More appreciatively than Mr Westaway’s had, she thought resentfully. Yet the same speculative gleam had been in both gentlemen’s eyes. Faith had just failed to lure Mr Westaway towards making the next step.
“Girls! Gentlemen! What a picture!” Madame Chambon’s interruption broke the mood and as she pushed aside the curtain and entered the room, clapping her hands together, Faith, too, stepped back; but with a sudden sinking feeling, for she realised she’d made a grave miscalculation. She was not supposed to be seen with the other girls or by the gentlemen.
What had she been thinking? Well, she hadn’t.
She felt Madame’s eyes resting on her and felt ill before her shoulders slumped and she turned away from the gentleman who’d continued to gaze so appreciatively at her. Still, what did any of it matter? She’d leave this place. Perhaps she could go back to the country and beg her family to take her back until she found a position.
Any would do.
“Lord Harkom, I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself this evening.”
Madame was addressing the blonde gentleman, her voice oozing obsequiousness but her hand was now resting heavily on Faith’s shoulder. With ominous pressure.
“As always, Madame.” He bowed deepluy
“We are always honoured by your visits. Don’t forget that there are always fresh girls to give satisfaction.”
Faith exhaled in fright and pulled away but Madame held her so that she had to suffer the touch of Lord Harkom’s hand upon her cheek as he said, “Indeed, and I see you have another one I’ve not laid eyes upon. What a beauty. Perhaps I won’t leave so early, after all.”
The air died in Faith’s lungs. She thought she would faint upon the spot.
But then Madame was drawing her back from the brink, a protective arm about Faith’s shoulders as she said, “Alas, this one is very new and quite untried. She needs more training.”
“I am very good at that, you know.” He was pawing her again, his fingertips brushing her face as he looked hungrily at her décolletage. “My, but she is strikingly lovely. Yes, I am definitely interested.” His smile was for Madame Chambon, now, and Faith could see Madame yielding as he purred, “We’ve always come to an agreement, before, Madame. I’m sure this will be no exception.”
“I’m not ready!” Faith pulled away, her bosom heaving, and felt the eyes of everyone in the room upon her.
She couldn’t bear it a moment longer. Standing upon the threshold, she clutched at her neckline but found no comforting sheathing fabric, only bare skin. Bare skin that Lord Harkom, a stranger, soon would run his hands over as he sampled her wares at Madame Chambon’s behest.
Had Madame given up on her so quickly?
“You can’t make me, Madame!” she cried, her voice shaking. “I’m saving myself for Mr Westaway!”
“Mr Westaway doesn’t want you, Faith.” There was a low, warning note in Madame’s tone which Faith knew she should heed. Madame would not thank her to make a scene in front of everyone but perhaps Madame had drunk too much brandy and forgotten that Faith was ‘special’.
“If Mr Westaway doesn’t want you, Faith, then you’re no longer any use to Mrs Gedge.” Madame stepped close to Faith and gripped her chin as she said, lowering her voice “Which means you’re mine now.”
Faith wrenched herself backwards. She felt Charity’s hands upon her shoulders to steady her. “I won’t be sold like … an animal!” Her voice was shrill. She’d never heard the note before. For so long she’d taken for granted the fact that she did not have to sell her body like the other girls did. Seducing only one man would be her allotted task. A young, handsome man. A young man whom she thought she could like meaning she could fulfil her role with ease and no conscience.
But now her fate was like that of all the girls here.
“And where will you go, Faith?” There was a note of relish in Madame Chambon’s. Perhaps she was now enjoying the fact that there were others to witness Faith being pulled down to their level. The fact that Madame Chambon did not distinguish, after all. A girl was only useful – and therefore would be housed and fed – if she brought gain to the ruthless brothel owner.
A terrible blackness consumed Faith’s ability to think more than cursorily about the truth. There was nowhere else she could go. She was deluding herself to think there would be a welcome for her in the brutish household in which she’d grown up, the dilapidated cottage that housed her family in lieu of her father’s obligation to the farmer for whom he worked.
She had no friends. No relatives. Well, none upon whose mercy she could throw herself.
“Perhaps I should hand you over to the magistrate or the police as Mrs Gedge wanted to do before she brought you here.”
“I am not a thief.” Faith enunciated the words carefully but with more bitterness than the fear with which she’d imbued the words when Mrs Gedge had found her in Miss Constancia’s room admiring the young woman’s bracelet the young woman had promised her.
She brought her hands up to cover her face, to block out the terrible images and whereas her fourteen-year-old self had wept piteously as she’d defended herself, Faith now intoned, bleakly, “I was given the bracelet, Madame.”
“Well, that’s not what Mrs Gedge told me and unless you want to go to the police or out onto the streets where it’s dark and raining, I think Charity should take you upstairs to prepare yourself while Lord Harkom and I have a little chat.”
Numb with shock, Faith allowed herself to be led to her bedchamber.