“Don’t think you can blackmail me, Mr Hunt.”
“Mr Hunt, is it now, when we were on such familiar terms?” He was gloating, now that he saw he had the advantage as she turned. “Come, Hope, don’t be churlish. Come back to the table so you may hear what I have to say. It’s hardly onerous, and you’ll earn yourself a pretty penny into the bargain.”
“I don’t want to involve myself in any bargains with you, Mr Hunt. I’ve been burned once before, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Through your own carelessness, as I said. Now.” He reached across to pull a piece of parchment from the escritoire, dipped his nib into the inkwell and began to write. “You won’t be doing anything you haven’t done a thousand times before,” he muttered, not looking up as his pen ran across the page. “And you’ll be making an old acquaintance very happy, not to mention ensuring your sister has as successful a debut as such a lively, enchanting beauty could wish for. Indeed, that is how your dear Charlotte is these days. Lively and enchanting. The belle of London Town.” He sent her a beatific smile. “You might say, she’s the real hope of the family.”
When he’d finished writing, he snatched up the paper, waved it in the air a few times, then folded it and placed it in an envelope.
“There you are, Hope. Your instructions,” he told her when she reluctantly returned. “It’ll hardly be a chore considering Mr Durham is such a handsome, personable gentleman. At least, my sister thinks so, though the noble, honourable type tends to stick in my craw, to tell the truth.” He leaned across and forced her fingers over the parchment. “Come on; smile, for God’s sake. There’s always something for you to complain about, isn’t there? And now I’ve given you an assignment you should enjoy since Annabelle recounted to me the look she intercepted that made her cry into her pillow so many nights since.”
Hope turned he
r head away. How well she remembered the look that Annabelle Hunt had intercepted. Madame Chambon had failed to bring her to tears, but she was perilously close now.
Chapter 3
The noise from 56 Albermarle Street could be heard from the pavement as Hope stepped out of the hackney into the yellow glow of a gas lamp. She paid the jarvey, took a few steps towards the wrought iron gates that surrounded the elegant townhouse, then paused.
This was the moment of truth. She could carry on boldly, right up to that front door and confront the ‘what might have been’, effectively ending all those beautiful daydreams with the truth of what she’d irrevocably become.
Or she could turn around now and effectively tell Madame Chambon to go to hell. And Wilfred, too. Yes, there’d be a glorious split second of satisfaction before she’d be cast out in the three-seasons-old dress she’d been wearing when Wilfred had delivered her to Madame Chambon’s exclusive Soho brothel.
Daydreams. That’s all her thoughts of rebellion were.
Just like her imagining what might have developed between Mr Durham and her if things had been different.
Even with all the spirit in the world, Hope had long ago accepted that only Madame Chambon stood between her and starvation.
“Good evening, Madam, please come in. We’ve been expecting you.”
She supposed it was hardly surprising it wasn’t the butler who opened the door and invited her in with an extravagant flourish that almost caused the young man before her to lose his balance. The no doubt disapproving family retainer would have been dismissed for the evening, as suggested by the sounds of revelry within. Hope was surprised. Had Mr Durham changed so much or was he nothing like the rather serious, earnest gentleman she’d thought him? She’d been attracted by his earnestness tinged with a suggestion of suppressed passion—his character had seemed in direct contrast to her own wild, rebellious spirit—so that when he’d taken her hand at the Hunt Ball and drawn her into the shadows that last night, she thought wistfully, the greatest excitement had rippled through her.
His gaze had been intense and filled with longing. As if he were yearning for something he feared he could never have. That’s what it had felt like to Hope, tremulous and aching with the knowledge they could never bridge the divide that separated them. She, the penniless vicar’s daughter, revelling in her special evening before she was shipped off to her governess position, and he, the son of the great Durham family of Foxley Hall, the venerable manor that had looked down upon the rest of them for the past four hundred years.
But that was all in the past, and there was no look in the eye of the clearly bosky young man currently leering at her that suggested a longing for what he could never have. More like a brash assessing as to whether he might sample the wares before Hope was led like a lamb to the slaughter—the surprise cheering-up gift for Mr Durham, as she’d been informed.
Bile stung the back of her throat. What would Mr Durham think?
And did she have the courage to do what she wanted, which was to turn tail and run?
Instead, Hope clasped her reticule to stop her hands from trembling and adopted her most dignified manner as she inclined her head. She’d honed deference to a fine art at the risk of a backhander from Wilfred, and as the price for survival working for Madame Chambon.
“Well, well, I was told Madame Chambon’s girls rivalled the Goddess Aphrodite for beauty and pleasure-giving,” the young man went on, standing aside to admit her. “You certainly do not disappoint.”
Hope stepped into the passage, trying to put dull resignation ahead of pure panic. Her palms were slick with dread, and she hoped she was successful in concealing the rapid, shallow breathing that might make her more of a victim. Evil relished vulnerability.
The young man closed the door and cast a look of appreciation the length of her stylish scarlet velvet bustle skirt, following the line of her wasp-waisted cuirass to where it lingered on the swell of her breasts above the tightly fitted bodice.
“You are not the gentleman I’m here to see,” she said in quelling tones. “My time is precious. Thank you, sir.”
He blinked rapidly a few times, seemed to gather his wits, then preceded her up the passage, saying over his shoulder, “Now don’t go speaking so harshly to Felix, will you? That’s why you’re here. To cheer him up. I’m Ralph Millament, by the way.”
Cheer him up. She swallowed painfully.
“I say, are you coming?”
Mr Millament blinked owlishly through the three yards of gloom that separated them, for Hope had dug in her heels. She couldn’t do this. Not for all the tea in China, all the fashionable gowns from Madame Soulent’s, and three years worth of good food and reliable shelter. It was too much. How could she even trust Wilfred to keep his word when he’d proven himself such a cad?