A House East of Regent Street

by Pam Rosenthal

  They were an interesting trio: the hugely tall, crag-faced servant wheeling an invalid chair; the distinguished, rather wizened gentleman seated in it – the Frenchman, evidently; and the simply dressed but extremely elegant woman.

  Woman, rather than lady.

  Unless, Jack supposed, one knew how to pronounce the word lady with a certain ambiguity – a tone of voice like a wink or smirk exchanged with the other men in the room, to show that one really meant quite the opposite. A courtesan. Or even better, the French phrase Lord Crowden had taught him – trust the French to come up with an expression like grande horizontale. He himself had never encountered such a woman at first hand, and so he’d never been quite sure of all the nuances of implication.

  But this… ah, lady could quickly fill the gaps in his education. He need only contemplate her posture and manner of address; it would be like memorizing an entire lexicon – of new uses for ordinary words that her extraordinary presence had suddenly rendered inadequate.

  One couldn’t, for example, exactly say she was small: not with her posture so regal that only the proximity of the lanky servant called attention to her lack of stature. Slender? He doubted that the possessor of such a voluptuous bosom could correctly be called slender. She was hardly young but it wouldn’t do to call her old either; the word ageless came to mind, but here his common sense rebelled. No woman was ageless – her youth, or lack of it, was always a critical index of her value.

  Beautiful? He wasn’t quite sure – he’d always thought that beauty brought with it a comforting, disinterested sort of serenity. Well, striking, then, she was certainly that. Sparkling eyes slanted catlike above well-drawn cheekbones; her mouth was expressive, the sinuous upper lip curving in a wary half-smile above the full, appetitive lower one. The afternoon sunlight seemed to embrace her as its own, her bright eyes and creamy skin outshining the brilliance even of these surroundings.

  And oddly dignified, Jack thought, dignified and defiant – though world-weary might have been a more accurate word for the bored, rather contemptuous look in her blue cat’s eyes, the tilt of her head and ironic curl of her mouth as she waited for him to get hold of himself and cease this clumsy ogling of her.

  While Wilson was fairly panting and wagging his tail, like a spaniel begging to be taken into her lap.

  “Ah, Mr. Merion, may I present Monsieur Soulard, Prince d’Illiers.” He’d put some energy into managing the French pronunciation. “And” – his shining face leaving no doubt as to the source of his energy – “may I also present Miss Myles.” She directed a warm smile at Wilson and a minimal nod at Jack, while the gentleman in the invalid chair reached out a cordial hand.

  “Soulard is sufficient. The title is a bit worse for wear.” He glanced down at his legs, covered in slightly threadbare paisley. “As I suppose I am as well. Do please accept my apologies for our lateness; my health is not what it might be.”

  The woman’s expression softened; Jack felt himself staring at her again, even as the tall servant glared at him. The barometric pressure in the room had risen discernibly. An awkward silence clogged the air.

  No doubt, Jack thought, Soulard understood exactly what was going on. One wouldn’t have such a creature as Miss Myles under one’s protection and not be familiar with the effects she’d inevitably produce in male company. But the invalid’s manners were as perfect as his lightly accented English, and he cleared the freighted air with graceful chatter. “And anyway, a prince in France is not what a prince in England is. I was, and then wasn’t, and now am again, a rather petty nobleman.”

  The woman smiled and touched his shoulder, and Soulard reached up a thin hand to grasp hers for a moment.

  Jack felt a shudder of envy. Or was it confusion? Or only a spasm of helpless, jealous lust?

  “And is the house as you remember it, ma chère?” Soulard had turned slightly in his chair to address her.

  “Yes, yes, quite so. Well, the little we’ve seen, anyway.” She moved forward, to save him the effort of shifting in his seat. “Of course we’ll have to inspect the rooms, see how much repair the paint and plaster will need. And check against the furniture inventory.” She frowned. “They’ve already sold off some of the most valuable items, you know, like the Elastic Beds: there are only two of those remaining, and a decent house needs considerably more of them, especially for an older custom. But we’ll have to see. It might do very well. Mr. Wilson, will you be so kind as to lead us upstairs?”

  How casually, Jack thought, she spoke of Elastic Beds. It was disorienting to hear her speaking so briskly, like a shopkeeper.

  One expected so elegant a woman to speak in a languid, aristocratic drawl – like Crowden’s mother and sisters, when the viscount had brought Jack to tea.

  But that was nonsense: Miss Myles’s profession didn’t draw its adepts from the ranks of countesses. Though he was beginning to wonder if some countesses might not copy their style and bearing from members of Miss Myles’s profession.

  The servant was evidently going to carry Soulard, invalid chair and all, up the steps. Miss Myles leaned down to smooth the paisley over her companion’s lean hips.

  And Jack couldn’t quite believe the words issuing from his own mouth.

  “It might have done very well, Miss Myles, Monsieur Soulard. But you see, before your arrival, I was so taken myself with the house’s, um, proportions, that I made Mr. Wilson a rather impetuous offer…”

  As the 5500 quid he heard himself propose was rather more substantial than any figure hitherto hinted at, a respectful silence ensued. Wilson nodded enthusiastically, not even trying to hide his surprise. Jack dismissed him with a quick glance and turned to the trio, his brows raised in gentlemanly affability, quite as if he didn’t already know how they’d be responding to the sum he’d put forth.

  Another beat of silence.

  “Ah,” Monsieur Soulard replied. “Unhappily, it is not possible to counter so formidable an offer.”

  Unhappily indeed, it being evident that they’d wanted the house a lot more than they’d been letting on. The tall servant bared his teeth. Soulard maintained his elegant reserve, though he slumped a bit in his invalid chair. And Miss Myles squared her slender shoulders and gazed thoughtfully at Jack as regrets and good-days were exchanged, turning to glance at him once more as and she and her companions quitted the house and joined the busy crowds in the street outside.

  As it turned out, Jack hadn’t stolen (or even begged) a kiss from Miss Oakshutt that evening after all. In fact, he’d sent her a message instead, begging her pardon and professing his disappointment, but he felt a bit peckish and must forgo the delight of her company. A recurring touch of the malaria he’d once contracted in – he’d shrugged and written “Gibraltar.” He dined heartily (especially, he thought, for a man suffering a touch of malaria), and took brandy and a cigar in his small, very orderly sitting room.

  And waited.

  Calmly at first, trying to divert himself with a fat book he’d bought, in the vague apprehension that a man of substance should have some volumes on the shelves of his home. It was a collected Shakespeare, and Jack, in truth, was rather bogged down in The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra. Thus far his favorite bit was where the queen, and Antony too, had gone sneaking out of the palace to carouse on the city streets, so silly and infatuated with each other as they were. Any idiot could tell they’d be paying for letting their guard down like that, he thought, though the bloody play was certainly taking its time getting there.

  It was growing late.

  Had he miscalculated? Underestimated her?

  Impossible. There was only one way to interpret her final glance, out there on the front steps.

  Finally, he heard a low rap at the front door of his sitting room.

  “A Miss Myles to see you, Sir.”

  “My word, and at this hour.” He affected a note of stuffy surprise: Whatever might the lady be doing, out alone so late? “Well, show her in, Weston, show her in.”
>
  She seemed a bit wan in the lamplight, her eyes dark smudges against her pallor, her body indeterminate in a hooded blue velvet cloak. But still the dignified, upright posture, the dark, jewel-like glints in her eyes. Eyes that might have taken their tones from lapis lazuli and verdigris. Eyes like a northern sea with a squall on the way.

  “Miss… Myles, is it?”

  A brief nod, as though it were too wearying to evince the scorn his silly charade warranted.

  “Good evening, Mr. Merion.”

  He rose to greet her. “Here, let me help you off with that cloak.”

  “Thanks, I think I’ll keep it on. Unless,” she spoke more softly, “you’d prefer I remove it.”

  “No, just as you choose. Well then,” – he gestured vaguely – “do sit down, Miss Myles, and tell me what brings you out so late this evening.”

  She did, however, let the hood slip back off her hair, which was black, thick, and caught in a simple Grecian knot at the back of her head.

  She took a small hard chair straight across from his.

  Settling comfortably back in his own wide armchair, he crossed his legs and brought a polite, attentive look to his face.

  “You know why I’m here,” she told him. He was becoming familiar with that blunt, businesslike tone of voice. “You intended me to come tonight.”

  He widened his eyes in mock befuddlement, reached for his drink, and took a slow sip, waiting for her to continue.

  She let a few beats of silence pass, as though to underscore his boorishness. “You wasted money on a house that you could have gotten for less,” she said.

  Which brought him up quite sharply, it being a while since anyone had laid into him so directly. “Nonsense,” he snapped. “It’s an excellent investment, even at the price.” Which was true enough, though it did rather concede her point. “But surely” – willing himself to speak more calmly – “your poor petty prince didn’t send you here to teach a former sailor how to manage his money.”

  She raised her chin. “He didn’t send me. He and I agreed that I had to come; you gave us no other choice. But we’ll leave Philippe Soulard out of this discussion, if you please, Mr. Merion.”

  “Have you been with him for a long time?” Jack asked – mostly, he supposed, to demonstrate that he’d discuss any confounded thing he pleased. Upon having asked the question, though, he found that he was actually quite interested in what she might say in reply.

  She sighed, drew herself up to protest once again, and then stopped. And when she did speak, her manner was exaggeratedly patient and condescending. “I’ve been with him for twelve years. And before that, I spent ten years at the house in question.”

  Her mouth twisted. “You like numbers, do you? Well, here are a few more for you. He visited me there for six months, before taking me home to live with him. Redeeming me cost him a hundred guineas. He’s got a wife in Paris. They have serious differences of opinion – about France and its political destiny, among other things.

  “I was twenty-six when I met him,” she added, “a bit long in the tooth even then, for a gentleman to make a fool of himself over. Or so the madam thought.”

  She paused. “And that should give you all the numbers you’ll need – to tell you what you want to know about me.”

  He almost had to laugh – at the catalog of information she’d presented (germane and extraneous both), and the unembarrassed candor with which she’d delivered it. Not to speak of the fact that she’d nonetheless made him do the calculations.

  He wouldn’t have guessed that she was almost as old as he was. But, yes, he could see it now that he knew it. Her lightly powdered cheeks were exquisitely smooth, but they lacked Miss Oakshutt’s careless glow. And below the pure line of her jaw, the skin – well, it didn’t sag, but you could see where it would, when it finally did. He blinked, suddenly wondering how long she’d been watching him assess her. Age – hmmm – age cannot…

  But what a botch he was making of this. And it didn’t help that his thoughts had suddenly got tangled up with the play he’d been reading.

  “All right then,” a hint of a smile played about the corner of her mouth. “Would you agree that we’ve established that I am no longer young, that you were a sailor and I was a whore, and that you are rich and I am not?”

  He nodded dumbly.

  “Good,” she told him. “Well, anyway, you’re right that I came here to make a bargain. You’ve got something we want, but luckily… well, turnabout’s fair play, you know. So perhaps now you’ll tell me what I’ll have to do, in return for your granting us a lease on the property you bought today.”

  But he’d had enough of playing the buffoon in this comedy.

  After all, he was the one with the money. “Quite right, quite right, Miss Myles.

  “But I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable if you remove that cloak. It’s very warm in here.”

  Pleasant, anyway, to watch the fledgling smile fade from her lips.

  She rose, loosened the ties below her chin, and allowed the dark velvet to slide down to the floor around her. Her gown underneath was pale and gauzy – a very fine pearl-gray muslin, piped in that same velvet, and cut very low in the front.

  Oh yes.

  She stood in front of him a little longer than she needed to, before sinking into a sort of mock curtsey at his feet, remaining there long enough to afford him a splendid view of her breasts – firm white flesh, delicate blue veins, even a peek at her darkly sculpted nipples.

  (But of course it wasn’t really a curtsey – he’d been mad to imagine a curtsey, even for a moment. She was merely picking up the cloak she’d dropped.)

  And having picked it up, she rose quickly, draped the cloak over a slender forearm, and regained her chair, the velvet flowing over her legs, her back straighter even than before.

  Carefully, he reached for his brandy. The glass was cold in his hands, the alcohol hot in his throat.

  “Yes, well…” It was time to speak, but his tongue felt swollen. He took another sip, rolled it around his mouth, and cleared his throat.

  “You’ll meet me at the house at three in the afternoon for the next five days. Beginning tomorrow, that is, of course Tuesday…”

  She nodded impatiently, and he slowed his voice, speaking sonorously, emphatically. “Every day up until and including Saturday, a different room each time, I’ll specify which. You’ll do everything I ask. Don’t worry, I’ve no diseases, nothing of that sort. Though I’ve been told I can be rather… demanding. Still, nothing you haven’t, ah, handled, I’m sure.

  “And if you do your best to please me – but I’m sure you will, I’m sure you always did – at the end of the week I’ll lease the property to Soulard and wish the two of you all due prosperity of it.”

  She nodded. If he’d insulted her, she was doing a masterful job of hiding it.

  (And why, he wondered miserably, had he felt obliged to boast? “Demanding” indeed.)

  Not only didn’t she seem insulted; she seemed mightily uninterested – except in specifying the terms of their agreement.

  “Because of course, Mr. Merion, the rents we could afford to pay you would never make you back the sum you offered Mr. Wilson. But you already know that.”

  She fumbled in her reticule, handed him a sheet of figures. He cast his eye over it quickly: the calculations were reasonably accurate, even if lacking in a few fine points of accounting. Jack hadn’t gotten rich by missing the fine points. Still, she – or Soulard, or both of them together – had grasped the general idea.

  “Quite right. I’d be renting to you at a loss.”

  “A considerable one. And you’re not the sort of man who does business at a loss. Let’s be clear on this, Mr. Merion.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “The difference – the loss I’ll absorb – is my fee to you for services rendered. I want to be assured that you will do everything I wish.”

  She gave a small, rather Gallic, and very cynical shrug. “If you prom
ise to sign over the lease to us at a rate we can afford,” she told him, “you can have me any way you like. As many times as you may demand, and of course making use of any of the house’s facilities, if you’re pleased to do so.”

  A gargoyle smirked at him, from against a dark red wall, somewhere at the edge of his inner vision.

  “Any way you like,” she repeated. “Even in those ways that you can’t seem to believe a woman could enjoy.”

  Difficult not to gape at her.

  “Sorry if I’ve shattered a cherished illusion, Mr. Merion,” she said. “And oh, one more very important consideration. I’ll supply a good, slippery lubricating ointment. Promise me that you’ll use it when the proper time arises. Otherwise we don’t have a bargain.”

  “I’ll use it,” he muttered. There ought to be something he could add at this juncture, but he’d be damned if he knew what it might be.

  “So we’re agreed,” he said. He reached into his pocket and handed her a key, which she put into her reticule. “Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, in the front parlor, first storey.”

  She nodded. “Where normally you’d begin your evening, where you’d go to choose a girl. Yes, of course, quite right. We shall begin in that front parlor.

  “Don’t worry,” she added. “You’ll get your money’s worth.” Briskly rising to her feet, she told him that she’d be arriving a bit early each day. To – well, to set the scene before he arrived. If he had no objection, of course. And thank you, she added (though he hadn’t asked), the afternoon schedule would be quite convenient: Monsieur Soulard hadn’t been able to sustain a good night’s sleep lately, and so he almost always took a long nap after luncheon.

  And before he could offer his assistance, she’d once again wrapped herself in her blue cloak.

  He should accompany her to the door, he thought, reaching for his cane. But before he could stand fully upright, the damn knee buckled. It was all he could do to ease back into his chair, suppressing a groan as he did so.

  He needn’t bother, she assured him; his servant could see her out.