Page 36 of The Marriage Method

“Your name was mentioned,” Nell said.

“And what’s yours, girl? Penelope, Silas told me. But Penelope who?”

“Trewlove,” Nell replied.

Miles’s arm went rigid under her hand. Nell understood why he might balk at her giving her real name, but the fact remained that no one knew her in London.

And besides, it wasn’t her name anymore.

Mrs. Pritchard examined Nell for a fraught moment. “Well, Miss Trewlove,” she said at last, “do come into my parlor.”

9

Nell’s stomach tightened with mingled fear and anticipation. They hadn’t been permitted entry into the previous two brothels. Not even for a fee. But Nell’s beauty was a different form of currency. She hoped it might prove sufficient to get them the answers they were looking for.

Holding fast to Miles’s arm, she accompanied him up the steps and through the front door into a small tiled hall decorated with vulgar plaster statuary. They were met by the overpowering stench of eau de cologne. It permeated the air, a sweet-sickly odor, with a hint of foulness underneath.

“Through here.” Mrs. Pritchard motioned for Miles and Nell to precede her through a doorway off the hall. It led into a dimly lit parlor.

Know your surroundings. Know your opponent. Know yourself.

The words echoed in Nell’s mind as she swept a discreet glance over the room, taking a careful inventory of the gilded French furnishings, glittering pink crystal lamps, and faux Renaissance paintings (middling reproductions of Venus in all her forms) that adorned the crimson-papered walls. It was so much garish luxury for such a dilapidated place. And yet, there was no carpet on the floor, only a vague rectangular outline on the wood of where a carpet had recently been.

Mrs. Pritchard brushed past them to turn up the oil lamps. She motioned to a red velvet upholstered settee with a sardonic flourish. “Do sit down. We’re not used to entertaining the gentry.”

Nell watched the woman from beneath her lashes as Miles escorted her to the settee. The gown Mrs. Pritchard wore was made of patterned silk velvet, the seams finished with exceptional skill. It was all of a piece with her coiffure—a lavish style of padded rolls and false curls that Nell suspected could only be attained with the assistance of a lady’s maid. Expensive accoutrements for a Whitechapel madam. And ones that hadn’t always been available to her, judging by the ravaged lines that etched her face, and the unforgiving slash of her tight-pressed mouth.

“Madams is hard people,” Miss Jean had said. And here was surely one of the hardest. Nell had the sense that this woman could order violence at the drop of a hat—or possibly stoop to doing violence herself.

Nell’s fingers curled on the handle of her cane as she perched on the edge of the settee. Miles remained standing beside her.

Mrs. Pritchard sat down in the wing chair across from them, while her henchman took up a place by the door. “I won’t ask your name,” she said to Miles. “We’re a discerning house, as well as a discreet one. We protect our gentlemen’s privacy. As for our girls—we’ve only the finest and freshest here. If that’s what’s brought you to my door—”

“That’s exactly what’s brought me here,” Nell said. “I understand you often take girls newly up from the country?”

Mrs. Pritchard’s eyes hardened with swift suspicion. “You’re not a country lass. Not by the sound of it.”

“I was once,” Nell said. “I’ve since made something of myself.”

“A striver, are you? I don’t discourage it. Though you could do with a bit of help in the way of clothes. You’ll catch no men dressed like a dried-up spinster. What you need is black lace and silk chiffon, which I’ll provide. That, and lodgings. All to be deducted from your earnings. As for that cane—it will disgust most men even to see it.” Mrs. Pritchard flashed a narrow glance at Nell’s skirts. “What is it that’s wrong with you? Is it your leg? Your hip? Or are your woman’s parts at issue?”

A scalding blush rose in Nell’s cheeks. “My leg,” she said tightly. “And I assure you, it won’t be an issue.”

“Yet your protector has brought you here to dispose of you,” Mrs. Pritchard observed. “Tired of her, are you?” she asked Miles. “Or is it that she’s failed to please you in the bedroom?”

Nell was too mortified to breathe. She dared a fleeting glance at Miles. His dark eyes were the coldest she’d ever seen them.

“I have no complaints,” he said.

Nell let out the breath she’d been holding. So long as he was willing to play along, they still might hope to get somewhere. “It’s nothing of that sort,” she said to Mrs. Pritchard. “It’s my own entrepreneurial spirit that compels me to strike out on my own.”

“A wise decision, while you still have a few good years left,” Mrs. Pritchard said.

“More than a few,” Nell replied, on her dignity. “I’m but three-and-twenty.”

Mrs. Pritchard snorted. “That old?”

“Are your girls so much younger?” Miles asked.