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CHAPTER ONE

The Moon:
Take care, for all
is not as it seems

T
HE
CLOCK
ON
S
T
. P
AUL
’
S
C
HURCH
was chiming the hour of ten as Margery went down the servants’
steps into the basement of Mrs. Tong’s brothel. She had not intended to arrive
so late. Normally, she called at the Temple of Venus during the day when there
were no customers and the courtesans were resting in their rooms in anticipation
of a busy night ahead. Mrs. Tong’s girls were generous, which was more than
could be said for Mrs. Tong herself. They let Margery into their rooms and let
her take away their discarded gowns, hats, gloves, anything they had finished
with, in return for the fresh pastries and sweetmeats that Margery made
herself.

Tonight Margery had brought candied pineapple and marzipan
treats, sugar cakes and tiny Naples biscuits made of sponge and jam.

She made her way up the back stairs to the boudoir on the first
floor. The room was a riot of color, silk cushions in purple and gold, red
velvet curtains drawn against the night. The air was thick with chatter and the
scent of perfume and candle wax. The girls were ready for their night’s work but
they almost swooned with greed and delight when they saw Margery with her
marketing basket. They ran to fetch scarves and gloves to trade for the
cakes.

“Girls, girls!” Mrs. Tong bustled in with the air of a circus
trainer rounding up her performing animals. “The gentlemen are arriving!” The
madam clapped her hands sharply. “Miss Kitty, Lord Carver is asking for you.
Miss Martha, try to charm Lord Wilton this time. Miss Harriet—” she permitted a
small, chilly smile to touch her lips “—the Duke of Tyne is very pleased with
you.”

Mrs. Tong tweaked a neckline lower here and a hemline upward
there, then sent her girls down to the salon. They left in a chatter of
conversation and a cloud of perfume, waving farewell to Margery, licking the
sugar from their fingers. Margery watched them flutter down the main staircase
like a flock of brightly colored birds of paradise. Accustomed to coming and
going via the servants’ passage, she had only once glimpsed the brothel’s
reception rooms; they had seemed lush and mysterious, a dangerous and different
world, draped with bright silks and rich velvets, adorned with the prettiest and
most skillful courtesans in London.

The room emptied, the chatter died away. Mrs. Tong’s dark,
beady gaze passed over Margery dismissively, as if she was a trader who knew the
price of everything and could see nothing worth her time. Margery knew what Mrs.
Tong was thinking. She had seen that thought reflected in people’s eyes for
years. She was small and plain, a mouse of a creature, all shades of brown. No
one ever wasted a second look on her. She was used to it and she did not care.
Good looks, Margery had often observed in her career in service, so often led to
trouble.

“You’d best be on your way.” Mrs. Tong popped one of Margery’s
marzipan treats into her mouth and blinked in ecstasy as the sugar melted on her
tongue. “Make sure you take the back stairs,” she added, sharply. The sugar had
not sweetened her mood. “I don’t want any of the customers thinking you work for
me.” She caught the corner of a golden gown that was trailing from Margery’s
basket. “Is that wasteful strumpet Kitty throwing this away? There’s plenty more
wear in it.” She tugged and the gown fell to the floor in a waterfall of silk
and lace. “Go on, be off with you. And leave those pineapple candies.”

“No gown, no pineapple,” Margery said firmly.

Mrs. Tong rolled her eyes. She bundled the gown up and threw it
at Margery, who caught it neatly. Mrs. Tong pounced on the packet of
candies.

“I’ll take the marzipan, as well,” she said, snatching it from
the basket.

Margery’s last glimpse of Mrs. Tong, as she closed the door and
slipped out onto the landing, was of the bawd slumped in a wing chair, wig
askew, legs akimbo, stuffing sweetmeats into her painted face as though she were
a starving woman.

The landing was quiet and shadowed. The girls were downstairs
now, plying their customers with wine and flirtatious conversation. No doubt
Mrs. Tong would be joining them as soon as she had recovered from her excesses.
Margery could hear snatches of music and laughter from the open doors of the
salon. She trod softly toward the servants’ stair, her steps muffled by the
thick carpet. Even had she lost the golden gown through Mrs. Tong’s miserliness,
she would still have had a good haul tonight. There were three pairs of gloves,
two hats—one of which was squashed flat, rolled upon in an amorous encounter,
perhaps—two more gowns, one ominously ripped, a beautiful silk scarf that was a
little stained with wine, and an assortment of undergarments. These had
surprised Margery; the girls had told her they wore none.

Billy would be pleased with her. There was a great deal of
material that could be reused and clothing that could be resold. Margery’s
brother and his wife ran a shop in Giltspur Street that traded in secondhand
clothes and various other things. Margery never enquired too closely into the
nature of Billy’s business interests—she suspected he was a fence for stolen
goods—but he was fair to her and gave her a cut of the profits on the materials
she brought in.

Tomorrow, on her day off, she would deliver the clothes and
join Billy, Alison and their brood of infants for tea. Tonight, though, she had
to get back to Bedford Square. Lady Grant was the kindest of employers but even
she might be taken aback to learn that her lady’s maid visited the London
brothels on a regular basis.

Margery was halfway along the landing when her foot caught in
the Turkey carpet and she stumbled. The basket lurched from her hand. The golden
gown, which she had quickly stuffed on top, unrolled like a balloon canopy,
tumbled through the gaps in the wrought-iron banister and floated slowly and
elegantly down to land in a heap on the marble floor of the hall below.

Margery stood transfixed. She did not want to lose the
expensive silk gown, and she had traded three packets of sweetmeats for it.

On the other hand, she did not want to get caught venturing
into those parts of the brothel that were forbidden to her. Mrs. Tong was quite
capable of refusing her entry ever again if she broke the rules, and then a very
lucrative source of income would be lost to her.

Very slowly, very carefully, Margery started to tiptoe down the
broad main stair, all senses alert to discovery. She was halfway down the steps
when there was a sound from above and she froze, pressing back into a shadowy
alcove among erotic statues of naked frolicking nymphs and shepherds. Something
long and hard prodded her in the ribs—a phallus belonging to a marble satyr with
a particularly dreamy expression on his face. There was no wonder he looked so
happy. Margery looked critically at his physique. She had no firsthand knowledge
of such matters but common sense told her that it simply could not be life-size.
Perhaps all Mrs. Tong’s statues were overendowed. Margery hoped they did not
make the customers feel too inadequate.

Margery took another cautious step down, then another. Only
three more to go and then she would be standing on the black-and-white-checkered
floor of the brothel’s hall and the beautiful golden gown would be within her
grasp. She would grab it, stuff it back in the basket and scoot through the
green baize door that led to the servants’ quarters below stairs.

It was a simple plan and it almost worked.

She’d almost reached the entrance to the servants’ quarters
when she saw that someone was blocking her way. It was not Mrs. Tong, full of
righteous indignation, but a man, lounging in the shadows. He did not move. Nor
did he speak.

The candlelight skipped across his face, emphasizing some
features, concealing others. Margery could see that he had black hair but not
the precise shade. It needed a cut. His face was thin and brown with high
cheekbones that reminded her of the carved stone statues she had seen in
churches. He had a groove down each cheek where he smiled and a groove in his
chin, as well. An odd shiver rippled through her, for this was a man with a
saint’s face but with sinner’s eyes, dark, wicked eyes, hiding secrets. His
brows were strong and dark, too, and his mouth neither too thin nor too wide.
When he smiled, Margery realized that she was staring at him, staring in fact at
his mouth, which looked tantalizingly firm.

A bolt of heat streaked through her, fierce and unfamiliar,
like the burn of spirits. It made her tingle and set her head spinning. She took
a step back, trying to steady herself. It was very hot in the brothel. Perhaps
that was why she felt so faint all of a sudden, or perhaps she was sickening for
something, as her grandmother would have said.

Still the gentleman did not move. He looked at Margery. She
looked back at him. He
was
a gentleman; there was no
doubt about that. He was beautifully dressed, something Margery, with her eye
for style and color, was quick to appreciate. His cravat was tied in a
complicated arrangement she did not even recognize, and held by a diamond pin. A
jacket of elegant proportions fit his shoulders without a wrinkle, in much the
same way that his tight buckskins clung to his thighs. A dandy, Margery thought.
She had a servant’s finely honed instinct for recognizing various qualities in
men and women. This was a man of fashion, but she sensed that there was more to
him than that, something dark, deep, dangerous perhaps, in a way she could not
begin to understand. She shivered.

He was blocking her escape.

“May I help you, sir?” she asked, wanting to bite back the
words as soon as they were spoken, for she realized that they were perhaps not
the most felicitous choice in a brothel.

Something flared in his eyes like the shimmer of heat from the
candles. He straightened and took a step closer to her. Margery involuntarily
tightened her grip on the handle of her basket. The wooden struts creaked.

“I am sure that you can.” His voice was very mellow. He sounded
amused. His mouth had curled into another slow smile. It crept into those dark
eyes and lit them with warmth that made Margery’s face burn. The strange
awareness drummed more persistently in her blood.

This is a rake. Take care
....

“I don’t work here,” she said quickly.

He paused. His gaze slid over her in a slow, thorough
appraisal. Oh, yes, this was a rake. He knew how to look at a woman. There was
an expression in his eyes that Margery had seen before. She had seen it in the
eyes of many men looking upon the beautiful scandalous ladies for whom she had
worked. She had also seen it in the gaze of people looking at her homemade
sweetmeats. It was a mixture of greed and speculation and desire.

No one had ever looked at her in that way. No one had looked at
her
as though they wanted to eat her up, sample
her, taste her and savor that pleasure. Such an idea was absurd, impossible.

Except that it was not, for this man was looking at her with
acute interest and—she gulped, her throat suddenly dry—definite desire.

There had to be some mistake. He was confusing her with someone
else.

“You don’t work here,” he repeated softly. He took a step
closer to her, put out a hand and touched her cheek lightly with the back of his
fingers. He wore no gloves and his hand was warm. Margery’s skin felt even
hotter now.

“I’m only visiting,” she said in a rush.

His eyes widened. That smile, like sunshine on water, deepened.
“There’s nothing wrong in that,” he said.

“No! I mean—” Margery floundered. “I’m not here to—” She
stopped, wondering how on earth to describe the many and varied sexual practices
that Mrs. Tong’s customers indulged in and she did not.

“I’m a lady’s maid,” she blurted out.

“Of course, you wish to be incognito.” The stranger shrugged.
“Don’t worry. Mrs. Tong caters to all tastes. Many ladies enjoy dressing up as
maids. Marie Antoinette, for example.” He smiled. “The marketing basket is a
nice touch.”

“I’m not dressing up,” Margery said. She whispered it because
he was now so close that she seemed to have lost the power of speech. “I really
am a lady’s maid.”

The stranger laughed. “Then it is enterprising of you to
supplement your income like this.”

Oh, lord. Now he thought she worked part-time as a lightskirt.
It was not unheard of. Margery knew plenty of maidservants who sold their
favors. It was more lucrative than scrubbing floors. It was whispered about Town
that Lord Osborne had once visited his favorite brothel only to be confronted
with his housemaid, who was working as a courtesan on the side. Margery had
never considered supplementing her income that way. When she had left Berkshire
for London it had been with her grandmother’s warnings ringing in her ears.

“London is a cesspool of vice,” Granny Mallon had said. “You
take my word for it—I’ve been there once. Keep yourself nice for your husband,
my girl.”

Margery had not cared much about finding a husband but she did
care about keeping herself nice. It was important to her.

Besides, no one had asked her to give up her virtue anyway.
Lady Grant’s twin footmen were too pretty and too much in love with themselves
to notice anyone else, and the rest of the male staff were too young, or too old
or too unattractive. And they were her friends. Margery had not felt a single
amorous flutter toward any of them.

She did have a servant follower, Humphrey, who was the second
gardener at the house next door. He brought her flowers and moped about the
kitchen inarticulately, staring at her and reddening if she spoke to him.
Humphrey reminded Margery of a stray animal. She felt pity for him and a kind of
impatient affection. He did not make her tremble, or cause her knees to weaken,
as they were weakening now. He did not make the breath catch in her throat or
her heart beat like a drum, as it was beating now.