Chapter 9 #2
Miss Salisbury rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, Jenny dear. I’m cheating. Never play with a straight hand when you can win an advantage.’
Miss Salisbury’s voice was slurred, too, and Gwen covered her mouth with a hand to hold back a giggle.
The admission, never mind the idea of the elderly woman cheating, was more hilarious than it had any right to be.
She looked at Miss Rosewood to see what she thought and saw that she was waving a finger in the air as if she was conducting an imaginary orchestra and humming softly beneath her breath.
Miss Salisbury let her cards fall to the table and stood.
‘I believe the effects are now underway, so I shall take my leave as I have a diversion prepared that I intend to take advantage of. There are refreshments on the table, and you may avail yourself of the piano if the mood takes you. We shall reconvene at length.’
She swept out of the room grandly, leaving the door ajar and her footsteps indicated she had gone upstairs. Gwen walked over, slightly unsteadily, to close the door, but Jenny caught her by the sleeve.
‘Leave it. I want to hear what she is doing. Do you think she’s going to play an instrument?’
Gwen sat back down and shook her head. Doing so made her dizzy, and she moved instead to a sea-green velvet chaise and lay back, turning her head to stare at the tiger who stared back glassily.
‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright,’ she crooned, to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’.
Her limbs felt wonderfully light, and she was just deciding a nap would be pleasant when the distant sound of moaning floated from above.
Gwen’s mouth dropped open in astonishment.
She glanced at Miss Rosewood, who was sitting beside a vase filled with peacock feathers, smiling beatifically as she ran her finger over the vanes of a particularly lustrous one.
If she was aware that Miss Salisbury appeared to be engaging in enthusiastic sexual intercourse, she showed no signs of it, though Gwen would have been shocked if a spinster understood the nature of the sounds.
Unfortunately, the next series of cries made it almost impossible to ignore as the moaning became deeper and faster, turning to short exclamations.
Miss Rosewood glanced upwards. ‘Whatever is that noise? Do you think she’s ill? Should we go help?’
‘No!’ Gwen fumbled her way upright, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. ‘No, I don’t think she’s ill, and no, we definitely should not go up there.’
‘Then what is… Oh! Is she… Surely, she isn’t?’ Miss Rosewood’s eyes grew wide. Gwen nodded, pressing her lips together.
‘Oh.’ Miss Rosewood looked upwards again and her expression grew thoughtful. ‘I wonder if she is with a man or a woman?’
‘Miss Rosewood!’ Gwen exclaimed, more shocked by Miss Rosewood’s lack of shock and her speculation regarding the sex of the other participant than by what was happening upstairs.
Miss Rosewood looked hesitant then spoke. ‘Mrs Walters, will you do the honour of calling me Jenny? I feel that as we are starting a venture together, we should be more intimately acquainted. Though when I say intimately, I do not mean in the way Miss Salisbury is being intimate.’
She sniggered and covered her mouth with her hands. Gwen burst into wild laughter. There was something artfully endearing about Miss Rosewood’s directness. Perhaps this was what having a sister would have been like.
‘Gladly. And you must call me Gwen.’
‘I’d be delighted.’ Miss Rosewood tottered over to the chaise and dropped back onto it heavily.
She laid her head on Gwen’s shoulder and yawned.
A clock sounded three with a high, melodic chime and the sounds from above ceased.
Gwen closed her eyes. The euphoria hadn’t been as strong this time, but she felt pleasantly tranquil.
‘Jenny, I’m not sure I want to be collected by Miss Salisbury,’ she confided.
‘I’m not sure we’ll have much choice in the matter, if she’s enjoying herself as much as it sounds like she is,’ Jenny giggled. ‘I assume those are noises of pleasure.’
Gwen confirmed it, though Archibald had never succeeded in drawing such sounds from her, even in his prime.
‘We should definitely charge her more,’ she murmured, before closing her eyes and nodding off.
The two women were leaning against each other, drowsing happily when Miss Salisbury re-entered the room.
She was still wearing the odd robe, but now beneath it she was dressed in green silk, and her hair was styled in large rolls above each ear.
She looked invigorated, as well she might, Gwen thought enviously.
‘I have ordered coffee,’ Miss Salisbury announced with no preamble as she sat down.
She had arranged her robe and skirts when a young, male servant with ash-blond hair entered with a tray.
The look Miss Salisbury gave him as he lowered the tray onto the table at her side, and the responding gleam in his pale blue eyes, made Gwen wonder if he had been the one pleasuring her.
‘I’m going to be frank with you now,’ Miss Salisbury said, once they were alone.
‘Oh!’ Gwen looked at Jenny, unaware that Miss Salisbury had not already been frank.
‘I do not believe that you purchased this from a company advertising in a newspaper. I have had my servants study a number of newspapers, and this bottle bearing the description and name on this label does not appear in any of them.’
‘It was a newspaper from Wales. My friend sent me the advertisement,’ Gwen began to bluster.
Miss Salisbury held up her hand. ‘Mrs Walters, you sound foolish. Don’t demean yourself in such a manner. No, I believe you – ah, if only our language had a way of expressing pluralism as the French do – both of you are, or perhaps only one of you is, responsible for its creation.’
Gwen raised her hand like a child in the schoolroom admitting to breaking a slate. ‘It was me. I didn’t intend for it to happen, I created it by accident. Then Miss Rosewood and I thought it might be a way of making a little extra money.’
‘And what an intriguing way of making pin money,’ Miss Salisbury said.
It might have been the effects of the tincture talking, or possibly the condescension in Miss Salisbury’s voice that made Gwen sit upright and lift her head haughtily.
‘It isn’t pin money. My husband needs an operation and, somehow, we have to pay for it.’
Miss Salisbury smiled. ‘Well, selling doses to the bored wives of businessmen at a shilling a time is not going to achieve that very quickly, is it? But I will certainly buy a bottle, and I know somebody who may be able to facilitate selling this a little quicker.’
‘Really?’ Jenny sat forwards with an interested look on her face.
‘Yes, if you are able to manufacture it, then I believe my acquaintance will happily provide a place to distribute it.’
‘What is his name?’ Gwen asked.
Miss Salisbury wagged a finger. ‘My dear Mrs Walters, I’m saddened to hear your assumption, especially as you are attempting to become a woman of business yourself. My acquaintance is a woman, and her name is Augusta Charles. She’s been a widow for approximately a decade, I believe.’
‘Yes, I think we’d like to meet her,’ Jenny said immediately. ‘She sounds very interesting.’
Gwen shot her a glance of annoyance at being spoken for. Miss Salisbury clearly noticed, because she gave the condescending smile again.
‘I won’t press you for an answer now. Never let it be said I took advantage of women not fully in control of their wits. I shall give you a week to decide, and if you wish to take advantage of my offer, I shall make the introductions. Now, I will call my coach and send you home.’