Page 5 of One Night with a Rake

“Sorry, duchess,” the woman called down. “Didn’t see ye there.” She hadn’t bothered to cinch her wrapper tight and her bare breasts flopped out for anyone to view.

Georgette had never seen anyone in such an appalling state of undress in public, not to mention someone so unconcerned about it. She put her head down and quickened her pace.

“Good heavens,” Georgette whispered once she was certain they were out of earshot. “She was all but naked.”

“Well, o’ course she was. Ye can’t expect the gentlemen to buy if they’ve no notion about the quality of the wares, can ye?” Mercy said cheerfully. “That was nothing but an accidental peep, her flashing her titties like she don’t know she did it. Some fellows likes that a lot. More than if the moll does it on purpose. Makes ’em feel like they’ve seen something they oughtn’t and it drives ’em fair wild.” Mercy tilted her head to one side. “Why is it, do ye suppose, that we like something even more if we’re not supposed to?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

Mercy laughed. “I’m sure ye don’t either. That was what ye might call retor…retri…oh, hang it all, what was that four-guinea word ye tried to teach me the other day?”

“Rhetorical?”

“That’s the one. I was being rhetorical. When it comes to matters of the flesh, ye’re about as useful as teats on a boar, if ye don’t mind me saying so, milady.”

“Actually, I’m thinking I may have overdone it when I encouraged you to speak your mind, Mercy. If you say something like that around my father, he’ll have you sacked before you can whistle.”

“I take yer point.” Mercy laid a finger alongside her nose in the time-honored gesture of collusion. “I’ll be careful to keep me teeth together around the marquis then.”

They pushed deeper into the alley.

“This is it. Madam Bouchard’s House of Pleasures for Gentlemen of Quality,” Mercy said when they came to a stop before a three-story clapboard structure.

It was a sorry parody of the fine brick Georgians in Mayfair and St. James’s, square-built with windows of decreasing size depending on the story on which they were situated. It had been years since the house had seen a paintbrush, and the pint-sized garden in front showed no evidence of cultivation. But black smoke billowed from three of the chimneys, so Madam Bouchard evidently believed in investing in sufficient coal to keep the interior warm.

A prudent choice, if everyone runs about half-clothed in there.

Georgette knew well enough what a female body looked like in the altogether. She’d stood before the long looking glass in her room, pondering the changes her body had gone through over the years. But all her imagination had for fodder about nude men were the classical statues at the British Museum. Unfortunately, they had all either been vandalized in strategic places or were discretely covered with a marble fig leaf.

Oh, how she wondered what was so important it had to be hidden. Especially since the fig leaves weren’t all that big. She gave herself a mental shake. Her imagination was running rampant this morning.

“If it wasn’t the gentlemen who made you want to leave this life, what was it?” Georgette asked.

“It was the bully.” Mercy, who never showed any signs of trepidation, gave a little shiver.

“The bully? What’s that?”

“Not what. Who. In a whorehouse, the madam’s word is law, but she’s got to have somewhat to enforce it, don’t she?” Mercy clutched her cloak tighter around herself. “Otherwise, the gentlemen might get too frisky with the girls and whatever they wanted to do, there’d be no stoppin’ them.”

Mercy had led the way down the alley blithely enough, but now she made no move to advance through the wrought iron gate to the faded red door.

“That’s where the bully comes in. He makes sure one of the gentlemen don’t take a strap to a girl.” One of Mercy’s thin shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Unless he’s paid for the privilege, o’ course.”

“Paid for the—” There were some things even Georgette couldn’t imagine. She drew a deep breath and decided that she was indeed on the “ignorant side of useful.”

And happy to be there.

She cleared her throat. “It sounds as if this bully person is there for the girls’ protection.”

“That is how it sounds, don’t it?” Mercy shifted her weight from one foot to the other, like a sparrow on a windowsill so shallow it hadn’t room to settle. “Only there weren’t nobody to protect us from the protector.”

Georgette put a hand to her shoulder and the little maid stilled. “I’ll protect you, Mercy. No one will ever hurt you again.”

“And you’ll do the same for Vesta?”

Georgette nodded. Whoever this bully was, he dared not lift a hand to the daughter of a marquis or anyone she wished to shelter. If he did, her father would see the blackguard imprisoned or transported before he could spit.

“Now, let’s go see if your friend would like a new life.” Georgette pushed open the creaking gate and approached the red door. When she lifted her gloved hand to knock, Mercy stopped her.