by Rhys Bowen
“Let me give you a word of advice, girlie,” he said in slurred tones, wagging a finger at me. “Don’t drink any more tonight. You’ve already had enough. Trust me, I know.” Then he staggered past me up the stairs.
I collected myself and smoothed down my skirt and my hair before I went through into the club itself. It was dimly lit, with candles on small tables and the only real light coming from the stage, where a girl was dancing.
“Can I help you, miss?” A swarthy man in a dinner jacket appeared at my side. He didn’t seem to possess a razor.
“I’m meeting someone here,” I said. “A Mr. Crump.”
“Ah. I see.” He gave me something between a grin and a leer. “He’s expecting you. At that table on the far right.”
The man looked up as I approached him and he rose to his feet.
“Mr. Crump?” I said, holding out my hand to him. “My agency sent me. Coronet Escorts?”
He was a ruddy, bloated sort of fellow with what he probably thought was a jaunty mustache but which looked more like a hedgehog perched on his upper lip. What’s more, he was wearing an ordinary day suit and a rather loud tie. I saw him giving me a long once-over.
“You’re younger than I expected,” he said. “And you’re wearing more clothes too.”
“I assure you I’m old enough to be a perfect companion for you,” I said. “I’m educated and well traveled.”
He smirked. “I’m not planning to quiz you on your knowledge of geography.” Then he became aware that we were both still standing. “I suppose you’d like a drink before we go?” he said.
“That would be nice. I’d like champagne if they have it.” I took a seat at the table.
“Bloody ’ell,” he muttered. “You London girls certainly have expensive tastes.” I noticed that he had a beer in front of him. He beckoned to a waiter and a bottle of champagne was brought to the table.
“I hope you’ll join me,” I said, feeling embarrassed now that he’d had to buy a whole bottle when all I’d wanted was a glass.
“Why not? Help us both to loosen up, won’t it?” he said and gave me a wink.
The bottle was opened with a satisfying pop. Two glasses were poured. I took a sip then held up my glass to him. “Cheers,” I said. “Here’s to a lovely evening for both of us.”
I noticed he swallowed hard. In fact it almost looked as if he was sweating. “So I expect you want paying up front, do you?”
“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said. “But I shall expect cash at the end of the evening.”
“So what’s the plan then? Do we go back to my hotel, or do you have a place where you take clients nearby? I know I should have asked on the telephone but this was all rather last minute, wasn’t it? In fact I’d never have thought of it if I hadn’t seen your advert this morning. I don’t usually do this sort of thing.”
I was just trying to digest what he had said when the music picked up in tempo. There were whoops and catcalls coming from the front of the room. I looked up at the stage. The girl was still dancing, but I was suddenly aware that she wore almost no clothing. As I stared in fascinated horror, she opened an ostrich feather fan which she held in front of her, then, to a final drum roll, she produced her brassiere and tossed it into the front rows of the audience.
Suddenly the penny dropped. My hotel or your place?
“Wait,” I said. “What were you expecting from me?”
“Only the usual, darling,” he said. “Same as you do with all the men. Nothing too kinky.”
“I think there must be some mistake,” I said. “We are a respectable escort service. We provide girls as dinner companions, theater companions, not the sort of thing you obviously have in mind.”
“Don’t play coy with me, sweetheart,” he said. The words were slurred enough to tell me that he had been drinking for some time. He reached across and grabbed my arm. “What are you trying to do, push up the price? I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. Come on, drink up your bubbly and we’ll go back to my hotel, or you’ll be charging me by the hour.”
I attempted to stand up. “I’m afraid there’s been a horrible misunderstanding here. I think I’d better go.”
His grip on my arm tightened. “What’s the matter, girlie, don’t you fancy me, or what? Isn’t my brass good enough for you?” The smile had disappeared from his face. He was blowing beery breath in my face. “Now you come with me like a good girl or you know what I’ll do? I’ll have you arrested for soliciting.”
He stood up and attempted to drag me with him.
“Let go of me, please,” I said. I sensed people at the tables around us watching. “Just let me go and we’ll forget the whole thing.”
“No, we bloody won’t,” he said. “I’ve had to pay for a bottle of champagne. And we made an agreement, me and your agency. We struck a bargain and Harold Crump doesn’t take kindly to people who try to back out of business deals. Now stop playing the prissy little miss and get moving.”
“Didn’t you hear the young lady? She will not be coming with you,” said a voice behind me.
I recognized that voice and spun around to see Darcy O’Mara standing there, looking amazingly dashing in a white dinner jacket and bow tie, his unruly black hair combed into submission, apart from a wayward curl that fell onto his forehead. It was all I could do not to throw myself into his arms.
“And who are you, butting in like this?” Mr. Crump demanded, blustering up to Darcy only to find he was several inches shorter.
“Let’s just say that I’m her manager,” Darcy said.
“Her pimp, you mean.”
“Call it what you like,” Darcy said, “but there’s been a mistake. She should never have been sent out tonight. Our agency only deals with clients of the highest social echelon. We have a new girl answering the telephone and she omitted to put you through our normal vetting process. And now I’ve seen your behavior, I am afraid there is no way I could allow one of our girls to go anywhere with you. You simply don’t pass muster, sir. You are, to put it bluntly, too common.”
“Well, I never did,” Mr. Crump said.
“And you’re not going to now,” Darcy replied. “Come, Arabella. We’re leaving.”
“Here, what about my champagne?” Mr. Crump demanded.
Darcy reached into his pocket and threw down a pound note on the table. Then he took my arm and half dragged me up the steps.
“What the hell do you think you were doing?” he demanded as we stepped out into the night. His eyes were blazing and I thought for one awful moment that he might hit me.
“That stupid man got it wrong.” I was near to tears now. “I advertised my services as an escort. He must have misunderstood. He thought I was—you know—a call girl.”
“You advertised your services as an escort?” Darcy’s fingers were still digging into my upper arm.
“Yes, I put an advertisement in the Times and called myself Coronet Escorts.”
Darcy spluttered. “My dear naïve little girl, surely even you must have realized that the words ‘escort service’ are a polite way of advertising something a little more seedy? Of course he thought he was getting a call girl. He had every right to think so.”
“I had no idea,” I snapped. “How was I to know?”
“Surely you must have had your suspicions when you saw that club. Nice girls do not go to places like that, Georgiana.”
“Then what were you doing in it?” I demanded, my relief now turning to anger. “You walk out of my life. You don’t bother to write. And now I find you slumming it in a place like that. No wonder you’re not interested in me. I don’t take my clothes off in front of a group of men.”
“As to what I was doing there . . .” he said. I thought I detected the twitch of a smile on his lips. “I had to meet a man about a dog. And I can assure you that I didn’t bother to look at what was taking place on the stage. I’ve seen far better and had it offered for free. And as to why I disappeared and didn�
�t get in touch—I’m sorry. I had to go abroad in something of a hurry. I just got back yesterday. And you’re damned lucky I did, or you’d still be trying to fight off that troglodyte.”
“I would have managed,” I said huffily. “You don’t always have to step in and rescue me, you know.”
“It seems that I do. You’re simply not safe to be allowed out alone in the city,” he said. “Come on. We’re going to Leicester Square where we can pick up a taxicab, and I’m sending you home.”
“What if I don’t want to go home?”
“You have no choice, my lady. Exactly what would your family think if you were snapped by a passing newspaper-man, coming out of a seedy London gentlemen’s strip club? Now walk.”
He propelled me along the pavement until he flagged down a taxicab. “Take this young lady back to Belgrave Square,” he said in an authoritative voice I had never heard from him before. He bundled me into the cab. “And you remove that advertisement from the Times the first thing tomorrow morning, do you hear?”
“It’s my life. You can’t dictate to me,” I snapped because I thought I might cry any moment. “You don’t own me, you know.”
“No,” he said, looking at me long and hard. “But I do care about you, in spite of everything. Now go home, have a cup of cocoa and go to bed—alone.”
“Aren’t you coming with me?” My voice quivered a little.
“Is that an invitation?” he asked, the scowl vanishing for a second before it resumed, and he said, “Regrettably I still have business to conclude. But I expect we’ll run into each other on some future occasion in a place that is more suitable.” Then he leaned into the cab, grasped my chin, drew me toward him and kissed me hard on the mouth. Then he slammed the taxicab door, and I was driven off into the night.
Chapter 5
Rannoch House
August 16
Cooler, more normal weather.
Internal turmoil not cooler at all.
I managed to make it all the way home without crying. But as soon as I shut the big front door behind me, the tears started to roll down my cheeks. It wasn’t just the fright and embarrassment of what happened and what might have happened, it was the knowledge that I had now definitely lost Darcy. I went up to bed and curled into a tight little ball, wishing I were somewhere safe, with someone who loved me, and coming to the realization that I actually had nobody, apart from my grandfather, that I could count on.
I awoke to the sound of distant knocking. It took me a moment to realize that someone was hammering on my front door. It was only nine o’clock and I pulled on my robe and went downstairs cautiously, wondering who it could be at this hour. Certainly not Belinda. Hope rose for an instant that it might be Darcy, coming to apologize for his boorish behavior last night. But when I opened the door a young policeman was standing there.
“I’ve been sent from Scotland Yard to speak to Lady Georgiana Rannoch,” he said, eyeing my night attire and wild hair. “Is she available, please?”
“I am Lady Georgiana,” I said. “May I ask who has sent you from Scotland Yard and what this is about?”
“Sir William Rollins would like to have a word with you, my lady.”
“Sir William Rollins?”
He nodded. “Deputy commissioner.”
“And why does Sir William wish to speak with me?”
“I couldn’t tell you, my lady. He doesn’t confide in ordinary coppers. I’m told to go and fetch you, and I go. Now if you could hurry and get dressed, he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
I tried to think of a crushing retort. He was, after all, speaking to the daughter of a duke and second cousin to the king. I opened my mouth to say that if Sir William Rollins wished to speak to me, he could present himself at Rannoch House. But I couldn’t make the words come out. In fact my legs were a trifle shaky as I went back upstairs. What could Scotland Yard possibly want with me? And not just Scotland Yard, but somebody frightfully high up there? In my past dealings with the Metropolitan Police I had had to contend with a truly obnoxious inspector and a rather smarmy chief inspector. Clearly this was something more serious, then, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what. . . . Unless . . . Surely they couldn’t have found out about last night? And even if they had, I had done nothing against the law—had I?
I grabbed the first dress I could find in my wardrobe that looked vaguely presentable, ran a brush through my hair, cleaned my teeth and splashed water on my face. Then I came downstairs again to face whatever I had coming to me. I found it hard to breathe as the squad car whisked me toward Whitehall and entered into the forecourt of Scotland Yard. The door was held open for me and I tried to enter with my head held high, only to trip over the doormat and come flying into the foyer at a full stagger. (That tendency to clumsiness in moments of stress again, I’m afraid.)
Even more humiliating for me, a young, fresh-faced bobby grabbed me and saved me from crashing into a glass partition. “Keen to be arrested, are you, miss?” he said, giving me a cheeky grin.
I tried to give him a look that would have done my great-grandmother credit when she pronounced the words “We are not amused,” but somehow I couldn’t make my face obey me either.
“This way, your ladyship,” my original escort said, and ushered me into a lift. It seemed to take an eternity to go up. I found I was holding my breath, but by the time we reached the fifth floor, I had to gasp. At last it juddered to a halt. The constable pulled back the concertina door and I stepped out into a deserted hallway. At the end of the hall he pressed a button. A door opened and we were admitted to an outer office where two young women were busy typing. This was different from my previous experience of Scotland Yard. The floor was carpeted, for one thing, and the rich, herby smell of pipe tobacco hung in the air.
“Lady Georgiana to see Sir William,” the young policeman said.
One of the young women got up from her desk.
“This way, please. Follow me.” She looked and sounded the epitome of efficiency. I bet she’d never tripped over a rug in her life.
She led me down another hallway and tapped at a door.
“Come in!” a voice boomed.
“Lady Georgiana, Sir William,” the woman said in her efficient voice.
I stepped inside. The door closed behind me. The pipe smell was revealed as coming from a big, florid man who sat behind the desk. He spilled over the sides of a large leather chair, the meerschaum clenched between his teeth. As I entered, he removed it from his mouth and held it poised in one hand. If I had summed up the typist as efficient, I could sum him up in one word too: powerful. He had fierce eyebrows, for one thing, and the sort of expression that indicated he didn’t like to be crossed, and rarely was.
“Lady Georgiana. Good of you to come so quickly.” He held out a meaty hand.
“Did I have a choice?” I asked, and he laughed heartily, as if I had made a good joke.
“I’m not arresting you, you know. Please. Take a seat.” I sat.
“Then would you like to tell me what I’m doing here?” I asked.
“You don’t have an inkling?”
“No. Why should I?”
He leaned back, eyeing me across his large mahogany desk. “Some disturbing news has just come to light,” he said. “Our vice squad keeps an eye on the newspapers for potentially illegal and antisocial activities. When an advertisement showed up in no less than the Times yesterday, they checked on the telephone number given in the advert. They couldn’t have been more surprised to find out that the number was that of your London residence—a telephone owned in the name of the Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch. So we immediately came to the conclusion that there had been a misprint in the newspaper and we contacted the Times to tell them so. We were then informed that there was no misprint.”
He paused. Those alarming eyebrows twitched with a life of their own, like two prawns. “So I thought you and I had better have a little chat and settle this matter before it goes any further. Wou
ld you like to clarify things for me?”
I was currently staring in fascination at the eyebrows, while wishing that the floor would open up and swallow me.
“It was all a hideous mistake,” I said. “I merely intended to start a small escort service.”
“Escort service?” The eyebrows shot up.
“Not what you’re thinking. Well-bred girls who would be available as dinner or theater partners for men who didn’t like to dine alone. Nothing more. Perhaps my wording was inept?”
He shook his head, chuckling now. “Oh dear, oh dear me. Your wording couldn’t have been more obvious if you’d written ‘Call Fifi for a good time.’ But I must say I’m relieved that you haven’t actually joined the oldest profession yet.”
I could feel my face positively glowing with the heat of embarrassment.
“Absolutely not. And I assure you I will be withdrawing the advertisement this morning.”
“Already done, my dear,” he said. “But in future I must warn you to be a little more prudent if you desire to go into business. Check with someone older and more worldly wise so that you don’t make any more embarrassing blunders, eh?”