Chapter 3
Ivy
If I didn’t know for a fact that I’m on a coach with some of the kinkiest bastards in London, then I’d be convinced I was on some kind of granny trip to a National Trust property, complete with a thermos of tea and one of those rain hats that ties under the chin, because the house that looms before us as we come up the driveway, a sparkling lake to our right, is probably the most beautiful property I’ve ever seen in my life.
This thing puts the stately into stately home.
It’s prettier than anything I’ve seen on TV—prettier than Gosford Park or Downton Abbey, even.
It’s all honey-coloured stone, and it’s actually glowing in the late afternoon sunlight.
It has lots of roofs and turrets, and they’re all Rapunzel-level steep with pointy metal decorative things sticking up from the tops.
They’re probably just to keep the pigeons away, but they add to the fairytale vibe.
Best of all, the fattest turret at one end has actual ivy crisscrossed all the way up it in a perfect diamond shape.
Who the hell is responsible for the upkeep of this place? And who the hell funds it? The mind boggles.
All I know is that I’d kill to sit down by that lake for an afternoon and paint this vision of golden gorgeousness.
If you could base yourself out here on these perfect green lawns for a few hours, with an easel and a cup of tea and maybe a cheeky KitKat, it would surely feel like all was good with the world.
‘Holy fucking Christ,’ my friend Izzy says from next to me, leaning across me to squint at the house.
She’s a few years older than me and one of the head hosts at Alchemy, a gorgeous blonde with a killer body and flexibility levels that are downright indecent.
She’s been working at Alchemy for four or five years and she does very well for herself.
The members love her. She and Ben, her co-lead among the hosts, are responsible for keeping this motley crew in check tonight.
‘My thoughts exactly.’ I’m not far off pressing my nose to the window.
‘Now I understand why they have such a hefty budget.’
‘Yep. Who are they, anyway?’
‘Aristocrats,’ she murmurs. ‘Like, proper ones. Their dad is the Duke of Oxford.’
‘Holy shit.’ That sounds… I dunno. Senior. Important. ‘Do you know Benedict, then?’
‘Let’s just say I could pick his dick out in a lineup,’ she quips, and I cackle.
‘Classy. Pick it out in a good way?’
‘Sure. Very nice. Big. Long. Straight. He knows what he’s doing.
He’s fucked half of London, but no judgement here.
I’m low-key excited about this, though. Gen said they’ve brought up a proper team of costumers from Charing Cross Road to kit us all out.
I’m excited to be a dirty, dicked-down duchess. ’
‘Or get some aristocratic anal,’ I mutter, still staring out of the window. I bet those rhododendron bushes are epic in early spring.
‘Exactly. Cunnilingus from a count. Bone a baron. Um’—she blows out a breath—‘what else?’
‘Nooky with a nobleman?’ It’s lame, but she giggles.
‘I just hope they’re all as hot as Benedict and not totally inbred.’
‘Amen, Your Grace.’
The coach cuts across the front of the house, and I drool the entire time.
We drive slowly around the side, past a stunning but surreal aviary that’s all minty green and gold rococo ironwork.
I am genuinely going to have an eye-gasm in a second, and there isn’t a dashing aristocrat in sight.
When we pull to a stop, it’s around the back of the house, which is just as gorgeous as the front.
A man in a black suit ushers us through a simple side door marked DELIVERIES.
I suppose these are—or were—the servants’ quarters.
It makes sense, after all. Smuggle the sex workers in the back door with the rest of the staff.
What can I say? The Alchemy team is well used to handling back passages.
We follow the butler, or whoever the hell he is, down a long corridor with a stone floor and white walls and then up a narrow staircase that seems to go on forever.
The stairwell smells old, but not in a fusty way—more in a serious, historical way.
There’s also a delicious smell of cooking, and my tummy rumbles, lunch feeling like a distant memory.
‘You’ll be based in here,’ the man says, opening a nondescript door off the landing. ‘I do hope you’ll make yourselves comfortable and enjoy some refreshments.’
My ears and tummy prick up at the R-word as we file into a room.
Holy fucking Christ, to quote Izzy.
This must be a servants’ door, but we are not in the servants’ quarters anymore. No sir. Because this is something else.
We appear to be in some massive upstairs drawing room?
Parlour? I dunno. There’s no bed, so it can’t be a bedroom.
Just a lot of antique-looking sofas and chairs and little tables dotted around.
The walls are all covered in sunflower-yellow silky fabric, and the way the afternoon sunlight is filtering through the huge windows that line the room’s entire length and dancing on the silk makes me feel like I’m inside a very sunny kaleidoscope.
It’s bloody gorgeous. The ceilings are so high, and three huge crystal chandeliers hang from them.
Ah. As soon as I spot them, I realise what’s happening.
All those dangly crystals are refracting the sunlight—that’s why the effect is so incredible.
I stand and turn on the spot, my head thrown back like a loon, watching the dancing sunbeams and all the tiny rainbows they’re painting on the shiny golden fabric.
I wonder if the olden-days Victorian ladies took their Bibles and needlework up here on winter afternoons. I bet this room gets the best light in the house.
‘Nine o’clock,’ Izzy says, nudging me, and I tear my gaze away from the pretty, pretty light show towards where she’s pointing.
Oh yesss. A long, sturdy-looking wooden trestle table lines the near end of the room, and it’s stacked high with food.
Fucking hell, this is a real feast. From where I’m standing, I can spy quiches, and sandwiches, and sausage rolls, and cans of soft drinks piled high.
I’ll be seriously bloated after stuffing my face with that lot, but it will be worth every moment of gassy discomfort.
These dukes do hospitality well. I tend to think of aristocrats as being stingy fuckers sitting around in rundown piles that they can’t afford to heat, but it’s clear these guys have serious money.
No expense has been spared in here: not on the huge oil paintings of landscapes and posh people and their dogs that punctuate the walls, or on the lovely banquet they’ve laid out, or on the costumes, which are so gorgeous that I actually shriek when I see mine.
Apparently, these get used in actual TV dramas.
Not Grosvenor, sadly—I asked. Those costumes are all held in archive.
But these are a close second, because my dress is to die for.
My gown is made from powder-blue silky fabric that feels like real silk and is sewn with thousands of tiny pearly beads that shimmer when I walk.
The neckline is square, the sleeves puffed, and I’m happy to see that the edge of the neckline is subtly elasticated for easy access.
That’s excellent, because the sexy satin corsetry the costumier has rigged me into has my tits on a platter.
Seriously, they’re so high I could probably lick my own nipples.
And, speaking of nipples, the neckline is so low-cut that my nipples are just out of sight, bare against the silky lining of the dress because this corset has only demi-cups.
I like that. I like that the sexiness isn’t too overt, that the goods are just about hidden away.
It feels more erotic, more fitting for the era, and it’ll hopefully make it easier for me to act like a young lady until it’s crunch time.
The dress falls all the way to the floor, its empire waistline cutting right under my tits and helping with the whole ‘heaving bosom’ thing I have going on.
This is definitely the most covered up I’ve ever been while working at Alchemy.
My period gown is a big departure from the flimsy white host dress I wear most nights, and I’m digging it.
I’m going to make blushing Regency ingenue my entire personality tonight, right up until it’s time to find a vicious viscount or get thoroughly dicked down by a dirty duke.
My makeup is on point too: subtle and virginally sexy, but also somehow making me look radiant.
Anyone who can achieve that look when I’m currently so knackered from adulting is a bloody rockstar.
The yellowish bruise on my cheek from last week’s mug incident has been concealed.
My hair is curled and pinned up, but it’s not too over the top.
Not gonna lie, I was a bit worried about trying to pull off sex with a Queen Charlotte-level wig on.
But as Rory, the lovely Scottish bloke who just did my hair, explained, the directive was no wigs or hairpieces for that precise reason.
I suppose picking small, furry hairpieces out of the hair of the person you’re fucking would be a little off-putting.
I check my phone. Nothing from home, which is hopefully good news.
Tonight’s carer has my phone number, just in case.
I’m starting to relax now. Our small, shoddy flat on the grimy Harrow Road feels a world away, and I’m beginning to realise that tonight will actually be a lot of fun.
I should take this evening for me and allow myself to enjoy the glamour and the crazy money being thrown around.
It’s not like I’ll get to live this lifestyle again, unless this Benedict guy decides epic costume parties with sex workers should be a regular occurrence.