7. The Tour
THE TOUR
Rose led Lord Reginald down the elegant staircase and into the main lounge.
And with his words still ringing in her ears, she couldn’t help but see it through his eyes.
The velvet wall coverings. The amber glow of lamps against polished wood. Sensual paintings displayed in gilt frames, their subjects draped in silk and suggestion rather than innocence. Every inch of the room had been designed to make indulgence appear civilized. Luxurious. Almost respectable.
She was not ashamed of what she did.
She was not.
But The Domus had not been some bright, fearless choice. It had become her home because everything beyond its doors was crueler and far more dangerous.
She had chosen the best life the world had to offer a woman like her.
And she hated that anyone, especially her mystery man from the ball, would use the truth of that to hurt her.
She hadn’t expected that.
But she had a job to do, so none of that mattered. None of that could matter.
She led him into the kitchens first.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Frye.” Rose forced herself to be cheerful, introducing him to the staff that created and served meals morning, noon, and night.
The supper they were preparing for tonight was a simple stew, but the vegetables were vibrant and fresh, the meat dripping with a healthy amount of fat.
Loaves of bread were baking in the oven even as more dough was being rolled out at a service station, and all of these smells permeated the entire room in a mouthwatering combination.
All the while, Rose was aware of him noticing the gleaming counters and the well-swept floors.
He approved. Anyone would approve.
Then they walked through to what was known as the Upstairs Ladies’ Drawing Room.
Nell Smith sat at the long table near the windows, bent over a list of appointments with one of the newer girls.
Near the fire, Marianne Bell adjusted a spray of winter greenery in a vase while complaining about whoever had arranged it.
And Violet Shaw lounged on the chaise, locked in an argument with Maisy Banks over a length of blue ribbon.
“It is hideous,” Violet declared.
“It is blue.”
“It is aggressively blue.”
Rose’s mouth twitched despite herself.
This was not The Domus as visitors and outsiders knew it.
This was theirs.
The room no patron ever entered.
Here, women compared notes on troublesome gentlemen, discussed the latest fashions, and laughed without first wondering whether it was safe.
Rose glanced sideways at Lord Reginald, who’d stopped just inside the doorway.
His gaze moved over the room with the wary attention of a man assessing unfamiliar territory, and for the briefest moment, something shifted in his face.
Not approval. Certainly not surrender.
But uncertainty.
A crack in the ice?
Perhaps.
“Only the women who work upstairs are permitted in this room,” Rose said.
She paused, meeting his gaze.
“Usually.”
Then she gestured toward the corridor at the far end.
“Our private rooms are through there. Those can be locked from the inside.”
Reginald nodded, apparently understanding that he had been granted an exception. Despite owning all of it.
Rose led him back out through the kitchens, past the large laundry room where linens were washed and pressed each day, and toward a second staircase. At the top, she opened the door onto thick carpeting once more.
Their personal areas were comfortable enough, but the carpet here was different—plusher, meant to impress.
From there, they could look down over the gleaming balustrade into the main lounge below.
Opposite the balustrade, doors to the receiving rooms lined the hall. Or, as the gentlemen preferred to call them, the private parlors.
Rose drew a quiet breath. This was what he needed to see. The rooms holding the strongest evidence that The Domus was not like other brothels.
She crossed to the first door and turned the brass handle. It opened at once.
“No locks on these doors,” she reminded him. She took a moment to glance over. He was watching her with those silver eyes. Something entirely unwelcome fluttered in her chest.
“They latch,” she added hastily and then stepped aside to allow him to inspect it. “A gentleman may close the door for privacy, but he cannot bolt it. No woman is ever locked inside a room with a client.”
He nodded, expression unreadable, though he did not look displeased.
“So… they could be interrupted?”
“Only if necessary. During working hours, the doors are carefully watched by security.”
She entered the nearest room and held the door for Lord Reginald.
Like all the others, it was small, but elegant. Amber silk climbed the walls above white-painted wainscoting. Wood was stacked behind the grate. Near the hearth stood a chaise with its cushions freshly plumped, beside a small round table laid with a decanter, two glasses, and a bowl of fresh fruit.
To the untrained eye, the setting suggested indulgence. Romance even.
Rose saw a system refined through years of experience. Every item in the room served a purpose.
“The chaise is positioned,” Rose told him, “so there is always a clear path to the door.”
Despite knowing every inch of the room, she caught her foot on the edge of the carpet as she led him inside.
Reginald’s hand closed around her arm before she could fall.
“Hold fast.”
The words were quiet. Rough.
His words drew her back to that garden, his breath warm against her skin.
Hold fast.
Heat stirred low in her belly—the sort she never felt in any of these rooms.
“I’m fine.” She stepped away before his hand could affect her further.
Was he remembering those moments as well?
His expression gave nothing away, though his gaze lingered upon her for a beat longer than necessary.
Rose moved farther into the room, putting the chaise between them.
“Every room is thoroughly cleaned after an appointment,” she said, silently cursing the breathlessness in her voice. “Fresh linen. Fresh water. The floors are scrubbed, and the windows opened—even in winter, if only briefly.”
She crossed to the mantel and pressed one finger against a carved rose hidden in the gilded paneling.
A narrow section of wood shifted soundlessly.
Lord Reginald came to stand beside her.
“There is a service passage behind each receiving room,” she explained.
His shoulder almost brushed hers as he leaned forward to study the darkness beyond the opening. Rose caught the clean scent of his shaving soap and that same something spicy she’d noticed before.
“A woman may ask for someone to remain nearby. Nell keeps watch when a newer woman receives a gentleman for the first time, or whenever one of us has reason to feel uneasy.”
“And there?” He nodded toward the small brass slide concealed in the wood.
“A viewing slit.” Rose ran her fingertip along its edge. “It may be opened from the passage or closed from inside the room.”
Lord Reginald went very still beside her.
“So someone can watch?”
His voice had changed again. Only slightly. A deeper note beneath the businesslike question.
Rose’s thoughts scattered.
Because all at once, she was not imagining Nell standing protectively in the passage.
She was imagining him there.
Watching her.
She swallowed. “If the woman wishes it.” Taking a quick breath, Rose forced herself to continue. “If she does not wish to be visible to an observer, she can simply” —Rose snapped the slide shut— “close it.”
Lord Reginald said nothing.
Rose moved to the chaise. A silk tassel hung beside it, low enough to be reached without rising. She lifted it between two fingers.
“This pull summons one of the maids.”
Rose let the tassel fall.
Then she reached beneath the curved wooden arm of the chaise and found a second cord, hidden in shadow.
“This one is for trouble.”
His eyes narrowed. “Trouble.”
“One pull summons Nell—Mrs. Smith. Two brings Boris.” Her voice remained even.
His gaze moved toward the door.
“Exactly.”
Rose crossed to the window seat and pressed another hidden catch. A shallow drawer slid free beneath the cushioned bench.
Inside lay a short blackthorn club.
Lord Reginald grimaced. “That will not stop a determined man,” he said.
“No.” Rose closed the drawer. “But it may hold him off long enough for help to arrive.”
His face had gone unreadable again, though she thought she saw something troubled beneath it.
“Do you—” He cleared his throat. “Does it come out often?”
“The club?” Rose shook her head. “No. As I explained before, most patrons are well acquainted with the rules.” She gave the hidden drawer a small push until it disappeared beneath the window seat. “I have only ever had cause to use it twice.”
“Twice,” he repeated. “In how long?”
The question changed the air in the room.
Suddenly, they were no longer discussing the club, or Boris, or the measures in place at The Domus to keep its women safe.
They were discussing her.
“Nearly ten years.”
Rose did not look at him as she answered, but she felt his gaze settle on her. Felt the silence that followed.
He had gone very still.
“Ten years.”
“Yes.”
His voice, when it came again, was almost a growl. “My brother hired children?” he demanded. The anger in him startled her more than the accusation.
Rose straightened. “I was not a child.”
“How old were you?”
“Six and ten. I don’t know for sure.”
His jaw hardened.
“Sixteen,” he said. “You were sixteen.”
“I know how old I was.”
“You were a child.”
“No.” Rose lifted her chin. “Girls of sixteen are presented at court. They enter Society. Some are married before the Season is over.”
“That is not the same.”
“Why? Because they wear white gowns and have fathers to arrange the bargain for them?”
For that, he had no reply, his expression twisted with both confusion and outraged fury.
He knew nothing about her.
Rose had ceased to be a child the day her grandmother died. The day the landlord looked at a twelve-year-old girl and knew she could not pay the rent. The day Rose understood that no one was coming to protect her.
After that, there had only been survival.
“Whatever you imagine, my lor” she said, struggling to keep her voice even, “The Domus did not steal my childhood. Rather the opposite, actually, it gave me a life again.”
Rose suppressed a wince then, suddenly aware of how far this whole venture had wandered from her original intention. Angering him—arguing over a past that could no longer be changed—was not what she had meant to accomplish.
The tour.
She needed to get on with the tour.
And yet, before moving on, she needed to make herself perfectly clear.
“Your brother is not a villain,” she said, forcing her voice back into steadier ground. “And this place isn’t the workhouse.”
Lord Reginald exhaled through his nose, hard enough that the sound might nearly have been a laugh. “You are not free here.”
And then, before she could answer, he turned and strode from the receiving room.
For one moment, Rose considered following him. Demanding that he finish the tour he had agreed to take. But by the time she reached the doorway, his footsteps had faded down the corridor.
Fine. Let him retreat.
For now.
According to Mr. Dyer, the Phantom Gale was in no condition to sail. Lord Reginald might hide aboard her—or at any shipyard or dock along the Thames—but for now he was landlocked.
And Rose would find him.
She had time.
Thirty-one days to garner his favor. To make him understand what The Domus truly was. To save the only home she had known since her grandmother died.
Rose lifted her chin.
She would make use of every one of them.