The Scandalous Life of a True Lady
The Scandalous Life of a True Lady
The Scandalous Life of a True Lady
By Barbara Metzger
Copyright 2013 by Barbara Metzger
Cover Copyright 2013 by Ginny Glass
and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 2008.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Also by Barbara Metzger and Untreed Reads Publishing
A Loyal Companion
A Suspicious Affair
An Angel for the Earl
An Enchanted Affair
Cupboard Kisses
Father Christmas
Lady Whilton’s Wedding
Rake’s Ransom
The Duel
The House of Cards Trilogy:
Ace of Hearts
Jack of Clubs
Queen of Diamonds
Valentines
To Dreamers and Believers
The Scandalous Life of a True Lady
By Barbara Metzger
Chapter One
Virginity was just another commodity, like coal or carrots. That’s what Simone told herself, anyway. She had no coal to heat her rented attic room, no carrots—or anything else—in her tiny larder. In fact she would not have a cot to sleep in or a roof over her head at the end of the week, not without the rent money. She had no hidden skills, no new talents, nothing that could earn her a living, much less keep her young brother in school and out of the manufacturies or mines.
Simone Ryland was willing to work, and had tried for the last three years since her parents’ deaths. She had taught languages learned from her half-French mother, and tutored in Latin, her scholar father’s passion. Each position had ended in failure or flight, since each post had included dealing with the master of the house, an older son, a superior male servant, even a visiting clergyman at one residence. They all seemed to think that the red-haired governess was fair game. One so-called gentleman would bear the brand of a fireplace poker for the rest of his life, proof she was not playing. Simone almost landed in prison that time, except the baron’s wife did not wish the scandal of a trial. Now Simone had no references, thus no chance of being hired by a school as instructress, or a respectable household as governess, nursemaid, companion, secretary, or parlor maid. She did not cook well enough to be considered for kitchen staff.
Shopkeepers wanted male clerks, seamstresses wanted faster sewers, theaters wanted women who could sing or dance, if they could not act. Simone had tried her hand at serving in a tavern. She’d raised her hand at two lecherous drunks, lost the pub money, and lost her job, along with her bed and board. For a peaceful person, Simone was resorting to more violence than she had seen in her life, all to protect her last valuable asset. Diamonds could be sold and recut, then sold again. Virginity, that sought-after commodity, had one sale, once. A man had no other way of knowing his children were of his own line. The loftier the title, the greater the wealth, the wider the acres, the more a chaste bride was valued. Let a stableboy’s son inherit an earldom? Hell, no.
Simone’s worth as a bride no longer mattered; finding her next meal did. She had nothing left to sell, no jewels or books or fancy fabrics, only herself. And time was running out. Not just the month’s rent and her brother’s tuition, but her looks and her youth. At twenty-two, she was growing old in a business that valued fresh-faced girls from the country; worry and hunger did nothing for her appearance. It was now or never, do or die. Then her brother Auguste would die with her, his chances of a better life at least. Condemn Auguste to ignorance and poverty? She could not do that, at whatever cost.
Her half-French mother would shriek and tear at her clothes. Her English father would bluster and bellow. But they were the ones who left her—unintentionally, of course; no one could have foreseen the riding accident or the influenza epidemic that carried them away—without a guardian, without a dowry, without a bank account. Her mother’s relations had likely perished in France; her father’s family had paid him an annuity to stay away after his embarrassing misalliance to tainted blood. The Ryland remittance had ended with Papa’s death, with no acknowledgment except a message from the bank saying the payments would cease. The only legacy her parents left were medical bills and a little boy. Simone sold their house, then her father’s books and her mother’s clothes and trinkets, just to get Auggie to boarding school, so he could go on to university to become something, anything. Simone hoped he’d choose the law, since she’d lost respect for the church and was afraid of his chances in the army.
Auggie would join up in an instant, she knew. He’d stick his scrawny chest out and forbid her to take up a life of sin. Then he’d go get himself shot. Or else he’d take a job at the mills and die in the machines.
No. Simone had sworn to her mother to look after him. Besides, her practical side reminded her, his sacrifice would not help her one bit. A bookish boy could never earn enough to support the both of them, not even as a clerk in some dreary office. She could, by sacrificing her honor, her hopes for marriage, her self-esteem. To be realistic—which hunger encouraged her to be—Simone knew she was lucky to have kept her maidenhead this long. Sooner or later some employer or customer or chance-met stranger was going to trap her in a dark corner, simply because she was unprotected and too weak to defend herself, despite the long hat pin that adorned her reticule. Why, even Mr. Fordyce, the first floor boarder, crowded her on the stairs when he thought their landlady wasn’t looking. Mrs. Olmstead said he was a financier of some kind, making investments and reaping the profits. Simone thought he was peculiar, if not scary, the way he never spoke or smiled, and always wore a black knitted scarf around his neck, even when the weather was mild. The thought of being his victim made Simone shudder now, while the sun shone brightly.
No, better she sell her virginity, rather than let some dastard steal it from her. She might as well profit from its loss.
Her degradation would not last forever, either. Well, her purposeful fall from grace was irredeemable, Simone supposed, but her new occupation would last only until Auguste became a solicitor, perhaps even a barrister in time, able to keep them both from the poorhouse. He, at least, would be respectable enough to tell the Rylands to go to the devil.
Which was right where Simone was headed now, before she lost her nerve.
Luckily the path to perdition started nearby.
Mrs. Olmstead’s rooming house faced a larger, more handsome establishment diagonally across the street. From her high, narrow window, Simone could see carriages coming and going all evening. Some were hired hacks, but many of the coaches had crests on their doors, liveried grooms, and high-bred horses between the traces. Others were expensive sporting vehicles, with, she guessed, more expensive horses. By the street lamp’s light she could tell that the gentlemen who stepped down were all elegantly dressed, swinging their walking sticks and top hats as if they had no concerns. They could afford a night’s pleasure; their reputations were not in jeopardy for entering the premises. None appeared terribly inebriated, although Simone never stayed awake to watch the last departures. They never escorted any of the women out, unless they used a rear door.
Simone had seen the women. To her landlady’s horror, the ladies of the night attended Sunday morning services at nearby St. Jerome’s. Mrs. Olmstead had pulled Simone away to a further pew, lest she be tainted. The females, some mere girls, were not all painted and rouged, with raddled cheeks or bare chests. Granted some of them looked tired, many appeared petulant at having to come out on their day off, but they did not seem all that different from the rest of the congregants. They had no horns sprouting from their heads, no marks of shame branded on their foreheads.
The madam herded them in, then proceeded them out after the sermon, which always dwelled on the sins of the flesh. The abbess, as Mrs. Olmstead called her, stared straight ahead and held her chin high.
“Arrogant, that’s what,” Mrs. Olmstead had declared, “and if that Mrs. Lydia Burton was ever married, I’ll eat my Sunday bonnet. Disrespectful, her coming to church like that, no matter what she leaves on the plate or in the poor box. Money won’t buy her way into heaven.”
No, but it did purchase her the finest building on the street. Mrs. Burton’s house was freshly painted, her flower beds well tended, and her kitchens always sent out enticing aromas. The girls there did not starve, it seemed. No matter, becoming one of them was not Simone’s intention. Being bachelor fare in a house of accommodation would not serve her purposes. Her parents had taught her better than that, with a higher estimation of her own worth.
The man who opened the door at Mrs. Burton’s establishment did not share her opinion. He was as formidable as any starchy butler in his black coat, and as rough-hewn as a dock-worker. Simone supposed he served as gatekeeper, to keep undesirables out and keep the gentlemen in order. He was large enough, that was for certain, and appeared to be built of stone, with crags and crevices. He was as immoveable as granite when she asked to see Mrs. Burton about a position.
He looked her over, looking down, from her ugly bonnet to her rusty black cloak and her dull grey gown to her serviceable boots.
“We ain’t hiring no schoolmarms.” He started to shut the door in Simone’s face, but she placed one of those sturdy boots in the opening.
“I fear your grammar could use the improvement, sir. But I am well aware of the nature of Mrs. Burton’s establishment.”
“Then you know you ain’t one of her type. Go on back to governessing where you belong.”
The primrose path might have been short, merely across the street, but Simone felt as if she’d climbed a mountain, trekked across a desert, waded through quicksand. She might as well have, for the difference in the two worlds between Mrs. Olmstead’s and Mrs. Burton’s. She’d never have the courage to make the journey twice, so she stiffened her backbone, thought of her younger brother, and glanced around the entryway behind the major-domo. She nodded at the valuable Chinese urn holding canes and umbrellas, the silk wallpaper, and the spotless marble tiles.
“Mrs. Burton’s enterprise appears to pay better than educating young minds,” she said. “I wish to speak to her about becoming a…a…” She couldn’t say it. She could
do
it, she hoped. She went on: “If someone is going to take what they wish, I want to be paid for it. And paid well.”
“You got bottom, missy, I’ll grant you that. The nobs like a wench with spirit. You might do, with some fancifying. I’ll ask Lydia if she’s hiring.”
The madam found Simone’s request amusing. “
You
wish to become a courtesan?”
Simone swallowed her indignation. Who knew the standards for the low life were so high? “I wish to become a rich man’s
chérie amour
, yes.” She had decided on that course as her best option. She would choose the man herself, one man. He had to be clean, respectful, and rich. Also generous and kind, but mostly rich. “A gentleman’s mistress.”