Chapter Twenty-Four
The King's Museum
Eleanor woke to the ladies of The Ladies Grace squealing and prattling in excitement. She groaned. How early was this? Why was everyone up so bloody early on the one day she wanted to sleep in?
Eleanor hid her head in the lone pillow, and hoped she could drift back to sleep for a few more hours. Facing the day might then become possible for her.
“My Lord, the ladies…” That sounded like a distressed Madam Grace. Good , she thought grimly, someone else can be in a bad mood today too .
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She lifted her head, confused. No-one knocked doors here, least of all Madam Grace. Either a messenger was hoping they could get something for free, or it could be a new girl to clean their rooms. Eleanor didn’t care and groaned into the pillow to hide from the day.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Seriously, who the fuck knocks here?
“Go away!” she grumbled into the pillow.
Madam Grace’s shrill voice rang through the room as the door burst open. “Eleanor!”
Shit.
She lurched from the thin mattress before the madam could drag her out of bed.
She threw off her covers, and the sheet snagged on the sea of empty wine bottles, which clattered and rolled across the wooden floor like a relentless tide.
She involuntarily winced at the noise that signalled she’d been drinking since returning from the Three Bells last night.
“I hardly think that’s necessary, Madam,” came a drawling velvet voice from her doorway.
Eleanor’s eyes shot to the familiar figure of the Dark Star—who she now knew was the Marquis of Laerus—and shit , there he was, filling her doorway.
Nothing about him belonged in this room; he was all deep blue velvet, jewels, and embellishments against the peeling plaster of her small room.
His fresh spicy scent wafted to her through the smell of stale, cheap wine.
Shit.
Shit.
Unconsciously, she ran a hand through her hair, luckily it was less dishevelled than she imagined. She quickly glanced down. Thank the Stars. She’d fallen asleep in her cotton robe, even though it had parted slightly, but it was no more revealing than the dresses he’d already seen her in.
“Eleanor, you will ready yourself,” Madam Grace instructed while smiling with her red painted lips.
Did that woman sleep with her makeup on, or did she not sleep at all?
“What?” Her eyes shot from Madam Grace to the marquis, whose enormous hat added to his looming presence at the door.
“You lost to me at cards last night. I’ve come to collect,” he said in that velvet soft voice.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
He was holding her to that bet. Of course he was. The prick . The bet went in his favour, so, of course, he’d be calling it in. He felt entitled to her and her time, as he put it.
Annoyed at his arrogance, she lifted her chin. “I’m not going anywhere.”
As Eleanor knew she would, Madam Grace raised her hand to strike her.
Instead of cowering as most the others did, Eleanor braced for the impact with a tight jaw and glared defiantly at the bitch willing her to hit her.
She wasn’t in the mood to play the shrinking courtesan.
She knew she’d be hit with the familiar sting on her cheeks regardless of her expression.
“Madam!” the marquis said in a voice she hadn’t heard from him before. He had lost his slow cadence and strode into the room with a severe look. “You will leave us,” he ordered.
Madam Grace glared at Eleanor, curtsied to the marquis, and left.
The marquis’s intervention surprised Eleanor. His gaze swept the room, seeing the plain room for what it was with its bare furniture and peeling walls. His eyes settled on her and ever so slightly softened.
“You have ten minutes to get ready.” His cold eyes flicked up and down her partially covered body. “Unless you’d prefer to go as you are?” His lip curled at the suggestion, with the implication that it wouldn’t matter either way to him.
Prick.
“Leave?” she croaked, still anticipating a hit from Madam Grace.
“A day,” he replied with a glint in his eyes she couldn’t place and turned on his polished black heeled boots.
The tapping of his cane against the corridor’s wooden floor trailed off as he left her stunned, in her dreary room that now felt much too small, empty, and cold.
Iris appeared in her doorway wide-eyed and clutching her faded purple robe around her. “You never said you bagged the marquis, flower.”
Eleanor couldn’t tell if Iris’s tone was an accusation or not. “I didn’t know who he was,” she sighed as she toed aside some empty bottles. “And I didn’t bag him. He’s probably just bored and toying with me or something.”
Eleanor dressed in the muted steel dress that Madam Grace had issued her with when she’d first come to the pleasure house.
It was still revealing, but unlike the shared dresses, it didn’t have such a long slit up her leg, nor did it have cut-out panels on her waist. It was practically a modest dress and therefore the warmest.
Eleanor turned her back to Iris, who was still hovering in her doorway, to strap her smallest dagger into her homemade thigh sheath. It resembled a knife more than the dagger she kept under her pillow, but the dress clung to her body and the outline of a dagger would be obvious.
The narrow blade was only a few inches long, but it’d serve her well if someone got too close for comfort or she needed to apply pressure in the correct points.
It wouldn’t take much to slit a throat or two if necessary.
A quick flick of her wrist and she’d get herself out of a difficult situation.
The tricky part was hiding the body afterwards; she’d left a fair few of them in backstreets.
No one batted an eyelid at a corpse in the Barrow, especially a corpse that was no longer a nuisance for the city guards.
City guards seldom patrolled the poorer parts of Breninsol, and blessedly, no one ever thought a woman could kill a man.
Idiots, the lot of them.
“If that’s what he wants, I wouldn’t mind being toyed with ,” Iris said, waggling her dark brows and flipping her dishevelled hair over her shoulder.
“Iris,” Eleanor groaned, pushing past her as she went to the shared bathing room, “it’s not like that.”
“Oh, come on,” Iris continued as she trailed behind. “Admit it. He’s delicious to look at.”
Eleanor didn’t listen to the murmuring from the others who were poking their heads out of their rooms and washed her face in the cold water.
“I’m not blind. Of course he’s handsome.”
Eleanor averted her eyes from her reflection and ran a broken comb through her tangled waves.
“When you become a marchioness, remember us here will you… your Ladyship?” Iris said, picking up her muted purple robe in a shaky curtsey while also flashing her naked self to Eleanor.
Eleanor scoffed. “Yes, a prostitute becomes one of the most influential and richest ladies in the land. I can see it now, and if that’s how you curtsey, you’re more likely to bag a lord sooner than me.”
“Who’s bagging the marquis?” Lucy yawned, running her hands through her tangled mess of hair.
“Oh, for the love of—” Eleanor muttered under her breath as she pushed past them both.
She paid no attention to the cackling coming from the two of them and the unhappy looks from the others, who’d decided that the hallway was now safe for them to emerge in various states of dishevelled undress.
Eleanor stifled a yawn as she wrapped her cloak around her, hating that she couldn’t wear her dark one that was securely hidden, and braced herself for the cold.
It annoyed her even more that he could have left her in bed instead of dragging her out in this weather.
A cruel reminder that her life wasn’t truly her own.
Her empty stomach sunk as she got closer to the waiting night-blue and silver carriage, seeing the man sitting inside.
Him. The bastard. Even from the street, Eleanor could see he was wearing the most ridiculously wide-brimmed feathered hat she’d ever seen.
Fury fuelled her as she stalked up to the carriage door being held open by a nondescript manservant.
“You!” she accused the pretentious man sitting within.
“Me,” he replied with more satisfaction than he should have. “Morning, darling,” he continued, giving her that maddening little smirk of his, and ignoring her annoyance.
“Don’t you darling , me!” she hissed. “What are you doing here?”
“Would you like to get in and we can have a more private discussion?” He tilted his head, amused at her expense, and lazily patted the seat next to him.
“No, I would not! I’m not going anywhere with you, ” she seethed.
“I’m afraid your…employer would disagree.” The infuriating man inclined his head to the front door of The Ladies Grace, where Madam Grace was standing on the steps watching Eleanor under a hard glare.
That expression was very familiar to her. One that said you will do as you’re told, or your life won’t be worth living . Although she didn’t care for living much, but she would do what was necessary to maintain access to alcohol and a dry bed.
“Clearly, it’s not up for discussion,” he said, flashing her those annoyingly perfect white teeth of his.
“Prick,” she hissed, then raised her voice with as much indignation as she could manage. “Fine.”
Eleanor got into the carriage, ignoring the second folded step, and went to sit on the padded bench opposite him. But, as the door snicked shut, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to sit where he’d been patting the cushioned seat next to him, and tutted.
“What do you—” Eleanor exclaimed.
“I think you’ll find it more comfortable here, darling.” He rapped his cane on the roof for the carriage to move.
Against her better judgement, she stayed sitting but folded her arms so as not to stab him. The seat was incredibly thick and comfortable. If Eleanor wasn’t careful, she could sink back and allow the rocking of the carriage to lull her to sleep.