A Bluestocking's Vice: Dukes of the Demi-Monde: Book Four Read online

  A Bluestocking’s Vice

  by Felicia Greene

  ‘Sin!’ Rebecca Westbrook’s strident voice filled the London street with very little effort. She shook the sign she had painted, struggling to see her own brightly daubed words in the absence of her spectacles, sadly broken the day before. ‘These dens of iniquity offer no true shelter or succour, ladies and gentlemen! They are—oh, no, oh goodness…’

  A sudden gust of wind had almost blown her sign away. Rebecca glared at the sky with hearty annoyance, then turned to the tall, imposing facade of the Cappadene Club to glare with even more venom.

  If pleasure-houses such as these would simply close their doors, and give the poor wretches working within them decent wages for decent work elsewhere, she would have no need to stand shouting outside their gates on a windy day in June. If they had simply replied to the polite letter she and the other ladies from the Society of the Prevention of Vice had sent some weeks ago, she could have sat in a drawing room with one of the mysterious owners—Sir Marcus Bennington, or that awful rake James Hildebrande—and calmly stated her terms.

  No answer to the letter meant no mercy. It meant signs, and shouting, and embrarrassment for the Cappadene Club and anyone fool enough to walk inside it. No, her usual companions were not with her, yes, there was a large conflagration three streets away which had attracted everyone within a mile, no, no-one seemed to be either arriving at the Club, or leaving it…

  Lord, why did the day have to be so fearfully hot? Her hat was so heavy on her head, her hair so full of pins it practically bristled, like a separate creature. Rebecca, swallowing painfully as a bead of sweat travelled down her brow, prepared to give the spirited cry again.

  ‘Sin!’ Her voice refused to co-operate, emerging as weakly as a kitten. ‘These dens of iniquity offer no true shelter or succour, ladies and gentlemen! They are… they are…’

  Oh, for goodness’ sake. There was no-one in the street, the air was boiling like a lobster-pot, and if she wasn’t careful she would faint in the middle of the road. Rebecca eyed the stridently-painted sign with unusual venom as she leaned it against the railings of the Cappadene Club, putting a hand to her corset.

  Too tight. Always laced too tightly. Every part of her felt like her constrained waist— tight, hot, and more than capable of bursting under the correct amount of pressure.

  She would need to seek refreshment. That much was evident. Alas, none of the coffee-houses within the immediate vicinity looked upon the Vice Prevention ladies with a kindly eye. Rebecca viewed the tempting, highly-polished shopfronts with bitter jealousy, wishing she hadn’t spent quite so much time protesting about the consumption of coffee outside of them. A useless protest, ultimately—coffeehouses had turned out to be far more palatable than public houses—and now her ill-chosen morals would leave her thirsty.

  She stared at the deserted street, narrowing her eyes. Closed door, closed door, closed door, closed door… oh, no.

  The only door ajar in the entire road was the side-door to the Cappadene Club.

  There was no way on earth that she could enter the very establishment she was publically criticising. That would represent a moral failure of the most… the most profound kind…

  … but if she fainted outside of the Cappdene Club, lying in the middle of the street like a drunken wretch? If someone found her? Or worse—if no-one found her for half an hour, an hour, under the burning sun?

  She had chosen the worst time possible to protest. Not that she could have predicted a fire three streets away, but still. This, from start to finish, had been a foolish idea.

  ‘Idiocy.’ Rebecca looked at the sign, abandoning it with a shudder. Such violently daubed statements had seemed the very height of bravery two or three years ago, but felt sillier every day. She stared at the side-door, so invitingly ajar. ‘Pure, pure idiocy…’

  There was nothing else for it. She would have to duck inside the very building she was protesting against, for fear of being overcome by the heat. Her mother and father would be horrified if she were found in such a state—they were horrified by most things, but their oldest and most unimpeachably moral daughter found unconscious in the road would represent a fresh hell for them.

  With a final look at her sign, rolling her eyes, Rebecca darted around the side of the Club. Not wishing to touch the brickwork, lip curled in distaste at the damp and moss at the borders of the alleyway, she stepped through the side-door as quickly as she could.

  The shade of the corridor was a balm to the soul after the excesses of sun in the street. Rebecca took a moment to lean gratefully against the wall, breathing in the cool air with eagerness, before coming to her senses with a wave of nervousness.

  No-one would see her, would they? She couldn’t bear to be found here by a worker—or worse, the management. The idea of seeing James Hildebrande or Marcus Bennington with her clothes and hair in such a disordered state was anathema. But as Rebecca listened intently, cool plaster against her skin, she realised that the Club was silent.

  People wouldn’t be visiting at this hour. Even London gentlemen, with all their debauchery, didn’t go to pleasure-houses in the early afternoon. But there would be people, here surely? The courtesans, the maids, the cooks…

  … but it was silent. Silent as a grave. Or a church, which Rebecca found rather funny before upbraiding herself for blasphemy.

  Whatever the reason was for such unusual silence, she could use it to her advantage. Perhaps they had all run away to look at the fire, like the rest of London. The Club had become a small oasis of peace, where she could sit in determinedly moral silence until she had summoned up enough energy to leave. Enough protest for the day—it had been a foolish idea to come in the first place, at such an inconvenient hour, in the absence of Elizabeth or Mary.

  There was even a chair, and small table. Perhaps someone sat here to oversee the servants—presumably the main entrance was much grander, although this corridor was swathed in the seedy sort of luxury that Rebecca found deeply suspicious. Eyeing the chair, trying not to sigh with relief as she sank into its comforting depths, she looked at the small table with surprise.

  Water biscuits, and a refreshing tonic? What an unexpected touch of consideration from a notorious den of iniquity. The tray of biscuits even had a delicately-painted ring of flowers around its rim. Rebecca eyed the refreshments with deep suspicion, trying to remain indifferent, but her hunger and thirst won out in the end.

  The bottle of tonic—was it tonic, or cordial?—was unusual in design. A dark red, with its contents all-but hidden behind the glass. Rebecca picked the bottle up, examining the writing on the gold-rimmed label.

  The Reviver. Well, that sounded promising. She was hot, and listless, and practically dying of thirst—revival was exactly what she needed. Removing her hat and gloves, she unstopped the bottle, picking up one of the small glasses sat next to the water biscuits and pouring out a generous measure of the liquid.

  It was pink. Pink as the innermost petals of a rose. A strange, dreamy scent rose from the glass as Rebecca put her nose to it, breathing in the intoxicating perfume of a thousand flowers.

  There was something beneath the floral explosion. A dark musk—something unnacountably intense. Rebecca, far too thirsty to investigate, put the glass to her lips without further thought.

  She drained the glass, sighing with relief as the coolness of the drink spread through her body. Better than strawberry ice, better than mint tea—better even than pure water. The taste was light, soft, like a cloud… no, not like a cloud, like fruit, like the promise of fruit…

 
; … what was that strange aftertaste? And why was the coolness in her body turning rapidly to heat—a bright, wicked heat, prickling through her skin like a teasing touch?

  Poison. It had to be poison. But wasn’t poison meant to make one feel unpleasant?

  This wasn’t unpleasant. It was exactly the opposite. Rebecca, bolting from her chair as crumbs of water biscuit fell onto the carpet, looked at the bottle in horror.

  She felt… strange. It was the same sensation she struggled with sometimes, alone in bed, after an exhausting day of protest. An image would flit through her mind—a pair of broad shoulders, or particularly dark eyes—and something would flower within her, sharp and enticing. Something that pooled at the meeting of her thighs, and her breasts, and—and oh, all of the parts of her body that were meant to be ignored, or minimised, or fought.

  Rebecca had fought. However much she had wished to slide her hand between her legs, as she knew other women did, she had never succumbed. It had led to nights of tears, and days of irritation—but she had held firm.

  She didn’t feel firm now. Every part of her was suddenly singing—no, more violent than singing. Begging to be touched, pleading for it, with an urgency that terrified her.

  She had to run away. Had to overcome this vicious feeling, stamp it out. Rebecca began to move towards the half-open door, biting back a gasp at the way her clothes rustled against her body, looking out into the empty street with wide, desperate eyes.

  What could she do? She certainly couldn’t tell anyone beyond these four walls how she felt—she was Rebecca Westbrook! The gossip would engulf the city! The feeling was growing stronger by the minute, by the second, a storm of pure sensation threatening to overwhelm her…

  … and she was in the only place that could possibly understand her predicament.

  The thought was almost too horrifying to exist. Rebecca shut her eyes, fervently trying to forget it—but her brain was as rebellious as her body.

  The Cappadene Club was used to such conditions. Such—such desires. If she managed to find someone here, anyone, and explain her predicament… oh, Lord, perhaps they would have an antidote! An antidote, or water, or… or some sort of relief.

  Relief. Rebecca looked guiltily at the opposite wall, where a painted couple was cavorting in a disgraceful manner. She had always avoided looking at such images before, smugly certain of her own power to resist their attractions.

  Now that she examined them, in her current state, they were far more fascinating than she had ever imagined.

  ‘Relief.’ The word left her lips in a soft, incredulous whisper. With a last look at the half-open door, gathering her courage, Rebecca ventured further into the Club.

  The private study of the Cappadene Club had a markedly different air to the public rooms. The furniture was less sumptuous, the walls patterned with innocent flowers and trees rather than the more licentious images found on the rooms where clients were entertained. Apart from the half-open wardrobe full of scandalous costumes, and the various pictures and objects scattered around that showed scenes of a decidedly forbidden nature, it could be the study of any refined gentlemen’s club.

  Not that John Peterson had any inside knowledge of refined gentlemen’s clubs. Valets were normally confined to homes, not the hallowed halls of establishments like White’s and Boodle’s. Still, as the newspaper article he was reading began to lose interest, Peterson wondered if the sinful images he could see over the top of the paper could be found in many other public spaces.

  Probably. He found himself more and more out of step with the world with every passing day—and he was barely on the cusp of forty.

  Was that a rustling downstairs? Peterson rose from his chair in the study of the Cappadene Club, listening intently. When no more noise came, he settled back down with a slightly disappointed sigh.

  At this point, he would welcome a distraction. He wasn’t even meant to be here—Sir Marcus, his master, had no need of a valet in his place of work. This was meant to have been a rapid meeting, to keep Sir Marcus informed of how the search for a new butler at Knight’s Circle was progessing—and then came the bloody fire three streets away.

  Peterson didn’t give a damn about any sort of fire, unless it was a fire engulfing his house. Not that a few cleansing flames moving through Hanbird Street wouldn’t improve the area, come to think of it. But Sir Marcus had property interests in the Watterson Quarter, and half of the working girls shared rooms there, and the other half of the working girls couldn’t resist a spectacle… and so, in less than fifteen minutes, the Cappadene Club had become completely deserted.

  Peterson was perfectly capable of manning an empty building. He was even more capable of doing so in a comfortable study, reading a newspaper and with ready access to high-quality snuff. The Cappadene Club, however… well, he had never told Sir Marcus, but pleasure-houses weren’t his cup of tea at all.

  He knew he was meant to enjoy pleasure-houses. Every gentleman was—and it wasn’t as if he’d never visited the slightly more downmarket establishments when he was a younger man, eager for indiscriminate pleasure. Now, with the benefits bestowed by richer years and bitter experience, he couldn’t imagine a more depressing way of spending an evening.

  The Cappadene Club was the premier pleasure-house when it came to the welfare of the women and men working there. Peterson knew that for a fact; the working girls drank in the same pub as he did, and there was much envious talk of how well they were paid and how much relative freedom they enjoyed. He had no doubt that they were experts in their specific field—and unlike many other pleasure-houses, every man and woman was both healthy and of a correct age. But still… pleasure, traded for money, was unpleasant no matter how much money changed hands.

  What room was there for love? Peterson didn’t consider himself a romantic; he had lived with women, loved women, and seen how beautiful things could both flourish and burn. He also knew that love could flourish in the most unlikely of places—one only needed to look at Sir Marcus to see that. His master, one of England’s richest men, certainly hadn’t been expecting to fall in love with the Cappadene Club’s newest employee… and now he and Elsie, a fine young woman, were expecting their first child.

  Peterson let the newspaper drop to the desk, lost in thought. He had never particularly wanted children—but then, he had never had the chance to think seriously about it. The women he had loved had been flighty, looking for a more successful husband than a valet. More than that, they had lacked seriousness—a way of viewing the world as something to be improved, enriched, rather than a mere playground.

  Helen, his sister, had viewed the world far too seriously. For her the world was so miserable, its pain so unrelenting, that she sought oblivion through as much cheap drink as she could find.

  Would she be faring better in Truro? The nurses were so kind, but his sister’s letters were few and far between. When they came, they never contained the sort of information that Peterson truly needed—if she was happy. She was safe, she was managing, she was beginning to embroider, to watch birds, to cook… but her happiness, her peace, were never mentioned.

  Now was not the time for such miserable thoughts. Now was the time to read the newspaper, perhaps filch a pinch or two of snuff, and consider ways in which society could be improved. Not look around him at the decadent luxury on display, wondering what it would be like to be a habitual client of such a place.

  What could entice him to enter a pleasure-house of his own accord? Essentially nothing. Only if a woman was beckoning from an upstairs window, blonde and sighing, promising him that no money would need to be paid…

  … promising him that he was needed, just as he was.

  Peterson gave a harsh sigh as he put his hands behind his head. Being in these surroundings was clearly not conducive to maintaining a sound mind. If anything, a lack of clarity was probably what the Club wanted from its clients. Perhaps he could simply sleep for a little while, until the fire was put out and the realcri
tant workers came home. Hopefully, he wouldn’t dream of miserable things—or worse, pleasurable things, when he had no acceptable means of relief.

  The door banged open. Peterson automatically rose to his feet, confused, as a woman practically ran into the room.

  She looked… heated. Heated was the only word that Peterson’s naturally sympathetic brain was prepared to use. There were other words that were certainly more appropriate—undone, aroused—but for now, he carefully avoided them.

  ‘Madam.’ He rose from the desk, wondering how Sir Marcus would manage the situation. His master lacked an iron will, but had a way with people that Peterson had never quite succeeded in emulating. ‘The establishment is currently—’

  ‘I require relief.’ The woman said the words in a hurried, breathless way. A way couldn’t help but draw attention to the way her chest rose and fell, restrained beneath her tight bodice. ‘Immediately.’

  This was somewhat far beyond the scope of Peterson’s duties. The women he spoke to in daily life were friends, workmates—they certainly have these sorts of conversations. They didn’t run to him, flushed and flaxen-haired with bitten lips, saying things that could be taken in a way that went leagues past indecent and brushed the borders of sinful.

  Apparently, he’d been leading a somewhat dull life.

  He cleared his throat. ‘May I ask what—’

  ‘The antidote. Water. Something.’ The woman’s hand moved to her waist; she softly, absent-mindedly stroked the curve of her own body as Peterson watched, wide-eyed. He’d never seen a woman look so abandoned outside of a bedroom. ‘Whatever reverses—whatever stops this.’

  Antidote? What on earth had she ingested? Peterson moved closer, looking carefully at the woman’s lips for signs of froth or a creeping blue shade. But there was nothing—just the reddened, ripe flower of her mouth, quivering as she breathed. ‘I can give you water.’

  The woman nodded. ‘Please.’

  Peterson poured a glass of water from the enamelled jug on the desk, his mind racing. Was she mad—had she escaped from a nearby institution? She didn’t look like a folorn waif; her clothes were respectable, her colouring genteel apart from the strange flush at the base of her neck.