by Lynsay Sands
“Then I guess ye’ll just have to get back in the closet, won’t ye?” Maisey snapped, discarding yet another gown.
“Get back in?” Maggie was confused. “Did you not let me out to slip me from the room?”
“No. I let you out so I could find a gown suitable enough to play the likes of ye. I could hardly dig about with you sitting in my armoire just waiting to be discovered by the pastor, could I? Damn! I ain’t got a single dress as drab as the one ye’re wearing.” Throwing her last garment down in disgust, she glared at her as if the lack of wardrobe were somehow Maggie’s fault. Then a catty look came over her face. “You wouldn’t consider letting me borrow yer gown fer a bit, would ye?”
“Certainly not,” Maggie snapped. She looked desperately around the room. “There simply has to be a way out of here.”
“There isn’t,” the girl assured her. “Unless ye can fly out the window.”
“The window!” Maggie hurried over to it, then pushed it open and leaned out. They were on the third floor. The ground was a long way down. She was about to give up on the idea when her gaze dropped to the wall, and she saw a ledge a couple of feet below the window. It was just wide enough that she could walk it—if she were careful.
She would be careful, she decided.
“Here!” Maisey grabbed her arm as Maggie sat on the sill and made to climb out. “What? Are ye daft? Ye’ll break yer bones jumpin’ from here.”
“I am not going to jump,” Maggie said with a hiss of exasperation, tugging her arm free. “I am going to walk that ledge to the next room, climb in through the window there, and get away.”
Leaning out, Maisey peered down, her eyes widening slightly in surprise. “Oh . . . well.” The girl hesitated slightly, her gaze calculating; then she announced, “Well, that would be nice, wouldn’t it? Except that Lady X and Lord Hastings are in one of the rooms next door. Yer climbin’ in on them would cause the scandal of the decade.”
Maggie frowned at the news. Everyone, absolutely everyone, had heard of the infamous Lady X. She was the most famous of Agatha Dubarry’s prostitutes, and as such, Maggie had not been allowed to speak to her—though she had caught a glimpse of the woman earlier while interviewing the others. From what she had spied, Lady X was a lovely blonde with a perfect figure, full lips, and deep, mysterious eyes. That was all she had seen.
Actually, it was all anyone ever saw. Her face was always covered by a blazing red mask that never came off. Men paid highly for the privilege of bedding her, each trying to discover her true identity, but no one had yet figured it out. It was rumored that the woman was actually a lady of nobility who worked thusly on the side to help shore her sagging family coffers. While many disputed the idea, claiming that surely no lady would risk being discovered in such an endeavor, there were enough men willing to dig deep into their pockets to try to find out, and Madame Dubarry was doing very well.
Maggie definitely did not need the scandal of walking in on the woman while she was entertaining—especially if she was with Lord Hastings, one of the most distinguished royal councilors.
“Which room are they in?” she asked.
Maisey smiled, the expression of a cat who has cornered a mouse. “Let me use your gown.”
Maggie stiffened, then shook her head. “I shall find out for myself,” she declared. Sliding her legs over onto the window ledge, she straightened slowly, clinging nervously to the sill as she fought to maintain her balance.
“Have it your way,” Maisey said with amusement, watching. “But it does look a long way down. And I know I shouldn’t like to make it all the way along that ledge to a window, simply to have to turn back and travel twice the distance to another.” At Maggie’s obvious uncertainty, Maisey pressed her advantage. “’Tis just a gown. I’ll give ye one o’ me own to wear in its place. Then I’ll send yers back to ye first thing on the morrow—once it’s been cleaned.”
Maggie took in the hopeful gaze of the prostitute, peered at the ground such a long way down, then shifted cautiously on the ledge. Her mind was made up by her jumping stomach. Cursing under her breath, she maneuvered back into the room and eyed Maisey unhappily. “The other room is empty, isn’t it?”
The prostitute nodded solemnly.
“Fine. But—” A tap at the door cut her off, and both women glanced over sharply as the doorknob jiggled.
“Are you ready yet, my dear?” Frances cooed in a sickening tone. Maggie had never heard it from the usually dignified man.
“Oh, keep yer pants on. I’m hurryin’ as fast as I can,” Maisey snapped, then grimly turned to Maggie. “Well?”
“Oh . . . stuff!” Maggie huffed. She set to work disrobing as quickly as she could. Looking pleased, Maisey began to undress as well. The two worked in virtual silence until Maggie got her gown off. She handed it over, then crossed her arms, rubbing them as goose bumps began to form on her flesh.
“Yer shift and bloomers too.”
“What?”
When Maggie stared at her in dismay, the prostitute rolled her eyes. “I’m supposed to be dressed like you. ’Sides, ye’ll be caught fer sure if ye run around with those bloomers showing through my gown.”
Maggie frowned at the transparent garment the girl held out, then shook her head in misery. “I will be recognized anyway if my face is seen. Oh, why did I leave my veil in Madame Dubarry’s drawing room?”
Whirling, Maisey hurried to her armoire, returning a moment later with a plain red silk mask for Maggie to wear. “Here; put this on. With the mask, my clothes, and yer cloak, ye should escape all right.”
Maggie glanced at it curiously. “Is this Lady X’s mask?”
“Nay. Mine. Lady X’s mask is far fancier.” When Maggie continued to stare at her questioningly, the prostitute heaved a sigh. “Men like to play all sorts o’ games. I . . .” She paused, scowling as there was another tap at the door, louder and more insistent this time.
“Maisey?” Frances sounded somewhat put out.
“Only just another moment, milord,” Maisey called back. She shoved the mask at Maggie and said in a hiss, “Take it.”
“Are you absolutely sure of this, Johnstone?” James Huttledon, Lord Ramsey, was finally moved to set aside the book he’d been reading when the Bow Street runner was announced. Carefully marking his spot with one of the many cloth bookmarks his aunt had made him over the years, he set the tome on a side table for later and sat up to give his full attention to this troubling turn of events.
“Aye, m’lord. I tried to find you right away. I knew you’d be wanting to know right prompt, but when I went by your town house, they told me you were at your club. By the time I got there, they said you’d left just moments earlier. I had to begin searching—”
“Yes, yes.” James waved the explanation away and turned to stare out the window at the tranquil scene of the garden lining the back of his town house library.
Johnstone was silent for a moment, allowing Ramsey his thoughts, then pointed out gently, “It would explain where she’s been getting the money to keep up the house and servants.”
James jerked his head around to stare ferociously at the man. “You are not thinking that she works there?”
Johnstone appeared as surprised at the question as could be. “Well . . . what other business could a lady have at Madame Dubarry’s?”
“For God’s sake, Johnstone; she is a lady!”
“Aye, well, the claim is that Lady X is a woman of nobility.”
James’s mouth dropped open, but he quickly snapped it shut. “Good God,” he got out between gritted teeth. He turned toward the window again.
They were both silent; then Johnstone said uncertainly, “I left Henries there to keep an eye out while I came to see what ye wanted me to do.”
James remained quiet for a moment, then stood abruptly and strode toward the door of his library. “Hethers!” he bellowed as he stepped into the hall, relief filling him when he spied his valet approaching. “My coat. I am going out
.”
The servant hurriedly fetched his overcoat, hat, and gloves. As the man assisted him in donning them, James added, “Have some things packed. I am leaving tonight.”
“Tonight, my lord?”
“Yes. I shall be staying at Ramsey for a while.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Maggie peered in at the scene taking place in the room next to Maisey’s, and she groaned aloud. Her fingers tightening on the cold wall, she leaned her head unhappily against it. After trading clothes, Maisey had helped her climb back out onto this ledge, hissing that Lady X and Lord Hastings were in the room on the left. She had then left and hurried to attend the impatiently pounding Frances.
Relieved to be out of her predicament Maggie had immediately inched along the ledge to the next window, expecting to find the room empty. Unfortunately, what she had not realized was that Maisey had been referring to her own left—which, of course, with Maggie clinging to the wall facing her, was Maggie’s right. Which meant Maggie should have gone right. Which she hadn’t. She had ended up coming all this way for nothing, for while curtains shrouded the window, making the images beyond blurred and foggy, the figures were discernible enough to see two people engaged in the most energetic round of ride-the-pony it had ever been Maggie’s misfortune to witness.
Resignedly Maggie turned to glance back along the ledge, took a deep breath, then began the long return the way she had come, clinging like a limpet to the wall as she did. She was nearly back at Maisey’s window before she realized that in her haste, the prostitute had neglected to close it. Grimacing, she paused to the side and peered around its edge.
The time since she had crept from the room seemed like a century to Maggie, and while she knew that it was just the stress of the moment making it seem so, she was surprised to see that she must have indeed been gone for quite a length of time. A good ten minutes must have passed, at least, for Maisey—playing Maggie—had already served Frances a drink by a small table and chairs near the bed. Their refreshments finished and whatever passed for small talk between them done, Frances now knelt at Maisey’s feet, the prostitute’s hands clasped gently in his, heartfelt longing on the pastor’s reverent face.
“I have known you for quite a while now, Margaret,” he was saying. “Long enough to know that you are the woman for me. I would be most honored if you would consent to be my bride.”
“Yes,” Maisey agreed in a bored tone.
The pastor frowned. “Surely she wouldn’t just say yes like that?”
“What would she say then?”
“Well, I don’t know. Just . . . try to sound a bit more enthusiastic, please.”
“Yes,” the prostitute cooed.
Frances continued to frown, but apparently decided he wouldn’t get much more out of the girl. Shrugging slightly, he surged to his feet, drawing Maisey up and into his arms with the same move. “You shan’t be sorry, my dear. I shall make an outstanding husband—I promise you, we shall have a marvelous marriage.” This he managed to gasp out between slobbery kisses across Maisey’s cheeks and down her neck. When he reached the top of the prim black gown she now wore, he paused and pulled back to leer at her. “I love the proper little things you wear. They hide your lovely body from the eyes of other men, but there is no need to hide from me any longer.” With that, he grasped the collar of the gown and ripped downward, rending it nearly to the waist before lifting wide eyes to Maisey’s dismayed face. “Oops,” he said lightly. “Now you shall have to punish me.”
“Ye’re damn right I will,” the girl snapped irritably. “And ye’ll be replacin’ that gown, too. It weren’t even mine.”
“Then I, of course, shall replace it,” Frances promised, unperturbed by her obvious anger. Releasing Maisey, he stepped back and began doffing his clothes.
Maggie turned away, unwilling to watch what would follow. She tried judging the space between where she stood and the other side of the window, wondering if she could traverse the distance quickly enough that she might not be detected. She supposed it depended on how distracted the two in the room were. Glancing back inside reluctantly, she saw Frances slide out of his top and drape it across the chair he had just vacated. Glimpsing welts on his back, Maggie paused in dismay, her gaze moving to Maisey to see that the girl had retrieved a long, wide leather belt from the armoire and was now eyeing Frances with a decidedly jaundiced eye. He continued stripping.
Staring in surprise at the pastor as he shed his trousers, Maggie saw that welts covered not just his back, but his buttocks and the rear of his upper thighs as well. She frowned in bewilderment. Was this what Madame Dubarry had wanted her to see? Did Frances really pay Maisey to beat him with a belt? Some of the girls had told her such tales in their interviews: stories of men who enjoyed odd or even unhealthy diversions during their sexual encounters. Was Frances one of those? It would seem so.
She shook her head with a sort of pity combined with disgust. What would make a man turn to such games? Frances had seemed such a normal, well-mannered, polite sort.
The first crack of the belt across Frances’s back dragged Maggie from her ponderings to the realization that she was perched on a ledge outside the third-floor window of a brothel, balanced delicately between breaking her neck and being discovered and ruined. This was no time to be reflecting on Frances’s foibles. She should just be grateful she had learned of them ere he proposed. Imagine if she had accepted, never knowing that just hours before the man had been whipped, among other things, by one of Madame Dubarry’s girls.
Would he have expected her to beat him once they were married? Maggie immediately pushed the question out of her head with a shudder. She had no time for such thoughts. She would not be accepting his proposal. On that determined note, she peeked into the room once more, relieved to see that Pastor Frances and Maisey were suitably distracted, then forced herself to move past the window and continue on toward the next window along the wall.
James stood uncomfortably inside the foyer at Madame Dubarry’s, waiting impatiently for Johnstone to conclude his whispered conversation with the madam herself. Ramsey had already been approached by, and turned down the offers of, three of the madam’s girls, one of whom had offered to do a thing or two that he had never considered trying before. He certainly did not wish to attempt it now, here in this place.
“It’s done, yer lordship. Madame says Lady X is with Lord Hastings now, but you can have a go at her next.”
“I do not intend to ‘have a go at her,’ as you so delicately put it,” James said in a hiss.
A flicker of irritation crossed Johnstone’s face before the runner controlled it. “I didn’t think you would, my lord. But I could hardly tell her ye wished to kidnap the girl, now, could I?”
“I am not kidnapping her. I am rescuing her.”
“Aye. Well, I’d guess that there is a matter of perspective, ain’t it?” Pausing, the man shook his head. “Either way, it’ll cost ye deep,” he announced, then mentioned a shocking sum.
“You must be joking.”
“I never joke about money, m’lord. But ye’ll either be paying that amount or waiting till a week from Sunday to lay hands on her. She’s booked full for the night—a different man every half hour. Dubarry was willing to bump everyone back, but she wants to be paid well for the trouble. What should I tell her?”
James considered walking out the door, getting in his carriage, and riding to Lady Wentworth’s home to await her return there, but his conscience would not let him. He had made a promise to look after the girl—and looking after her did not mean glancing the other way while she bedded some two dozen or so men. Muttering under his breath, he pulled a bag of coins from his pocket and dropped it in the hand the Bow Street runner extended. “How long until Hastings’s half hour is up?”
Johnstone’s gaze slid to a clock in the hall. “About ten minutes. I’ll just give Dubarry the money; then we’ll go have a look around and see if there’s another way out of here.”
“Another way out?”
“Surely you didn’t think to march out the front door with her, did ye? Dubarry ain’t gonna like that. The girl is her golden goose.”
“Ah, yes.” James sighed; then he, too, stared at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes.
Maggie grabbed the edge of the window with relief and paused to rest her face on the cold glass. She was sweating. Amazingly enough, she was more terrified of falling than of discovery, which was surprising, because she could remember a time when the prospect of social ruin had been more frightful than anything. But that had been when she could afford such petty concerns as her reputation, before she’d had the burden of so many lives piled on her shoulders.
“Damn you, Gerald, for dying, anyway,” she cursed in a whisper, then immediately—if silently—apologized to her poor brother for cussing him so. Gerald had loved life. He had lived every moment of his short time on earth as if it might be his last. He had not complained when he was ordered off to fight Napoléon. And she had no doubt he had given his life in battle with as much passion and as little regret as with which he had lived. It was just too damn bad he’d been forced to leave her in such a fix.
As a woman, Maggie had been unable to inherit her brother’s title and estates. While he had bequeathed her his town house in London—a purchase he had made with money from investments before inheriting his title and station from their father—everything else had been entailed to some blasted second or third cousin . . . if they had found the bloody man. The only money Maggie had to live off of was a small investment she had made with her own inheritance from their mother.
It wasn’t really that small an investment. In fact, she could have lived quite comfortably off of it for her entire life—had she not been saddled with Gerald’s property and servants. It was a town house fit for a duke, with lots of rooms, and nearly as many employees in attendance.
The practical side of Maggie had ordered her to release the servants, close the house, sell it, and move to a small cottage in the country. There she might have lived very comfortably with one or two hired hands. However, sentiment had not allowed her to sell the property. Gerald had loved the place. He had rarely even bothered to ride out to the estate he had inherited with his title, but his town house—there his spirit seemed to linger still. Maggie simply could not part with his home; it was her last link to her now all-but-deceased family. And as for the servants . . . faced with closing up part of the house and releasing a large portion of the staff, Maggie simply hadn’t been able to do it. Gerald’s staff were hardworking, cheerful individuals. She hadn’t been able to look a single one of them in the face and tell him he was no longer wanted.
