Forsaking Hope

by Beverley Oakley

  His gaze had been intense and filled with longing. As if he were yearning for something he feared he could never have. That’s what it had felt like to Hope, tremulous and aching with the knowledge they could never bridge the divide that separated them. She, the penniless vicar’s daughter, revelling in her special evening before she was shipped off to her governess position, and he, the son of the great Durham family of Foxley Hall, the venerable manor that had looked down upon the rest of them for the past four hundred years.

  But that was all in the past, and there was no look in the eye of the clearly bosky young man currently leering at her that suggested a longing for what he could never have. More like a brash assessing as to whether he might sample the wares before Hope was led like a lamb to the slaughter—the surprise cheering-up gift for Mr Durham, as she’d been informed.

  Bile stung the back of her throat. What would Mr Durham think?

  And did she have the courage to do what she wanted, which was to turn tail and run?

  Instead, Hope clasped her reticule to stop her hands from trembling and adopted her most dignified manner as she inclined her head. She’d honed deference to a fine art at the risk of a backhander from Wilfred, and as the price for survival working for Madame Chambon.

  “Well, well, I was told Madame Chambon’s girls rivalled the Goddess Aphrodite for beauty and pleasure-giving,” the young man went on, standing aside to admit her. “You certainly do not disappoint.”

  Hope stepped into the passage, trying to put dull resignation ahead of pure panic. Her palms were slick with dread, and she hoped she was successful in concealing the rapid, shallow breathing that might make her more of a victim. Evil relished vulnerability.

  The young man closed the door and cast a look of appreciation the length of her stylish scarlet velvet bustle skirt, following the line of her wasp-waisted cuirass to where it lingered on the swell of her breasts above the tightly fitted bodice.

  “You are not the gentleman I’m here to see,” she said in quelling tones. “My time is precious. Thank you, sir.”

  He blinked rapidly a few times, seemed to gather his wits, then preceded her up the passage, saying over his shoulder, “Now don’t go speaking so harshly to Felix, will you? That’s why you’re here. To cheer him up. I’m Ralph Millament, by the way.”

  Cheer him up. She swallowed painfully.

  “I say, are you coming?”

  Mr Millament blinked owlishly through the three yards of gloom that separated them, for Hope had dug in her heels. She couldn’t do this. Not for all the tea in China, all the fashionable gowns from Madame Soulent’s, and three years worth of good food and reliable shelter. It was too much. How could she even trust Wilfred to keep his word when he’d proven himself such a cad?

  A door just behind her was thrust open, filling the corridor with noise as two gentlemen nearly barrelled into her in pursuit of a young lady who disappeared, giggling and shrieking, into another room.

  Somehow, in the process, Hope was knocked like a skittle towards Mr Millament who’d started towards her. He caged her hand on his arm and marched her quickly up the stairs saying, “Poor fellow’s been in a blue funk since he lost his sister, though he’s always been the serious type. Not quite like this, though. No; nothing like this. My friend Beavis and the other chaps wanted to find a lovely lady such as yourself the last time he was under the great black cloud of despair, but Felix would hear none of it, so this time we thought we’d take it upon ourselves. We’d hold a greart party and invite a girl just for him.” He sent Hope an appreciative look. “My, I would say you are his idea of perfection.”

  Hope was about to ask why he thought that having a prostitute brought in would cheer him up if he’d previously rejected the idea, only Mr Millament had just thrown open the door to a scene of such total disarray that at first Hope thought the room was unoccupied.

  It was a man’s bedchamber. Hope had seen enough of those to recognise one when she saw one. The large four-poster looked as if it had seen a great deal of action lately, the counterpane half on the floor; the sheets twisted.

  A chair near the washstand was upturned.

  Hope turned to look at Mr Millament, who patted her on the shoulder. “Bit of a ruckus earlier. Nothing to worry about, my dear. Just go in and see what you can do to bring a bit of comfort to our poor lost friend over there.” He sent her a wry smile. “The old fellow had a run of bad luck last night, and now his bride-to-be is in high dudgeon. Saw it all at Lady Mildew’s rout last night and it was not a pretty sight. He’s definitely in need of something to lift his spirits.”

  He’d started to go on but Hope raised her hand for silence, saying, “If he’s about to be married, I’m not going in.”

  “Lord, come back. I’d have thought morality was the last of your considerations. Besides, it was a figure of speech.”

  Hope was surprised to see real concern in his eyes.

  He shook his head vigorously. “Not yet. He hasn’t asked her yet, though she’s been in the wings for as long as I can remember. Don’t know if he can bring himself to take the final plunge, for all she’s not going to give up. Poor Felix. He’s in dreadful shape. You really are our last hope.”

  He pointed to the bed, and Hope saw what she had not before. There was a man, prone, lying face down upon the mattress, half under the covers. How she could have missed that was impossible to speculate for the man was quite naked. His long, muscular legs, lightly dusted with dark hair, ended in a very manly pair of buttocks.

  Mesmerised, Hope’s gaze travelled from his buttocks—where her eyes lingered—up the length of his spine. There was just the right amount of flesh covering his bones. He looked like a man in the prime of good health, though she could not see his face. His ears were instantly recognisable though. There was the slightest point to the tips. Perhaps a characteristic that would go unremarked by anyone who hadn’t gazed from the back pews each Sunday at the neighbourhood’s most eligible bachelor; first with interest, then with growing appreciation, and finally with excitement at the fact he seemed conscious of her.

  He’d confirmed this the fateful night of the Hunt Ball, telling her he’d been awaiting the right opportunity to approach her, which seemed ludicrous since he was the catch of the neighbourhood and she just the vicar’s daughter. A penniless one, at that.

  She turned back to Mr Millament but he had gone, closing the door softly behind him, and Hope’s fond memories of the past were exorcised by the shocking reality.

  And of what she had to do.

  She stared at the figure on the bed. She sniffed. An unfamiliar, not unpleasant aroma tinged the air. No, she had smelt this before. Once she’d been amongst a party of Madame Chambon’s girls invited to a Soho den of iniquity where a strange substance had been smoked through a water pipe in one of the rooms she had mercifully been spared from having to enter. Grace, who’d accompanied her, had been required to dance an exotic dance with veils, to recreate a dream that had visited one of the men smoking this drug. Opium.

  She put her hand to her throat. Mr Durham was an opium eater? Isn’t that what dangerous Lord Byron had called them in his poem a generation earlier?

  Her horror turned to tentative relief. If he believed himself in the grip of an hallucination, surely he’d believe her appearance was just a dream? When their encounter was over and he had no memory of it—she hoped!— she could live with her pride intact, and her heart not quite so eviscerated.

  The man groaned. She supposed it was Mr Durham. She only had his naked back, buttocks, and pointed ears on which to make a judgement for he still lay face downwards on the pillow.

  Hope took a step forwards, and was visited by an excitement so out of character, she thought she must be the one hallucinating on just the smell of the drug.

  Why, if Mr Durham thought all this just a dream, she could indulge her own wildest fantasies. Ones she’d never had when she’d last seen him, for, as a young girl just out of the schoolroom, her wildest f
antasies had gone no further than what might happen in a less-populated corner of the local Assembly hall.

  Of what might happen during that fateful assignation he’d organised in a hurried whisper the night of the Hunt Ball. The assignation at which she’d failed to appear.

  Now that Hope had become acquainted with the desires of London’s Upper Ten Thousand—well, it felt like it, though it was really only a handful of the gentlemen who fell into that category—she’d learnt what men enjoyed. Mr Durham, as a pink of the ton, would no doubt have followed the conventional model of masculinity: taken a wife based on financial and family considerations whom he’d consider it only right to revere for her virtue, and a mistress to pleasure him in bed. Hope must have no illusions that the gallant gentleman who’d laughed away her embarrassment at losing her slipper during the waltz, who’d nearly kissed her, would have been any different.

  So, if Hope was going to save Mr Durham from his demons as Mr Millament had exhorted her to do, she supposed her erstwhile admirer would enjoy imagining a dream along the lines of doing more than just kissing the debutante who’d failed to meet him at his proposed secret rendezvous.

  She took a tentative step forwards, and craned her head as far over the bed as she could to ascertain the intensity of Mr Durham’s slumber.

  He did not move.

  She sat down on the mattress, felt it dip beneath her weight while she eyed the prone gentleman for any sign of movement.

  There was none.

  Now that she was this close, it was very tempting to stretch out a hand and stroke his dark brown hair back from his face. Was he as handsome as she remembered? Or had the demons wrought a dissipation she’d see written in bloodshot eyes and a ruined constitution? Hope had observed that happen often enough to the privileged gentlemen who bought her time and her body.

  When there was no response, only his soft, steady breathing, Hope stood up and went to the writing desk that was littered with a dozen drafts of a letter he’d not finished beyond, “My dearest Annabelle…” “Annabelle, my dear, I’m sorry….” “Forgive me, Annabelle, but…” “Lovely Annabelle, I’m afraid that…” Hope didn’t have to do more than glance across the surface of his desk to see these, but other crumpled letters written on his signature pale blue writing paper littered the floor.

  A niggling worm of disquiet unsettled her even more. Annabelle? Of course, there was more than one woman named Annabelle whom Mr Durham would know.

  Was this lovely Annabelle the cause of his demons? She wondered what Mr Durham had done that he would wish to beg Annabelle’s forgiveness. Was he desperately in love with this woman he’d wronged?

  Who was Annabelle?

  A freshly minted debutante or was she, in fact, Annabelle, the squire’s daughter and if not Hope’s nemesis, then certainly a determined and competitive miss who’d had no fondness for the vicar’s daughter during their years growing up. More to the point, was this Annabelle to whom these pleas for forgiveness being directed, in fact Wilfred’s sister?

  A soft groan from the bed made her whip around. She mustn’t be caught snooping. There were dire consequences for the girls about whom such complaints were made by their gentlemen customers.

  Nervously, she ran her hands down the figure-hugging lines of her polonaise, toying with the dozen tiny buttons and wondering if she had the courage to undress.

  Of course, she’d undressed a hundred times before. Or rather, she’d mostly been undressed. It’s what the gentlemen liked, though clearly, Mr Durham was not in a position to do anything.

  She worried at her lower lip as the fingers of her right hand toyed with the tiny top button of her cuirass. Right now, only Mr Millament knew she was in the house. She could leave and no one would be the wiser, including Mr Durham. This was business after all—and not a business she’d chosen. Mr Durham would have absolutely no idea if he had or hadn’t performed. Or, if she’d serviced him as required. Dear Lord, this could be Hope’s lucky day. The easiest money she’d ever made while enabling her to retain her pride.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to retreat. The impulse to touch him was too great, and she put out her hand.

  Then hesitated, horrified at her brazenness. Disgusted to realise that she, in fact, was the one dissipated by loose living. For didn’t she want to climb into that bed beside him and slide her naked body the length of his lean flanks as a tribute to all the ‘what might have beens’? She was past the frailty of falling in love, but that didn’t mean her body didn’t crave connection with the one human being who had made her heart beat a little faster and a little more raggedly during her brief girlhood. What a naïve innocent she’d been in those days.

  Those were the days when Hope had…well, hope. She could truly believe only good things would happen as she’d closed her eyes, half swooning in the arms of the dashing, handsome man who’d held her on the dance floor with such restraint; and who was now sleeping within inches of her seeking, tentative hand.

  A snatch of music drifted through the open window, a breeze stirring the papers on the escritoire beneath. Hope remembered that she had more than just the usual job she performed as one of Madame’s girls.

  Wilfred’s job. He’d made it clear what was at stake if she didn’t carry out his instructions.

  She tossed back her hair and grimly set to work undoing the tiny buttons that extended from just above her décolletage to her waist. If the paperwork was at Wilfred’s behest and the payment for sexual favours at Madame’s, then Hope was going to have something for herself.

  While she set to work divesting herself of her clothes, she did not drag her eyes from Mr Durham’s shapely buttocks, flanks, or handsomely constructed shoulders. He was as finely put together as any man she’d seen.

  When she’d wriggled out of her cuirass, unbuttoned her skirt, and slithered out of the heavily upholstered bustle cage, she stopped to consider her options.

  Could she really desire this? The feel of skin against skin?

  Every day of her life was a constant battle to retain what barriers she could between what she was forced to do and her inner self.

  Sighing gently, she sat on the bed, half undressed, and placed her hand on the mattress within a hair’s breadth of touching him. This couldn’t be more different. This was the man who’d once represented hope in her otherwise joyless life. Without her darling sister, Charlotte, to protect, and the gentleman of the manor about whom she could daydream, there’d been precious little else to get excited about. Nothing Hope did could satisfy Mama who never stopped harping on about the sacrifices she’d made to rear and nurture a child as ungrateful as Hope.

  The night of the Hunt Ball had represented a turning point. First, the Hunt itself, when she’d fallen and Mr Durham had galloped to her aid, and then the ball that followed in the evening, when the light in Mr Durham’s eyes, the pressure of his fingertips against her cheek, had seemed to promise so much.

  Even now, the memory was fresh of how her skin had tingled all over, and how her nipples had hardened. She’d felt embarrassed at the time. Such bodily sensations were alien to her, but the fact that Mr Durham had whispered a final urgent request to meet him in private at the church before she went to Germany was—then and still—the most thrilling thing that had ever happened to her.

  It seemed extraordinary that after that fateful carriage ride that would take her from her home forever, she’d ever see Mr Durham again. In truth, Hope never had wanted to see him again. She simply couldn’t bear to witness his disgust.

  But here she was now with that very same lovely man—only he was fast asleep and in the grips of an opium dream if she was right about the water pipe by his bed, and the lingering aroma.

  She trembled. Did her desire make her weak? Or was weak with want a power in itself, now that she had the choice to use it as she chose?

  Here was her chance to feel what this man had silently promised through the mere pressure on her fingertips and the look in his eyes. His desire
had pierced her as he’d asked her to meet him on the way to catch her train. The intensity in his gaze had left her in no doubt as to his feelings.

  Hope closed her eyes as grief welled in her breast. One lingering kiss would have been enough to have sustained her through what awaited her in a cheerless chateau in Germany, far from friends and home.

  Hope had long before accepted her fate. She was not wanted at home, but nor had she wanted much. She’d lost her heart, and any indication that one desirable man felt something for her that went beyond simple regard was to be nurtured.

  She’d nurtured it alright. Through that shameful year with Wilfred and all the men since, she’d nurtured that precious, pristine, innocent joy of a future that was different from the one that had been thrust upon her.

  She wore only her corset now. The intricacies of the unlacing required help, and usually the gentleman enjoying her charms for that evening was only too happy to oblige.

  With trembling fingers, Hope untied the laces of the final petticoat and let it slither to the ground. Now, she was naked from the waist down, two creamy mounds swelling from the top of her corset. This was not how Mr Durham would expect to see her, but then he’d never know it was her.

  And that was how it should be.

  All Hope wanted was to enjoy one physical encounter in her life that created in truth the sensations she had to simulate in order to leave a client satisfied: the show of desire, lust, craving for whoever was paying her. And, for the aftermath, just the right degree of admiration, appearance of being sated, a hint of wanting more though not to the extent he’d propose another round. Lord, not that. No adoring prince of the realm, or noble, however handsome, apparently besotted, had been worth that.