The Rake’s Proposition
Bess Greenfield
Mouette
Contents
Also by Bess Greenfield
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
About the Author
Dedication
Also by Bess Greenfield
The Count’s Last Mistress (The Valencourts, Book 1) http://amzn.com/B00BSV4CCC
The Rake’s Proposition
Copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Anne North. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter One
June, 1893
Paris
“New girl. Five minutes.”
The monotonic announcement could scarcely be heard above the giggling and chatter reverberating through the narrow, windowless room, but Claudine heard it because she’d been waiting for it. No one needed to tell her tonight would be her last chance.
The woman seated beside her at the dressing table leaned over as if to confide a secret. Thick black eyelashes fluttered over alert brown eyes. “There’s nothing to be nervous about.” Her rapid, slurred speech and deep, raspy voice made her French words sound like a foreign language. “Gentlemen don’t come to Le Chien Vif expecting to find an opera star or a professional beauty.”
The reassurance was not entirely flattering, but it was nice to have any reassurance at all. “Whatever they’re looking for, I don’t think it’s me.”
The woman snuffed out her cigarette in an ashtray brimming with carmine stained butts. “You’re just green, that’s all. You have no confidence and it shows. Flirt a little. Sway your hips. A little pout every now and then never hurts,” she said as if such abilities were second nature to every female.
Claudine memorized the advice as though it were a rule of mathematics. Flirt, sway, pout. Flirt, sway, pout.
“And if you forget the lyrics, make them up as you go along. The words are not half as important as the way you say them.” A baffling wink accompanied this piece of wisdom.
“Raise your chin and arch your back,” another singer chimed in from three chairs away.
Claudine glanced down at her gown and exposed décolletage. Wasp-waisted with enormous puffed sleeves and glass beading across the low square neckline, the wine red dress was the most modest one she could find among the discards in the costume room, but on her figure, it looked risqué.
She was taller and curvier in comparison to the other women so the fabric between her shoulder blades didn’t quite reach. The last two hooks could not be fastened. She had no intention of arching anything.
The raspy-voiced woman came to her feet, wafting rose perfume. Small and slim, she was wearing a riding habit, accurate in every detail except for the glaring absence of a skirt. “You’re far too pale… I’ll fix you.”
One glance in the mirror Claudine had been avoiding confirmed this. The eyes of a stranger, vacant and blue, stared back at her. In jarring contrast, the voluminous blonde wig she wore seemed to glow with a life of its own. Who was this miserable creature, and why would anyone pay to see her? “There isn’t time,” she protested though she knew time was not the problem.
“Of course there is. You have at least three minutes, which you’re wasting. I’m Nicolina, by the way.”
“So pleased to make your acquaintance.” She regretted her formal speech the moment she saw the other woman frown. “I am… Madeleine Lavoie.” The name seemed sophisticated when she’d invented it days ago. Now it sounded as fake as her wig looked.
“Everyone knows who you are.”
She stopped breathing until she reminded herself that no one of the Valencourt family’s acquaintance would ever venture into this neighborhood. And even if such a strange circumstance came to pass, there was little danger of discovery. She was unrecognizable, even to herself. “Surely not.”
Nicolina’s bony fingers darted among tins of powder, compacts of rouge, and an array of other mysterious cosmetics. “You’ve become quite the topic. Everyone is curious. Where are you from?”
Claudine had no answer for the simple question. Her family’s home in Saint-Germain-des-Prés was only a tram ride away, but she could never return. How could she pretend that nothing had happened, continue on as before, when she felt like someone altogether different? The wallpaper pattern, thorny stemmed pink roses falling endlessly through a celadon tinted eternity, blurred as her eyes filled with unexpected, unwelcome tears.
“Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked. This mixture is my very own: ash and elderberry juice, to thicken your eyelashes… Sometimes it’s better not to think about the past.”
She nodded, forcing her bleak thoughts away. Regret served no purpose. There was nothing she could do to fix her mistake. The best she could hope for was concealment.
Was it only a week ago? It felt like months since she’d left home in the middle of the night. Her muddled mind could not conceive of any other solution. If she disappeared, her family might never learn of her disgrace or be tainted by her unforgivable lapse in judgment.
At the time, she’d given little thought to her future. While she did not wish to die, she wasn’t enthusiastic about the prospect of living either. But her will to survive quickly exerted itself in her desire for the necessities she’d once taken for granted: eating, bathing, and sleeping.
She’d had the presence of mind to take her savings with her, but the paltry amount hadn’t gone far. What did she know of a fair price for a loaf of bread or a week’s lodgings? She soon realized she could not afford to hide completely. She had to earn a living.
Lying awake on the saggy bed that came with the dreary apartment she’d rented, she considered her options for employment. She could draw, read music, and speak four languages. Her tutor had even taught her the fundamentals of mathematics and the sciences, but she had no character references to recommend her as a governess or even as a maid. She lacked the flair for fashion and the grace required of a shop girl, and her typing was as slow and inconsistent as her sewing.
It didn’t take long to reach the depressing conclusion. In terms of opportunities open to a twenty-one-year-old female, her only possible asset was her voice.
And even that belief was beginning to seem unfounded. Prior to her recent round of auditions, she’d only sung for her parents, who were hardly unbiased, and Philippe, whose every encouraging word she no
w knew to be calculated. She’d been rejected at eight cabarets before Monsieur Giraux reluctantly hired her. Competition was keen, and she didn’t fit the mold.
“Voilà. Now you are much improved with at least half a minute to spare.”
She looked up at the mirror to judge for herself: rouged cheeks, crimson lips, and those wretched blue eyes framed by eyelashes even thicker than Nicolina’s. “Perfect,” she murmured, rising. “Thank you.”
“Good luck!”
She forced a cheerful smile, weaved her way out of the narrow room, and hurried to the left stage wing. Inching aside a section of the fringed maroon velvet curtain, she surveyed the audience. Crowded about small round tables lit by lamps, gentlemen in formal finery and top hats and working class men in derbies and sack coats drank and swayed and sang along as though they’d done so hundreds of times before and could not possibly dream of a finer performer than the beloved one before them.
She struggled to make out their faces, but smoke obscured their features, and the antiquated shaded gas flames bordering the stage illuminated only the star. Mimi sang an encore verse of Nini Peau de Chien with a special emphasis on certain words. Aristide Bruant had made the song famous, but Mimi made it her own, infusing the simple story with a poignancy that brought her audience to the brink of tears.
The woman’s innate ability to provoke a reaction from people fascinated Claudine, who’d spent her whole life attempting to do just the opposite.
“You’re still here.” Monsieur Giraux’s rich baritone voice conveyed bafflement, displeasure, and weariness. Maybe she didn’t have one more chance after all. Short, wrinkled, and paunchy, the once-famous singer was wearing his customary top hat, floppy tie, and satin brocade waistcoat.
“Of course. I go on next,” she said as if such an event were greatly anticipated.
“I’ve been meaning to speak with you about that.” The sudden gentleness of his tone and the flicker of compassion in his dark cynical eyes did not bode well. “It takes more than a pretty face and a pleasing figure to captivate an audience. A singer who is too shy to sing is bad for my reputation and bad for business. Girls like you come to the city, dreaming of glamour and wealth, but the career of a chanteuse is usually short and often tragic. Have you seen the fat lady who sells cigarettes and matches on the corner?”
The woman was impossible to miss or avoid. She reeked of alcohol and shouted random obscenities at those who displeased her, apparently a large group.
He cocked one bushy eyebrow. “She was once known as the Queen of Montmartre… Why don’t you go back to the country or wherever it is you’ve come from?”
Rapturous applause made any reply unnecessary. The audience shouted praise as Mimi curtsied amid a barrage of roses and gradually made her exit.
Monsieur Giraux sighed as though his burdens had nearly reached the tipping point and fished his silver pocket watch from his waistcoat. “I’ll give you five minutes. If so much as one customer leaves while you’re singing, you’re done here.”
Then he went out to the stage and grumbled an introduction that sounded almost like an apology in advance. With a promising endorsement such as that, how could she fail?
Her legs moved stiffly, but at least she was moving. As she reached center stage, the advice she’d received babbled in a mad round through her mind. The gas footlights impaired her view of the nearest tables.
An outline of bowlers and top hats took shape toward the back of the room. She would sing to those black hats and imagine friendly faces beneath them. They were only men, and drunken ones at that. How hard could it be to please them?
The piano accompaniment for another popular Bruant song began. Hopefully, they’d all sing along. Mechanically, her voice followed the music.
Her eyes gradually adjusted to the dim, smoky room. She could see the faces in the audience now, but she wished she couldn’t. They looked bored with her already though she’d scarcely begun.
* * *
Returning to his hotel and getting some rest would have been wise, but Leonardo Barnett did not wish to be alone with his dark thoughts, and he was curious about the cabarets and dance halls of Paris. After all, entertainment was his business, and business was the driving force of his life.
Seated at a small table facing the stage, he absently swirled the wine in his glass while a line of dancers in matching feathered caps did everything possible, by way of bouncing, kicking, and skirt swirling, to display their bloomers. There was something about the cancan that struck him as desperate, both for the performers and the audience. But given the eruption of cheering all around him, he clearly held the minority view.
A pitiful attempt to shake off his abysmal mood this was. The lively atmosphere only heightened his awareness of the heavy gloom that had settled inside him during the hour he’d spent standing by his father’s grave at Montmartre Cemetery. It was odd that a man he’d avoided thinking about for eighteen years could exert such control over him by dying.
He’d sailed for France the day after he’d gotten the brief, almost illegible letter from his father’s mistress, Genevieve Arestine, who insisted upon meeting with him to discuss Gerard Barnett’s last wishes. Leo couldn’t imagine his father thinking of him at all in the final stage of his life. He’d shown little enough interest at all the other stages, preoccupied with his art, his friends, and his women.
Leo generally tried not to think about his childhood, but now he could not escape those thoughts. The poverty wasn’t nearly as bad as the uncertainty. His mother had left Marseille at the age of seventeen, seeking an independent life as a shop girl.
Instead, she became the favorite model of an English expatriate artist, which led to pregnancy, marriage to a man not suited to marriage, and motherhood, which she devoted herself to with an inconsistent passion in alternation with her career.
His parents had fought over money, which was always disappearing, and his father’s obvious infidelity. When Sylvie Barnett finally left her husband to begin a new life in America, she took her ten-year-old son with her.
True to form, Gerard Barnett did not seem to notice. He certainly did not protest and was rarely mentioned thereafter. Leo had written a few letters in the early days, but lost the motivation when he received nothing in return.
By necessity, the funeral had taken place prior to his arrival. Even the fastest transatlantic steamer could not win a race against decomposition. His father’s friends, other painters who’d known him for decades, had made the arrangements for his burial.
There was nothing left for Leo to do but meet with Mademoiselle Arestine tomorrow. He felt reluctant yet compelled to hear what she had to say. He suspected her true aim was money. If she’d been able to find the address of his offices in Manhattan, she probably had some inkling of his wealth.
“Do you like what you see, monsieur?” A petite blonde, dressed identically to the girls on stage, stood beside his table. Her hands rested upon her small hips, cocked provocatively to one side. “I’m a dancer too,” she confided close by his ear. “But my performances are restricted to a private venue for a fortunate few. Interested?”
Her tongue found its way into his ear and left a trace of wetness there. He supposed it was meant as an enticement. He reached for his pocket square. Sex would be a welcome distraction and she was attractive enough, but he’d never had to resort to paying for it. The concept depressed him.
His theaters, saloons, and gambling halls profited handsomely from a full range of popular vices, but he’d never considered extending his enterprises to prostitution. Sex was sacred, one of the few pleasures in life that should never be tainted by money. “I think I’ve seen enough.”
She seized his drink and downed it in one gulp before turning away with a flourish of her skirt. Charming. Now he was depressed and thirsty. Suddenly eager to escape the noise, the smoke, and especially the crowd, he went outside and set off in the general direction of the rue Victor-Massé with no real intention of walking all t
he way back to his hotel.
Exercise, movement of any kind, soothed his mind like nothing else could. He boxed, swam, and played tennis routinely. He’d even learned to ride during his freshman year at Harvard when he was still laboring under the delusion that he could belong in that world if he simply taught himself every skill, every mannerism, and every pattern of speech of his privileged classmates.
Electric lights set off the city in an impressive display, but he looked upon the sights as a tourist might. How odd that he should feel foreign in the country he’d been born in.
Lewd expressions and garishly made up faces passed by in a blur, and he realized he’d passed into a seedier neighborhood. Prostitutes and con artists plied their nightly trade. One or two attempted to engage his interest, but he sailed past them, with little interest in their tired routines and even less concern for his safety. He’d lived in far worse places than this.
And then he heard a voice that slowed his stride, a soft uncertain melody, far too delicate for these surroundings. He looked around, trying to place the direction of the sound. His heart raced with what he supposed must be the thrill of discovery.
His sense of urgency baffled him. Years ago when he’d begun taking over theaters, he actively sought out fresh talent. Now he no longer had the time or inclination to concern himself directly with performers.
The music grew muffled, then disappeared altogether. He turned and retraced his steps. Another gentle strain rewarded him, and his searching gaze moved across the street to a four-story building resembling a country inn with half-timbering and large windows framed by rustic shutters.
He dodged a speeding barouche as he dashed across the street. The double doors of the cabaret swung open as he reached the sidewalk. A group of top-hatted gentlemen streamed out, slurring insults and laughing at their own cleverness.
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