Chapter Thirteen #2
“No, ma’am,” the maid nearest the housekeeper said, bobbing a curtsy. “I-it’s a shame that your maid didn’t want to come here. I can’t think why…”
“That’s enough, Tilly,” Mrs. Case said. “Lady Bedford won’t want to listen to your tattle.”
“But you’re right, Tilly, nonetheless,” Cordelia said, and James’s heart lifted as her smile reached her eyes. “I much prefer the country to London. I was born in the country, and though I’ve lived in London all my life, my dearest wish has been to settle in the country.”
“Then, my dear, I’m sure you’ll be very happy here,” the housekeeper said. “Will she not, Mr. Osborne?”
The black-clad butler gave a curt nod.
“As you say, Mrs. Case,” he said. “Welcome to Bedford Hall, Lady Bedford.” He turned to James. “Will you be wanting tea? Supper is at eight, unless you’d like to defer?”
James pulled out his pocket watch and opened it. Half past seven.
“No, we’ll dine at eight. Will that give you time to dress, my dear?”
Cordelia hesitated, then nodded. “O-of course.”
“Tilly, show Lady Bedford to her chamber then tend to her as necessary,” Mrs. Case said.
The maid bobbed again, but James raised his hand.
“Not yet. I’d like a word with my wife first, if you’re amenable, my dear?”
He winced at his own formality and Cordelia nodded, then he led her inside. Behind, Osborne issued a sharp order and the servants dispersed.
James led his wife through the hallway and into the morning room, where he gestured to a chair beside the unlit fireplace.
She sat, glancing about as if expecting to be devoured by predators.
“Forgive me, I didn’t think to ask you about a lady’s maid,” he said.
“I’ve no need of a maid. I can dress myself.”
“But it will be expected now you’re a viscountess. Ladies have maids. That’s the way it is.”
“And sluts dress themselves.”
Guilt gnawed at him and he sat beside her, taking her hand, which lay limply in his, as if she were a prisoner resigned to her fate.
“I apologize for Georgiana. It was most uncivil of her. I shall insist she gives you a proper apology.”
“I’ve no wish for an apology that’s been elicited on demand,” she replied. “Do you think I cannot tell when someone is being genuine or not?”
Did she speak of Georgiana’s apology, or his?
“I would ask you to promise me one thing, Cordelia,” he said.
She glanced up.
“Do not refer to yourself as a slut. No matter what others say. You’re a viscountess—my viscountess—and those you encounter will respect that title, even if…”
“Even if they cannot respect the woman?”
He shook his head. He really was making a complete arse of himself. A man with more experience of women would doubtless have said something pretty enough to make her forgive him in a heartbeat, fall into his arms, and invite him to her bed.
His manhood pulsed at the thought of tonight, and he caught his breath to dispel the surge in his groin.
It wouldn’t do to spend in his breeches.
What the devil would his valet think of him if he presented the fellow with such a stain—the same stain that he had, to his shame, adorned his bedsheets with at night while dreaming of the woman who sat before him now, relishing the image of her plump, pink lips, wrapped around his…
He inhaled sharply and squeezed his thighs together.
Compose yourself, for pity’s sake!
He crossed his legs in an attempt to hide his cockstand.
“You’ll have to tell me the truth once, at least,” he said. “I promise I shall never ask it of you again. But if I’m to defend you against accusations made by my sisters, or…”
He paused. Heaven forbid anyone might recognize her if they came to Bedford Hall.
“…or anyone else, I must be furnished with the truth. You owe me that, at least.”
She leveled her gaze at him. But rather than shame, he saw something akin to pride in her eyes. And, by God, she was magnificent—beautiful and regal as she tilted her chin up and stared open-eyed at him, as if he were the sinner of the two.
Perhaps he was.
“Very well,” she said, in a quiet, even voice.
“I shall tell you once, and once only. But, in turn, I would ask that once I have related my history, you do not make reference to my past, or judge me for decisions that I was compelled to make to survive. It is by the grace of the Almighty that I was born into the life I led, and that you were born into this.”
She gestured about the parlor. When he did not respond, she continued.
“I was born in Somerset, at least, that is what my…guardian told me.”
She flinched, and James caught a flicker of pain in her eyes. He reached for her hand but she waved him away.
“My first memory was of living in London—a dark, wet street, on which I used to beg for coins, and”—she blinked slowly—“and pick pockets. I became adept at it, and for a while, my guardian called me his favorite little flower. But as I grew older…”
Her focus shifted, the gray of her eyes darkening to the color of a thundercloud.
“H-he said that he could earn more money from…” She gestured to herself.
“You don’t have to say it,” James said, his heart aching at the way she trembled. She closed her eyes and he sat beside her. She flinched as he placed his hand over hers.
Then she opened them again, her expression hard, and set her mouth in a firm line.
“He said he’d break me in nicely, then make a pretty penny selling me to one of the houses he frequented.” She spoke quickly, as if she wanted the ordeal to end as quickly as possible. “I lived there for some years, until I managed to free myself.”
“Free yourself?”
“The master locked me in my room, where I entertained his visitors.”
“The master?”
“We were told to call him that,” she said. “I didn’t know his name; none of us did. After the fourth year, he trusted me enough to let me entertain them with the others in the parlor.”
Sweet Lord, she was locked in a room for four years while men…
“W-were you paid?” James said, his stomach churning.
She gave a bitter laugh. “I was fed and housed. The master was paid.”
“But surely you could have…”
“Appealed to his better nature? Asked to return to my guardian? No…he visited me often, saying that he was entitled to my services for free. The master didn’t stop him.”
James opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, shame twisting his gut.
How many of his peers visited an establishment such as the one Cordelia had been forced to work in?
Hell—he himself might have ended up there if he’d not had the means to visit the Lyon’s Den. What made him any different to them?
“Then, one night, during one of the”—she cringed—“the parties, a fight broke out. The master had debts all over, and when his creditors came to collect, he refused to pay. They beat him to death before our eyes. I-I saw an open door and took my chance.”
“You escaped?”
She nodded. “One of the girls was killed, but the rest of us fled and I found myself alone, on the streets, utilizing the skills I’d learned as a child.
There’s plenty of drunken gentleman with full purses to be found near St James’s.
But I was caught in the end and taken to a big house.
I thought they’d whip me, or send for the runners…
or sell me to one of the other houses. But they didn’t.
This woman came, dressed all in black. Mrs. Dove-Lyon.
She said that I had stolen from one of her visitors and risked her reputation, and that I must repay her ten times the amount I stole.
I didn’t have it, so she put me to work. ”
James shook his head. “So they sold you to Mrs. Dove-Lyon instead?”
Cordelia paused, and then, for the first time since she began her history, she smiled.
“No. Mrs. Dove-Lyon gave me a choice.”
“It doesn’t sound like much of a choice.”
“That’s because you’ve never been deprived of choice, Lord Bedford,” she replied.
“Even the most insignificant of gifts is an abundance when one has been deprived of it. Those of us with no power over our lives take the power of choice where we can. Until that moment I had been the property of others, to use me as they saw fit. But with Mrs. Dove-Lyon, for the first time in my life, someone gave me a choice. I could work in the kitchens, or as a housemaid. Or…”
Or as a whore.
She shrugged and sighed, as if she could read his mind.
“Judge me if you will, but she presented me with an opportunity. To build a future. And it’s not something I hadn’t already done.
Only this time, the visitors were required to follow Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s rules, and I could keep the money they paid.
Less a small percentage, of course, for Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s trouble. ”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s rules…
James recalled the contract he’d signed when entering the Lyon’s Den for the first time to purchase a night with a doxy:
Rule five: membership will be rescinded if the client 1) leaves a permanent mark on the service provider, 2) forces his attentions on an unwilling participant whilst in the building, 3) maims or causes the death of the service provider…
He’d signed the contract with little thought to the meaning of the words written on the page, having believed that no man could resort to the behaviors described.
But he’d been na?ve—not only in his lack of experience of women, but his lack of understanding of the plight of those women forced to serve a man’s baser urges.
And Cordelia had entered into such a profession.
“Dear God,” he whispered. “Why?”
“It was a means to an end, Lord Bedford,” she said.
“Like any other form of commerce. I intended to save enough to purchase a home in the country where I could never be beholden to others again, so that I could begin again and perhaps find someone to love me. A home—a family of my own. I even thought of going to Somerset, but I never knew the name of the village in which I was born.”
“Did you not think to ask your guardian?”