It could not be love, could it?
James, lying on his bed at dawn, contemplated the cracks in the ceiling plaster, and tried to think. In order to discount love, he must make an inventory of all the components that made up his peculiar bond with Augusta.
There was physical attraction, on his part. Yes, she was handsome enough that she would have caught his eye in the street. Their contract was no hardship to him. As for her, could she experience such a thing, when she could not see his face? It certainly seemed as if she could. Was it his scent, or the feel of him, the tone of his voice, the words he spoke? The words he wrote? What did she feel for him?
He knew also that he liked her and admired her instinct for the right words to say, the right way to present herself in submission to him. Those women that he had been fortunate to hint at this kind of treatment in the past had never hit quite the perfect note. They had been too coarse or too coy, not as forthcoming with their bodies or their expressions of obedience. They had been too ashamed or not enough. Submission, for him, was a very subtle art and he could only assume that domination was no less.
Yet he seemed to be exactly what she wanted too.
And here was where it became complicated. This was the thing they had, the thing so close to love. Affinity. But was it love? How did it differ?
He climbed out of bed and padded over to his desk, taking paper from the drawer and pen and ink from the shelf.
‘It is not, and cannot be, love,’ he wrote.
‘Item: I am flattered by her attentions for she is a lady of fortune and I am scarcely even a gentleman of any sort.
‘Item: She retains me for a specific purpose, which is to explore the sensations of coupling with a male partner. I am merely that – the male partner.
‘Item: It is inevitable that strong feelings are aroused by the nature of our dealings with one another – the infliction of pain &c. Those strong feelings do not necessarily imply a meeting of soul mates.
‘Item: She has stated that she will never marry.
‘Item: Any public exposure of our connection would result in scandal and ruin for her.
‘Item: It is impossible.’
He put down his pen and sighed, washed over with a sense of desolation he had not expected. After a moment of re-reading his words, he returned to his writing.
‘It is, and must be, love,’ he wrote.
‘Item: I think of her constantly and cannot bear the prospect of ending this arrangement.
‘Item: I am a fool.’
He then threw down the pen for good and paced about the room for a while, until he heard stirrings from the street outside and determined to dress and buy himself a toasted kipper and a jar of coffee for breakfast.
While he dressed, he thought of his last parting from Augusta.
Mrs Shaw had rapped at the bedroom door and ordered him to prepare to leave in the carriage.
‘I want him to stay,’ pleaded Augusta. ‘Might he not stay the night and leave before dawn?’
James had been almost afraid at the look Mrs Shaw gave him when she entered the room. A blade straight between his ribs.
In the weeks since his visits had begun, James and Augusta had grown closer and tighter, until their bond threatened the older woman’s equilibrium. She was jealous of him, it was clear enough.
She spoke more and more cruelly and humiliatingly of Augusta when the three of them were together, referring to her as a ‘slave to the male member’ and a ‘cockslut whore’. At first, James found this rather piquant but now it disquieted him. The words seemed intended to bring Augusta to her senses and make her realise how disgusting men were.
‘Have him leave while the milk is being delivered? Are you out of your senses, Quim? You have no say in this. I command you to take your leave of him, or face painful consequences.’
It occurred to James that he could just as easily have forbidden Augusta to banish him from her house. She accepted his mastery of her, and it would be a relief to her to obey his order, which was also her own dear wish. But to set himself in direct opposition and rivalry to Mrs Shaw would not be kind to Augusta. Her desire to have him stay was a foolish whim and no more. The wisest course of action was to leave.
All the same, the look of cold triumph on Mrs Shaw’s face as he walked through the bedroom door, away from a sighing Augusta, rankled in his memory.
What gave her this hold over Augusta? And what if she decided his visits should end?
With vague unease, he shaved and trimmed his whiskers, then he put on his coat and boots and stole down the creaky stairs to the street door.
His uncle stood behind the shop counter already, although he would not open for business for at least three more hours.
‘Good to see you up with the lark, Jem,’ he said. ‘You’ll recall that you have a piece to give me for typesetting today. I hope it will not be late.’
‘No, uncle, all is in hand,’ said James.
‘I found this shoved under the door a moment ago,’ said the elder Stratton, proffering a folded piece of paper. ‘A rum kind of thing – all dots and bumps. No writing. What do you make of it?’
James grabbed it and stared.
‘Braille,’ he said.
It must be from her.
‘Braille? The blind writing system?’
‘Yes, the one. When was it left?’
‘As I say, a moment or so ago, no more. Jem.’
But he was gone, out into the narrow lane, looking desperately left and right for signs of the messenger.
It was early enough that the street was almost empty and, despite the lowering gloom that never quite lifted – the gift of the overhanging gables – James saw a trim figure in a poke bonnet fingering clothes on the rails that Old Abraham was putting out in front of his rag shop.
He dashed over the cobbles, calling her name.
She turned, alarmed, and shrank away from the rails, but James put out a hand and caught her elbow.
‘Don’t go, Paulette. You delivered this to me.’ He waved the Braille manuscript in front of her abashed face.
‘Yes, I did. And now I must be getting back.’
‘So soon? It is early.’
‘Early’s when the work’s hardest, sir. There’s grates to lead and steps to scrub. If I don’t get back soon, Mrs Shaw’ll—’
‘Devil take Mrs Shaw. You shall come for a drink with me, Paulette. Please. I would esteem it a great favour.’
Now roses of pink bloomed in her cheeks and she fidgeted with her cuffs.
‘I shouldn’t, sir, but … just a very quick one.’
‘Thank you. Just up at Covent Garden, I believe there is a public house that serves at this hour. It will be full of costers but they won’t trouble you if you are with a man. Come on.’
‘It don’t sound very respectable, sir.’
He laughed, drawing her up the lane towards the market.
‘Unlike the household in which you serve, Paulette.’
She had no reply to that but a discomfited sniff.
‘I wonder what this message can possibly say,’ he said, putting the letter in front of his face and frowning at it. ‘It was given to you by Lady Augusta, I take it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘To deliver to me?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You appear to know where I live.’
‘Her Ladyship knows the name of the bookshop she gets your stories from, sir.’
‘And she told you I lived there?’
‘No, she didn’t know that, sir. Neither did I.’
‘You can stop calling me sir, if you please. I am not your master.’
‘No, sir. Sorry, sir. It’s habit now.’
‘I wonder if Lady Augusta told you anything of what is contained in this message?’
‘She said she hoped you’d find a way to understand it. Seeing as you mixes with bookish people, you know. But if you couldn’t, it was no matter. But she’d wait for you, all the same.’
‘Wait for me?’
‘I didn’t like to question her, sir. She gets out of sorts sometimes, especially when Mrs Shaw’s been … more than her usual … self.’
James smiled grimly to himself. Now he had his little informant in his hand, he would see that he squeezed as much as he could from her.
They arrived at a corner house, a pile of barrows parked outside, from which the sounds of music and loud laughter spilled, as if it existed in a place outside the regular rhythms of life and thought it still half past ten at night.
Inside, raucous costers taking a break from trading their wares mixed with off-duty whores enjoying a post-work nightcap.
‘What will you have? I shan’t buy you gin at this hour,’ he warned.
‘Oh, I don’t drink. I’d like a ginger ale, please.’
He found a quiet spot for them, away from the rowdiest groups, and sat down beside her in their corner.
She had taken off her shawl, revealing her pristine maid’s outfit, drawing a few curious looks from the surrounding drinkers. James knew better than to meet the eye of a tanked-up costermonger, though, and he ignored the attention.
‘I wonder if I can count you as a friend,’ he said thoughtfully, contemplating her over the rim of his glass of warm rum punch.
‘Oh, yes, ever so,’ replied Paulette warmly. ‘I hope you will, sir.’
‘You are a good servant to your mistress, I know.’
‘Thank you.’
‘To whom do you think I refer when I say “your mistress”?’ he challenged.
She bit her lip at that.
‘Well?’ he nudged gently.
‘Well, Lady Augusta, of course,’ she said, but the ‘of course’ was far from authoritative.
‘Lady Augusta, of course,’ he repeated thoughtfully. ‘Paulette, who is Mrs Shaw?’
‘She is Her Ladyship’s companion and housekeeper. You know that, sir, I thought.’
‘I wonder if I do. How long have you worked at …?’
‘Eaton Place?’
He had known it, of course, but it was as well to have it confirmed.
‘Yes, how long have you worked there?’
‘Only a year, sir.’
‘Were you hired by Mrs Shaw?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘And when did you become aware of the … curious nature … of the household?’
‘Oh, Mrs Shaw made it plain before she employed me, sir.’
James’ eyebrows shot up.
‘Did she indeed? You knew about their … connection?’
‘Yes. That was why she picked me from, from … where she did.’
‘Oh, sir, you will think badly of me.’
‘Paulette.’ He put a hand over hers and tightened his fingers. ‘I couldn’t think badly of you. Look at how I am situated. Look at the manner of life I lead, here among the worst scoundrels of the city. Look at how I have come to know Lady Augusta, and understand that there is nothing you can say that will shock me.’
‘But you’re a gentleman.’
‘I am not a gentleman. I can dress the part and speak the part but I am certainly no better than you when we are reduced to our bare essences.’
‘You don’t believe that, do you?’
‘Most assuredly I do.’ He bent his head closer to Paulette’s. ‘Whisper it.’
She looked, for a moment, as if she might break down in tears, then she turned her lips to his ear and said, ‘The charity home in Little Ormond Street, sir. The Society for the Improvement of Fallen Girls and Women. The Fallen, as they calls it.’
She turned her face away immediately and made to stand, but he held her by her upper arm, preventing flight.
‘Don’t run away,’ he reproached. ‘I know what that place is and I do not judge you.’
‘Truly?’ She was tearful now, and he handed her his handkerchief to blot out the falling drops.
‘You have my word, as a not-quite-gentleman.’ He paused, allowing her a moment to collect herself, then persisted with the line of enquiry. ‘So Mrs Shaw deliberately sought out staff from amongst the ranks of the … penitent fallen?’
‘We are all from there, sir, at Eaton Place. She knows we’ll turn a blind eye to what goes on, you see.’
‘Yes, I do see,’ said James, ruminating on the phrase ‘to turn a blind eye’ and finding it ironically apt in the circumstances. ‘Everyone is blind in that house, to one degree or other, but Mrs Shaw. She is the one who sees.’
‘I suppose, sir, in a manner of speaking.’
He abandoned his efforts to make her leave off calling him ‘sir’. Besides, it was pleasing to his ear.
‘And she is intent on keeping me blind, too. Sometimes with blindfolds and sometimes by other means. She fears Augusta’s attachment to me, don’t you think?’
‘I, sir? Oh, I cannot say.’ Paulette looked a little afraid now and she looked about the bar room as if expecting Mrs Shaw to loom from the fly-spotted mirror with the Tanqueray Gin monogram.
‘Where does she come from? Do you know anything of her past?’
‘Nothing, sir. I should not dare ask.’
James smiled, a little cruelly, at that.
‘Does she ever whip you, Paulette?’
Paulette’s cheeks and neck flooded with deep pink.
‘Oh, she does? She’s a scoundrel, if a woman can be called such a thing. You know, I rather admire her. But I think her hold on Augusta an unhealthy one.’
‘Do you?’ The girl perked up at this, looking at James with a species of adoration.
At once he saw that this girl viewed him as a saviour; the one who would deliver her from the depredations of the tyrant. Well, this could be of use to me.
‘I rather think I do,’ he said. ‘And we can’t have her whipping you, can we, Paulette? That’s simply cruel.’
‘There’s nothing we can do about it, see,’ she said, wringing her hands. ‘Else we’ll get packed back off to the Fallen without characters. She can say anything – that she caught us with the coachman, anything – and then the Fallen won’t even have us back. And then we’re on the streets again. Do you see, sir? Oh, please don’t mention my name in any of this. You won’t, will you?’
‘Of course not, my dear.’
She pinked more pleasurably at his epithet and moved closer to him.
‘I still think you’re a gentleman,’ she said.
Their confabulation was broken up in a most disorderly manner by a brace of staggering women in maquillage and low-cut gowns.
‘Oi, Jem,’ said one, then she stopped short, peering at Paulette. ‘’Ere, it’s Polly, ain’t it?’
‘Paulette,’ she said fiercely, then she stood to go. ‘I must be off, sir. I’ll be missed directly and then heaven knows how Mrs Shaw’ll take on.’
‘Oh, very well. Good bye, then, and we will speak again soon, I trust.’
‘I hope,’ she said, dropping a half-curtsey before fleeing from the unwanted company.
‘Jem,’ said the prostitute urgently, recalled to the original matter. ‘You’ve got to help us.’
‘Help you? Excuse me, I’m not sure I have the pleasure of your—’
‘You’re a pal of Annie’s, ain’t you? She’s always talking about you. Anyone’d think you were sweethearts.’
‘Yes, yes, I know Annie. What of her?’
‘She’s been took,’ proclaimed the second tart dramatically, waving her gin glass so that some of the precious dew spilled from it.
‘What do you mean, “took”?’
‘She got into an argument with a punter two nights back, down by the barracks. He wanted something she didn’t want to give ’im and he cut up rough, but she wouldn’t have him. Anyway, what happens today but he turns up with a rozzer in tow, points the finger at her and accuses her of having the pox.’
‘This unsatisfied customer? Reported her to the police as suffering from a venereal disease?’
‘If you want to put it like that. Rozzer drags her off to get her examined by a doctor, but she refuses and he says they’ll lock her up for three months till she agrees to it! Oh, can’t you go and help her out. They listens to gents like you.’
‘It’s a fucking laugh, this Contagious Diseases Act,’ said the other bitterly. ‘Any bastard can say what he wants about you. I ain’t having no doctor shoving his hand up my cunny. It’s not right.’
‘Unless ’e pays yer,’ the first one prompted.
‘That’s different. That’s business.’
‘So,’ James cut into the debate, ‘you’re telling me that Annie is imprisoned somewhere, pending a medical examination she refuses to agree to?’
‘Yes, thassright.’
‘Where?’
They shook their heads at each other and shrugged.
‘The lock hospital,’ one suggested.
‘Where’s that?’
‘Harrow Road.’
James stood, a hand clasped to his brow, his thoughts circulating painfully through his head.
‘Then I shall go there. Thank you, ladies.’
He strode out of the pub. As he hastened around the corner of the table where he had sat, he knocked a piece of paper to the floor, where it stayed, getting trodden into the muddy, tacky floor by the weight of dozens of feet.
Harrow Road was not close at hand, so he hailed a cab at the corner of Seven Dials and tried to recall all he had read in the press about the Contagious Diseases Act.
A controversial measure passed in the preceding year, it aimed to protect the sexual health of the nation’s servicemen by subjecting the women who serviced them to regular medical examinations.
If the women refused, or agreed and were found to be infected, they could be confined to the Lock Hospital, which specialised in venereal disease.
An imposing three-storey building taking up a good portion of the land on and around Harrow Road, it struck nonetheless a little of fear into James’ heart when he alighted from the cab and faced it.
Here, but for the grace of God, go I.
He had been fortunate, he acknowledged. As a younger man he had not been as cautious as he was now wont to be and, fresh as a face and clean as a frock might be, he now recognised that that was no guarantee of freshness and cleanliness within.
He made his way through the portal arch and turned into an office area on the right of the building, where sat a grizzled old fellow with tired eyes and rumpled neckcloth, making notes in a large ledger.
‘I say, I wonder if you could confirm that you have a friend of mine confined here?’ opened James, trying to suppress the shudders that always overcame him in any medical establishment. He had had a morbid fear of physicians ever since he broke his ankle jumping from a wall as a boy.
‘A friend?’ The man looked up, lugubrious in voice and expression. ‘The men’s hospital is in Dean Street.’
‘No, the friend is a lady.’
He laughed at that, as if it were the most amusing thing he’d heard in weeks.
James bit down on his rising impatience.
‘She was brought here last night.’
‘Does she owe you money? She won’t be earning much tonight.’
‘I’m not a ponce,’ exclaimed James, his temper bursting through his scant restraints. ‘If that’s what you mean.’
‘Begging your pardon, sir, I didn’t mean to imply any disrespect. We’ve had rather a large number of well-dressed gents inquiring after patients since this new rule came in, that’s all.’
‘It’s a shameful rule.’
‘Yes, sir, so they all say. What’s your friend’s name?’
‘Annie … or Anne, I suppose …’ He stopped, realising that he had never known her surname. A twinge of guilt disturbed him. He was familiar enough with her to put his prick in her mouth, yet he had never thought to ask her full name.
‘Yes? Anne what?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘She’s my neighbour,’ he added defensively when the man seemed about to break into another cackle.
‘Well, if you don’t know her name …’
‘Would she not have given her address? For your records?’
James tried to read the words upside down, but the script was not an easy one to decipher.
The man humphed a little, but relented with a resigned, ‘What’s the street name?’
‘Oh yes?’ He gave James a quizzical look, obviously knowing of the area’s ill repute. ‘All right. Let me see.’
While the man scanned his ledger, James looked out through the back window, into a large yard. A woman on crutches was taking the air, accompanied by a nurse. She had the most fearful face, half eaten away by the ravages of syphilis.
He shut his eyes, nausea gripping the pit of his stomach. Nausea and fear. What if he had it, unknown and unrecognised, and it festered within him, biding its time …? He should never have been so reckless. Never again.
‘Ah yes,’ said the man with a triumphant air. ‘One of a shower brought in a few hours back. Gives her name as Anne Alice Sparrow, aged twenty-two, of Holywell Street, Strand. Ah. She’s refused an examination, I see.’
‘I can vouch for her. She is free of infection.’
‘It isn’t as easy as that, sir. She’s been remanded for examination and they won’t let her go until she agrees to one.’
‘Then she’s a prisoner.’
‘More or less, if that’s how you want to put it.’
‘It’s an outrage. Let me see her. You can’t keep her here like a caged animal.’
‘No visitors allowed, sir. You’ll have to wait for her to come out – that’s if they find her clean, of course.’
‘But what if she never consents to the examination? I’m sure I wouldn’t!’
‘Then we’ll have the pleasure of her company for the next three months.’
James was momentarily tempted to seize the fellow by his high collar. Did he not understand how appalling this was?
But it would help nobody if he got himself arrested, so he stood still for a moment, willing the gathering rage to subside.
‘This will not end here,’ he said calmly. ‘I mean to see my friend and take her home, and I will take steps to ensure it.’
‘Best of luck to you, sir,’ nodded the man, making it clear by the ostentatious polishing of his monocle that the conversation had concluded.
‘Good day,’ he said.
‘I hope you succeed,’ the man added, arresting his departure for a moment. ‘It’s playing havoc with the business of the hospital, all these girls hauled in every night. We don’t have the capacity, but neither do we have the right to refuse ’em. If you could see your way to having a word or two with Lord Palmerston on the subject, we’d all be much obliged. Good day, sir.’
Outside, on the pavement, James considered this. Lord Palmerston might not be an accessible ear, but he had an idea that there were other people who would be.
He turned in the direction of Bloomsbury and headed for Little Ormond Street and the Society for the Improvement of Fallen Girls and Women. Here, he saw, he had the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. He could put himself forward as an advocate against the Contagious Diseases Act, which he knew them to oppose, and he could perhaps find out a little more about their relationship to Mrs Shaw.
Furious thoughts filled his head as he strode the London pavements, at such a pace that he cannoned into a number of street vendors, including a butcher’s boy who put up his dukes and challenged him to fisticuffs. But James merely flapped a hand and paced onwards, already halfway through a letter to The Times, if only he had a pen and paper.
Ripe words from the butcher’s boy sailed unheard past his ears.
At the corner of Little Ormond Street, he signed off with a rhetorical flourish and gave each tall Georgian house his complete attention as he read the plaques by the doors. The Fallen took up half of one side of the street.
He was not sure if it truly had a vaguely mournful air or if he projected it on to the building himself, knowing the histories of blight and misery that lay behind the stones. It was not, perhaps, quite as shiver-inducing as the Lock Hospital, but it still laid weights on his heart as he ascended the steps.
Perhaps he should seek a bed here himself. Was there a Society for the Improvement of Fallen Men and Boys? For if the offering of sexual services constituted fall and ruin, then was he not himself fallen and ruined?
But he was in no mood for riddles or paradoxes.
The maid who answered the door stared at him as if afraid.
‘I … wish to speak with a member of the Society,’ he said. ‘Is there somebody I could see?’
‘If you are not a doctor, you mayn’t come in,’ whispered the girl. ‘Unless you have an appointment.’
‘I have no appointment, but I have urgent business. I entreat you, please ask if anybody is free to speak with me.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t,’ she said, wringing her hands, but after a moment she seemed to think better of her hesitation and bade him wait a moment.
Presently, a handsome, well-dressed woman of perhaps forty years appeared at the door. When she saw James, she frowned.
‘What can your urgent business be, I wonder?’ she said.
‘May I come in and tell you?’
‘No. I am extremely busy. But you may make an appointment, if you wish. What is your concern?’
‘My friend and neighbour has been forcibly removed to the Lock Hospital. I wish to lend my voice to your campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act.’
‘You would like to become a patron of the society?’
‘I … yes, I think so. That is, I am not rich and can offer only my voice, as I have said, but …’
‘Oh, yes, moral support is all well and good. Though, of course, many would argue with the moral part of that. What influence do you have?’
James opened and shut his mouth, then said, with perfect authority, ‘I am a journalist.’
‘The press?’ The woman’s eyes lit up. ‘Are you perhaps free this evening, Mr …?’
‘Stratton. James Stratton. Yes, I am available.’
‘Then come back after seven. I can receive you then.’
‘Thank you, madam.’
‘My name is Mrs Edwards.’
‘I am obliged to you. Until this evening, then.’
He tipped his hat and observed how her face lost its somewhat sombre cast when she smiled, which she did before closing the door.
He couldn’t help wondering if she was a friend of Mrs Shaw’s. There was a likeness in dignity and demeanour between the two women.
He stopped dead halfway along Long Acre and slapped his hand to his forehead.
Augusta’s message!
Where was it? And, more to the point, what was it?
He had no luck at the tavern and was forced to shrug his shoulders and return to Holywell Street empty-handed.
‘Do you know of any blind men, uncle?’ he asked abruptly, pushing into the shop, which was mercifully empty of customers.
His uncle looked up from the pictures he was regarding with an eyeglass, as if he were a Hatton Garden jeweller inspecting diamonds, and shook his head.
‘I’d pity them if I did,’ he said. ‘For he’d never be able to look at these. See, James, new pictures from Lusher’s studio.’
James waved his hand, impatient.
‘Never mind that,’ he said.
‘You surprise me, nephew. You usually enjoy his work.’
‘Did you know that Annie has been taken away?’
‘Taken away? What do you mean? Little doxy owes me a week’s rent.’
‘I’ll pay it. She’s in the Lock Hospital. They won’t release her until she consents to a medical examination of an … intimate nature.’
Thomas Stratton tugged at the ends of his moustache and shook his head, as if rebuking his nephew for mentioning such subjects. The fact that he held in his other hand a collection of lewd daguerreotypes did not apparently strike him as ironic.
‘Unfortunate,’ he said. ‘But an occupational hazard, I’m afraid.’
‘It never used to be. And it shouldn’t be now.’
‘Since when did you become so involved with the rights of whores?’
‘I am involved with the rights of people, uncle. All people. Not just those society deems worthy of notice.’
His uncle raised his eyebrows and put the pictures back on the counter.
‘Where’s that piece you owe me?’
‘Oh … that. Look, could it wait until tomorrow?’
‘No, it could not. Your client is calling this afternoon. I suggest you shut yourself in your room and glue yourself to that desk until it’s done, or you’ll be seeking alternative accommodation. Perhaps you can go and join the whores at the Lock Hospital, since you enjoy their company so much.’
James spent a thunderous three hours writing a story, savage even for him, in which a woman forced to prostitute herself took revenge on society by whipping a rich client until he bled. This, fortunately, would be entirely to this particular reader’s taste. He tied a furious knot around it, marched downstairs and threw it on his uncle’s counter, just as the customer in question arrived at the door.
‘Good afternoon,’ growled James, passing him on his way to the street.
He didn’t wait for the client’s surprised tipping of hat or return of greeting but proceeded up the street, back to Covent Garden.
The market had ended for the day, save for the usual cabbage leaves and orange peel blowing around the cobbles and settling in the gutters. What could be seen of the sky was overcast and soon the rain would turn all into stinking mush.
In the pub, trade was desultory, the costers having gone home to bed while it was yet early for most of the whores. He called for a brandy and water and then another, and another again, until he recollected that he had an appointment with Mrs Edwards, who would no doubt refuse to admit a drunken man into her sanctum.
He spent the remainder of that afternoon in walking up and down the city streets, anxious to clear his head, which was in a tempest of ire and frustration and, at the back of it, a yearning for Augusta that would not let him be.
What could the message have said? He had half a mind to hotfoot it to Eaton Place and demand entrance. But of course, then they would know that he knew the location and presumably that would alter matters significantly.
Well, perhaps it was time that they were altered.
Now could not be the time, though, for it was close to seven o’clock.
He turned back to Bloomsbury and was on the Fallen House step promptly, with peppermint on his breath and determination in his heart.
He was shown by the same shy girl he had seen before into an office to the side of the lobby. The building was eerily quiet. He looked about him, expecting to see the eyes of fallen women upon him, but there were none.
‘Mr Stratton,’ said Mrs Edwards, rising from her desk, where she had been occupied with correspondence.
‘Thank you for receiving me, Madam,’ he said, bowing before taking his indicated seat. ‘Your kindness is much appreciated.’
She smiled, a formal kind of smile.
‘What do you know of our work?’ she asked.
‘Very little. I have heard of groups of people walking the streets in search of girls to save – I presume that those with whom they find success must reside here. If that’s the case, then they are very quiet.’
‘Our women live in a separate building behind this one, but the upstairs rooms are used for learning during the daytime.’
‘What manner of learning?’
‘Reading, writing. Very many of these girls have not received a whit of education in their entire lives.’
He thought of Annie.
‘My friend is one such. I have myself given her lessons in the alphabet.’ He coloured faintly, remembering how those lessons frequently ended.
‘Ah, the friend of whom you spoke.’
‘Yes, she who lies even now in the Lock Hospital, quite friendless and alone.’
‘She will not be alone. The Lock Hospital is always overcrowded and now more than ever.’ Mrs Edwards permitted herself a modest smile.
James didn’t consider her remark very amusing, but he bit back his retort.
‘Yes, but you are in sympathy with her plight, are you not?’
‘I am indeed. As are many others. We will be happy to add your voice to the dissenting chorus. Unfortunately, those in government seem disinclined to accept our point that a fallen woman is still a human being entitled to dignity at present. But I am hopeful that, with God’s help, we will prevail.’
James wasn’t sure whether God had a great deal to do with it, but he nodded vigorously.
‘I shall write an article,’ he said.
‘That would be marvellous,’ said Mrs Edwards, warming a little. ‘To which newspaper are you attached?’
‘Oh, none, that is, I am freelance.’
‘I see.’ The moment of warmth passed into memory.
‘I have had pieces in the Examiner and Lloyd’s Weekly,’ he hastened to add. ‘And shall have many more.’
‘Nothing in The Times?’
‘No. That is, not yet.’
‘You are an ambitious young man, I suppose.’
‘I am both ambitious and able, I hope.’
She sat back and surveyed him. What a quietly powerful presence she radiated, James thought. She was like a queen, and something like Mrs Shaw, though without the malevolent aura.
‘Well, you have a chance to prove your mettle, Mr Stratton. Write your piece. Sell it to The Times, or one of the popular magazines. All The Year Round, perhaps. The fact that you are personally acquainted with a victim of this vile piece of legislation will perhaps count against rather than for you, but it will pique interest. Of course, you must not be blunt but allusive or it will not sell to anybody. But I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that. No words that would be deemed unfit for a lady’s ears.’
She sighed.
‘I am not often the best judge of such things,’ said James with a rueful twitch of his lips.
‘Then perhaps you should give it to me first, for my approval. Come to me tomorrow – I will show you around and introduce you to some of the girls.’
‘Thank you. I will. In the meantime, is there nothing that can be done for Annie?’
Mrs Edwards shook her head.
‘The law is the law, until we are able to unmake it. There will be no rioting in the streets, but reason will be our weapon, Mr Stratton, reason and compassion.’
‘This is an age of reason,’ said Stratton, ‘but I am less confident that it is one of compassion.’
‘And I also. But do not despair. Would you like tea? I cannot offer anything stronger, for we practise temperance here, but tea …’
‘Oh, no, that will not be necessary. I do have a question, however …’
She had already risen to call for the maid, but sank back into her chair at his request.
‘About our work here?’
‘About a former resident.’
Mrs Edwards did not speak, neither was her expression encouraging, but he ploughed on nonetheless.
‘Her name is Paulette, or Polly. She was hired from here to work in a house in Eaton Place by a woman named Shaw.’
Mrs Edwards’ face became hard and closed; her words came as from a grindstone.
‘If, after all, you are here to enquire after some sweetheart—’
‘No, that is not it. Not at all.’
‘Then what is it you wish to know?’
‘The woman, Shaw. Are you acquainted with her?’
‘She is one of a number of patronesses who have given our girls respectable places.’
‘So you know her personally?’
Mrs Edwards was silent awhile.
‘I will open this house to you tomorrow on the condition that you will write a sympathetic piece,’ she said.
‘Yes, of course, but—’
‘I am not well acquainted with the name you mention. I cannot assist you further and, even if I could, I would not think it proper.’ She rose. ‘Tomorrow, then.’
‘Oh. Yes. Tomorrow.’
He took her offered hand and shook it across the desk, then watched as she rang for the maid.
Darkness had fallen as he took a south-westerly path towards the Strand, but at Holborn he reconsidered his route and walked along Shaftesbury Avenue instead, crossing Seven Dials into Soho and beyond.
In Eaton Place the shutters were closed but light illumined the cracks between wood and window frame and he thought Augusta must be sitting upstairs, waiting for him.
But it was not his day to visit, and Mrs Shaw would not expect it. What had that note said?
He went to the rear of the Palladian row and through a stone arch into the mews. These were still populated here and there with a few ostlers and some carriagemen awaiting their masters and mistresses from whichever fine gathering they might be attending in one or other of the houses.
In the windows above the stables, candles flickered, the families of the ostlers preparing for the night. The sparse light it cast on the ground led James to the back of Augusta’s house. There seemed no way to it other than through the carriage house, which was shut up for the night.
Looking around, he made sure nobody observed him before lifting the latch gently from the door. It was not locked. He slipped inside and made his way past the carriage and a row of snorting horses, breathing in the aroma of rotting straw and horse manure, before coming out through a back door into a small formal garden area.
The house loomed above him like an aggressor, demanding to know his business. He kept to the shadows, tracing his way around the wall until he reached the steps that led down to the kitchen. If he could find Paulette …
Peering through the glass in the door he saw that the kitchen was in darkness. A movement caught his eye, but it was merely a cat yawning and stretching in its basket.
He sat on the bottom step and raked his fingers through his hair. This was a stupid mistake. What on earth was he thinking of? He ought to go home, go to bed, come back on Thursday, at the usual time.
But if he went to bed, he would lie awake, wondering about the message, fretting about Annie, revisiting the endless frustrations of the day.
What was the worst result that could derive from coming here and being found out by Mrs Shaw? She was not, after all, mistress of the house. If Augusta wished to see him, then how could her companion and housekeeper prevent it?
All the same, if he caused a rift between them, then he might precipitate a crisis in all of their lives. Was he prepared for this?
Was he prepared to continue in his role of … of whatever he was? He looked down at himself. Surely he was more to Augusta than male flesh ordered up for her pleasure? But perhaps he was not. It seemed that the time had come to find out, at any rate.
Moving around the large glassed bay of the ballroom, he came to the other side and found – Could this be true? – a sash window open just an inch or so at the bottom. The room it looked into was a small chamber of the breakfasting sort, not that James had ever sat in such a room himself. It was in darkness, the furniture outlined in the gloom. He put his palms upward beneath the window and forced it higher.
Once inside, he tried to recall the layout of the house. All was silent, but that was not to say that everybody was asleep. He knew from Augusta that Mrs Shaw liked to send her to bed early and exhausted and then stay up half the night in her first-floor study. The staff slept at the top of the house and could not be expected to hear him creeping about down here.
Nonetheless, he had to take his courage in both hands and hold it tight in order to cross the big polished expanse of the ballroom knowing that, should somebody come in, there was nowhere to hide. When was this room ever used? Had Augusta ever danced?
All the same, it was in perfect condition, reeking of beeswax and festooned with jardinières full of fresh flowers, as if company were expected at any moment.
He reached the staircase, heart tight in his chest, and tiptoed up, listening out for the merest creak. At the top, he looked in the direction of Mrs Shaw’s study. The door was shut. He crept closer and bent to look through the keyhole. Only unrelieved blackness met his eye, but this may only mean that the key was in the lock. All the same, the room was quiet, no scratching of nibs or rustling of paper to be heard.
He straightened up and walked past the ‘schoolroom’ towards Augusta’s bedchamber.
At the door, he put a hand over his mouth, suddenly nauseous.
This was lunacy. Even if she were alone, he would terrify her. But he had not come all this way and taken all these risks to turn tail now. Whatever had been in that message might have been crucial. Life and death could hang upon it. Unlikely, of course, but still …
He turned the handle, as slowly and carefully as he could with a trembling and sweaty hand.
All was darkness and silence within. He shut the door, blessing the well-oiled state of the handle, and stood against it, accustoming himself to the gloom.
‘Somebody is there. Who is it?’
The clarity and purpose of the voice shocked him so that he shivered.
Augusta had not been asleep at all. But of course, she had no lamp lit, for there was no need – he had forgotten.
‘It is I, pet. Do not fear.’
The joy in her voice impelled him towards it. She was not in the bed but sitting close to the window in a little chair upholstered with Chinese silk.
‘You expected me?’
‘Of course. But I did not hear you ring.’
He took her hands and pulled her to her feet, holding her against him for a moment before seeking the liberty of a kiss, which – Oh, wonder of wonders! – she granted.
‘The note you sent – it was an invitation?’
‘You did not manage to translate it? I felt sure you would know somebody who could do so. I have been sitting here waiting for your step in the street that I might go down and open the door to you.’
‘You would know me by my tread?’
‘I would. I know your boot soles so well.’
‘So soon!’
‘I love to hear them. So you did not understand my message but you came anyway?’
‘Via the back. A window was a little open.’
Augusta laughed, a high, excited sound – it seemed to James that she was more than a little giddy.
‘Hush, Mrs Shaw will hear us.’
‘Oh, but that is why I invited you. Mrs Shaw has been called away for a few days, on family business. She does not expect to return until Tuesday.’
‘I see.’
‘The letter was merely the address, and the information about Mrs Shaw. Could you not have found somebody to read it? Mrs Shaw says you live in a street of booksellers.’
‘Alas, none of our books have sold to blind customers. Other than yourself. But could you not have told Paulette?’
‘I am not always certain of her allegiance. She fears Mrs Shaw and owes her this place too.’
‘But you are her mistress?’
‘Am I? Sometimes it seems—’
‘You gave Mrs Shaw her position of authority over you because it pleased you to do so. She is not your mistress in fact.’
‘The lines have become so blurred of late, my love. And since I have met you …’
They kissed again and James led her to the bed, on which they sat to continue their conversation.
‘Am I then to hide from your servants? Am I a secret, not to be revealed?’
Augusta’s fingers twisted against his.
‘It is not what I would wish but …’
James slid his hand around her waist, noticing that she wore only her nightdress.
‘And what would you wish, Augusta?’
‘Oh, call me pet, for that is my name when you are with me.’
‘Very well.’ He sighed, feeling not quite an entire man, constricted as he was by the role she chose for him. ‘What would you wish, pet?’
‘I would wish to be yours.’
‘But you are mine.’
‘To be yours alone, and to have no care of what the world might think.’
James was silent, laying her head on his shoulder and smoothing down her long braid of hair with his palm as he thought about the peculiar position in which he found himself.
‘You mean to tell me that you love me?’ he said at last.
‘Don’t speak it,’ she said. ‘Don’t refer to it at all if you cannot say the same.’
‘Pet, I have come here for you. I have broken into your house! How can you think I have no regard for you?’
She nuzzled her forehead in the hollow of his shoulder.
‘I have no way of knowing,’ she said softly. ‘I cannot see your eyes. And I have nothing in the way of experience. I have never loved, or been loved before.’
‘Oh, pet, never? I am not sure I can believe that. What of your parents?’
‘I was a disappointment to them. When I lost my sight, they lost their hopes for me.’
‘How old were you, when that came to pass?’
‘I was but a child of six or seven.’
‘And had you a blow to the head? Or what was the cause?’
‘I don’t remember. A blow to the head apparently. I simply … don’t know.’
‘A life without sight. I have tried to imagine it but, notwithstanding my gifts in that direction, I find it defeats me.’
He held her cheek, looking steadfastly into her unseeing eyes. How different would this feel if the eyes were lively with warmth and desire? Would his regard for her be stronger? Was he such a weak specimen of a man that he allowed himself to be swayed by this one deficiency?
‘I’m not sure I completely understand what love is,’ he said. ‘But I have felt close to it at times. Now is one such time.’
‘You are telling me that you are faithless.’
‘No, I am not faithless. I am not.’
‘Give me your faithless kiss again.’
Her lips were so soft. He felt the curves of her body through the nightdress, and the warmth of her turned his head. What was love more than this raw need for her, this want that never quite lost its edge, day after day and all through the night?
And yet there could be no future.
His blood swept all such reservations aside as it rushed through him, impelling him to consider only the present. She was here, in his arms, ready to accept whatever he had to give her. It could be days or weeks before such a precious chance came again, or it could even be the last time. There was nothing to do but follow the commands of their bodies.
‘Take off your gown,’ he murmured, moving his lips to her ear. ‘Or raise your arms that I might do it.’
Mutely she obeyed and he uncovered her, noticing how her skin seemed to gleam in the darkness.
‘Your lips are mine,’ he said, taking them once more while his hands made a feverish transit of her curves.
‘These are mine.’ He held her breasts and kissed them each in turn, tonguing the nipples until they stood as stiff as could be.
‘And all of you is mine.’ He pushed her gently to her back, dipping his hand between her thighs, which she parted without demur.
‘Do you know this to be true?’ He crouched over her, urgently needing to possess her, to drive home his point.
‘I know it,’ she breathed. ‘I know I am yours. You may do as you will with me.’
But did she mean it? And what did she mean by it? He pushed the question away, to be asked later, afterwards, once the insistent nag of his loins had been sated.
He threw off his coat and wrenched his neckcloth from his collar, interspersing the shedding of each garment with kissing and fondling, sometimes languid, sometimes savage. She plucked at his buttons, helping him with his waistcoat, rising up to meet his lips and teeth, wrapping her leg around him to keep him close.
‘Here is my body,’ she whispered intensely as she tugged his shirt from his waistband. ‘Here is my self. It is for you.’
He took her wrists and pinned her down, kissing all over her face and neck and then down to her breasts. His lower body, still in trousers, ground into her, giving a foretaste of what was to come.
‘Don’t,’ he growled, ‘make offers you cannot honour. If you tell me you are mine, you must mean it.’
‘I do. I do mean it.’
He freed himself from his trousers, then ordered her not to move a muscle while he dealt with what remained of his clothing.
She lay rapt, chest rising and falling quickly, arms above her head with the delicate, vulnerable sides of her wrists upwards. So pale, like blank white paper. He wanted to blemish her, put his mark on her, write his history into her skin.
She was one of his erotic fantasies made flesh, risen from the page. What should he do with her? The array of options was dizzying. What should he do with her first?
He knelt up, braced his arms beneath her knees, drawing them up and wide apart, then swooped down to taste the sweet juices in their downy nest.
She shuddered and cried out, half rising.
‘Hush, lie down,’ he ordered, raising his face for a moment.
‘Oh, what are you doing to me?’
‘You have done this before?’
‘Nobody has done it to me, though Mrs Shaw has ordered it done to her.’
‘Then Mrs Shaw is very selfish. Hush now. Let me take my fill of you.’
With a tremble of a sigh, she lay back down and devoted herself to receiving James’ oral attentions. He meant to be thorough and to take her to her peak at least once, or twice if it could be effected. The taste of her was surprisingly clean, a pure effusion of liquid desire, and he laved enthusiastically. She had so many hidden crevices and furrows to explore and he performed his task without reservation, pouring hot breath on to her most intimate parts. Her pearl was fat and rich and it seemed to grow still bigger against his tongue. He bathed two fingers in the flowing juices and then set to thrusting them slowly in and out of her while he licked.
Her ever more desperate squirms made him smile and suck all the harder on her bud.
‘Oh, too much, it is too much, I shall …’
She writhed like a dervish and he put his free hand firmly on her hip, gripping it. His fingers continued with relentless rhythm and his tongue drew firm strokes across her clitoris until, seconds later, he scented victory and held her tight while she came undone, all the struggle leaving her body until she subsided into the deep peace of completion.
At which point he started licking her again.
‘Oh, you mustn’t,’ she gasped. ‘It is too much, too much …’
He broke off to warn her. ‘Do you tell me what I must and must not do, pet?’
‘No, but, oh, I shan’t be able to bear it!’
‘You shall bear it, because I shall make you. You know this, don’t you? Hmm?’
‘Oh … yes … but … argh!’
Enjoying her pitch of pleasurable discomfort, he went at her with a will. She bucked and thrashed like a snake pinned by a predator, but he put a stop to that by turning her over and smacking her behind until his palm prints glowed red.
She settled down for him after that and resigned herself to being licked and tasted and probed until he had satisfied himself that she was completely tamed.
Her second spending was a great triumph to him and he heaved a long sigh of contentment into her poor, overstimulated folds.
He lay upon her and kissed her own flavour into her mouth, long and ravishingly, his hands in her hair. He knew that she would refuse him nothing now, her will quite bent to his by the force of the pleasure he had wrung from her.
‘Turn over, my love,’ he whispered.
He helped her on to her stomach and kissed the back of her neck, nipping at the soft flesh that he found when he pushed aside her hair.
With one forearm beneath her stomach, he raised her gently to her knees, keeping her spine sloped downwards and her face in the pillow.
‘All is dark,’ he said, running his hands up and down her thighs. ‘Do you know what I am going to do to you?’
‘I do not,’ she whispered.
‘I could do so many things – I am almost unable to make a choice.’
‘Do you mean to chastise me, sir?’
‘No, pet. I am pleased with you. You called for me. You did well. You have had your reward and now I mean to take my pleasure.’
He took his member in hand and introduced it to the slippery passage between Augusta’s legs, so temptingly displayed for him. It was easy now, after that first time, to glide into the well-lubricated sleeve. She gripped him, warm and tight, and he shut his eyes to let the sensations burst individually in the darkness of his consciousness. He moved one hand to her breasts and toyed with them while he established his rhythm, languidly at first. Once he was past his first foray, he moved the hand back to her rear and stroked smoothly along the crease. She made sweet little gasps with each thrust into her but she seemed to have no objection to his further explorations in that other furrow. He dug deeper with his fingers, spreading her cheeks that she might more fully accept him. This was the boldest move he had yet made, and she yielded to it without the least demur.
Her ready submission inflamed him all the more and he grew rough with his handling of her, pounding at her flanks like a man possessed.
‘Pet, have you ever taken anything up here?’ he asked, pressing his thumb against the tight opening that marked the final destination of his examinings.
‘Oh, sir, no, sir.’ She squirmed violently, as if only now noticing what he had been about.
‘Truly? Mrs Shaw has never opened you here, with any foreign object?’
‘No, indeed. Oh heavens. Is it possible? You cannot—’
‘I cannot,’ he spoke over her, ‘call myself your true master until I possess every part of you.’
She inhaled sharply. He continued to beset her with firm thrusts while his thumb rested against that contested aperture.
‘Can you not?’ she asked, her voice small and meek.
‘Indeed I cannot. I intend to breach you, once you are fully prepared. No part of your body is to be your own. Do you mind me, pet?’
‘I will measure my pace, do not fret. Take time to feel this pressure upon you and to imagine how it will feel when I push down. Think of it, pet, for that day will come, and soon. Think of it.’
His head was becoming light and he knew his end was near. He should withdraw before it was too late.
He twisted his thumb against her clenched ring and enjoyed one last thrust before making the hated retreat. He finished himself at furious pace, splashing his seed upon her proffered bottom, still holding her between her cheeks with his thumb well pressed down.
She sighed, then moved her hips, as if asking him to increase his pressure.
‘Did you like that, pet?’ he asked in wonder, removing his thumb instead. ‘Lie down. I want you to keep my seed upon you until it dries, yes, like that. Keep still.’
He picked up his waistcoat from the side of the bed and rummaged for his handkerchief, using it to wipe himself clean before lying down beside her.
‘You did not answer me,’ he charged her, kissing her nose and then her lips. ‘Are you ashamed?’
‘I have never been so used,’ she said. Her eyes were shut and he kissed their lids. ‘You bring me into a deeper sense of my own self. I cannot resist you yet I sometimes feel you will lead me to my destruction.’ She paused, then whispered, ‘Yes. I am ashamed.’
He stroked stray hairs from her brow then laid more kisses upon the smooth skin there.
‘Shame becomes you,’ he said. ‘You should embrace it.’
‘I do. You know that.’
‘Yes. You won’t deny me what I demand of you.’
‘Then we will work upon that. I will prepare you. But what will Mrs Shaw think?’
Augusta flinched at the mention of her name.
‘Oh, Mrs Shaw,’ she sighed. ‘Be careful, my angel. She is jealous of you. Having brought you into my orbit, she now wishes to banish you from it. She will not succeed – she has not the authority. She is, at the root of things, my employee. But she will try.’
‘If you accept that you are in fact her mistress, you can tell her how to act.’
‘She would not then stay. She is proud. She accepts her role here because it gives her the illusion of being mistress of the house.’
‘An illusion only.’
‘Sometimes it becomes more solid. Sometimes I hardly know myself who is mistress and who servant.’
‘When did you engage her?’
‘After my mother died. I was sixteen.’
‘Excuse my ignorance in such matters, but how did you choose her? Your condition places certain restrictions on you. I suppose you interviewed her?’
‘I did interview her. I had my then housekeeper place an advertisement for a lady’s companion. She read me the replies and I interviewed on that basis.’
‘What was it about Mrs Shaw that drew you to her?’
‘She understood exceedingly well how my blindness limited my life and she gave a very good account of how she might be able to help. She was so brisk, so competent – she almost took the choice from me. Which was what I secretly wished for.’
‘You chose her because of her domineering manner?’
‘Oh, my love, I suppose I did.’
‘What became of your housekeeper?’
‘She found another position. There was no love lost between her and Mrs Shaw and she felt usurped.’
‘Mrs Shaw has altogether too much influence on the running of this household.’
Augusta laughed and pressed herself closer to James before kissing his cheek.
‘Do you laugh at me?’
‘You speak so much as a husband might. It is as if we lie here in our marital bed, squabbling over what to pay the butcher. I am not altogether averse to it.’
Her final sentence sounded so wistful that James experienced a fleeting sense of guilt. This was what she wished for, yet it was not in his power to offer it.
‘Just because you have no sight, does it mean you can never marry? I am sure many blind women make happy marriages,’ he said.
‘Many blind women with the whole world of men to choose from. I used to dream of finding a husband, if only to spite my cousins who would then be debarred from the inheritance. But I cannot dance, so I cannot go to balls, so I cannot …’ She ended with a sigh, then took James’ hand, threading her fingers with his. ‘But I do not care if I can have you. We have a marriage, of a sort, do we not? If it is the most I can hope for, then I shall make the best of it.’
‘We have the principal advantage of marriage, which is the pleasure of company,’ he said.
‘Will you stay with me until morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘You must take care that you are not seen when you leave.’ She lay quiet in his arms for a spell, then half-sat up. ‘How did you know the address?’
‘Mrs Shaw’s wiles to keep me blindfolded were unsuccessful. She might use your lack of sight to wield power over you but she will have no such advantage over me, trust to it. I do not think she always means you well, pet.’
All was so still. Holywell Street was never so quiet after dark – it was almost noisier then than by day. Cats fought and so did people on the slimy cobbles beneath the overhanging gables. Drunken laughter and singing blew on the wind from the nearby public houses and footsteps, footsteps, footsteps all night long.
What on earth would Augusta, so used to the graveyard quiet of Eaton Place, think of it?
‘I depend on her so,’ said Augusta after a long pause. ‘I have come to rely upon her for so much.’
‘I think she has orchestrated your dependency. She fears me because I dilute it.’
‘No. I do think she fears you, but not for that reason. For another and tenderer one. She loves me and I do not love her, or at least, not with that species of passion I seem able only to feel for a man. You are that man, and I love you.’
‘You should not. I am unworthy.’
‘My heart has no knowledge of worth or reason or convenience. It wants its way, and its way points to you.’
‘But how can it be, pet? How can it ever be?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I wish I did. For tonight, I am content just to sleep in your arms, as true lovers do.’
He held her spooned against him and stroked her hair until she drifted into sleep. Before dawn, he woke her with kisses, mindful of the need to get away from the house unnoticed.
To come to consciousness beside a warm and welcoming body in clean sheets was a new experience for James, who had tended to take his pleasures as he found them, which was usually somewhere inconvenient. The absence of bedbugs or cockroaches in the linen was refreshing.
They tangled and tussled, lip to lip, luxurious and drowsy, until James was sheathed in his mistress’s clutch. They rolled across the rumpled bedclothes, hard at rut, trying not to exclaim out loud for fear of disturbing a servant.
‘You must never forget that you are mine,’ whispered James, putting a hand over Augusta’s mouth to silence the ecstatic cries that threatened to pour forth.
Her mouth may have been muffled but there was no mistaking the way she pulsed around him, her body stiffening momentarily before the tide overcame her. He waited for her to stop writhing and become perfectly pliable again before indulging his own pleasure, withdrawing first and spilling across her pale belly and thighs.
‘And now my day has begun well,’ she said dreamily, amid kisses.
‘I hope it shall continue so.’
‘Oh, must you go?’
For he had risen and poured water from the pitcher into the ewer on its stand.
‘I must. I’m afraid I have business to attend to today.’
‘More stories to write?’
‘No. Not that kind of business.’
He wondered whether to tell Augusta about Annie and the Fallen House, but a desire to keep the sordid minutiae of his life separate from his time with Augusta made him hesitate, then dismiss the idea.
He splashed cold water over his face and used the washcloth to clean his naked body. It felt a little disrespectful to do this – it was Augusta’s washcloth after all – but he was loth to dress and take to the streets in his sticky, grimy, post-coital condition. His day’s growth of beard and whiskers would have to remain, but he must remember to shave before going to the Fallen House, where a respectable appearance would be required.
‘What kind of business then?’
‘Oh, immensely dull and trivial business. Money matters,’ he said vaguely. ‘Errands for my uncle. That sort of thing.’
‘Your uncle owns the bookshop, does he not?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you always lived there?’
‘For the most part, since my parents died.’
‘Was that a long time ago?’
‘My entire life. Both of my parents died when I was very young, not above four years of age.’
‘How unfortunate. At least I knew my parents, even if they left me too soon. What manner of people were they?’
‘They were not of the kind you would mix with.’ He paused in the tying of his neckcloth. ‘I am not of the kind you would mix with.’
‘And yet I mix with you most willingly.’ She laughed, a little wickedly, inflaming his desires afresh. But there was not time to sate them now.
‘I am glad of it.’
He buttoned his waistcoat, brushing it down where it had crumpled from long lying on the floor.
‘You will come tonight,’ she said. ‘I shall wait for you.’
‘Expect me,’ he said.
He went over to kiss her a lingering goodbye, then he put on his coat and boots and left.