Julian watched her go, her lush, wide hips swaying, then turned back to Mary, his eyebrows raised expectantly.
“Fancy a drink before we go up?” Mary jerked her head toward a group of gentlemen who staggered about the center of the parlor, groping at females and guffawing loudly. Julian watched with distaste as one man stumbled to his knees and grasped at a whore’s skirts to try and drag himself back up. “Sometimes the gentlemen like a drink or two first. To relax, I s’pose.”
Julian shook his head. There was only one thing that would relax him, and it wasn’t drink. “No, I don’t care for—”
His words were drowned out by a sudden explosion of catcalls and whistles behind him. Gentlemen who were still lucid enough to stand lurched to their feet and crowded into the front of the room, craning their necks to see what fresh new mayhem was on offer. Whatever they saw caused the low din of conversation to rise until it reached a fever pitch of male voices raised in shouts of approval.
Julian growled with frustration as sweaty bodies surged against him. He took Mary’s arm and tried to disappear up the stairs, but men pressed against him from all sides and blocked his path to the second floor.Jesus.He’d anticipated sweaty body parts pressed together, but his fantasies hadn’t included foul male odors and coarse body hair.
After a great deal of scuffling and good-natured shoving the crowd parted, and four ladies in masques swept into the room, emerging from the chaos of eager male bodies.
“Come here, love, I’ve got something special for you!” One of the gentlemen made a clumsy grab for the lady closest to him—a tall, slender blonde with a jeweled black masque obscuring the upper part of her face. She dodged him, stepping neatly out of the way of his groping hand.
The crowd roared with laughter. “Looks like she doesn’t want what you’ve got, Dudley!” shouted one delighted onlooker.
“Can’t say I blame her,” yelled another. “All the doxies in London know what you’ve got, my lord, and there’s nothing special about it!”
The crowd erupted with laughter again. The four ladies took no notice of the heaving herd of rogues on either side of them, but made their way down the center of the room as if they were on a promenade through Hyde Park with the pink of theton, not in a west end whorehouse with shrieking men ogling them from all sides.
They were rather too much like the pink of theton, in fact.
Julian watched with narrowed eyes as the ladies made their way through the crowd to a corner of the room and settled gracefully onto two divans near the fire. A footman leapt forward to attend them, and one of the ladies—another blonde, this one petite and curvy—spoke to him. He rushed off at once to do her bidding, leaving the four ladies alone.
There was a brief silence—a breathless pause, the room frozen in a ludicrous tableau as everyone waited to see what they’d do.
The petite blonde waved a casual hand at the lady across from her, this one a redhead, her fair skin an unearthly white in the dim light. The entire room seemed to hold its breath as the redhead reached into the reticule in her lap. She took out a lacquered case, slid it open, and drew out—
“Cor,” Mary breathed at his side.
Four cheroots.
She offered one to each of her three companions. The other ladies accepted and held the thin, brown cheroots between gloved fingers as they turned to their fourth companion.
And she… Julian went still, every muscle in his body drawing tight. Mary giggled nervously at his side, but he ignored her, his gaze fixed on the fourth lady.
She wore tight elbow-length black gloves and carried a tiny bag on a string around her wrist. She dipped her long, satin-covered fingers into the bag, took out a small bundle, smoothed the wrappings aside, and withdrew a bit of cloth. Every eye in the room was on her as she rose, crossed to the fireplace, and knelt down to touch the cloth to the fire. It caught at once, and more than one man in the crowd drew in a quick, sharp breath, as if the sight of that tiny flame had snapped them from a collective trance.
The lady held the lit cloth to one end of her cheroot and sucked gently on the other end until the tip glowed red in the dim room; then she tossed the cloth into the fire, resumed her seat, and handed her lit cheroot to the petite blonde next to her. One by one, each lady passed their lit cheroot to the next, until all four tips burned like identical red eyes.
“The way’s clear now, guv.”
Julian started, then turned to Mary in surprise. “What?”
She jerked her head in the direction of the stairs. “Don’t ye want to go up?”
“Not yet.” Julian let his gaze wander back to the fourth lady. “I think I’d like a drink, after all.”
Mary shrugged. “All right, then.”
He led her to a dark corner of the room, to another red velvet divan where they were cast in shadows, but which still afforded a clear view of the four ladies, who now sat, as prim as a quartet of governesses, sipping at the whiskey the footman had delivered and occasionally touching their cheroots to their lips. No one approached them despite the earlier burst of excitement at their arrival, for by this time it was obvious they weren’t here for the gentlemen’s amusement.
Why precisely theywerehere—well, that was anyone’s guess. They weren’t whores. They were ladies—ton, if one could judge by their fine gowns and jeweled masques.
Julian’s lips stretched into a mocking smile. Four bored aristocratic ladies out on a whorehouse adventure. It wasn’t unheard of—more than one titled lady had set out to test theton’s limits for scandal—and yet a clandestine visit to a west end whorehouse was more than enough to leave a lady’s reputation in tatters. Nothing but four silk masques stood between these four and social ruin.
Quite a risk for a bit of fun.
Julian leaned back against the divan, let a healthy swallow of whiskey burn a trail of fire down his throat and studied the fourth lady. Her masque covered the entire upper part of her face, just as the other ladies’ did, and yet…
