Christmas Charity (Fair Cyprians of London 5)

“Who is he?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“That’s because it’s all one big tall tale to make you seem more impressive than you really are. You’re from the gutter.” He looked disappointed. “Girls like you don’t tell the truth.”

“Because we deserve to be in the gutter? And that’s how you’d treat us?” Charity felt the rage tingling in her extremities. “I think it makes men feel strong to beat down those more vulnerable. Mostly, it’s the men who’ve been treated badly in their own lives. That’s what the girls tell me at Madame Chambon’s.”

“Oh, really?” He tapped his fingers on the arm of the sofa as if deciding what to say or do. “Well, your job is to please me,” he said finally. He indicated her glass. “Drink up, Cathie. I’m not feeling as kindly towards you as I was.”

His eyes were dark and brooding. Charity shivered. What had made her speak so unwisely to such a dangerous bully as Cyril.

“So you’ve changed your mind again? Instead of being considerate and making this a first time to remember — and make me regard you kindly and favour you above all my other clients, you think violence is preferable? That it will give you the upper hand, which of course it will?” Charity pushed out her chest. “That is the coward’s way. That’s what the girls all tell me. It’s the cowards and the bullies who use force and strength whereas it’s the men who use kindness who are given the best treatment at Madame’s, I can assure you.”

“Good God, will you stop talking!” Unexpectedly, Cyril rose to his feet, sweeping his glass from the table with an angry thrust of his arm. “There is no goodness in me so why should I waste my time trying to be kind?”

Charity shrank against the arm of the sofa as he paced in front of the fire. Her heart was pounding now. He was volatile. Unpredictable. She didn’t have the measure of him. “Has no one ever been kind to you?” she ventured. She’d touched a nerve and perhaps it was unwise to pursue this line, but she thought she understood him a little better now.

“Not my father.”

“Nor mine to me.”

“I never knew my mother.”

“Mine sent me to look after an imbecile aunt. That was fun, too.” Charity said with heavy irony.

There was a slight pause, then Cyril suddenly let out an unexpected laugh as he rose from throwing a log on the fire. “Did you really conjure that up to best my tale of woe?”

“No, it’s true. I’ve spent most of my life in thankless drudgery before I found myself at Madame Chambon’s, after I was tricked there, thinking I was applying for work as a servant. Yet, for the first time in my life, I made friends. Women who had suffered cruelty, as I had, and who were kind to me.”

Cyril looked at her strangely. He’d stopped what he was doing and was now breathing heavily, his mouth working as if a torrent of words would tumble out at any moment, yet he was holding it all in. Finally, he strode toward the table and snatched up his brandy.

“Do you really need that?” Charity asked. “You’re bosky, as it is. I suppose you’re fortifying yourself for…”

“I do not need you to tell me what to do.” His words held an edge of dangerous quiet.

Charity steeled herself against the inevitable. He’d hurt her, regardless of what she said. The other girls had plenty of stories about men who liked to tell a girl with the back of their hands when they were displeased.

She faced him squarely, drawing back her shoulders. Preparing herself. Managing to keep the terrible fear inside her at bay. It was naïve foolishness and false bravado which had led her into this danger. She had no one but herself to blame.

Dear Lord, why had she not planned this better?

She closed her eyes and gripped the sofa’s arm rest. Yes, it was better that she closed her eyes and make her body pliant and accessible so that she’d suffer the least amount of pain. That’s what the girls at Madame’s had told her she should do. They’d said she must transport her mind to another realm. Some of the girls swore it was this which enabled them to earn the only living available to them.

Silence. It was a terrifying prelude.

She could hear only the clock ticking. Her surroundings were a black void with just her thoughts whirling around her head.

She shifted a little. Still waiting.

If she could concentrate on the good things she’d once looked forward to with Hugo, perhaps she wouldn’t even notice his assault on her body; though in her heart she knew it would be the beginning of the corrosive destruction of her very being, the very essence of her.

Charity, the innocent, was not going to get her fairytale with the happy ending, after all, but she must survive. And she had only herself to blame. Her foolishness had brought her right into this trap. The girl that Madame had cossetted, had been the embodiment of the dream they’d all had: that a client would fall in love with them; a client worthy of their affections, and that a partnership built on mutual love and trust and exclusivity would end their sordid lives selling the only commodity they had.

She became conscious, now, of the sound of her breathing, loud in her ears. Her hands were clammy and her world was black as she kept trying to imagine herself into another one, only to slip back into the terrible present.

But the time stretched out and still, he didn’t make his move as she’d expected.

Confused, she opened her eyes and found him staring at her. As if he, too, was unsure what to do.