In spite of the girl’s East End accent, Susan understood her well enough. She would get no help here, nor from Estelle Milthorpe.
In mute resignation, she submitted to having her blonde hair dressed into a tumbled pile of curls and being buttoned into the gown. Her face flamed when she looked down and realized the bodice revealed too much of her breasts, still full even after weeks of privation had stripped away most of her plumpness. From this angle, she could see the circle of pink surrounding her nipples. She looked like a fallen woman. A shudder shook her. Even with her prim and proper upbringing, she had heard about the violation of young women who fell into the wrong hands. She’d never thought someone like Lady Milthorpe would be a procuress.
The only way to protect her virtue would be to escape. The only way to escape would be to run. She didn’t know where she’d run to, with no money and no friends, but no matter how risky taking to the streets would be, she preferred it to the certainty of rape.
Ignoring the small moan escaping Susan’s lips, the maid held out a pair of sandals, red to match the scandalous dress. Susan forced herself to calm down and think. If she were going to escape, she’d have to move quickly. The sandals were too flimsy. They’d fall apart at the first step.
“The shoes are too small,” Susan lied. “They hurt my feet.”
“Albert—’e’s the one who brought you in ’ere—’e don’t usually make mistakes. An expert at guessin’ ladies’ sizes, ’e is.” She bent over and pulled the skirt aside. “They look like they’re the right size to me. Close enough to make no difference for what you’ll be doin’ any road.” She stood and dusted her hands together. “Albert’ll be along in a minute to take you down.” She stopped to peer into Susan’s face. “You look pale. You ain’t sick, are ya?”
Without thinking Susan spoke a hasty denial. “No, I’m not sick I just…”
“Good, ’cos the master won’t want you if you’re diseased.”
She’d been given a way out! Instantly, Susan responded. “Not sick at the moment. But I do suffer from…” She stopped. The only diseases she knew were childhood diseases, scarlet fever and small pox. She clearly couldn’t claim to have any of those. There were of course a myriad of other illnesses, but no one she knew had ever had any of them. She had no idea what the symptoms were. She had once overheard Charles talking to a friend about a disease one caught from fallen women. She had no idea how
that
manifested itself either, but desperation made her willing to try anything. “I have a disease, er… My illness makes it, er…unsafe to touch me. In an, er…intimate way.”
The maid narrowed her eyes. “Oh yes, and what disease would that be?”
Susan stared at her open mouthed, unable to think of a reply.
“I dunno what’s going on and I don’t want to know, but you’ve no more got one of them diseases than I have. Look at yer skin. It’s perfect. Her ladyship knows better than to send the master someone from the stews or the streets for his parties.” The maid turned and walked out the door, locking it behind her.
When Albert appeared again, his face could have been carved from stone. “I’ve been told to fetch you.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked. “What’s going to happen? Please, won’t you just take me to the door? Let me go?”
For all his response to her questions, he might as well have
been
a walking statue. He made not a sound in answer but the last question at least got a reaction. He grabbed her by the upper arm. His grip wasn’t painful but it was unyielding. She had little choice but to pace alongside him. She thought of struggling, but she was a little under five foot six. Even before the weeks of limited food, she had never been overly strong. He was over six feet tall, solidly built with the bent nose of a pugilist. If she tried to fight him, he could easily subdue her. If she refused to walk, he could pick her up and carry her. Better to save her energies for a time when she had a chance.
Chapter Three
Albert pushed open a door and ushered her into another room, quite different to the one she had just left. Instead of stark austerity, this room reeked of luxury and excess. The walls were lined with red damask fabric. Rich carpets picked up the same hues in complex, woven patterns. A long table dominated the center of the room, with places set for twenty or more.
At the far end of the room, five women stood, surrounded by a group of perhaps three times that number of men. The sound of their muffled laughter and chat carried to Susan even through the rush of blood pounding in her ears.
Like her, the women wore low-cut gowns in jewel bright colors. One woman wore a mask, but the others didn’t. All five of them allowed the men in the group to touch them in ways that shocked Susan to the depths of her soul. She’d realized her imprisonment threatened sexual defilement but until this moment, she’d had no idea what that actually meant. Such topics were never, ever discussed in front of young women of her class, even impoverished ones.
But now she could see men, dressed in elegant evening wear, sporting lace, fobs and quizzing glasses. They ran their hands over silk-clad buttocks, thrust their hands down the front of women’s dresses, pulled bodices aside to reveal breasts that they
kissed
. The women didn’t seem to mind at all. They threw their heads back, granting better access. They laughed. Some even pulled the men’s heads in closer.
Heat flushed Susan’s cheeks. The smell of wax candles, perfume and snuff combined with some other essence she’d never smelled before made her chest feel hollow and fluttery.
Susan didn’t hear any announcement, didn’t see a door open or close, but a sudden hush fell. The men stood upright, returning their hands to their sides. Out of the shimmering crowd at the back of the room emerged a commanding figure, taller by far than the tall servant who still clasped her arm. Clad all in black, he strode out of the seething mass as if he were some Olympian god come to inspect his subjects.
His hair, black like his garments, curled untied and unpowdered around his shoulders. He swept the room with a glance from narrowed eyes, then clapped his hands once. In silence, people took their seats. Albert led Susan to the top of the table. With a sense of inevitability, she saw the black clad man take his place at the head. Where else would a man who exuded so much power sit?
As soon as all were seated, a phalanx of servants filed in, bearing platter after platter laden with food.
Before the first servant approached too near, Susan turned to the man beside her, who could be no one else but Lord Winslade. “There’s been some mistake, sir. I shouldn’t be here.”
He looked at her, his gaze going from the top of her head down to her chest, pausing for a moment to examine the tops of her breasts. She squirmed uncomfortably, then he raised his eyes back to meet hers. “Am I to assume you do not eat?”
Forgetting her fear in her surprise, she said, “Of course I eat.”
“Then do so.” He picked up a slice of succulent roast beef on his fork and placed it on her plate.
“But you don’t seem to understand,” she said, tension making her voice rise sharply. “You employed me to organize dinner parties…”
“This
is
a dinner party. You are here as my employee. I fail to see your problem.”
“But I wasn’t employed to do
this
.”
“To do what? To eat? I would be a strange master if I failed to allow my staff to eat.”
“Yes, but…” She gestured with her hand. “All this? The men. The women.”
“I give you credit for your astonishing skills in observation,” he said, his tone dry. “These are indeed men and women. Have you anything further to add or may I partake of my meal?”
Doubt and confusion raced through her mind. The guests sat at the table, eating and drinking. The buzz of chatter rose and fell. Could she have made a mistake? No one intended her harm? But in that case, “Why am I here?” she asked. “What do you want of me?”
“At the moment I want you to eat. If you find the process too difficult, then I suggest you sit there while I eat.”
For all her previous fear, a little spurt of temper flared. “What are your plans for me? Why have I been made to wear this very immodest dress? Why did you have me locked up?”
Winslade raised his eyebrows. Another shiver scurried across the surface of Susan’s skin, the sensation strangely pleasurable, like being stroked by warm silk. “So many questions. Let us deal with the simplest first. You were not locked up.”
Indignation gave her courage to argue. “I most certainly was. I heard the key turn. I tried the door.”
“You may have been locked in for your own protection. Whilst I enjoy entertaining my friends, some of them cannot be trusted not to attempt to sample new treats before I am prepared to share.”
“That can’t be the only reason,” she argued. “Why did your man Albert frog-march me here.”
His lips quirked into a quick smile. “I’m afraid I cannot see the resemblance between your delectable form and a frog, but if you say it was so, I must, of course, take your word. Albert is harmless, but he tends to take things extremely literally. I told him to bring you to me. He wouldn’t allow anything to interfere with the performance of his duty.”
“But I
was
a prisoner,” Susan argued. “I begged the maid to let me go, but she said if she did, Lady Milthorpe would just make me return.”
The amusement left Winslade’s face. He suddenly looked very dangerous. “Here we come to a genuine problem. Estelle Milthorpe has expensive habits. She supplements her income by making expedient arrangements between men such as myself who wish to explore less respectable pleasures and women who are happy to profit from such exploration. But Estelle’s greed has overcome her intelligence this time. She has made a mistake, one she will soon come to regret. As for my plans for you, at the moment they extend no further than feeding you and perhaps requiring you to satisfy my curiosity about how you came to be in the hands of Lady Milthorpe.”
His grim expression faded. He handed her a small rout cake, his long, thin fingers holding the delicacy with a grace surprising in one so tall. “Perhaps you can begin by telling me your name.”
“Susan, sir. Susan Brody.”
“Do you live in London?”
“No, sir, not anymore. I live with my mother and sisters in the country. We have had some financial difficulty. I came to London to seek assistance from my brother Charles.”
“Charles Brody is your brother?” Winslade’s lips compressed. “I doubt if Brody has ever helped anybody in his life. Unless he had something to gain.”
Susan sighed. “I fear you’re right. In any case, Charles is not here.” She twisted her hands together in her lap. “Lady Milthorpe now owns Charles’ house. She sent me to you.” She bit her lip. “I don’t know why she thought me the sort of person who would do… Who could…”
“I imagine Estelle saw no further than your innocence and your beauty and thought to profit. I will not, however, be a party to the despoiling of innocent or unwilling girls.” He smiled and his austere face softened. “Eat your dinner. I will see you are returned to wherever you are staying—safe and if you wish, as virginal…”
A shriek of laughter from further down the table drew their attention. A man had pulled one of the women onto his lap, his hand groping about under her skirts.
Lord Winslade inclined his head. “As virginal,” he repeated, “although not quite as uninformed as you were when you arrived at my house.”
She knew she ought to avert her eyes from the spectacle unfolding in front of her. Another man grabbed the woman’s legs, pushing her skirts up higher. Everyone could see her naked…her naked… With a sense of shock, Susan realized her sheltered upbringing hadn’t supplied her with a name for those parts of a woman’s body.
The man who had pushed the woman’s skirts up reached out and snagged one of the dishes of a creamy sweet from the table. He scooped up a dollop on his finger, smeared it between the woman’s upraised legs then bent his head. Heat burned Susan’s cheeks. The breath caught in her lungs. The man licked the woman, his tongue making long sliding strokes, his throat working as he swallowed.
The woman, far from screaming or struggling to get up, lifted her hips higher, as if she were a vessel offering up her bounty for his pleasure. The only sounds coming from her were little mews that couldn’t be construed as anything else but pleasure.
Beside her, Winslade stiffened. “Perhaps you should retire to another room. I’ll have a member of my staff escort you. You needn’t be afraid. I give you my word you’ll be safe.”
Susan turned her head to look at him. His dark eyes focused entirely on her. The debauchery happening a few feet away didn’t distract him for a second.
“I’ve led a very sheltered life, Lord Winslade. Perhaps if I knew more of the world and its risks, I wouldn’t have found myself in a position where I am dependent on your good nature for my safety.”
“You are mistaken, my dear. I did not say I had a good nature.” His mouth twisted in a self-disparaging sneer.
“But you did promise me I would be safe. Does your promise hold only if I leave the room?” She dragged in a deep breath and let it go in a rush. “I would like to stay a little longer, I think.”
Lord Winslade’s eyebrows rose. He regarded her intently. She met his gaze, refusing to look away. No matter what she had been brought up to believe, her old life was over. If she had to live in a new world, in a new level of society, then she needed to know how it functioned.
One of the other women leaped onto the table and began to remove her clothing. A burst of laughter and loud clapping rang out from the assembled guests.
Susan gestured toward them. “I believed sexual relations were unpleasant for women. Clearly my information is incorrect.”
His lips relaxed into a curve. He reached out a strong finger and placed it under her chin, tipping it up, subjecting her face to scrutiny. “Estelle Milthorpe is a self-serving fool, but she has sent me something of more value than she could have known.” He dropped his hand and leaned back in his seat. “By all means, observe what happens here tonight.” His voice dropped. “You may learn more about your own nature.”