Her stomach bottomed out this time. Her brain scrambled. One of the other Ponies must have been available.
But she knew the schedule; she wrote it.
Anything before ten at night was minimal staff during the season, when ladies stayed out at balls until the wee hours, and the men could slip away for a quick ride before returning to escort their women home.
With Victoria called away, only Sensa and Madam remained. Sensa’s clients were notorious for midday rides, meaning the Pony’s second-in-command need always be available for her regulars. Madam had her monthly meetings scheduled the rest of the day, meetings she couldn’t avoid else the kitchens and laundry would not be stocked for the next few weeks.
Which left . . . her.
Like the rest, Camille needed this job, or she would have walked out. Of all the perverted, narcissistic, vazey ratbags of theton, it had to behim.
Her misfortune continued.
She dragged her feet to the door and stopped. The look on his face when he recognized her... Would he think she deserved Hawkins’s attentions? Would he regret helping her last night?Most people believed working in a pleasure house meant a lady had no right to say ‘no.’
She shouldn’t have cared what he thought. He was here, after all; he must not have found the practice of paid pleasure too reprehensible.
Her gaze settled on the basket of props and costumes by the door, Victoria’s cape and elbow-length gloves a perfect match to the white mask in her hand.
Her brain leapt to the perfect solution.
The gloves whispered across her skin, covering her bound wrist. The cape, cropped short and made of the softest silk, fluttered around her shoulders. She weighed the mask in her hand, knowing it would hide the bruise on her temple.
The knot of hair at the nape of her neck gave easily, freeing her curls along her shoulders to better hide her homespun dress. Looking down at herself, Camille felt the freedom of the disguise and the beginnings of appreciation for the fantasy.
Maybeshewouldn’t need to face the duke at all.
*
Renard eyed thewhite silk and feather-embroidered cushions against the white, linen bedsheets—too reminiscent of Biblical descriptions of the Lord’s skyward house—and regretted his decision all over again.
He’d no idea what had possessed him to come here, where men paid to bed ‘Ponies’ in the manner and setting of their choosing. There was no shortage of bored misses and willing widows begging to share his bed. The Prodding Pony dealt in fantasy and fixation; he had no business dabbling in either.
Somewhere between last night and this morning, old lovers and stolen moments had lost their appeal. In truth, he’d comehere to clear his system with a faceless partner and a detached tumble, the opposite of the woman plaguing him.
He couldn’t escape her. Every redheaded woman from Dockside to his city home had caught his attention, whipping his head back and forth until his neck pinched. It was a matter of emergency that he’d come here after he’d passed a Brittany Spaniel and had nearly been run over by a carriage in his distraction. He drew the line at dogs.
It had been the excitement of an eventful evening. Emotions high, of course he’d found Miss Forthright fetching. In the light of the day, she’d lose her appeal. No woman could be that lovely.
One meaningless tumble with some buxom blonde and he’d forget all about the less-than-lovely Miss Forthright. Except he was in no mood to bed some random woman. The idea soured his stomach. He sighed and stood to leave, now seeing this errand as a terrible idea.
The door opened, parting the clouds that had been painted across the room and the door.
Renard cursed himself for a fool. He’d specifically told the Mistress of the house what he wanted, and this Pony wasn’t it.
Auburn hair, like a low, burning fire, skin finer than china. Her gaze found his, her brown eyes flashing with intelligence.
His body electrified with awareness.
He couldn’t see her face fully with the mask, but he knew. It washer.
Somehow, she was here, standing before him as if his very fantasies had taken flesh.
The mask she wore was white laced and covered most of her face, but he knew those eyes, recognized the challenge in them like a calling to his soul.
She crossed the room and sat on the bed across from his seat on the chaise, her short cape draping around her chest in tantalizing reminiscence of bird wings. Reclining against thepillows, her legs tucked beside her, she gave off every impression of a submissive lover.
Fate was cruel. He’d come here looking to wipe the slate clean but instead had found the very object of his desire. The hard-won woman who’d taken on three monsters had a secret life. This coy and decorated dove was nothing like the sharp-tongued falcon from last night.
