“The duke,” Madam said. “I’d have hated to turn him away.”
Camille watched Madam head for the main office, her brain working uncommonly slow. “Turn him away? From where?”
“He’s in the club.” Madam stopped and smiled, the bank notes practically dancing in her eyes. “And he’s requesting a ride.”
Chapter Eight
Camille’s brain racedahead as her stomach dropped. “He’s here?”
“I sent Victoria to break him in,” Madam said.
Camille couldn’t respond. The electric bulbs were too bright, the room’s heat leaving sweat running down her back. The duke was in the club. Any minute Victoria would show him to her chamber, a particularly decorated bedroom meant to give the impression of a fantasy in the clouds, all white cotton and teasing feathers.
With her light hair and gentle nature, Victoria was the most sought-after of the Ponies by the more refined clients. She played the innocent, the untouched, a common fantasy of the experienced.
Madam tapped the desktop.
Camille looked up. “What?”
“Grey has been removed from the grounds.” The older woman studied her with a cryptic smirk. “In case you wished to stretch your legs.”
Camille nodded, not fully processing. The twisting in her gut was back, along with a wave of profound anger. She and the duke may have been strangers, but that hadn’t stopped him from kissing her senseless not eight hours ago.
And it had been good.
Now he was here, looking for fictional fantasy when he’d had perfectly decent reality.
Camille shot to her feet and stalked to the door where Madam had exited. The cad! She’d tell Madam the duke was unsuitable—on the grounds of his sheer stupidity—and to send him on his way. Checking the screen, she opened the hidden panel to discover Madam wasn’t in the main office.
She must have been making her rounds.
Camille crossed to the inner door and locked it behind her. Through the screens, she saw the cursory rooms—the chambers for clients to wait in, either for a Pony to finish a previous session or to increase the anticipation of a current one—were empty.
She entered the deeper rooms in the club, where black silk gave way to unadorned brick. Preparing to drag the duke from Victoria’s arms if necessary, Camille turned down the Pony’s wing, surprised when Victoria herself appeared, her character’s mask in her hand.
“Oh, Camille, thank goodness,” she said. “Lord Reiner is here and has requested me.”
Lord Reiner? What was a personal friend of Madam and the main investor for the Pony doing here at this hour?
“What of the duke?” Camille asked.
“He’s in the Nest, waiting.” Victoria’s blue eyes darted to the hall behind them, where the luxury chambers lay for Madam’s most distinguished patrons. “I need to change before I go to Reiner.” She shoved a clipboard into Camille’s hands. “Can you do the duke’s interview for me?”
“Interview?”
Victoria’s impatience rolled off her in twitched waves. “It’s easy. The questions are on the paper.”
“I can’t.” She wasn’t a Pony.
“You don’t have to screw him.” Victoria’s face softened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. All us girls know you don’tthink less of us because of what we do.” She grabbed Camille’s other hand and placed her mask in her palm. “Please help. I need to go. I can’t leave Madam or Reiner waiting.”
Victoria was a widow and mother. She needed this job just like the rest of the girls. Just like so many others waiting for someone to step up and do the right thing.
Guilt sinking in, Camille merely nodded.
“Don’t fret,” Victoria said. “Just pretend to be me.”
Camille stared after her as she vanished into the next wing. This was madness.Shewas to conduct an interview with the duke?
