The Duchess

by Danielle Steel

It took several weeks for Fabienne to meet two more girls. One of them was suggested by Philippine. She was a beautiful flaming redhead named Agathe, she was a little older than the others, more sophisticated, and she’d had a patron who recently died, so she wanted to join a house again. He had been a politician, and she had interesting connections with the men around him, and said she would bring several clients with her. She was a true courtesan. They invited her to join them too.

  Agathe recommended a friend to them, who also had the potential to bring them many clients. She had started as an actress on the stage, and found prostitution more lucrative. She had a star quality about her, and like Agathe was twenty-five years old, and had a strong self-assured presence, while remaining accessible. Her name was Camille, and she was a blonde with big blue eyes. She was every inch a star.

  They were just debating if seven girls were enough, when Ambre, who preferred exotic practices and whips, contacted them to say she had met someone they might be interested in hiring. She was Japanese, had gotten stranded in Paris, when jilted by a man she’d been engaged to, and was too ashamed to go back to Japan to her relatives. She had disappeared into the underworld in Paris, but had been trained as a geisha before she left Japan. She sounded intriguing, and when Angélique met her, she looked like a little doll, and was even smaller than Angélique. She wore a traditional kimono, and spoke adequate French. She was a shy woman, but a long conversation about the art of being a geisha fascinated Angélique. She would be the last touch of exoticism they needed. She was twenty-two, and her name was Hiroko. They had someone for every male taste now, Asian, African, European, tall, small, bold, shy, Philippine with her sense of humor, and Ambre with her fondness for bondage. They had everyone they needed.

  And with Jacques’s help, the house was finally ready to move into. Fabienne and Angélique contacted all seven women and invited them to arrive as soon as possible to settle into their rooms. And Angélique wanted to take them to buy clothes and have some made. She wanted them to have fabulous lingerie, and the kind of evening gowns worthy of their clients. Agathe said she already had several, but Angélique wanted them all exquisitely dressed, their hair done perfectly. She wanted all eight of them to be a vision of beauty the moment a man stepped through the door. She had told Hiroko that for now she could wear her kimonos, which would be exciting too.

  Over a span of a week, the women arrived with bags and trunks and boxes, and at last they had all moved in. Fabienne and Angélique had moved out of the hotel several weeks before. Fabienne had been allowed to pick the room she wanted, and Angélique was upstairs in the attic. And the others selected their rooms as they arrived, and each of them added little personal touches to their rooms. Juliette had a little stuffed bear on her bed, and Ambre had a small whip and riding crop hanging next to hers. Everyone seemed happy with the setup and loved the house. And Angélique had hired a young cook and two maids to serve them.

  “I feel like I died and went to Heaven,” Philippine said the first time they all had supper together in the dining room, at the handsome new table, which seated twenty. The girls and their clients could even dine there. Jacques ate his meals in the kitchen with the cook and maids. And everyone seemed comfortable with the kind of business they were going to run there. It was no longer a secret, except outside the house. But within it, the employees they had hired were clear.

  After the meal, Philippine and Camille sang for them at the new piano, and the girls all joined in, and Angélique informed them that they were going shopping the next day, and there was excited conversation among them. It was like a boarding school full of girls. Everyone was in great spirits and couldn’t wait to begin receiving their clients.

  Fabienne and Angélique smiled at each other. “We did it,” Angélique said to Fabienne, as she admired the women they’d chosen, chatting with each other between songs.

  “No, you did it,” Fabienne said gratefully, still amazed at how smoothly it had all gone, with Angélique’s impeccable organization and boundless energy.

  “All I did was the decorating. We’d have an empty house if you hadn’t found the girls.”

  “You did a lot more than decorate.” She had fronted all the money, and the girls had agreed to their rates, and the amount they would be paid. Angélique was going to pay them half of what they earned, which they all agreed was extremely generous. No one had ever done that for them before.

  “We’re going to be the talk of Paris,” Agathe said pleasantly. She had already contacted her late patron’s friends, and invited them to join her there when they opened, even if just to look around and share a meal. Angélique wanted them to feel welcome and comfortable, and said she didn’t mind if they didn’t go upstairs at first, until they met and liked the girls. She hoped it would be more than just a brothel—she envisioned it almost like a salon, until they got upstairs, where it was so much more. Camille and Ambre had contacted their regulars as well, and had much to contribute. They all did, each in her special way.

  “And you, Angélique, will you be entertaining clients?” Ambre asked her in her very direct way, as Angélique shook her head.

  “No, I won’t. I’ll talk to the men in the drawing room, and entertain them with you, but I’ll be running the place, and working in other ways.” Ambre nodded, and none of the girls seemed to mind. She wasn’t exploiting them like most madams, she was opening doors to them to better clients than they’d ever had—at least that was Ambre’s hope.

  “What are we calling the house?” Yaba asked her. There was a flurry of conversation after that, with assorted suggestions, and the one they all liked best was “Le Boudoir,” which had a sensual intimate ring to it, without being bawdy. And Angélique liked it too.

  She took them shopping the next day, with all of them in two carriages Jacques hired for them for the afternoon. There was an old one in the carriage house, which was serviceable but not elegant enough to use. And Angélique was shocked when they arrived at a dressmaker’s shop she had been told about and the woman who ran it refused to serve them and asked them to leave. She knew exactly what they were and wanted no part of it. It reminded Angélique that the polite world would not be amused by her new business, no matter how well she ran it, or how pretty the girls were. They had all dressed respectably for the outing, but they were a little too beautiful, a little exotic, and a little too exuberant. They didn’t have the pinched look of bourgeois housewives, and even women in the street looked at them with disapproval while men stared.

  They went to another shop then that she and Fabienne had been to before. They had some very pretty things, and even though the woman who ran it understood who and what she was dealing with, she was happy to serve them, and thanked them for their business. She was very polite, and gracious to the girls. And after that, they went to a store for corsets and lacy underwear, where they all went wild. As much as they were excited by the evening gowns they would be wearing in the drawing room, and one or two day dresses to wear, they needed what went under them far more. They came away with fabulous things in silks and satins, some with exotic openings, lace, garters, tiny corsets, and every kind of item to enhance their already beautiful bodies, and Philippine convinced Angélique to buy one set of satin and lace underthings for herself.

  “No one will ever see it,” Angélique said practically, laughing.

  “Oh, don’t be such a nun,” Philippine teased her. “You could be run over by a carriage, and think how exciting it will be when you go to the hospital and they see your underthings! Come on, be one of us.” She was so funny about it that Angélique bought it along with all the rest, and claimed it when they got back to the house, and the girls each took their pile of treasures.

  The girls all modeled their new finery for each other, and they decided to have a dress rehearsal that night for supper, and wear their new evening gowns.

  When they came downstairs for supper, Angélique thought she had never seen a more spectacular-looking group of women and knew
she had made the right choices. She was relieved to see that all of them had good table manners. All eight of them behaved like ladies, no matter what profession they had decided on for whatever reason. And she was proud of them.

  She had worn the one truly fine evening gown she had brought from Belgrave, in a rich blue velvet, with her mother’s sapphires at her ears and around her throat, and all the women told her how beautiful she was, and were impressed. They were proud of her too.

  “You look like a princess,” Camille said generously, and meant it, and Angélique corrected her, laughing, before she could stop the words.

  “No, just a duchess.” And as soon as she said it, she was shocked at herself and regretted the words.

  “What do you mean?” Agathe asked her pointedly.

  “Nothing. I was just being silly.”

  “No, you weren’t,” they persisted. They had all sensed some mystery about her from the first. “Tell us the truth. Are you a duchess?” She hesitated for a moment, but she knew all of their stories, about where they came from, why they were there, and how they had come to this way of life. They might as well know hers.

  “No, I’m not a duchess,” she said honestly. “I’m only a lady. But my father was a duke. My brother inherited the title and the estate, according to British law, and the family fortune, all of it, except for a small house on the estate that went to my other brother. As a woman in England, I inherited nothing, neither the property, nor the title, nor the money. My mother was a duchess, married to my father, and her father was a French marquis. And when my father died, my brother sent me away to people he knew, to work as a nanny, and pretended that we were only distant cousins. So I have nothing, and I am nothing. My brother’s wife is the Duchess of Westerfield. I am not,” she said humbly.

  “So how did you pay for all this?” Juliette asked her shyly, which the others had wondered too.

  “My father gave me a gift before he died, which was meant to last me for the rest of my life, if I ever needed it. This is not what he intended me to do with it, to say the least. But hopefully we will all make money at it, and can eventually retire. In the meantime, thanks to my father we’re all here.”

  “Le Boudoir de la Duchesse!” Philippine shouted enthusiastically, renaming the house as the others added their approval. “And to hell with your sister-in-law. You will be the Duchess to us. You really should be a princess, but Duchess will do.” They all looked pleased, and Angélique was amused.

  “When do we open?” Ambre wanted to know. They had their costumes now, the house looked impeccable, and all the girls were there. Angélique had registered all of them at the gendarmerie. There was no reason to wait.

  “Why don’t you all rest tomorrow?” Angélique suggested to them. “And we’ll open the next day.” It had taken two months for the entire process. “You can send messages to your clients tomorrow, and ask them to bring their friends to have a look. They’re not obliged to do anything when they get here except meet all of you and get to know the place. We will open officially the day after tomorrow,” she announced, having just decided it. And she raised her glass to all of them. “To you, ladies! Thank you for being here.” She smiled at them, grateful that they believed in her.

  “To the Duchess!” they said in unison, and raised their glasses to her.

  Chapter 13

  As promised, the girls who had clients alerted them that the house was now open, and for three terrifying weeks, no one came. The girls put on evening gowns every night, draped themselves on the furniture in the drawing room, in gentle candlelight, while Jacques stood at the door in livery, waiting to admit their guests, and not a single one of their clients showed up. Angélique was panicking, and by the end of the second week, the girls were depressed.

  Not knowing what else to do, she took them all to the Louvre one afternoon, and for a walk in the park. She took them all to dinner at a restaurant called Maison Catherine on the Place du Tertre in Montmartre, where proper women stared them down, and people glanced at them with icy expressions, guessing what they were, no matter how well dressed they were, or perhaps because of it. And the nights continued to be painfully long with no men in the room. The girls played cards, Philippine entertained them with jokes, Camille played the piano, and Angélique tried to calm everyone down and assure them that the men would come in time, and prayed that she was right. The men they wanted as clients were busy people and had careers to pursue and lives to arrange. And then, finally, miraculously after three endless weeks, in the first week of June, one of Agathe’s contacts arrived, and brought a friend. They were acquaintances of her late patron, and high-up political men. And when they walked into the drawing room of Le Boudoir, they were astounded by what they saw. Nine spectacularly beautiful women in elegant gowns, one of them wearing handsome jewels, and all of them with smiles that welcomed them.

  “My, my,” Alphonse Cardin said, looking around, happy to see Agathe again. They had come only out of curiosity, but were enchanted by the ladies in the drawing room. They drank and played cards with them, smoked cigars as they were welcome to do, and since no one else came that night, Angélique quietly mentioned to Mr. Cardin that he was welcome to take as many girls upstairs with him as he liked, or try them all, as a gift from her this first time. He looked thrilled, and he and his friend each chose four, and Angélique found herself alone in the drawing room, looking pleased. Both gentlemen stayed until six in the morning. She had gone to bed by then, but Cardin was kind enough to send her a note the next day with a magnum of champagne. The note said, “Bravo, ma chèrie! Merci. A.C.” His night had apparently been a great success, as had his friend’s, who had a preference for the exotic, and had been with Ambre, once her specialties were explained to him, as well as Yaba, Hiroko, and Agathe. He had enjoyed them all so much that he told Cardin he had no idea which, or how many, he would select again, although he wanted to try the girls Alphonse had been with too, who he said had been sublime. They were younger and more lighthearted, and didn’t take things quite as seriously as the other group. It had been his friend’s first experience being expertly and deliciously whipped, and he wanted to come back for more.

  Alphonse had discreetly asked Angélique if she would be joining them—she would have been his first choice. And with a demurely sensual look, she told him that no, she wouldn’t, which only made him more determined to convince her otherwise in the future. Fabienne complimented her the next day that she had done that very well. “They’re all going to want you,” she said, “because you refuse them.” Angélique laughed in response, but she was delighted the night had gone well, and pleased with herself that she had thought to offer it to them as a gift. The girls reported to Angélique that the men had been extremely pleased and promised to return soon. Now they would be able to tell their friends how good the girls were, since between them they had been with them all, and sampled the wares of Le Boudoir lavishly.

  Both men came back the following night, and every night for a week, taking two or three of the girls upstairs with them, or one by one. By the end of the week, other men had come, having heard from Cardin and his friend how terrific the house was, how elegant the madam, and how pleasant the furnishings, and what an interesting assortment the women were. Their friends and acquaintances wanted to see for themselves, and within two weeks, the house was crowded every night. Their guests were paying handsomely for the girls’ services, and Angélique was keeping close track of the books. They were making a lot of money, serving light meals in the dining room, some played cards with the girls for a while, getting to know them, others wanted to talk, and a great many of them went directly upstairs with the girl of their choice. And a surprising number of their clients had a marked preference for Ambre and her specialties, which she apparently did extremely well, sometimes wearing nothing but a pair of riding boots.

  The men who began frequenting Le Boudoir were exactly what Angélique had wanted right from the beginning. Political figures whose names were
well known, bankers, lawyers, aristocrats, men with enormous fortunes willing to pay almost any price for the right women who could arouse them. The evenings began like an elegant party with impressive men and beautiful women, and thinned out quickly, as their guests disappeared with the girls. Some stayed for a short time, others longer. Several said immediately that they wanted to spend the night, though not many were able to do that with wives they had to go home to, unless they were at their country homes with the children. But the house was alive until five and six every morning, and the girls slept until one o’clock the next day. And every Sunday afternoon, Angélique paid out to them their half of what they had made the previous week, with meticulous lists of which clients they had been with on what night. All the girls agreed they had never made as much in their lives, as quickly and easily, and been paid so handsomely. Angélique had set her fees high, in anticipation of who would be coming. They wanted no paupers among their guests but only men with fortunes, and not one of them balked at her prices, or complained about the value of what they got. They came back again and again for more.

  And as their wives left for the seaside or the country, or their châteaux in Périgord and Dordogne in July, and the men stayed in the city, allegedly to work, and dally, the house was more crowded than ever, and business was booming. Angélique even mentioned to Fabienne that she thought they should get two more girls. The women they had were constantly in demand, and some of the men had to wait an hour or two in the drawing room for the girl they wanted to be free. And while they did, Angélique entertained them, and became acquainted with many of them. Much to her own amazement, she had found a profession that suited her. She didn’t want to think of what her father would have thought of it, but necessity had driven her to it, with the Fergusons firing her without a character unjustly, and the disastrous situation her brother had put her in. At least she was not one of the women working in the bedrooms, she was the madam, which was slightly more respectable, and her virginity was intact. And there was no question in anyone’s mind, the girls’ or the clients’, she was a lady of distinction, and an aristocrat to the core. The girls called her the Duchess, and some of the clients had picked it up, while many wondered if it was true, and she denied it, since she wasn’t, despite her noble lineage, but only the daughter and sister of a duke, and the granddaughter of a marquis on her mother’s side in France, which she didn’t explain to their clients, but she had the grace and demeanor of a duchess, no matter how often she claimed not to be one. And none of the clients suspected how young she was. She stuck to her invented story that she was twenty-six, and they believed her. No one would have imagined her to be a girl of twenty, given the enterprise she was running so smoothly. Even the girls who worked for her didn’t know her real age, except Fabienne, who kept it a secret.