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It had been impossible to conceal the transaction, though initially, Violet had tried. However, Miss Thistlethwaite’s numerous requests for fittings and other requests to Miss Violet Lilywhite at 56 Albemarle St could not be kept secret for long.
Madame got her cut on every transaction made by her girls, meaning the pecuniary rewards from the contract Violet had made were considerably diluted. It was true that Max had transferred funds directly into an account set up in her name, but Madame was not stupid. She’d calculated her due, even if she wasn’t aware of the exact amount Max had paid Violet.
Which meant it was just as well Violet had Lord Bainbridge’s offer to fall back on when Max was out of her life.
A thought that made her heart cleave and tears spring unbidden to her eyes.
Foolish girl. She’d known love could never be her destiny the moment she’d thrown away her reputation. Well, the moment she’d presented herself at Madame Chambon’s. She just hadn’t expected to feel so much.
“You’ll be the only one of us who ever takes away a wedding dress as your best memory of working here,” remarked Charity wistfully. “But perhaps you really will persuade Lord Belvedere to make an offer that occasions donning the beautiful creation. For real, I mean, when he sees how beautiful you look.”
This brought both sighs and snickers from the other girls, but for Violet, it was only another reminder of how bleak her future really was. Lord Bainbridge, not Lord Belvedere, would keep her in the short term, and he was not a man for wh
om she had a particular liking. He was mercurial and viewed their relationship in terms of a transaction that was solely to his benefit. No doubt for as long as Violet was pleasing and kept her looks. Violet was, after all, only a whore.
With a sigh, she turned back from the mirror while the girls who’d crowded around parted to let her make her way to the bed where she’d laid out her black cloak. Charity helped her into it and, carefully, she drew the hood over her veil and smoothed the concealing folds of her exquisite silk confection.
“Are you ready, Charity?” she asked.
“Are you ready, Violet?” asked one of the girls. “I don’t expect you back tonight. You look a proper princess ripe for kidnapping.”
“You’d better come back as you’ve not accounted for all that you owe me,” Madame Chambon warned, putting her hand on Violet’s shoulder before offering her a rare compliment. “You look beautiful, Violet, and Lord Belvedere is a fool if he doesn’t want to see me and negotiate a settlement. But yes, I know the story. The foolish boy thinks he needs to sow his wild oats in Africa in a bid to untie himself from his grandfather’s apron strings. See if you can persuade him otherwise, Violet.”
But Violet knew she could not. Regardless of how entranced Max might be with her, and consider her a vision from paradise tonight, he would be boarding a ship for Cape Town in a couple of days, and Violet knew there was nothing she, or anyone else, could do to persuade him otherwise.
Sadly, though with beating heart nevertheless, she walked the short distance from the house to the hackney where it was waiting on the damp cobblestones, horses snorting and breath steaming in the cold and swirling fog.
Yes, a common hackney cab for her sham marriage to a young lord with a heart full of kindness and a soul that dreamt of adventure.
Sham marriage. What a detestable term, she thought as the jarvey helped first Violet, then Charity, into the sour-smelling interior.
“Reckon I’m about to drive London’s most beautiful ladies to meet their hearts’ desires,” he remarked as he slammed the door and tightened his muffler.
Which Violet thought was rather ironic and bittersweet under the circumstances.
“Is your heart beating as painfully as mine?” Charity whispered after a few minutes of silence. “Our hearts’ desires,” she repeated with a sigh. “We could imagine it was so.”
Violet heard the effort it took the girl not to cry and the hitch in her voice as she went on, “We could pretend, just for a few minutes, that we really were within reach of all we ever wanted. Couldn’t we?”
In the dim, waxy yellow light, Charity looked so much younger than her years. She’d lived at Madame Chambon’s for more than eighteen months, but she’d known only the faithful love of one man. Until now, she’d been a symbol of hope and optimism, but with her future looking suddenly as bleak as Violet’s, the wistfulness in her voice was heartbreaking.
Violet could endure but could Charity, who was about to be thrown to the wolves? Only the previous night, the detestable cousin of Charity’s young man had swept into the brothel demanding that he be pleasured by ‘Hugo’s fancy piece’. Violet didn’t know whether it was kindness on Madame’s part, or the consideration that Charity might give better value if she were broken in by someone less vulgar and obviously drunk as Mr Algernon Black, but Charity had been given her reprieve. Tonight, she was accompanying Violet to say her meaningless vows. Another reprieve.
But what about tomorrow?
She clasped Charity’s hand and pretended, for what was the harm? “Lord Belvedere would be a catch, even if he were the butcher’s boy. He understands me, and he loves me, and tonight he’s marrying me, despite the opposition of his grandfather.” She forced a smile. “Doesn’t that prove how much he loves me? That he’d oppose even his grandfather and risk family opprobrium for the sake of true love?”
“He does love you.” Charity’s voice was low and fierce. “And don’t you believe otherwise. I saw it in his eyes. That very first night. The way he looked at you wasn’t the way most men look at the girls at Madame’s.” She shook her head. “There was real admiration there. He thought you the most splendid creature to cross his orbit. And even if he isn’t really marrying you, he would if he could. If he were not Lord Granville’s grandson.”
Violet laughed and leaned back against the squabs, releasing the girl’s hand to wipe an errant tear from the corner of her eye. “Darling Charity, you are the sweetest girl I know.” She looked fondly at her friend. “You have a good heart, and you deserve only the very best. I am beyond redemption but you…you are still within reach of your happy ever after. You heard the girls at breakfast gossiping that their gentlemen admirers said Hugo had been tricked? Well, doesn’t that bear investigation, for if it’s found to be true, then the villain will be unmasked in time for you and Hugo to be together before he leaves to run his uncle’s landholdings across the sea.” She felt suddenly very protective and very determined. “If I can’t get my hearts’ desire, Charity, I shall do everything within my power to ensure that you do.”
With a lurch, the carriage drew up in front of a dark, squat building, shrouded in fog. The ghostly substance seemed to snake its way into the carriage as the door was opened from the outside.
Right into Violet’s bones. She tried to stop herself shivering and, for a moment, even the comforting pressure of Charity’s hand on her shoulder wasn’t enough to propel her forward.
“It’s all right, Violet. He’s waiting for you inside. It’s only a bat,” Charity whispered as Violet cried out.
A single lantern hung by the entrance to the church door. The whole place looked very dark and forbidding.
