A Precious Jewel

by Mary Balogh

  “My time is up?” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Almost.”

  When he turned to her after dressing, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in a modest pale blue dressing gown. She smiled at him.

  “You are good, Prissy,” he said. “There are not many … girls who are willing to do exactly as I ask.”

  “But it is my job and my pleasure to please you, sir,” she said.

  “I will be visiting you again,” he said, one hand on the knob of the door.

  “I shall look forward to it,” she said.

  He almost believed her as he let himself out of the room, so warm was her smile. She was a good actress as well as being very good at her profession.

  He tapped on Kit’s door.

  “Ah,” she said after summoning him inside. She set aside her book and removed the spectacles she was wearing. “You decided to stay, then, Sir Gerald? I thought you would once you had seen Prissy.”

  “I want her again,” he said, “in three days’ time. Is she much in demand?”

  “Indeed she is,” Miss Blythe said. “Almost all of her clients return and become regulars. You were fortunate that one of them was out of town this evening.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Three days’ time?”

  She drew an appointment book toward her from a table at her elbow. “Four is the best I can do, I am afraid, Sir Gerald,” she said. “Of course, Sonia will be free.”

  “Four days will do,” he said. “The usual time?”

  “I shall record it,” she said. “I am glad that Prissy pleased you so well, Sir Gerald.”

  “Good night, ma’am,” he said. He nodded to her and took his leave.

  He did not, as he usually did when he left Kit’s, go to White’s in search of a card game and congenial company. He returned to his bachelor rooms and was in bed before midnight. He had a relaxed feeling of well-being and thought he would sleep well without the drugs of liquor and cards and male conversation until the early hours of the morning. He was not normally a good sleeper.

  MISS KATHERINE BLYTHE had eight girls working for her, all carefully chosen and well-trained—trained not only to provide the essential physical services, but also to do it in an atmosphere of some refinement. Her girls were young ladies who entertained gentlemen in order to earn a living. That fact was always the main focus of the very first lesson.

  Not all gentlemen were allowed to visit. Miss Blythe had a personal interview with each of her girls every morning and listened to a report on the previous day’s dealings. Any gentleman who was deemed unsuitable to the gentility of her establishment was denied further admittance. There were strict rules about what was allowed and what was not allowed in her house.

  Each of her girls was allowed no more than three clients each day, and none was to stay for longer than one hour. A full half hour after each left was to be spent by each girl carefully cleansing herself. No gentleman ever acquired a disease from one of Miss Blythe’s girls. And only rarely did one of her girls get with child. When it did happen, the girl concerned was roundly scolded for carelessness and then sent away and well looked after during her confinement. The child was found adoptive parents who would bring it up well.

  Girls who had chosen prostitution as a profession coveted a place in Miss Blythe’s finishing school, as she liked to call it. There was no more desirable place in London to work.

  Priscilla Wentworth had been given one of those places with no trouble at all. And Miss Blythe had never made any secret of the fact that she was a favorite—the favorite.

  “Sit down, dear,” she said when Priscilla came for her morning interview the day after Sir Gerald Stapleton’s visit. “Let me pour you some tea.”

  “Thank you, Miss Blythe.” Priscilla crossed the room to take the cup and saucer from her employer’s hand and seated herself on a chair beside the fire. “It is still chilly this morning, though the air is marvelously fresh.”

  “You went for an early walk as usual, then?” Miss Blythe asked. “I hope you dressed warmly, Priscilla, and that you did not go alone?”

  Priscilla smiled. “After hearing your opinion of Sonia yesterday,” she said, “I would not have dared to go out without my winter cloak. And I promised you after a scolding weeks ago that I would never again step outside alone.”

  “I would think not, too,” Miss Blythe said. “You must always remember that you are a young lady, Priscilla.”

  The girl smiled.

  Miss Blythe sighed. “But we will not pursue that thought today,” she said. “You had three clients yesterday. Do you have any complaints?”

  “No,” Priscilla said. “None at all.”

  “You have no bruises?”

  “No.”

  “No one spoke to you disrespectfully?”

  “No.”

  “No profanities?”

  “No.”

  “You have seen both Mr. Loft and Mr. Claremont several times before, of course,” Miss Blythe said. “And I chose them with care at the start, Priscilla, as I choose all your clients. It struck me last evening when Sir Gerald Stapleton came for Sonia that he would be suitable for you too, dear. He seems a quiet and very proper young gentleman. I was glad when he came to make another appointment with you before he left. You must have pleased him. Did you like him?”

  “Yes,” Priscilla said. “I liked him very well.”

  “Sonia has never complained of him,” Miss Blythe said. “He was not rough or demanding of too much, Priscilla?”

  “No,” the girl said. “I liked him. Will Sonia be annoyed with me?”

  “For taking him away from her?” Miss Blythe said.

  “Sonia does not like regulars. She would prefer new challenges. But enough of that. Have you read the book I lent you?”

  “I have not quite finished it,” Priscilla said. “But I greatly admire the author’s wit.”

  “Who is your favorite character?” Miss Blythe asked.

  “Oh.” Priscilla thought. “Mr. Darcy without a doubt, if one is to speak of heroes. I think him quite the most splendid hero of any book I have read. But Mr. Collins is a marvelous creation—a totally obsequious man without in any way becoming a caricature.”

  “Do you feel sorry for his wife?” Miss Blythe asked.

  “Yes and no.” Priscilla smiled. “She could have avoided marrying him, of course, so she had only herself to blame for all the tedium and embarrassment that followed. But then she married him to avoid the worse fate of being a spinster, and she made the best of it afterward and never complained. I think I admire her cheerfulness when she must have felt anything but cheerful in the privacy of her own heart.”

  Miss Blythe listened to her broodingly. “My dear Priscilla,” she said, “you could be describing yourself.”

  “Oh, no.” Priscilla laughed and set down her empty cup and saucer beside her. “I am contented with my life, Miss Blythe. There are many thousands in worse state than I. It would be wicked of me to complain.”

  Miss Blythe sighed again. “You have the gift of contentment,” she said. “You always did, even as a child, I remember. And it seems here that every casual client soon wishes to become your regular. You must flatter them into feeling that you enjoy giving them service. Men do not like to return to girls who treat them with disdain or indifference even if they have been gifted with voluptuous bodies.”

  Priscilla looked down at her own slender form. “When I embarked on this profession,” she said, “I decided that the only way I would be able to reconcile my conscience to what I was doing would be to do it as well as I am able. Gentlemen come to me for pleasure. I try my very best to give them pleasure.”

  “Angela will be waiting, dear,” Miss Blythe said. “And I am anxious to question her about the swelling around her eye. Send her in, will you?”

  Priscilla crossed the room to set her cup and saucer on the tea tray and bent to kiss the offered cheek of her employer.

  “I have another of
the same author’s books that you must read when you have finished this one,” Miss Blythe said before the girl left the room.

  PRISCILLA TIDIED HER room, though a maid had been in to clean already, and turned down the bed carefully to be ready for her first client late that afternoon. Then she took her book and her embroidery downstairs to the girls’ parlor—the book to read if she could, the embroidery to stitch on if some of the other girls were there and wished to talk.

  She would have liked to go out again to stroll in St. James’s Park and drink in the sight of all the spring flowers, but it was difficult to find any girl willing to go out walking on a cool day even though the air was invigorating. Sadie accompanied her on an early morning walk most days only because Miss Blythe had told her that she must keep her weight down if she hoped to remain in the house. Poor Sadie had been forbidden any sweets, except a few on Sundays.

  She missed the country, Priscilla thought, settling herself in the parlor and taking out her embroidery despite the fact that only Theresa was present. She was sleeping, her head thrown over the chair back, her mouth slightly open. Especially now that spring had come, Priscilla missed the country.

  And she missed her father. And Broderick. They had been a very close family after her mother’s death when she was ten. So close that she had been in no hurry at all to marry, even though she had had two quite eligible offers. She had had some notion that she would wait until she fell in love, until she met someone who measured up to her father or her brother.

  That time had still not come when she was twenty-two the previous autumn and her father had neglected a chill taken during a hunt and died of pneumonia, all within the span of three nightmare weeks. Broderick would provide for her, he had assured her with almost his last breath. It had all been arranged a long time before. Broderick was in Italy at the time.

  He had been summoned in haste. But before the message of his father’s passing could possibly have reached him, the message of his own death of typhoid had reached Priscilla. And Broderick, only twenty-six years old at the time of his death, had left no will.

  Everything had passed to Priscilla’s cousin, Mr. Oswald Wentworth. Everything. Even those more valuable personal possessions of Priscilla’s own that her father had had in his own safekeeping. And Oswald and his wife had made her life miserable, treating her a little worse than they treated the servants. The servants at least earned their keep, Irene had been fond of saying.

  A difficult, near-impossible situation had finally become unbearable when Oswald had begun to treat her indeed like a servant—or as some gentlemen treated their female servants anyway. It had not been safe to be in a room alone with him, she had discovered, or to meet him in a deserted corridor. He had begun to touch her, to kiss her, to whisper lewdness in her ear.

  In the end there had seemed to be only one thing to do—leave. She had made hasty plans to join her former governess, with whom she regularly corresponded, in London. Miss Blythe would give her a position as a teacher or assistant in her finishing school for young ladies, she was convinced. Or else Miss Blythe would use her influence to have Priscilla taken on at another school.

  If she left, Oswald had made quite clear and Irene had echoed, she must never expect to be welcomed home again. She must expect no further support from him. She had left.

  It was only when she had arrived unannounced on Miss Blythe’s doorstep and been shown into Miss Blythe’s sitting room that she had discovered that the finishing school her former governess’s letters had spoken of was in reality a whorehouse.

  Theresa snored suddenly and awoke with a start.

  “Oh, Prissy,” she said, stretching. “Are you busy again? You are always busy.”

  Priscilla smiled. “It is my way of relaxing,” she said. “Are you tired?”

  “Of living,” Theresa said. “How do you manage always to look so cheerful? Sometimes I think I might as well throw myself in the Thames.”

  “Don’t do that,” Priscilla said, leaning forward in her chair and looking at the other girl with some concern. “Count your blessings, Theresa. At least we have a comfortable home and all our needs supplied. And we know that we will not be overworked or abused here. We know that when our working days are over, we will be looked after.”

  Theresa pulled a face.

  “You need some interest,” Priscilla said, “something to occupy your hands and your mind so that you will not dwell on unpleasantness. Really, there is a great deal to be thankful for. Why do you not learn to read? I have offered before to teach you. I am still willing.”

  Theresa grimaced and got to her feet. “I am going to lie down on my bed,” she said, “and sleep while I can. I will be busy enough later.”

  Priscilla remembered the feeling of being trapped, of being almost totally without options. Oh, it had not seemed quite that way at first. It had been more like a gradually tightening noose about her neck.

  She would find employment, she had thought at first. She was quite capable of being a teacher or governess or lady’s companion—or even a lesser servant. But employment agencies turned her away—she had no references. Miss Blythe was the only person she knew in London. Her father had been of a retiring disposition. They had never ventured out of the country. An advertisement placed in a newspaper had brought no response. Perhaps Miss Blythe’s address—the only one Priscilla could give—was known.

  There were no other relatives to whom Priscilla could appeal. No one, though she searched her mind desperately. There had been only Oswald beyond her own family circle. And so the day had come when she had been forced to write to Oswald to announce her intention of returning home. Perhaps, she had thought in some panic, she would be able to signal somehow to one of the gentlemen who had offered for her that she would now be willing to accept his hand.

  But she had been given no chance even to try. Her letter had been returned and with it a brief note from her cousin’s steward to the effect that Mr. Wentworth did not recognize any responsibility toward indigent relatives.

  She had had no home. Nowhere to go. No employment with which to sustain herself. That was when she had felt the noose tighten.

  It was also when she had made her decision. Miss Blythe had resisted. She had always been fond of her former pupil, and despite the fact that she ran a strict house and was occasionally severe with her girls, she had a warm heart. But Priscilla had known that though she would not be turned away, there would be an awkwardness about her staying indefinitely as a guest. She would earn her keep, then. Where was she to go if she decided to leave? she had asked an unhappy Miss Blythe. Onto the open street?

  Miss Blythe had finally given in after two of her girls, speaking on behalf of all of them, had asked for a private interview and had objected to the fact that they worked while Miss Priscilla Wentworth was a mere parasite in the house.

  “And they do have a point,” Miss Blythe had said when she had summoned Priscilla afterward. “I am afraid that after all you must face a hard choice, dear. You must leave or you must earn your keep here as the other girls do.”

  “I will earn my keep,” Priscilla had said calmly, feeling the noose choke her. Terror and panic had brought her close to fainting, but she had raised her chin, held on to her outer calmness, and even managed a smile.

  “I have never admired you more than I do at this moment, dear,” Miss Blythe had said, kissing her cheek—and then turning briskly to business.

  And so Priscilla had been put through the careful and rigorous training all the girls received when they first came to the house, except the elocution and deportment classes. And as with the other girls, she had begun work gradually, on a trial basis, one client only each day of the first week.

  She did not care to remember that first week.

  Finally she had made her life bearable by adjusting to it as best she could. She had always been a cheerful and a practical girl. She worked for only three hours a day at the most. She learned to value that fact. For three hours a da
y she would work, putting all her training into practice and doing a good job of what she did. She took pride in giving the pleasure for which her clients paid handsomely. She took pride in working as hard as any of the other girls, though it was no secret that she was the favorite.

  She was well aware of the advantages of being Miss Blythe’s favorite. All her clients were personally chosen for her. She knew that. She listened in some distress to some of the other girls’ stories, though of course even they did not have to suffer indignities more than once from the same gentleman. Miss Blythe ran a very strict house indeed.

  And when she was not working, she tried not to think about her profession or any of the men who came to her regularly for pleasure. She read a great deal and pondered what she read and sometimes sat for hours with Miss Blythe discussing her ideas. She wrote stories and poetry. She embroidered and knitted and netted. And she painted and played the harpsichord that was kept in one corner of the dining room. She walked outdoors as often as she could and enjoyed the beauties of nature that were to be found in London’s parks.

  For all of twenty-one hours of each day she was free.

  She refused to feel sorry for herself. She had spoken the simple truth to Theresa. She did have a great deal to be thankful for.

  She thought suddenly and for no particular reason of her new client of the evening before, perhaps her new regular. Certainly he was going to come again in three days’ time.

  Sir Gerald Stapleton. The only titled gentleman she had ever entertained. He was a baronet. He was also the youngest gentleman she had had and the most personable. He was the only gentleman ever to have demanded that she lie still, that she be utterly passive in the performance of her duties. Pleasing him had been remarkably easy.

  She did not often indulge in fantasies during her working hours. It was one thing that had been firmly emphasized during her training. Work was simply work, a mindless demonstration of certain skills. But she had been a little guilty with Sir Gerald Stapleton. She had lain beneath him imagining that he was her husband, that they were lying on their marriage bed in their own home, that he was begetting their children in her.