Harry and Gorham were fencing while several others, including the valet, Metlock, watched at a distance. They wore masks to protect their faces, but Simone would know Harry anywhere. She could not believe he could compress his lean, muscular body into Major Harrison’s bent frame, or that she had not seen through his pretense. He was a master at disguise, though, and a master at swordwork, it appeared.
Lord Gorham was older than Harry and less well-formed, but even Simone could tell he was well trained. He was also graceful and patient, although his breath was more labored than Harry’s. Harry was far more agile and active, quicker on his feet, more aggressive in his moves.
They had buttons on the swords, but fought with the intensity of a duel to the death. Attack, feint, parry, advance, retreat. The spectators called out encouragement and, as their number increased, wagers. Simone felt faint. She knew the masks and the padded canvas jackets offered some protection, but she also knew a slip, a miscalculation, an accidental loss of the sword’s cap could be catastrophic.
And Harry suddenly seemed to be doing more retreating than advancing.
“Don’t fret, Miss Royale, Harry’s just toying with Gorham now, wearing him down.”
She had not noticed Sir Chauncey taking a position at her side, and would not take her eyes off the duelists to acknowledge his presence. He patted her hand. “He’s one of the finest fencers in the land, our Harry.”
Now he did get her attention. “Oh, have you known him long?”
“Schoolmates, you know. Excellent fellow. Not good enough for you, my dear. I, on the other hand—” One of his snaked around her waist.
Harry flipped the sword out of Gorham’s grip and had his own blade at Sir Chauncey’s throat before Simone could step away from the bosky knight.
“I heard that,” Harry said, glaring at his one-time friend.
“I forgot what excellent hearing you have, old chap. No harm meant. Shall we drink on it?”
“We’ll have a match. You used to be good with a blade. You’re younger than Gorham”—who was wiping sweat off his face and panting—“so you’ll be a better challenge.”
“Me? I mean I? Sorry, Harry, but I am out of practice. Too thirsty work for me, you know.”
“I know you are drinking yourself to death and I won’t have it. Here.” He picked up Gorham’s sword and tossed it. Sir Chauncey had to catch it or have the thing slice his pantaloons, if not his foot.
“I’ll be damned,” Sir Chauncey said, fastening on the mask Metlock handed him.
“Not on my watch.
En garde
.”
Surprisingly, it turned out to be another good match, almost even. Gorham shouted encouragement to Sir Chauncey, and put his money on him. Simone wondered if it was good form for her to place a wager too. Here was a way to earn extra money, since she had no chance at the talent contest or the billiards games. She had a few of Major Harrison’s coins in her pocket.
Three men offered to take her bet. They’d match her coins if Harry won, but they wanted her to stake a kiss, an address in London, a walk in the woods when the weather cleared if he lost.
Harry knocked Sir Chauncey’s sword aside, set the buttoned point to the man’s throat, then walked to Simone’s side. “I heard that, too.” He tossed the mask and sword to Metlock and put his arm around her. “Mine,” although he did not have to say it in words. “The next time, bare swords.”
The men disappeared. Harry kissed her, his lips tasting a bit salty from his exertion, but his tongue thrusting and parrying in a different challenge. Simone knew he was simply performing for the lingering servants and any gentlemen with second thoughts. Act or not, her knees went weak. Who knew fencing could be so arousing?
Metlock cleared his throat and Harry released her. “Your coat, sir,” the valet reminded both of them, holding out Harry’s superfine. “And you’ll be wanting breakfast after the, ah, exercise.”
Simone blushed, but Harry winked as he let the valet fit him into his coat. “Old fussbudget,” he whispered in her ear as they left the ballroom. “But I am hungry. Care for a tray in our room?”
That was too dangerous, and not for show. Simone looked around to make sure they were alone then said, “Lord James Danforth was making outrageous wagers, tossing money around as if he had no cares in the world.”
“I already sent a message to London. We know his father, the duke, is not well to pass, and refused to pay the gudgeon’s gaming debts. Lord James grows more interesting as a suspect. Keep listening. What else did you learn this morning?”
That his kisses were like a drug she wanted more of? No, he must have meant about the company. “I discovered that not a one of the men is faithful to the female he brought with him.”
“I am not surprised,” he said when they entered the breakfast room. “They are not faithful to their wives or betrotheds either. That doesn’t mean they are disloyal to their country.”
Simone waited until he pulled a seat out for her at the far end of the table, where no one could overhear, or interfere. “Do you think that is right?”
Harry took a cup of coffee from a servant, and waited until the man left to bring toast and eggs and ham slices. “The light-skirts understand. They’d be just as disloyal if someone offered more money, a bigger house, a fancier carriage.”
“No, I meant is it right for a man to take a vow and then break it?”
“Hell, no,” Harry said around a forkful of kippers. “No lies, remember.”
“You came close to breaking your promise last night.”
“Not nearly, sweetheart. I was too tired.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lord Gorham’s mistress was disgruntled. In fact, her compressed lips looked like Gorham’s wife’s in the portrait. Not only was Claire denied her guaranteed singing prize, but her plans for winning the maze event this afternoon were washed away by the incessant rain.
On top of that, the former slave girl made an appearance at luncheon. Not only was Sandaree younger than Claire, but she was exquisite, a shimmering houri, a creature of myth in baggy saffron trousers and a gilt-embroidered gossamer vest. She was as graceful as the tiny bells that chimed in her ears, as exotic as the henna-dyed patterns on her hands, as sultry as the kohl-rimmed eyes she kept modestly lowered.
Sir James Danforth preened beside her. The other men forgot to eat, watching her delicate movements. Gorham watched her, too, until Claire stuck her fork in his leg, under the table.
Worst of all in Claire’s eyes, Gorham declared the afternoon competition to be a sewing contest to spite his wife, who was bound to hear of it in the gossip columns. Claire wished she’d used her knife.
The men intended to spend the afternoon settling details of the competition and their wagers, and inspecting Gorham’s wine cellars. Which meant they’d be too castaway to enjoy the lavish dinner she’d planned.
The women gathered in the marchioness’s sewing room where stacks of linen squares were set out, along with needles, scissors, and thread. The female who hemmed the most handkerchiefs before dinner would be declared the winner, if the stitches were neat and the knots secure enough for use by the parish poor. Simone was surprised by such a worthwhile venture among pleasure-seekers not known for charity or caring for the less fortunate.
Once the women were assembled with the proper supplies, it was obvious that Captain Entwhistle’s Daisy was a sure winner. She’d come to London to be a seamstress, after all, and would have earned a decent wage at it if she had not fallen into bad company. Five of the other courtesans set their needles aside, choosing to work at their coming performances, their wardrobes, or their beauty sleep, rather than expend a futile effort among females. Claire stood, too, although she wasn’t conceding defeat.
“I refuse to sit in this room with that woman.” She pointed to Lady Gorham’s portrait. “If not for her, I’d be set here for life, where I belong. The old cow insists he sets me aside. After twelve years! I’ll take my sewing to my chambers, instead of sitting in this shabby place that’s nothing but a monument to the ugly witch.”
Simone loved the old-fashioned room that reminded her of her old home, her mother’s constant mending and sewing to keep them all well-dressed if not up to the current fashions. She picked up another square to hem. She could not give the needy much money; the least she could do was produce handkerchiefs for them.
Sandaree started to leave. In newly learned English, she explained that women in her calling were never taught to sew.
Simone invited her to stay, to tell them about her country, her customs. “That will make our task go faster.”
The foreign girl did, sensing Simone’s honest interest. She haltingly explained how she was born to a concubine and reared in a palace, with no other goal or function than to please which ever man bought her, or was given her as a gift. She had studied the pillow books, learned to sing and dance and prepare tempting tidbits and scented massage oils, how to make herself beautiful and how to make any man feel like a prince.
Her training worked well, too well. The rajah preferred her to his first wife, second wife, and head concubine. Similar to Claire’s situation, they demanded her banished. The rajah had to listen if he wanted peace in his harem, and not his favorite’s outright murder. So he sold her to a British nabob who was returning to England.
“But there is no such thing as slavery here.”
“They call it indenture, I think. But it is the same. I still have no home, no funds, no saying when I dance or when I sit in the garden. Here I have no friends, no future, either. At the palace, I would have been retired to train young girls or help with the prince’s children. Here? I did not please my owner. I was traded to Lord James Danforth, but he is not easy to please either, not like the rajah. English gentlemen do not appreciate my training. They have no—how is it said?, no subtlety. No time. Sex is for the dark, for the relief, for the man.”
“Isn’t it always?” Daisy looked up from her stitching to ask.
Simone did not wish to hear the answer. She said, “Then leave.”
“I cannot. Lord James repaid my master the price of my passage.”
“But he cannot own you!”
“I have nothing of my own. Not my clothes or jewels. I am like one of your English wives. Is that not how it is in your country?”
Husbands did have omnipotence over their wives, their money, their children. Being a beloved concubine in a palace might be better than being a rich man’s wife, yet the latter was still the dream of every woman in the room.
Sandaree shook her head. “Married women are slaves by another name: Chattel.”
“Not all marriages are like that,” Simone insisted. “Not all men hold themselves so superior. My mother was happy. My father gave up his world for her.”
Four of the women never knew their fathers. Two others ran away from theirs. Daisy’s mother worked harder than any servant to keep her family fed and her house clean, going without so her husband could visit the pub. No one but Simone knew of a marriage where the partners were equal, where a woman did not trade her independence for security, respectability, permanence. And children.
Pregnant Alice Morrow wiped her eyes on one of the new handkerchiefs.
They all concluded that life was hard for a woman, no matter her station.
“
À vrai dire
,” Mr. Gallop’s French mistress said, then translated for the other women, including Mimi Granceaux, who wasn’t French at all. “To tell the truth.”
That women suffered was no secret to any of them, but Sandaree’s situation was worse than most. The needles paused while the sewers contemplated solutions for her.
Mimi forgot her accent to insist: “If you win, that Danforth lordling cannot keep your winnings. You take them right to a bank to hold for you.”
“Maybe you can win some of the other contests,” suggested Alice, who could afford to be generous, since her condition kept her from competing at most. “What skills have you? Besides pleasing a man. Can you sing?”
“Not in your language.”
“Claire never sings in English either, but she’d have conniptions if you rivaled her performance.”
“Dance? Play an instrument? Tell stories like that Scheherazade female?”
Sandaree lowered her eyes. “I dance a little, not in your style.”
That did not sound promising to the others, who considered a way for Sandaree to make money of her own, although that was what they were all trying to do.
“We could wager among ourselves, like the men are doing.”
“How would that help? We could lose.” Which did not stop some of them from wagering at cards, Simone knew.
Someone suggested they all cheat and lose to a designated winner who would promise to divide the prize.
Harry would hate Simone’s doing something so dishonest. Besides, Claire Hope would never agree to lose, or to share. And no one actually volunteered to give up her own winnings.
“Gorham has a great deal of influence,” Daisy said, finishing the last square of linen. “Claire can ask him to speak with Danforth. Or maybe Claire has another idea.”
Claire had many ideas, reading a book of philosophy on her chaise longue when Simone entered her sitting room. Her maid was sitting nearby amid a stack of finished handkerchiefs. She tried to hide the needle and thread under the pile.
“I thought you were the maid with tea,” Claire said, after using a word Simone had never heard from a woman’s lips.
“You’re going to cheat?” Simone asked the obvious.
“I am going to win.”
“But others need the money, too.”
“Not as much as I do. I am too old to find a new protector, too used to the luxuries of life to give them up. Gorham owes me.”
“Then he should pay, not count on your winning.”
“His wife would find out. She has her man of affairs look at his books. Her dowry paid for everything, that’s why he married her, but her brass came with conditions.”
“But you cannot cheat! Daisy deserves this round. She needs it badly to help support her family in the country.”
Claire tossed her book to the floor. “Let them find jobs like all the other poor farmers. They do not send me mutton and I’ll be damned if I send them money.”