Authors: Shannon Donnelly
Sallie gave an encouraging nod and lifted her eyebrows as if to compel agreement. With that, Molly made up her mind. It would not be the biggest risk she had ever taken, but it did rank up there.
Still, she had taken a risk to come home to England after Uncle Fred had died. She had taken a greater risk to hire on with Sallie and escape any return to St. Marylebone, with its overcrowded rooms and its stench of poverty and hopelessness. If this adventure only led to a week with him, well, she could think of worse things.
The trick would be to make certain this did not become one of those worse things.
Squaring her shoulders, she stretched as tall as she could. "If I have your word as a gentleman that you'll never do more than I allow, then I shall...that's to say, I'm your girl, ducks."
The blue eyes blazed again. "Word as a...? Never do...? Just who is footing the bill, here, my girl?"
"Now, now, Mr. Winslow," Sallie said, smoothly inserting herself and laying a hand on his arm. "We agreed on terms, and they're quite generous, given as you're not paying near to a full night's rate for Molly's time."
Not near to a full night's rate?
Theo glanced at the redhead, impressed and rather curious now. There must be something quite extraordinary under that dress of hers to command more than a hundred and fifty for a full night. Blazes, but what talents did she have?
Sallie leaned closer to him, her voice low and teasing his imagination. "Where else, I ask you, will you find just what you asked for?"
He frowned. Molly was all a fellow could ask for. Sharp tongue and all. And to have her for a week—well, perhaps this was a standard ploy to squeak a few more quid from him. With a week's time, he might well find a way to soften that tongue of hers and her mercenary attitude. He'd coaxed more than a few ladies into changing their mind about what they'd offer.
"Very well, Miss Sweet, you have my word as a gentleman that I won't do more than you allow. But in turn I want a guarantee. If I'm not disowned, then I owe you nothing!"
Sallie put a hand on her hip. "You don't want much do you now! Molly's time for free if you don't get your way."
"You said you liked your gentlemen to go away satisfied. Well, that's what I'm asking for." He raked his glance over the girl again. "Or don't you think you'll be able to carry this off?"
The girl stretched taller, though her head still only came to his shoulder—and it would rest nicely there, too, he thought.
"Twenty-five pounds for my time, no matter the outcome. And the balance then if you are disowned."
"Ten," he countered.
"Twenty."
"Done." He grinned at her. "Do we seal our bargain with a kiss?"
Dark-reddish eyebrows lifted. "At those rates? I think not. But here's my hand on it."
He took her hand, noticing that traces of white powder dusted her skin—trying to hide her freckles, he wondered? Lifting her hand, he flecked his tongue across her skin. Flour, of all things! Must be some new beauty secret.
He forgot about that when she flushed deliciously, pinking up like a maid of May, in fact.
Pulling her hand away, her eyes glittered and her lips parted as if she looked ready to offer back another of her saucy answers, but Sallie caught her arm.
Leading her from her room, Sallie called back, "I'll just see she's packed and ready within the hour."
"Quarter hour, mind. It's a warm day and I've left Terrance's team being walked long enough as it is."
"Hour? Quarter hour? But what about my tarts?"
Theo frowned at such an obscure comment from the girl. But Sallie merely waved it aside, promised she'd see to all. She had Molly out the door in an instant and the door closed behind them.
Molly turned to her, already shaking her head. "I cannot possibly leave today. There are instructions about the kitchen—Edna shall have to manage it while I'm away."
"Ducks, if Edna can't run that kitchen after being with you for near on two years now, she's a half-wit, and I don't think she'd fancy you callin' her that to her face. Why she's probably already got your pastries done and finished."
"But...but I only have menus made up until Saturday."
Sallie linked her arm with Molly's as she started up the stairs to the girls' rooms. "Send me more in the post—or, better yet, Edna can use some from last month. It's the food that goes off, not the bits of paper you write it all down on."
"But I..."
I have no more excuses
, Molly thought, panic spiraling loose. She thought of the gentleman, with his skin-tight buckskins and his beautiful blue coat, and his silk-embroidered yellow waistcoat so casually worn. And she found one more almost sensible reason to cling to. "I have nothing to wear that looks as if I am a...a hired woman."
Oh, gracious, what have I just leapt into?
Sallie gave a scornful glance to Molly's dress. "Ducks, you haven't enough gowns to look even half proper, let alone improper. We'll have to see what Jane left. She took her best with her, but she spent what she made on her back putting cloth on it, so there ought to be something. A few stitches to take up the hems and they'll do. Now stop havering. You said you'd do it, so stop thinking why you can't. Just think of the money, ducks. It what gets me through anything."
"The money," Molly repeated, pressing a hand to her stomach. It was just that those blue eyes no longer dazzled and that handsome face no longer overwhelmed—how did a man ever get such beauty? Such hard, masculine beauty. Even features and a firm chin and a straight nose ought not to have such an effect. But they did. As had those dark eyebrows set low over his eyes, which flattened and quirked and lifted to display his every mood.
She could think again without those broad shoulders looming before her. Without him in the room, restless and somehow drawing all attention. And the images dancing through her mind were all disaster—she was about to go off with some gentleman she did not even know.
Of course, she had done almost the same when she had met Sallie—and that had turned out well enough.
Still, she had learned enough about caution, so she turned to Sallie, desperate for advice. "What am I to do if he doesn't honor his word—if he wants, well, if he tries to make me act like one of your girls?"
"That's easy, ducks. Smile, put a hand on your hip, and name a price that'll take the interest right out of him."
Molly thought about that. And she thought of those intense, direct eyes of his and the impression she had of focused concentration. "I could name five hundred pounds and he still might say he would pay."
"Oh, he might say it, but you just ask for coins in your open hand before anything else opens wide, and see if that don't act like a dash of cold water."
"That actually sounds like Mr. Tipton's usual attitude," she said. Sallie turned a questioning stare on her, and she added, "He's the fishmonger who comes on Thursdays."
"Well, you want to make sure you ain't a trout with your mouth gapping open to be hooked by this flash gent, or any other. Remember that, or you'll be agreeing to more than you think you will now. And just you remember, too, every woman may have her price, but every man has his limits. Most of 'em start with his purse. Now, let's see how those dresses look. You're going to have to be dazzlin', 'cause it's going to take us longer than a quarter hour to turn you out in style."
#
By the time Sallie finished, Molly no longer recognized herself. Nell and Harriet, seeing the door open to Jane's forsaken room, had poked their heads in—eyes sleepy and hair tumbled and still in their night wrappers. Sallie's house kept late hours and late mornings. Sallie bustled them out, saying to Molly afterwards, "Never does to stir up jealousy, and you don't want them thinking you're stealing their trade."
"Gracious, I suppose I am. Do you think they'll be angry with me?"
"Not if you don't go talking about the money. Always brings out the worst in folks, if you do. And don't you let that gent of yours start talking price with you, either. You don't want him thinking he can argue you down. That's why the girls always leave it to me to set the rates."
Molly paused in smoothing a hand over a rather pretty scarlet jacket that Jane had left behind. "I almost forgot—what should I give you of the fifty pounds as your share?"
Sallie abruptly buried herself in Jane's half-empty wardrobe. "Lord, the girl had more clothes than in a Drury Lane play, no wonder she couldn't pack them all. And don't you worry over my share. I took my percentage off the top as usual, so that fifty pounds is yours right and proper." Emerging from the wardrobe with a peacock-blue silk gown in a paisley pattern, she held it up. "Now see if this'll fit, and then we've got to get a trunk packed."
The dress did fit—or near enough. It laced up the back, and had to be tied loose, for Jane was slimmer. "I'm almost spilling out the top," Molly protested as she looked at herself.
"That's the point. Hold still while I pin it. You'll have to hem it later. I'll have Nipton pack you a sewing kit," Sallie said, speaking of her own maid.
With that, she sent Molly off to her room to change into a stripped walking dress and to finish her packing.
Ten minutes later, Sallie reappeared, smiling like a cat with a full belly and feathers scattered around her, and with her hand over the shift-pocket sewn into her underdress.
Uneasy with what that secret smile might mean, Molly asked, "You seemed pleased about something?"
"Oh, just settled a few things with Mr. Winslow. I think you'll find him right easy to deal with. Always such a pleasure to find a flash cove who knows how to act a gent. Now, mind you, no talking money with him! And don't you look just grand in that dress!"
Molly glanced down at herself. The stripped walking dress, in lime green and canary yellow, was cut narrow, the muslin so fine that it brushed her skin, soft as cream. Over it she wore a solid green Spencer, the short jacket cut so close that Molly felt almost like meat stuffed into a sausage skin.
"Just one thing you need, ducks. Hold on a tick."
Sallie hurried from the room, coming back a few minutes later with a straw bonnet. An extravagant brim rose up, trimmed with two green ostrich feathers and artificial cherries.
Settling the bonnet in place, Sallie tied the yellow silk grosgrain ribbons under Molly's chin. "There, that's the prize. Now, let's show you off to your gent."
"My gent," Molly repeated, a tickle of pleasure and uncertainty dancing through her.
She had on her own gloves and boots, but nothing else was hers. Not even the silk stockings, found at the back of Jane's wardrobe. "I can do this," she muttered. "For fifty pounds, I can do this."
Sallie followed her down the stairs. "Low, grasping, vulgar—that's what he wants. You can be as bold as those stripes you're wearing."
"Bold," Molly echoed. How in heavens did Sallie's girls go through this night after night, going off with gentlemen they hardly knew? She had often wondered, and had been a little envious, for some of the girls had often told her that she had no idea of the pleasure she was missing. Now, however, she began to wonder if the girls had left out any mention of the anxiety of such casual meetings. Or perhaps they did not notice.
Still, she'd done well with her bargain. He had agreed to her terms, and she had Sallie's advice to help keep him to his promise. And he looked gentleman enough that he would keep his word—besides, he had something he wanted from her, other than her person. He wanted his disinheritance gone, and for that he needed her cooperation. That alone reassured her that he would keep his part of this arrangement.
With such thoughts tumbling through her, and with her breath short and her nerves taut, she came to the top of the stairs, looked down into the hall where Mr. Winslow waited, his tall beaver hat in his hands, and she smiled.
He glanced up, his expression set tight those blue eyes flashing, and Molly wanted to turn around and go back to her kitchen.
Theo glanced up, his attention drawn by the squeak of a stair and his temper worn with waiting. A quarter hour he had said—that had been at least three quarters of an hour ago! He parted his lips to issue a rebuke, and then he saw her. A pleasurable shock scorched through him.
Gone was the plain white gown, replaced by something in bright stripes. The fabric clung to her hips and hinted at the soft narrowing of her waist before disappearing under a short, dark jacket that fit as near to a second skin as any man could wish over ample, high breasts.