The Secret Pearl (3 page)

She was a member of a profession the very thought of which had always horrified and disgusted her.

She was a whore. A prostitute. A streetwalker.

She swallowed repeatedly and determinedly until the urge to vomit receded.

Soon, within a week, she would be standing outside the theater again, hoping to attract another customer, dreading success.

He had not been rough with her, the dark and frightening gentleman who had been her first customer had told her the night before. Heaven help her if any man ever did subject her to rough treatment. She felt hot and clammy with terror again at the memory of his hands—long-fingered, well-manicured, beautiful hands—pushing her thighs apart, of his knees pinning them wide, of his thumbs touching her
there
, spreading her, and of the sight and feel of that other part of him huge and hard against the tender inner flesh and then ripping swiftly and deeply into her so that she had thought she would die of the shock and the pain—and had hoped she would.

The mental images came, unbidden and unwelcome: the terrible scarred and discolored and puckered wounds on his side and leg; the terrifyingly powerful muscles of his chest and shoulders and arms, the triangle of dark hair across the expanse of his chest and tapering to below his navel; his angular hawkish face with the direct and fierce dark eyes, the prominent nose, and the disfiguring scar; his hands, touching her, cupping her buttocks, holding her steady so that she could not shrink from the full force and depth of his thrusts.

She did not have either the energy or the will to shake off the memories. And there was no point anyway in trying to relegate them to memory. It was to be her profession to allow such men the use of her body in exchange for the means of survival. She must deliberately remember, accustom herself to the
memories, learn to accept the same and perhaps worse—if there could be worse—from other men.

It was a fair exchange, was it not? For it was not just the choice between survival and death that she must make, but the choice between survival and a slow and painful death through starvation. Never, even during this day of blackest despair, had she considered suicide as an escape from her predicament.

It was no choice, then, that she had to make. She had to feed herself in the only way that was left to her. There was no other employment to be had. She had no experience and no references. Miss Fleming at the employment agency had told her that on numerous occasions. One did not need either in order to become a whore, only a reasonably young and well-formed woman’s body. And a strong stomach.

She was a whore. She had sold her body once and would continue to do so over and over again until there were no more buyers. She must accustom herself to both the thought and the deed.

And indeed she must count herself happy if she was allowed to live out her life as a whore. There was always the chance of something even worse and more terrifying if she were found. She had changed her name, and her earlier and constant terror had paled in comparison with the very real fear of a life lived in totally unfamiliar surroundings and on the brink of starvation. But she must not become complacent. There was always the chance of being found, especially if she must stand outside the Drury Lane Theater every night and be seen by all the fashionable people of London.

What if Matthew had come to London? And Cousin Caroline and Amelia had come there even before she came.

When Sally knocked on her door later in the evening and called her name through the lock, Fleur stared at the ceiling and made no reply.

A
DAM
K
ENT
, D
UKE OF
R
IDGEWAY
, leaned one elbow on the marble mantel in the study of his town house on Hanover Square and tapped his teeth with one knuckle.

“Well?” His dark eyes narrowed on his secretary, who had just entered both the house and the room.

The man shook his head. “No luck, I’m afraid, your grace,” he said. “It is too little to go on, to know just a girl’s first name.”

“But it is an unusual name, Houghton,” the duke said. “You knocked on every door?”

“Along three streets and around three courts,” Peter Houghton said, making an effort to hide his exasperation. “Perhaps she gave you a false name, anyway, your grace.”

“Perhaps,” the duke agreed. He frowned in thought. Would she be outside the theater again that night? That employment agency—did she ever go there looking for work? And would she look for other work now that she had chosen and entered a new profession? Perhaps she did not live in that part of London at all. And perhaps she
had
given a false name. She had not answered his question immediately.

“Life will be less arduous for you during the next few days,” he said with sudden decision. “You are going to hire a new servant for me. In any capacity you think suitable, Houghton. Perhaps as a governess. Yes, I think as a governess if you find her capable of filling the post. I have the feeling she might be suitable. There is an agency close to the streets you were combing today.”

“As a governess?” The secretary frowned at him.

“For my daughter,” the duke said. “She is five years old. It is time she had more than a nurse despite her grace’s reluctance to have her begin her schooling.”

Peter Houghton coughed. “Pardon me, your grace,” he said, “but I understood that the girl is a whore. Should she be allowed within ten miles of Lady Pamela?”

The duke did not reply, and the secretary, who understood the look on his employer’s face very well, was reminded that
he was merely a lowly employee in the service of one of the richest noblemen of the realm.

“You will sit at the agency for the next few days,” the duke said, “until I tell you you need no longer do so. In the meanwhile, I shall become a regular theatergoer.”

Houghton bowed and the duke pushed himself abruptly away from the mantel and left the room without another word. He took the stairs to his private apartments two at a time.

“Every whore was a virgin once.” The poet William Blake had written that somewhere, or words to that effect. There was no reason to feel any special guilt over being the deflowerer. Someone had to do it once the girl had chosen her course. If he had been her second customer instead of the first, he would not have known the difference and would have forgotten about her by that morning. She had had no skill, no allure, nothing that would make him wish to find her again.

He had not realized that a woman would bleed so much. And he had seen and felt her pain as he tore through her virginity.

If he had known, he could have done it differently. He could have readied her, gentled her, entered her slowly and carefully, nudging through the painful barrier. As it was, he had been angry with both her and himself. He had wanted to degrade them both, he supposed, standing over her, imposing his mastery on her.

But then, he owed her no consideration. She had been quite freely selling, he buying. She had been paid three times what she had asked. He had been left quite dissatisfied beyond the momentary relief that had come with the release of his seed. He had no reason to feel guilt.

Yet all night and all day he had been unable to shake his mind free of the girl—her thin body, her pale complexion, her dark-circled eyes and cracked lips, her calm courage. He had been unable to rid himself of the knowledge that poverty and
desperation had driven her to the life of the commonest of street prostitutes.

He could not help feeling responsible. He could not forget the calm acceptance, the blood.

He wondered if he would ever find her again. And he wondered for how long he would keep trying, the Duke of Ridgeway in search of a street whore with large calm eyes and refined manners and voice.

Fleur. Just Fleur, she had said.

M
ISS FLEMING, WHO OWNED AND RAN THE EMPLOYMENT agency close to where Fleur lived, had always treated Fleur with an air of hauteur and condescension. Her nasal voice had always drawled as if with boredom. What proof could Miss Hamilton give, she had always asked, that she would make a competent lady’s companion or shopgirl or scullery maid or anything else? Without someone to recommend her there was really no way Miss Fleming could be expected to put her own reputation on the line by sending her to be interviewed by a prospective employer.

“But how can I gain a recommendation until I have had some experience?” Fleur had asked her once. “And how can I gain experience unless someone will take a chance on me?”

“Do you know a physician who could speak for you?” Miss Fleming had asked. “A solicitor? A clergyman?”

Fleur had thought of Daniel and felt a stab of pain. Daniel would give her a recommendation. He had been willing for her to open a village school with his sister. He had been willing to marry her. But he was far away in Wiltshire. Besides, he would no longer be willing either to marry her or to employ her or recommend her for employment, not after what had happened there and after she had fled.

“No,” she had said.

It was only her despair that drove her back to the agency five days after she had become a whore. She felt no real hope as she opened the door and stepped inside. But she knew that that night she was going to have to return to the Drury Lane Theater or somewhere else where fashionable gentlemen congregated and would be in search of a night’s pleasure. Her money was gone.

The bleeding had stopped and the soreness had healed. But her disgust and terror at what had been done to her body had grown by leaps and bounds so that she felt almost constantly nauseated. She wondered if she would ever become accustomed to the life of a whore, if she would ever be able to treat her work as simply that. Probably, she thought, it would have been better if she had gone out the very night after that first, soreness and all, and not given the terror a chance to impose its grip on her.

“Do you have any employment suitable for me, ma’am?” she asked Miss Fleming, her voice quiet, her eyes steady and calm—she had trained herself through a difficult childhood and girlhood never to show any of the pain or degradation she might be feeling.

Miss Fleming looked up at her impatiently and seemed about to make the usual retort. But her eyes sharpened and she frowned. Then she adjusted her spectacles on her nose and smiled condescendingly. “Well, there is a gentleman in the next room, Miss Hamilton, conducting interviews for the post of governess to his employer’s daughter. Perhaps he will be willing to ask you a few questions, even though you are a young lady who has no letters of recommendation and who knows no one with any influence. Wait here, if you please.”

Fleur found herself clasping her hands painfully together, her nails digging into her palms. She felt breathless, as if she had run for a whole mile. A governess. Oh, no. She must not even begin to hope. The man would probably not consent even to see her.

“Step this way, if you please, Miss Hamilton,” Miss Fleming said briskly from the doorway of the adjoining room. “Mr. Houghton will see you.”

Fleur was very aware of her wrinkled silk dress and drab cloak and the absence of a bonnet. She was dressed in the clothes she had been wearing more than a month before when she had run away. She was aware of the plain style of her hair, of the shadows below her eyes, of her cracked lips. She swallowed and stepped through the door. Miss Fleming closed it quietly behind her, remaining on the other side of it.

“Miss Fleur Hamilton?” The man who was seated behind a large table examined her slowly and keenly from head to foot.

Fleur stood still and looked back. He was young, bald-headed, thin. If her appearance was unacceptable, then let him tell her so now before her hopes soared despite herself.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

He gestured to a chair, and she sat, her back straight, her chin high.

“I am interviewing for the post of governess,” he said. “My employer is Mr. Kent of Dorsetshire. His daughter is five years old. Do you consider yourself in any way qualified for the job?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was educated at home until I was eleven and then at Broadridge School in Oxfordshire. I was proficient in all my lessons. I speak French and Italian tolerably well, I play the pianoforte and have some skill with watercolors. I have always been particularly interested in literature and history and the classics. I have some skill with a needle.”