Chapter 8
The sleet had been on and off since dusk. Catherine stood by the faro table, one hand resting on the felt, her gaze drifting slow. When the door opened, she would have looked away—but for the tall one. The set of shoulders. The half-smile when he turned.
No.
Her hands stayed steady on the cards. She told herself the lamps played tricks. Men resembled one another all the time. She dealt, she poured, she kept her distance.
Then he laughed. The sound cracked denial clean through. She had heard that laugh in another house, another life—when debts were tallied, when she’d been told to pack her things.
It was him.
Recognition cut sharper than the years had softened him. The silver at his temples, the familiar tilt of his glass. He had not seen her. Not truly. His gaze slid past—casual, indifferent. Nothing. She had been nothing before, and nothing now.
The anger came fast, then steadied. Not fury at his being here, but at the absence—the lack of falter, of pause, of any sign that he knew.
She worked the night in silence, anger banking itself like coals under ash. He laughed, he played, he left.
When the door closed on his back, her mouth filled with ash. She swallowed and allowed her belly to fill with anger.
* * *
He returned on a Thursday, late. The denial had burned itself out on his first visit; the anger that followed had cooled to something harder, narrower.
She took her place where the faro table opened into the main room, half-turned, as if waiting for a tray.
When he and his friends crossed the carpet, she let her gaze pass over them with the same polite vacancy she gave to any gentleman not yet decided upon a vice.
He did not look. That was expected; men never did until they wanted something.
She could wait.
She worked the room with careful measure—wine, cards, small courtesies performed as if they were nothing. Twice she passed close enough that his sleeve might brush hers.
He looked through her, intent on his own arithmetic.
When at last he shifted from cards to wine, she took a tray and crossed behind him. Close enough to see the faint polish of sweat at his temple.
He turned half-about, eyes grazing her face, and moved on without check or pause.
It might have ended there. But Kettering, too loud as ever, praised the auburn by the stairs. Walton turned to look, smiling to humour his friend. His eyes travelled back across the room and lit on Catherine full. For a heartbeat, enough.
A small tightening appeared at the bridge of his nose.
“Too much paint,” he said, not bothering to lower his voice. “Brassy little stray.”
She carried the tray into the corridor by the stair, pressed her back to the wall, and let the cool air bite until the heat in her face ebbed.
Then she returned, precise as ever. She worked without ornament—no second glass offered unasked, no remark to fill a silence.
A bottle tilted once at the wrong angle; she corrected it.
Mrs Murray’s gaze touched her from across the room.
A calculation.
When he rose to leave, she was again at the edge of his path. He brushed past her sleeve without knowing it. Or knowing and not caring.
She turned back to the table, to the snug mathematics of chips and cards. When the door closed behind him, she let her breath out slow.
That night she made her note in the book she kept for herself: Thursday. Returned with same. Cards. Wine. No recognition. Words: paint, stray, lowers.
A tear slid down and blotted the last word. Catherine closed the notebook, snuffed the candle with a pinch, and drew the thin blanket over her head.
* * *
A knock on her door awakened her from a dreamless sleep. Derek. “Mistress wants ye.”
Catherine rose and went.
The house was only half awake; girls yawned into teacups, stockings loose about their ankles. Catherine passed with a nod and mounted the stairs.
Mrs Murray sat at her vanity, hair unbound, robe drawn close. A small pot of pomade turned slowly in her hands.
“You’re pale,” she said.
“I’m well.”
“You’re not. And you’ve gone short on words.”
A single nod was her answer.
Mrs Murray set the pomade down, leant back in the chair. “I don’t much care what mood you nurse in private. But on the floor, you’re mine. The men expect to be entertained.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Even the dull ones.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Even the ones who aren’t worth the silk they sit on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs Murray’s gaze narrowed. “You’ve work tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The reply hung. Mrs Murray studied her, the silence thickening with every second. At last, she waved a hand.
“Go.”
* * *
The faro table held her place.
“Another glass, if you please,” a man said.
Catherine set the tray down and poured too high. A drop spilled.
“Forgive me, sir.”
The dice bowl slipped from her hand and rattled too loud on the felt.
“Careful, girl,” his companion muttered.
“At once.” She retrieved the dice and placed them softer.
From a nearby table, Walton laughed. Catherine’s hand stilled on the cards before moving again.
“My friend will take the next hand,” said the gentleman at her elbow.
She hesitated. “Of course… Mr—”
“Sutcliffe.”
She inclined her head. “Yes, Mr Sutcliffe.”
Across the room Mrs Murray spoke with a man in a plum-coloured coat. Her laugh carried, then her gaze fixed and held—on Catherine. She bent to refill a glass already half full.
“That’s plenty,” the gentleman said.
“Forgive me.”
Walton rose. Catherine angled her tray to pass behind. He did not see her. She drifted back to the dice, silent.
Near dawn, when the men thinned from the room, Catherine stacked chips with exact care, her shoulders tight. Mrs Murray approached at last.
“Your mind wandered.”
Catherine bowed her head. “I’ll be better tomorrow.”
“Not disappointment, my girl. Not yet. But I see where your eyes go.”
Her breath caught. “…Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs Murray tilted her head, studying. “Interesting.”
She turned away, leaving the word to hang.
* * *
The following night, Mrs Murray found herself in her suite entertaining a gentleman who was prepared to engage one of her girls carte blanche.
The private suite was built to flatter men who fancied themselves discerning: a coal fire laid low so shadows would forgive a jawline, velvet curtains to hush the street, a Paris screen to imply luxury and privacy at once.
Sylvia had done it as carefully as she did everything—one eye on comfort, the other on profit.
The gentleman sprawled in her best chair with the practiced abundance of a man who had never learned how to occupy only his own space.
He was easy handsome in that overripe way—good coat, good linen, the sort of grooming that lets a man believe his appetites are taste.
He held her brandy as though it were the conclusion to an argument.
“You keep a tidy house,” he said, after praising the fire, the chair, the brandy—after praising everything that did not matter. “A relief, Mrs Murray. Too many places make a man feel he’s borrowed a woman who’s been borrowed too often.”
“Sylvia,” she corrected, as she always did. Titles were a veil; she preferred the face. “And is that what you want here? To borrow?”
“Borrow at regular intervals,” he said, smiling. “Or—” He spread his fingers, as if releasing a bird that had already been snared. “I’ll be frank. I’ve done with the raffle of an ordinary night. I desire a constant.”
“And what may be constant,” she said, “is always a matter of price.”
He gave the little laugh of a gentleman who pretends to adore being crossed. “We shall discover where we agree.”
She let her gaze drift, as if bored; in truth her attention had sharpened. Men revealed themselves in negotiation more quickly than in confession. “Describe the arrangement you imagine,” she said. “Use plain words. I hire for plain work.”
He raised the brandy, pleased to be invited to talk about himself.
“Two evenings a week, a third if I can say please without sounding like a beggar. She must not pout at being kept to one man; she must not simper if I’m late.
I’ll have good manners and good coin in sufficient measure.
I’d prefer a girl who reads. One tires of being adored by a mirror. ”
“You’ll want exclusivity in the room and in her calendar.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Call it preference. If she brings me a disease, I shall be ungrateful.”
“Gratitude, in my experience, is elastic.”
He laughed again, warmer. “Mrs Murray, you are sharp.”
“Sylvia,” she repeated. “And above your means.”
At that he leant forward, friendly conspirator now. “Here, then. Shall we speak as sensible souls? Name me the girl, and we’ll find the figure. I won’t be cheated, and you won’t be insulted. If we can agree on it, I’ll keep my side to the farthing.”
“You propose to keep a woman,” Sylvia said, idly tracing the rim of her glass, “while keeping her here. A constant without the inconvenience of a household.”
“Exactly.” His smile felt like a coin turned over in pocket. “A gentleman’s compromise.”
“Meaning you dine without quarrel. Tell me,” Sylvia said, as if the question were idle. “You speak of means with ease, but not of origin. What name does the ledger write you under?”
He looked amused. “Does it matter?”
“In my house,” Sylvia said evenly, “everything matters. Especially the name.”
He gave it up with mock ceremony, bowing slightly in his chair.
“Walton.”