by Mary Balogh
At least, for a while she had imagined that, until she had realized how disobedient she was being to her training. She had been taught, and she would have known anyway, that self-discipline was essential if she was to continue to find her life bearable. Her work and the rest of her life must be kept strictly separate.
She had lain still while Sir Gerald slept in her arms during what remained of his hour, and had reminded herself very deliberately that he was a stranger. She knew nothing of him whatsoever except perhaps his tastes in sexual activity. He was merely a gentleman who regularly visited a whorehouse for pleasure, and she the whore who had been assigned to provide that pleasure for that particular evening.
Priscilla folded her embroidery. She opened her book and prepared to enter the world of Pride and Prejudice. Yes, there were some forms of fantasy that must be avoided in the future. Now that she had discovered that it was possible—and she had been warned that it was—she must guard against its happening again.
On the whole, she hoped that Sir Gerald Stapleton would change his mind within the next few days and return to Sonia after all.
SIR GERALD STAPLETON THOUGHT HIMSELF A creature of habit, much as he hated being so. Sometimes he wished he could be quite free, even of his own nature.
“So you are spending a fortune at Kit’s, are you?” his friend the new Earl of Severn said with a laugh.
The two of them were sitting in the earl’s library at his town house on Grosvenor Square, where his lordship had taken up residence for a week in order to conduct some business related to his new position. He was in deep mourning for the death of his predecessor and unwilling to appear anywhere in public.
Sir Gerald shrugged. “She has the best girls,” he said. “Everyone agrees on that.”
“But three times a week, Ger?” The earl laughed again. “You did say three?”
Yes, he had indeed said three. It sounded quite excessive when expressed in his friend’s voice. It had used to be once. And then a couple of months before it had increased to twice. In the past few weeks it had been three times, and the days between were beginning to pass with interminable slowness.
“Well,” he said, frowning and gazing at the inch of brandy left in his glass, “I vowed a long time ago, Miles, that I would never engage a mistress. She would be sure to get too possessive and it would be too deuced embarrassing to put an end to the liaison. It’s simpler just to go to Kit’s.”
“But three times a week.” His friend was doing a deal of laughing, Sir Gerald thought with some irritation. “The same girl each time, Ger?”
Sir Gerald was beginning to wish he had said nothing. Perhaps he would not have done so if the earl had not asked him how Kit was doing. They had used to go there together occasionally.
“Prissy,” he said. “She suits me. Does as she is told and all that.”
“And for how long have you been wearing a path to her bed?” Lord Severn asked. His voice and his face were still damnably amused, his friend noted.
Sir Gerald shrugged again. “I don’t know,” he said. “Since spring, I suppose. March, I think it was. I remember her talking about spring flowers the first time.”
“For two months.” The earl got to his feet, took Sir Gerald’s empty glass, and crossed to the desk, on which the decanter had been set. “I am going to have to meet this paragon. Pretty is she, Ger? A lively armful? But need I ask that if you are calling on her three times a week?”
Sir Gerald wished more than ever that he had not raised the subject. He was feeling unaccountably annoyed, though he did not know why. “Pretty, yes,” he said. “She suits me, Miles.”
“Well,” the earl said, handing a full glass to his friend again, “all of Kit’s girls are carefully trained to suit any man’s needs, if I recall correctly. Devil take it, Ger, it’s an age since I had a woman. This being an earl and being in mourning are constraining, to say the least. And my mother and the girls are making ominous rumblings about my duty to the human race, most notably to my earldom. I am going to be shopping at the marriage mart as soon as I throw off these blacks, I strongly suspect. I envy you Kit’s and your Prissy.”
The conversation moved on to other matters.
But he really had been going to the girl for all of two months, Sir Gerald mused as he walked home later that night, and far more frequently than he had ever visited any other whore. But Prissy suited him so well. There were no damned tricks with Prissy. No sexual tricks, that was. Of course, there was the trick she had of welcoming him each time as if he were the only man in her life and the only person who really mattered to her. There was a glow, a warmth, about Prissy that made one forget that she was merely a whore plying her trade even when one knew very well with one’s head that it was nothing else.
Not that he wanted it to be anything else, of course. He wanted no entanglements whatsoever. He went to Prissy so often because she was just plain damned good in bed. That was all. She was the only woman he had possessed who always did exactly as he directed. All her predecessors had not believed, it seemed, that he was quite unadventurous in his sexual tastes.
Prissy knew now how to please him, and she did just that. So well, in fact, that he had started to see far too much of her. He should call on Kit some time and ask for a different girl. Or he should stay away from there entirely for a few weeks, try another house maybe.
Perhaps he should try celibacy for a while. Except that for all his fear of entanglements, the thought of celibacy was quite unappealing. He needed a greater closeness to another human being than his male companionship could bring. And that could only mean casual physical union with a woman, since he had no intention of ever having any relationship with a female.
He had an appointment with Prissy the next evening. He would keep it, and then he would decide whether to call on Kit on his way out to make an appointment with someone else or just not make an appointment at all.
Either way, he was going to have to stop seeing Prissy for a while. If he did not, he was going to feel obliged to continue seeing her forever after and she and Kit were going to take for granted that she was his sole reason for going there. He had broken away from Sonia after three months. Now it was time to break away from Prissy after two.
Except, he thought as he approached his lodgings, that she was so damned good. And it was not even midnight. He redirected his steps to White’s. He would see who was there. He would never sleep if he went to bed this early.
His loneliness washed over him and was pushed out of his consciousness as he entered the club and handed his hat and cane to the doorman.
IT HAD HAPPENED at last after almost four months. Despite all of Miss Blythe’s care, it had happened.
Two of Priscilla’s regular clients were out of town, and Miss Blythe had assigned her to an impeccably dressed gentleman of middle years and quiet manner.
Priscilla had taken him to her room and asked him, as she always did with gentlemen she was unfamiliar with, what she might do to please him. When he had replied and she had informed him that the rules of the house did not permit what he asked, he had raised a hand and smacked her hard across the jaw with the back of it.
She had not called out. During her training she had learned that she must never do that unless her very life seemed to depend upon doing so. She would alert the whole house if she called out and give it a bad name.
She had submitted quietly, consoling herself, as she had also learned during her training, with the thought that that particular gentleman would never be allowed inside Miss Blythe’s doors again.
She did not go to Miss Blythe immediately after. She would report on the incident the next morning. She spent far longer than the usual half hour cleansing herself with shaking hands and finally vomiting.
She had another client coming within an hour, she thought as she washed her face and rinsed her mouth and wished that her jaw would stop throbbing. She could not for the life of her remember who it was.
And then she did remember.
It was Sir Gerald Stapleton. Oh, thank God, she thought, sinking into a chair beside the fireplace and looking about the room to check that she had not forgotten to turn down the bed. Thank God. She could be sure of courtesy and gentleness with him. She could be sure that there would be no heavy demands on her depleted energies. Thank God it was he.
But the thought had no sooner consoled her than she realized that he was the very last client she wanted to have next. She was too agitated. Her jaw was swelling and darkening.
Not him. Not Sir Gerald. She wanted to be at her best for him. He was the only one of her clients whose visits she unashamedly enjoyed. Despite herself, the fantasies had never stopped in two months. It was a long time since she had even tried to banish them from her imagination.
It was a long time since she had fallen guiltily in love with him.
She did not want him to be next. She would go down to Miss Blythe, she thought, getting to her feet. She would have Miss Blythe tell him she was indisposed.
But she stopped when her hand was on the doorknob. Sonia had been indisposed two months ago, and he had come to her instead. He had never gone back to Sonia. Sonia had complained of it, and had borne Priscilla a grudge ever since. Clearly she had liked Sir Gerald, too.
What if he went to someone else tonight? Angela, perhaps? Or Theresa?
Priscilla bit her lip. Her hand dropped from the doorknob.
But before she could return to her chair, there was a tap on her door and a maid informed her that Sir Gerald Stapleton was awaiting her in the blue salon belowstairs.
Priscilla smiled at him as she entered the room a few minutes later, holding out one hand to him instead of the usual two. She held a handkerchief to her face with the other, as if she had just been dabbing at her nose with it.
“Sir Gerald,” she said. “How lovely to see you again.”
“Is it, Priss?” he said, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. “You have a cold?”
“No,” she said, lowering her hand and turning away from the light. “Will you come upstairs, sir?”
He followed her up, telling her about a great to-do he had just witnessed in the street when two vehicles had collided and ten others had stopped for their passengers to watch the show and offer their opinions on who was to blame.
“I hope no one was hurt,” she said.
“I believe a lady had her bonnet massacred,” he said. “But there was no injury more serious than that.”
Priscilla closed her door and stayed facing away from him. “Will you unbutton me, sir?” she asked.
“I think I may be going away,” he said abruptly as his hands worked at her back. “Tomorrow or the next day.”
“Into the country?” she said, her voice warm while her heart plummeted painfully. “How lovely for you, sir. May is the loveliest month in the country, I always think.”
“Yes,” he said, his hands easing her dress off her shoulders. “Into the country. Tomorrow, probably.”
She stepped out of her dress without turning around, and crossed to the bed, where she lay watching him undress, her head turned to the side so that half of her face was hidden by the pillow.
For the last time, she thought, smiling at him. Her throat and her chest were aching with a raw pain. So much for fantasies. She had been right when she had told herself that certain fantasies were dangerous and not to be encouraged. Not that she had seemed to have any control over this particular one.
She lay with her eyes closed a few minutes later, keeping herself still and relaxed as he liked her to be, though not as passive as he perhaps thought her. She had never been quite passive. She had always concentrated on being soft and warm and receptive for him. It had not been difficult since she had fallen in love with him.
He moved his head suddenly and she winced away from him.
He lifted himself on his forearms and looked down at her. She smiled up at him, filling her eyes with warmth as she did with all her clients, though with him it had always been as much unconscious as conscious. He stilled in her, his eyes roaming her face.
“I am sorry, sir,” she said. “A little toothache. Let me continue to please you.”
He lowered his forehead to her shoulder and drew a few deep breaths before removing himself from her body and from her bed. She watched him walk to the empty fireplace and stare down at it for a whole minute, drawing deep breaths before turning to take up his clothes and dress himself.
Priscilla swallowed. She was unaccountably frightened.
He crossed to the bed when he was dressed and stood looking down at her. She had not covered herself. His eyes moved over her, and he touched her thigh with two fingers. She glanced down and saw the bruise that had developed since she had cleaned herself earlier.
“Where is your dressing gown?” he asked, looking about him.
“In the top drawer,” she said, indicating the small chest beside her bed.
He opened the drawer and drew the garment out. “Sit up,” he said, and when she did so, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, he held it for her to slip her arms inside. She stood and wrapped it about herself and sat down again on the bed.
“Who did this to you?” he asked, touching her jaw with a light knuckle.
She drew back her head. “It was an accident, sir,” she said, smiling at him. “An unfortunate collision of heads.”
“Who did it?” he asked.
She licked her lips nervously. “I am not allowed to discuss any client with another, sir,” she said.
“He struck you?” he said, and waited for her answer though it was a long time coming.
“Yes,” she said at last.
“Why?” he asked, raising her chin with one hand and looking more closely at her bruised and swollen jaw.
“I displeased him,” she said.
“You, Priss?” he said. “You displeased someone? Impossible. Why did he do it?”
“What he wanted was against the rules,” she said. “He hit me when I refused.”
“And then?” She watched his jaw tighten as he clamped his teeth together.
“I did what he wanted,” she said in a whisper.
He turned and strode from her room, banging the door behind him.
Priscilla lowered her head into her hands and fought the tears that wanted desperately to come.
Tomorrow she would use the power of her mind to bring herself around again. She had been one of Miss Blythe’s girls, a whore, for almost four months, and really it had not been a nightmare of a life, if she discounted that very first time and this night, first with Mr. Farrow and then with Sir Gerald.
All the other days and nights had been at least bearable. She had made a workable life for herself. And it would be bearable again in the future. Mr. Farrow would never be allowed near her or any of the other girls again, and she would get used to the idea that she would not see Sir Gerald again. Indeed, it was as well that he had gone. He had gone while it was still possible to pull herself free from a foolish infatuation. In another few weeks or months perhaps it would not have been possible at all.
Except, she thought, giving in to momentary and uncharacteristic depression, that it did not seem at all possible even now.
She got wearily to her feet and removed her dressing gown again. She had the ritual of cleansing to go through even though Sir Gerald had not released his seed in her.
He had been her last client for the day, she thought with weary gratitude. It was tempting to forgo the ritual or to shorten it so that she could climb back into the rumpled bed and lose herself in sleep. But she patiently and methodically washed and douched all traces of Sir Gerald Stapleton from her body.
SIR GERALD TAPPED on Miss Blythe’s sitting room door since there was no servant in sight to do so for him. He entered at her bidding. She was sitting in her usual place, her spectacles perched on the end of her nose as she peered over them at him, a book open on her lap.
“Ah, Sir Gerald,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise
. Do come in. You have been calling on Prissy?”
“I want to know who was with her last,” he said grimly.
Miss Blythe took her spectacles off. “I am afraid that is privileged information, sir,” she said.
“Then perhaps you should go upstairs and examine the bruise and swelling on her face,” he said, “and the bruise on her thigh.”
The book slid to the floor as Miss Blythe got to her feet. “Priscilla has been abused?” she said. “She has not complained to me, sir.”
“Probably because she has been too busy with her duties,” he said. “I did not even notice at first. I was too concerned with my own pleasure, I suppose. I want your assurance, ma’am, that she will never be touched by that man again.”
“You have it, sir,” she said. “I do not allow my girls to be abused. You should know that. Least of all Prissy.”
Sir Gerald’s hands clenched at his sides. “The very thought of his laying a hand on her is enough to make me want to commit murder,” he said.
“It will not happen again, Sir Gerald, I do assure you,” she said firmly. “The matter will be looked to immediately.”
“She does not have anyone else coming tonight, does she?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“I cannot bear the thought of any other man touching her, either,” he said.
Miss Blythe stooped to pick up her book and set it on a table with her spectacles.
“Are your girls bound to you by contract?” he asked. “If Prissy wanted to leave, could she? Or is there a price you would accept?”
“My girls are free to leave whenever they wish,” Miss Blythe said. “Most of them never do wish to leave because I look after them well, sir. They are infinitely better off here than they would be on the street.”
“I know,” he said absently. “If I were to offer to take Prissy away and make her my mistress, you would set no obstacle in the way, ma’am?”
“Indeed I might,” she said, “though I have only my influence to use with her. I would wish to know that her interests would be as well protected under your care as I have tried to make them under mine. Won’t you take a seat, sir? I believe we have some business to discuss.”