9. Xavier
Xavier
My brother may have described this Alchemy malarkey as upmarket, but I’m still shocked when I arrive on the doorstep of a very smart-looking white stucco townhouse bang slap in the middle of Mayfair’s Abermarle Street.
We’re surrounded by art galleries and boutique hotels and hedge funds.
I can’t imagine how many tens of millions of pounds’ worth of real estate they’re sitting on. Clearly, sex is a lucrative industry.
I’m not a member, and I don’t have an appointment, but I’m hoping I can muscle my way in through the sheer force of my name and position.
Nine centuries of entitlement tend to do that.
I’m also hoping they actually operate during normal business hours.
Two o’clock is not the most obvious time to rock up to a sex club.
As I ring the doorbell, I note that the glossy black front door is immaculate, and that I can see my reflection in the highly polished brass nameplate discreetly etched with Alchemy Members Club.
After a short wait, the door opens, and a stunning brunette stares at me. Like her front door, she’s impeccably groomed—even if her dress is indecently short—and I can’t help but think that my brother would be all over her if it weren’t for her neat baby bump.
On second thoughts, that probably wouldn’t stop him.
She cocks her head. ‘Ooh, I recognise you. Wait. Don’t tell me.’ She points her finger at me, and I rear back a little. ‘Got it! You’re the Duke of Oxford, am I right? You’re in this month’s Bazaar.’
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. If she recognises me, she’s more likely to let me in to talk to the powers that be.
‘Good spot. But my father is the Duke of Oxford. Xavier de Vere.’ I hold out my hand and give her my most debonair smile. I’m told I’m charming. May as well capitalise on the fact.
‘Of course you are! You’re Benedict’s brother! He’s such a sweetie. Come in.’ She stands back and opens the door wider. ‘Are you here about membership?’
‘I’m not. Actually, I was hoping to talk to Genevieve or Callum? I’m terribly sorry for dropping in unannounced—I just happened to be in town today.’ Nothing wrong with a little obsequiousness to smooth the path.
‘No worries. Come on through.’ She turns and walks down the hall. She really does have fantastic legs. ‘Cal’s out at the moment, but Gen’s around.’
I shut the heavy door behind me and follow her down the hallway, which is beautifully appointed.
The monochrome chequered floor shines beneath my feet.
To our right is a doorframe, and I follow her through to a delightful, sunny room that’s a wonderful example of Georgian architecture.
It’s neutrally, tastefully decorated, with a huge grey modular sofa taking up most of it.
Except—is that a—? I’d swear that pink sculpture in the corner is a vagina. How odd.
‘Take a seat.’ The brunette gestures at the sofa. ‘I’ll grab Gen for you. I’m Maddy, by the way.’
‘Thanks so much, Maddy,’ I say, lowering myself down onto the sofa. ‘I really appreciate it.’
She flashes me a dazzling smile and disappears through a set of double white-painted doors that are slightly ajar.
I let out a sigh and cast my eye around the room.
Vagina sculptures aside, the taste level here is really very high.
They must have a discerning clientele. It somehow makes me feel slightly more reassured, knowing that girl Ivy has been working somewhere like this and not your average grubby lap-dancing-with-favours bar.
Still, it’s bizarre to conceive that somewhere, within a scant few metres of this lovely drawing room, there exists a far tawdrier space where young women like Ivy are paid to do all manner of unimaginable things to Alchemy’s patrons.
It’s only a few seconds later that someone else comes through the doors—a statuesque platinum blonde dressed entirely, and expensively, in cream.
As I cast my eyes over her, I realise I recognise her.
Oh shit. I’m almost positive she’s married to the tycoon Anton Wolff.
I’ve seen her before at various industry mixers and in the press. She’s mixed up in all this?
She stops in front of me. The other woman—Maddy—may have seemed tickled to recognise me, but there’s nothing but low-level disapproval coming from this one. I scramble to my feet, feeling a little like a schoolboy in the headmistress’s office for some unfathomable reason, and stick out my hand.
‘Xavier de Vere. I’m so terribly sorry for dropping in unannounced.’ May as well double down on the obsequiousness. ‘Thanks so much for meeting with me.’
‘Genevieve Wolff.’ Her voice is as crisp as her handshake, her accent cut glass. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure? You’re Benedict’s brother, is that correct?’
‘Yes, that’s right. And, um, well, I—’ Gratefully, I drop back down to the sofa at her gesture.
She takes a seat opposite me, legs pressed together and feet bent to one side, hands clasped in her lap.
She’s the picture of elegance and poise, but her froideur threatens to have my elite education and the confidence my title gives me shattering. I take a deep breath.
‘You see, my brother invited some of your… team to a party we threw last week at our home. Belvedere?’
Her face softens slightly. ‘Ah, yes. I hear it went well. Benedict seemed pleased.’
I have no intention of mentioning at this point that I categorically vetoed any Alchemy staff’s attendance. ‘Yes, it was marvellous, thank you. We’ve had so much wonderful feedback from our guests.’
This is, in fact, true. The texts and cards that have poured in over the past week have painted an unequivocal picture of carnality that night at Belvedere. It seems the Alchemy team was a huge hit, and it also seems Selena and I were the only ones not to get our ends away.
Genevieve smiles. She’s at least a decade older than me, but she’s a very beautiful woman.
The aesthetics at this place seem off the charts.
‘I’m so pleased to hear that. Benedict is a very valued and much-loved member.
I’m so glad we were able to deliver. And I believe many happy returns are in order. ’ She inclines her head graciously.
I have no clue what is going on. I barged in, fully prepared to demand and receive answers about Ivy, yet here I am, fawning over every morsel Genevieve is willing to throw my way.
‘Ha! That’s very kind. Er—thank you.’ I clear my throat and put my palms on my thighs.
It’s proving to be a warm October, and I’m starting to sweat.
‘That was why I wanted to come in, actually. You see, my brother, in his infinite wisdom, arranged for me to, uh, meet one of your’—hookers—‘team members. Ivy?’
The blood is building in my face, and I’m powerless to stop it. She must think me the worst kind of sexually awkward, repressed upper-class knob.
She’s possibly not wrong.
Her mouth twitches. ‘Indeed.’
Indeed. That’s it. She doesn’t mention if she knows what went down—or not—between me and Ivy. This woman is implacability personified. She leaves me hanging, forcing me to press ahead as I attempt not to squirm openly.
‘Well, um, things were left slightly… unresolved, in that I believe my brother promised Ivy a bonus for services… rendered, which she didn’t receive.’ I cough delicately. ‘And I would like to make that right, with your help.’
Gen frowns. ‘I see. The thing is, Ivy doesn’t work here anymore.’
This I was not expecting. Not at all. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean that she’s moved on. Your party was her last night working for Alchemy.’
My jaw goes slack with horror. Oh my God—I rejected the poor girl, and she quit? A fresh wave of sweat hits me. ‘Was it me—was it something I—?’
‘No, Xavier. It was nothing you did or didn’t do.
’ She lets that hang there for a moment, and I understand that everyone from London to Oxfordshire knows I bottled it with Ivy.
Fucking excellent. ‘She’d already handed in her notice.
Your party was always going to be her last night working for Alchemy, as it happens. ’
At this point, I will admit to myself that I saw this going differently.
I’d never admit this to my brother, but I even imagined someone offering me a membership there and then, insisting that I was precisely the kind of high-calibre, well-bred client they valued, and suggesting I pop by later for a drink so I could at least speak to Ivy and make things right.
Even if I would never, ever do anything carnal in this place. Not at all.
But here we are instead at the most anticlimactic kind of impasse, and I’m at a bit of a loss.
Besides, I was just coming around to the idea that this place isn’t quite as awful as I imagined, that Ivy might even be safe working here, and now I have to regroup, because she’s—where?
Out on the streets? Selling her lovely body on a street corner in Soho?
‘But the money,’ I say dumbly. ‘I wanted to give her her bonus.’
Gen inclines her head. ‘You can make a bank transfer with her name as the reference, and we’ll pass it on. Or if you have cash, you can leave an envelope here for her and I’ll text her to come in and pick it up.’
No, that won’t do. That won’t do at all.
I cling mentally to the bonus I owe her as my only leverage, my life raft in this situation.
I want to make things right with her financially, but I also want to see her.
To apologise for being a little terse with her that night.
To make sure she’s okay, that there are no hard feelings.
Pun most definitely not intended.
‘I’d like to see her,’ I say as forcefully as I can. ‘I’d like to make things right in person.’
She smiles, and it’s a pitying smile. ‘We can’t pass our hosts’ personal details onto patrons. I’m sure you understand.’
Oh, Jesus. She thinks I’m some deluded stalker who’s hell-bent on extracting Ivy’s contact details using some lame financial pretext so I can track her down and slit her throat. Of course she does. That’s exactly how I’m presenting.
‘Oh God, no,’ I splutter. ‘Of course not. I never meant to—I would never—Of course.’
My brother would find this hysterical; I know he would. What a fucking mess I’m making.
‘Look.’ I sit up straighter, digging deep to locate the confidence, the gravitas, that is my birthright.
I’m a fucking future duke, not some random psycho, and I’d do well to remember it.
‘I understand completely. How about this? I’ll leave my card with you, and I’d be grateful if you would contact Ivy to see if she’d be willing to meet with me.
If she’s not keen, then no worries at all, and I’ll wire you some funds for her. How does that sound?’
‘That could work,’ she says thoughtfully.
I reach into the inner breast pocket of my blazer and fish out my De Vere Estate business card, passing it to her.
She studies it briefly, then fixes me with an icy blue glare.
‘Ivy’s a good girl. She really is. She’s one of the most decent, principled, hardworking people I know.
Human beings like her don’t come around too often, so please bear in mind that the last thing she needs is a guy who looks like you and is very likely used to getting exactly what he wants, especially from women. Do I make myself clear?’
I rear back at the force of her words, at the thinly disguised contempt for the kind of man she assumes me to be, and perhaps not unfairly.
I’m here, after all, using my privilege and charm to back-channel my way to achieving my end.
Genevieve Wolff must be a woman of the world, and she’s clearly a big hitter, even without her billionaire husband beside her.
While I’d take issue with her use of the word principled to describe someone who sells their body for sex, I’m reminded of Ivy’s parting words to me.
Perhaps our morals, our principles, are less absolute and more circumstantial than I’d like to admit.
In any case, Genevieve strikes me as a lethally sound judge of character, and she seems to hold Ivy in high esteem.
Far higher than the esteem in which she holds me, it seems.
‘Perfectly clear,’ I tell her. ‘And, for what it’s worth, I mean her no harm. I only want to make things right with her.’
She nods and stands, signalling that this chat is over while graciously declining to remind me that I could easily make things right by handing over a wad of cash and walking the fuck away.
‘I wouldn’t hold your breath, though,’ she says as I stand to take my leave. ‘Ivy has a lot going on right now, poor thing.’
Poor thing? Poor thing? What the hell does a lot going on mean?
My mind goes into instant spiralling mode.
I knew it. I just knew it. There was something about her the other night, despite her radiance and her practiced coquettishness and her apparent lack of inhibitions.
She feels, to my mind, to be, if not a tragic figure, then a vulnerable one.
And this is something I can help with. This is what we do—this is what we’ve done for the past nine hundred years: patronage.
Largesse, if you like. We can be benefactors and protectors and saviours.
We can help our subjects, come to the aid of those less fortunate than ourselves.
We can rescue them.
All I can do is wait and hope and pray that Ivy sees fit to accept my patronage.
It’s an agonising forty-eight hours later, when I’ve retreated back to Belvedere, that I receive a curt text from Genevieve. There’s no phone number for Ivy, like I hoped. Instead, an address. Apparently, she works eight to four, Monday to Friday, at a place on the Harrow Road.
Jan’s Caff. Not café. Caff. Sounds ghastly.
More importantly, she’s ‘willing’ for me to drop in.
It’s a lifeline, a breakthrough after what I feared might be a dead end.
And I’ll take it.