Sattler, Veronica

by The Bargain

  Dorcas fixed a disbelieving gaze on her young charge, then looked askance at Monica who was suddenly busy with the apothecary jars in the cupboard. She didn't believe Ashleigh's story for a second, but she well realized the reasons for it. What to do? She loved the wee one as much as if she had been her own, and had since she'd first set eyes on her that cold winter's night more than twelve years ago when her sister, poor Maud, rest her soul, had brought the lass to her—a skinny, bewildered little thing, frightened out of her wits at being burned out of her home and left an orphan, with none but her beloved nursemaid Maud to see after her, to care if she lived or died.

  A gentleman's daughter she'd been, raised in the lap of luxury from the moment she'd been born... only all that was suddenly gone for her the night the fire claimed the lives of her doting parents and all they owned.

  And that was the thing Dorcas had never really been able to understand. Why had no protection been set up for the child? It was as if all traces of the Sinclair family had vanished from the face of the earth.

  And then there had been Maud's semicoherent ramblings before she passed on, a victim of the deadly inhalation of smoke from that terrible fire. She'd cautioned Dorcas not to try to investigate, pleaded with her to let well enough alone, lest there be—what was it she had said?—"more skulduggery afoot"; yes, that was it. And what was Dorcas, a simple cook in the employ of one of the most lavish and notorious brothels in London, to make of that?

  But after Maud's death, when the child had been taken in and given a place as a kitchen helper by Madame, Dorcas had enlisted the aid of her seaman friend Roger in looking into that matter. Roger found the family's solicitor, and the word came back that the Sinclair family had been living on the margin. Ashleigh's parents had been fond and loving, but not very wise with money. There had been debts, some of which stemmed from stretching their wealth beyond their means. Ashleigh and her brother had once had the best in clothes, servants, tutors, horses and the like.

  This older brother, Maud herself had once explained to Dorcas years earlier, had been trained at sea, then sent to make the family a fortune in trade (on a ship they had again overextended themselves to purchase) to the West Indies whence he never returned. Lost at sea, he was, when his ship went down, and he was never heard from again. The Sinclair lands were sold off to satisfy creditors after the fire, and no one, the solicitor included, took any interest in the fate of the Sinclair daughter. Roger had offered to make further inquiries, but then poor Maud had breathed her last, and new demands had claimed Dorcas's attention.

  So here little Ashleigh had remained, lovely little sprite of a thing that she was, toiling away in the kitchens of a notorious house of wicked doings, when she'd been born to a life of leisure and was clearly a lady, from the top of her luxuriant black tresses to the tips of her dainty pink toes. And nary a whimper of complaint out of her, either.

  Dorcas allowed herself a small swelling of pride for what she believed to be her own part in this; she had instantly taken to the wee child, happily tucking her under her wing in an outpouring of maternal affection that seemed to have been stored inside her until then for the children she'd never had.

  Now, as her observant blue eyes took in the lovely profile of her charge while Ashleigh stood near the cupboard measuring out a dram of headache powder into a cup, a worried frown crossed the old woman's brow. And it was the overwhelming sight of Ashleigh's growing beauty that caused this, for it reminded Dorcas of Sunday's encounter with Drake and what the lout had hinted of Madame's interest in the girl.

  Something had to be done, and done soon, or the lass would find herself an unwilling and helpless addition to the business up there!

  Just then, there was a noise at the door to the hallway, and with a rustling of skirts, a tall, strikingly beautiful woman with flaming-red hair appeared.

  "'Tis a might early t' be gatherin' fer tea, isn't it?" questioned the woman, the distinct crispness of an Irish brogue lacing her speech.

  "Megan!" chirped Ashleigh with a quick look of surprise and then a grin. "What are you doing up and about at this hour?"

  "'Twould be servin' the truth better if ye were t' ask me if I've been t' sleep yet," replied the redhead with a slow, mildly wicked smile that was belied by a merry twinkle in her large green eyes.

  "Oh-h," replied Ashleigh with a blush. Try as she might, even for all her years of living and working in this house, she was still not blasé about the nature of the "entertainment" it offered. Part of this accrued from the heavy wall of protection built about her by Dorcas and her well-trained, loyal band of kitchen help, part of it by her own natural reticence. Although she had learned the function of the place well enough after coming here a dozen years ago, most of Ashleigh's knowledge was gained secondhand, in carefully couched phrases from Dorcas, or Tillie, the pantrygirl. And for Ashleigh this was sufficient; she was still an innocent in every sense of the word, and she was content to be so.

  Oh, it wasn't that she lacked a lively curiosity about life and the world. She had this in abundance, but wise old Dorcas had seen to channeling this in the healthiest way; thrice a week, hired by Dorcas out of her own carefully stored savings, a tutor had come from the other side of town and given Ashleigh an ongoing challenge to her quick intelligence. Ever since she'd turned seven, Monsieur Laforte, a French émigré from the Reign of Terror, had engaged her in lively repartee, both in English and French, feeding and filling her hunger for knowledge. Laforte had formerly been a tutor to the House of Bourbon itself, and his qualifications were the best. But of this Ashleigh had cared little; what had delighted her had been the little man's enthusiasm for his work. In recent years Ashleigh suspected there was also an appeal to his Frenchman's sense of the ironic that he should have been called to instill the teachings of everyone from Plato to Shakespeare in a house such as this.

  "Daydreamin' again, little one?" questioned Megan, her humor-rich voice rousing Ashleigh from her reverie.

  "What—? Oh, yes, I suppose I was," answered Ashleigh with yet another blush. "I'm sorry, Megan."

  "Think nary another thought on it, me lass. 'Tis best ye be closin' yer mind t' the doin's o' the likes o' our ilk, t' be sure!" Megan peered down at the blonde who stood between them, for although Monica was tall, the top of her head reached barely to the perfectly chiseled nose of the six-feet-tall Irishwoman. "Isn't that the truth, Monica, darlin'?"

  The sarcastic intonation was not lost on Monica, who seethed with barely pent-up hatred for her chief rival at the brothel. She looked up at Megan now, taking in the proud Celtic beauty of her competitor: the perfect oval face with its high cheekbones and finely sculptured features, the knowing green eyes, heavily lashed and upward slanted at the corners, the fine, straight nose and wide, sensual mouth that smiled to reveal pearly white, even teeth—and that hair!

  Monica clenched her jaw and ground her teeth as she surveyed that mass of fiery glory, clutching her hands into fists as well, as she forestalled an urge to wrap her fingers around those cascading curls and tear them out of Megan's head by the roots.

  "I'd say it is about time your little friend did learn some specifics about the likes of us and our—ah—profession!" she said with a sly smile in Ashleigh's direction. "It would better prepare her for what Madame has in mind." Her eyes darted carefully over Ashleigh's slender form, and there was cruelty in her voice as she added, "She's fully grown now, and, I daresay, eats more these days than she did as the waif she was. I'd say it was high time she began to really earn her keep!" With a quick motion, she snatched the cup of prepared headache remedy from Ashleigh's grasp and downed it in several gulps; and after thrusting the empty cup back into Ashleigh's hands, she whirled about and strutted haughtily out of the room.

  "What a strange thing to say!" Ashleigh exclaimed, looking first at Megan, then at Dorcas and finally back at Megan again. "Megan...?"

  "Ah, 'tis only more o' her wicked blatherin', Ashleigh, darlin'. Pay her no mind—no mind at all!" Megan threw
a meaningful look at Dorcas over Ashleigh's head. "Ah, didn't I hear ye sayin' ye had an errand t' be sendin' the lass after, Dorcas?"

  Nodding, Dorcas jumped in quickly. "Ah, yes, lass, 'tis some bones and scraps ye're t' fetch from Mister Tidley, the butcher." She glanced at the kitchen clock on the mantel. "He's been savin' them fer that beastie o' yers. 'Tis a good time t' run t' his shop and fetch them. Run along, now! There's a good lass!" And with the asperity of a mother hen shooing her chicks out of the path of danger, she urged Ashleigh out the back door.

  When Ashleigh had gone, Dorcas gave Megan a brief, knowing glance and then spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. "I knew it wasn't a social visit that brought ye down here this early, Megan. What's afoot?"

  The redhead's green eyes darted swiftly about the large kitchen. As it was early yet, none of the other help were about, but it paid not to be careless. Although Dorcas's staff were a good lot, and mostly loyal, it was also true that Madame was known to pay well to be kept abreast of what was going on under her roof, as well as about town and beyond, and Megan didn't care to have their conversation bandied about where her employer could catch wind of it. At last satisfying herself that no extra pairs of ears were about to pick up her words, Megan spoke, her own voice subdued to a near whisper. "Ah, Dorcas, 'tis just as we feared after yer encounter with Drake. Me gentleman last night was a young toff who patronizes these quarters rather regularly, a harmless enough lad, youngest son o' the earl o' Dunvale... kept me up the entire night with the need t' be stroked and petted, he did; nothin' more, if ye can fancy that...."

  "Megan!" Dorcas fixed her with a frown of disapproval.

  "Ah, yes... well... sorry, Dorcas." Megan sent the cook a contrite smile. "Well, t' get on with it, the toff told me before he left that Madame promised him, the next time he's in town, that he might have a virgin she's got comin' aboard—a raven-haired beauty with a pair o' deep blue eyes the size o' saucers and a natural beauty mark high on her cheek!"

  "Ah, Megan, no!" Dorcas exclaimed, her ruddy complexion suddenly gone ashen.

  "Aye, 'tis what he said," Megan nodded somberly. "The worst has happened—or soon will—unless we speed the poor lass away from here."

  "Away? But how? Where would she go? And how would she get on, once she got there?" Dorcas's aged face reflected earnest worry in every line.

  "Calm yourself, Dorcas. I think I have an idea...."

  * * * * *

  "Allow me to ascertain whether I understand you precisely," said the woman they all called Madame. She sat facing Megan and Dorcas in a small, handsome antechamber adjoining her boudoir, a room unofficially designated as her office. Decorated in varying shades of soft green and rose with cream accents, it was tasteful and discreet, as were all the rooms of the well-proportioned town house Madame had purchased twenty-five years ago in the best part of town, with what she called "conscience money" from her last lover when he had sought to rid himself of his notorious mistress.

  A cozy fire crackled in the grate, throwing softly undulating waves of light and shadow across the rose and green florals of the Aubusson carpet on the floor, and a Louis XV gold ormolu mantel clock ticked its way toward the hour, which was nearly four, the time at which Madame had indicated she would be taking tea and their interview would be at an end.

  Dressed in a soft rose dressing gown of watered silk and cream-colored Alencon lace, Madame was holding court from her seat on a George II green damask-covered armchair. A handsome woman of fifty-eight years, she had once been the foremost beauty of her time, a courtesan who, it was whispered, had enjoyed the favors of kings and dukes on both sides of the Channel before settling at last on English soil during the time of the French Revolution. She was of medium height, but appeared taller, owing to a pair of exceptionally long legs that, even now, as she crossed them under the parting folds of her dressing gown, displayed a youthful shape. Her hair had once been a deep honey-gold, though now it bore more silvery tones, but it was still abundant and shiny, something Madame fervently believed she achieved with the warm olive-oil treatments she'd been giving it since the day she'd learned of this beauty secret from an Italian principessa who used it to barter for her husband's release from the young Madame's amorous clutches. In her youth, when she was the toast of London, as she had been in Paris before that, it was said she owed her delicate coloring with its fair, porcelainlike skin, to an aristocratic English father, while her angular, Gallic features were the legacy of a long line of French courtesans, of which her mother had been the last.

  Now, as she arched one delicate red-gold eyebrow while surveying the two women who sat across from her, those still-handsome Gallic features spoke of a keen shrewdness.

  "If I understand you correctly," Madame was saying, "you want me to find the girl some sort of honest employment elsewhere or the pair of you will leave my employ immediately and take Ashleigh with you." Madame's pale gray-green eyes were riveted on Dorcas as she spoke. "Is that the gist of it?"

  Dorcas's clasped hands twisted nervously in her lap, but thoughts of what might happen to Ashleigh if she failed her now, forced her to return Madame's look and, after swallowing hard, answer, "Yes... yes, it is."

  The shrewd eyes shifted and focused on Megan. "Megan, this business bears your signature more than anyone's, I'll warrant, so I'll put my question to you. Do you have any idea what has happened to girls who have endeavored to leave my employ without my assent?"

  Until now Megan O'Brien's emerald eyes had been cool and watchful during the interview, revealing little as she and Dorcas had laid out their terms, but now Madame detected an ever-so-faint glimmer of heightened interest in their cool green depths.

  "My dear," Madame continued, "surely you cannot tell me you've forgotten the tale of Liza Fairchild, who was going off to become that young earl's mistress and was found by Drake, months later, lying in the gutter, drunken senseless with a babe in her belly and rags on her back?" She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward in her chair. "Or what about that headstrong brunette from Dorset—what was her name?—ah, yes... Marion. What of her and her grandiose scheme of setting up her own house with that young seaman lover of hers who claimed he could supply her with no end of Oriental beauties fresh from ports like Shanghai and Hong Kong?"

  Suppressing a shudder, Megan suddenly rose to her feet. She had no wish to recall the details of how the foolish Marion had been found, brutally raped and abused, with her throat cut, near one of the docks of Liverpool only a month after she'd left Madame's house. Rumors had flown that she was only one of almost a dozen such victims of the devil who'd pretended to be a sailor going into business with an unsuspecting whore. "I'll not pretend we relish the idea o' moving out on ye, Madame," she said, carefully watching the older woman's eyes as she spoke. "Dorcas and I have been treated well here, and we've come t' regard Hampton House as our home." She cast a brief glance at Dorcas, who nodded solemnly. "But as ye know, we've both become fond o' the wee mavourneen downstairs, and we've sworn not t' allow her t' be sucked up in a life here, Madame—we've sworn it!" Finding that her voice had gained more inflection than she'd intended with this last statement, Megan collected herself, softening it somewhat, to resume speaking. "Therefore, Madame, we have prepared ourselves... t' go t' considerable... lengths t' protect the lass."

  Madame caught something in Megan's eyes as she spoke these last words, and whatever it was—she wasn't certain, but her instincts told her to pay attention to it—she picked up on the signal with keen interest. "Threatening to leave Hampton House and rob me of my prized cook and one of the best girls I've had in years... those aren't the only clubs the two of you have to hold over my head, are they, Megan?" She watched the tall redhead's face with avid interest.

  Megan smiled and gave her a look that acknowledged her respect for the older woman's ability to perceive things quickly. She'd always admired Madame's astute mind. "Ah, no, they aren't, Madame. Ye see, Dorcas and I, we've made it our business over the years t' become acquainted,
shall we say, with some o' the quieter doin's at Hampton House... doin's ye'd be wishin' we weren't privy t'... like—" she cast a brief appraising glance at Madame's anxious expression and then hurried quickly onward "—like what goes on in the stables on certain nights when 'tis extra dark because there's no moon... or things that have t' do with a certain king's minister who frequents these chambers fer reasons other than us lovelies—although we're well aware that his lordship isn't above liftin' a skirt or two while he awaits the true business he's after."

  "There's an ugly word for what you're up to," said Madame. "It's called blackmail."

  "There are uglier words I can think of," snapped Megan. "They're called smugglin' and spyin'."

  "Touché," acknowledged Madame with a small smile. Whatever her misgivings about having trusted the girl with too much carelessly dropped information, she had always admired Megan for her spunk and the wit behind that amazing beauty. She heaved a small sigh. In fact, if she were to admit it, she had always known Megan O'Brien to be a cut above the rest of the clever and not-so-clever beauties she'd seen come and go over the years, and she listened to the voice inside her now that told her the beauteous redhead would probably find a way to take herself beyond the walls of Hampton House one of these days; it was inevitable, really. "Very well, Megan, Dorcas—" she nodded at each in turn "—it seems you two have me over the proverbial barrel. Ashleigh may go." She watched as Megan smiled and Dorcas heaved an obvious sigh of relief.

  "Now, the problem remains as to how. Hmm...." She tapped two long, well-manicured nails on the arm of her chair, deep in thought. At length she brightened with a smile of accomplishment. "I have it! Baron Mumford was complaining to me only last Saturday night of the loss of a governess he'd engaged for his young twin daughters. As the two of you may not know—" she gave them a quick look of appraisal "—then again, perhaps you do.... Well, at any rate, I have had the chore, from time to time, of placing some of my girls, those who haven't worked out for one reason or another, in various positions in the houses of some of the gentry with whom I've— ah—had the pleasure of becoming acquainted. With Ashleigh's background in academics—yes, Dorcas, I know all about Monsieur Laforte and his able tutoring—it shouldn't be too difficult to place her in the good baron's household. I'll write the dear fellow today, and if he agrees—and I have no doubt of it—his written reply will, I shall inform him, constitute a formal promise of employment for our dear Ashleigh.... Well, what do you say?"