would really have parted with the sprig muslin. The sale was complete and she’d been paid for her part in it; there was no need to be overly generous. The gown would remain to dress up some other innocent for the right customer. She merely smiled and adjusted the set of her hat in the mirror.

  “I would like to make my farewells to Emily and the others. They were very kind to me.”

  “You’ll be kind to them if you leave them to their rest,” Nan de
clared. “But you’re welcome to visit anytime. My door is always open to you, and if you need any advice, I am always here. Don’t hesitate should there be any issues that you are perhaps a little uncomfortable with or uncertain about. I know his lordship well and can advise you to good effect when it comes to pleasing him.”

  “I don’t doubt it, ma’am.” Clarissa’s smile was neutral. “And I promise I won’t hesitate to take advantage of your kind offer should the need arise.” She picked up her portmanteau.

  “And when his lordship tires of you, there’ll always be a place for you here,” Nan reassured her as she escorted her to the door. The steward took her portmanteau and carried it to the carriage. He gave it to the coachman, who stood at the open carriage door, then offered Clarissa a half salute and returned to the house, closing the door to 32 King Street on its erstwhile occupant.

  Clarissa climbed into the carriage, where a hot brick and the fur-edged lap robe awaited. The coachman put her portmanteau onto the opposite seat, closed the door, and the carriage moved off at a brisk clip. Clarissa leaned forward to look out of the window as they crossed the Great Piazza and passed through the surrounding streets of Covent Garden. She would be back, she was certain, but not as a supplicant. She would be back to attend the theatre and the opera with the rest of fashionable London. She would be back on the arm of the fifth Earl of Blackwater. Again she was aware of that little prickle of excitement along her spine.

  Half Moon Street was a small, pretty street running between Curzon Street and Piccadilly. It was in the heart of fashionable London and yet seemed like an oasis as Clarissa stepped down from the carriage. She could hear the bustle of Piccadilly behind her, and see a carriage bowling down Curzon Street just ahead of her, but she stood on a quiet street lined with narrow houses. Most of the windows were graced with boxes displaying autumn greenery.