Now she had led a predator into their midst.
Eventually she could avoid him no longer. She turned, lacing her fingers together before her churning stomach. “It’s not what you seem to be assuming.”
“Is it not?” He prowled the room, inspecting everything. He traced a finger over the glass dome protecting a deep green fern and picked up a porcelain figurine of a ballet dancer in a Grecian costume. “Pray, please do explain it to me. Because it sounds as if you’re running a whorehouse.”
She flinched. “Please don’t speak so boldly to me.”
“If you’re to become a proprietress, you’ll have to become accustomed to bald speech.” He stopped near the one slender window that looked out on a bricked alleyway. His arms folded over his chest again. Though he wasn’t in motion, neither was he in any way calmed. His very bones seemed to vibrate with anger. “I find myself wondering why I’ve been busting my arse to turn respectable when it sounds like three gentlewomen of the
ton
are doing their damnedest to roll in the dirt on my level.”
Sera’s annoyance flashed to the foreground, enough to help her ignore the trembling in her knees. “We are not proprietresses, and I’ll thank you kindly not to speak to me like that. If you would just hold your tongue for one simple minute, I can explain.”
He gestured expansively. “Please do.”
“Gentlemen pay for subscriptions, which are put toward funding the school.” She drew in a deep breath, using it to calm her nerves. Anger was unladylike and led to hysteria. “They elicit no guaranteed receipt for their funds.”
The pale blue of his eyes glittered in the gaslight. “Turning your head and pretending not to see what’s going on does not make you any less guilty.”
“The girls are not expected nor even allowed to consort with men on school grounds. For the price of their tutoring, they must attend three social functions that the gentlemen also attend. Any matches borne of the meetings are fully expected to be honorable and marriage minded.”
“How would you know the results?”
“Miss Vale has eyes and ears throughout all of London. People are quite willing to share information with her. The girls themselves are so grateful for the opportunity that they tattle immediately on anyone who tries nefarious things. We already needed to revoke membership from one gentleman who attempted to coax a girl into a scandalous arrangement.”
His shoulders unclenched and his features relaxed from their pinched hold. Heavy brows rose from their glowering. “What happens to the women who don’t marry?”
Sera let out a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she held. Her legs seemed to quiver more for the relief of that dreadful tension. “They take their newly acquired skills and wardrobe and move into better positions as ladies’ maids or shop girls. They’re not compelled to risk their fingers and limbs as factory girls any longer. Or worse.”
A wry smile tucked the side of his mouth. He fell into a seat, entirely out of place among the padded corners and softness. He pulled an embroidered pillow out from under his hip and made a face. “Oddly enough, many of the girls working for Mrs. Kordan cite the selfsame reasons for beginning.”
“By working for Mrs. Kordan, you mean working for yourself, do you not?” She remembered that name. Mama had known her for a while, before Fletcher’s father had plucked her from the general population of girls. “Don’t think I miss the hypocrisy in your deriding me for my assumptive purposes when you run a house of ill repute.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaustion suddenly written in every white line. The scores around his mouth became divots. “I’m not in it for the fun of it. Mrs. Kordan needs a firm hand or she’d be…reckless.”
“As if that’s supposed to be an explanation.”
“If it weren’t for me, Mrs. Kordan would have children working for her, tupping old men for their suppers. Is that what you wished to hear?”
At the same time she flinched from the cruel words, Sera saw something more beneath. A vulnerability she’d never before glimpsed.
Though she held herself no less tightly contained, she longed to go to him and put a cool hand on his brow. Stroke his hair and assure him he was doing the best he could.
Which was all patently ridiculous and based on a pretty fiction. He was not the upright businessman he almost appeared to be. She wished to ease Fletcher’s burdens from running a house of ill repute. A whorehouse, if she were to be blunt about it.
“Well.” As the small brass clock chimed on the mantelpiece, she brushed her thoughts off her hands. “Time for lessons.”
His eyebrows rose. “You wish me to come along?”
“Certainly.” She smiled, anticipating the hour ahead. Perhaps it would be a little cruel of her, but he would manage to forebear. “Why come with me if not to get a taste of what we do here?”
Chapter Seven
Fletcher had prowled the back alleys of London more times than he could count. He’d gone toe-to-toe with men who claimed a full six inches and two stone’s weight on him. Plenty of times he’d seen a blade coming for him. Been drunk and alone in nasty parts of town.
Never in his life had he been more afraid than when walking into that schoolroom.
As soon as the door opened, twenty heads swiveled. Sets of feminine eyes twinkled with speculation. Their chairs were lined up in tidy rows, as if attending some sort of musicale. Though their dresses were different colors, from dark brown to navy blue, they were all constructed of a similar, staid line. Not exactly what he’d expected to see from factory girls given free rein to choose new wardrobes. In his experience, they tended to get themselves up in readymade clothes that never quite seemed to fit, reveling in an atrocious new range of color dyes.
He was also surprised to see women in their thirties among those waiting for lessons. Somewhere along the way he’d assumed Sera and her friends would only accept younger. But then, he’d put together a nice little string of assumptions. Look where it got him. Red-faced and jostled by surprising twinges of chagrin, he pretended not to hear the whispers and giggles his appearance launched.
The apartment was reminiscent of the spotty moments he’d been able to attend school, stuffed with bookshelves and the rows of chairs. At the front was a small table of a size meant for a breakfast room, fully set with linen tablecloth, crystal stemware and silver flatware embossed with the crest of the Duke of Fairchild.
One look at the silverware made Fletcher raise an eyebrow and send Sera a speaking glance. Someone would miss that plate. The smile she gave in response bordered on smug. “It’s fully accounted for. Technically it belongs to Victoria’s father for use in one of their country estates. The housekeeper is aware it’s in our possession.”
“The entire class sat in here unsupervised,” he said. “Don’t you worry about someone nicking a piece or two?”
Her fine features filled with disappointment. “Trust begets trust, Fletcher.”
She didn’t dally any longer and strode up the meager aisle to stand before the out-of-place breakfast table. With a single, quiet clap of her hands she obtained the entire class’s attention. He’d not have expected it of a pack of giggling women, but Sera commanded a subtle respect everywhere she went.
Likely from the respect she gave others.
It seemed an easy idea, but when a body wiggled down to wallow in the nastiness of life, respect became as hard to cling to as hope. Seraphina had always meant both to Fletcher. She still did.
“Ladies, we have a special treat today.” She beamed at all of them. When she deigned to include him in her pleasant smile, he was struck by how deeply he felt it. Completely through him, like a bear waking in the spring and seeing sunshine. “Mr. Thomas has agreed to help us with today’s lessons.”
His eyes went so wide he thought he might need to poke them back in his head. Not just no, but
hell
no. He’d agreed to tag along. She hadn’t said a single word about participating. He gave a brusque shake of his head, not wishing to call attention to himself. Any more attention, that was.
Twenty heads swiveled back to him, peeking over their shoulders. Blonde heads bent near brunette and the whispers began anew. There might have been a time or two he’d have craved being the object of such feminine speculation, but this certainly was neither the time nor the place.
“Come now, Mr. Thomas. Don’t force me to impugn your honor.” She held out a hand. Her chocolate-brown eyes sparkled with secret laughter. The barest hint of a dimple appeared to the left of her mouth as she held back a grin.
Somehow he found his feet moving him down the rows of seats. He knew barely enough to get by in society. He certainly didn’t have spare knowledge to impart to women looking to better their situations.
He stopped entirely too near Sera, but he had no wish for his next words to be overheard. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
A lock of her hair had sprung free from its exacting coil at the back of her head and brushed against his cheek.
“Trust begets trust,” she said again. “So trust me, Fletcher.”
Oh, he did. Though he’d be damned if he knew why. Probably it was her fresh-faced good intentions driving him batty.
She turned to the sea of eager faces. “As we all know, ladies, one of the most trying things on earth is a male.”
A chorus of agreement rose in response. “Ain’t that the gospel,” chimed in one woman in the second row. A wide grin took her face from too sharp to nearly pretty, and her shade of red hair looked unnatural.
“You mean ‘Isn’t that the gospel,’ Suzette,” Sera corrected without losing her focus. “As a lady, one must never show temper, even in the face of the most obstinate man. It is a woman’s task to ensure grace and good humor rule the day.”
Fletcher could think of other, more pleasant tasks for Sera, that was for damn sure. Most of them involved a distinct lack of clothing or grace. More hot, wet mouths and a few nips for good measure.
What the hell was wrong with him? His every effort had been put toward making sure she kept her inherent purity. The time hadn’t come to claim her.
Across the entire dark stretch of his childhood, she’d been the one spot that flamed quick and bright. The one thing that had shone with joy. Everyone else had been slugging through their lives. Not Sera. She’d still wished on the first star when it appeared every night, and it seemed she still maintained that same optimistic determination.
“I cannot express enough the importance of keeping one’s temper in difficult situations,” she said. “As a result, Mr. Thomas has graciously agreed to assist us in a practical demonstration.” That near-dimple was back as she gave him a sidelong look.
He did his best not to growl. He’d never been much of one for volunteering. Time put in equaled payment received, always. It was one lesson he’d willingly accepted from his father.
Sera held her hand out, palm up. “Suzette, please come up here and take a seat.”
The woman grinned broadly as she sashayed up the row. She slid past Fletcher and winked, but when she stopped before the right-hand seat of the table, the strangest thing happened.
She became a lady.
Her shoulders drew back a fraction of an inch and her spine straightened from her hips-forward slouch. An indefinable something smoothed out her features. The impish twinkle disappeared from her grayish blue eyes.
“Very good, Suzette,” Sera said. “But we must try to cultivate this air of refinement at all times. One never knows who is observing.”
“All times, miss?” Suzette’s lips parted in a fair approximation of shock. “Why that’s simply silly. Can we never actually relax?”
“There are moments when one can indulge in a relaxed attitude.” Sera came to stand behind Suzette, resting her hands on the other woman’s shoulders. “When one is alone or with a bosom friend that one trusts implicitly. Before a group of twenty and a man whom one doesn’t know is not the time. Now, let’s continue with the lessons.”
Fletcher resisted the urge to shove his hands in his pockets and hunch his shoulders. “Your pardon, Miss Miller,” he said, placing deliberate emphasis on her name. “I’m afraid I’m still a little at sea as to my purpose.”
She squeezed the other woman’s shoulders. “Why, Mr. Thomas, I only wish you to fulfill your innate instincts.”
He rather doubted that. His instincts were base and unmanageable. “An explanation would be better.”
Though nothing specific gave it away, he had the idea she was toying with him. His palms itched with the need to fill them with her flesh and scoop her into a kiss that proved he wasn’t a man to be toyed with. He’d give anything to delve beneath those ladylike skirts and lick his way from the tender backs of her knees to her undoubtedly sweeter flesh.
“You will be deliberately obtuse and provocative to Miss Suzette. In turn, she will endeavor to restrain her temper in the face of your antagonism.”
Unbelievable. He shifted from foot to foot against the urge to dash as quick as he could. He was not a dashing sort of chap, not by a long shot. If he were, he’d have abandoned his father’s empire to some other less scrupulous man.
He coughed once into his fist then steeled his spine, as if he were riding into battle. “All right then. Let’s have at this.”
“Please do sit, sir,” Sera cooed. She seemed to be having the time of her life.