room was filled with lewd laughter and ribaldry, even though the women’s chair legs were yet scraping the floor and not one of them had left. But then they were the demi-monde and did not warrant handling with the same consideration accorded to the respectable women.
Venetia Fox’s expression had not changed. It remained unfazed, controlled, unreadable, yet Linwood could sense that it was as much a mask as the green feathers of the courtesan spread out on the table before them. Her eyes met his and for the smallest of moments they were unguarded and he saw in them outrage and anger and a strength so formidable that it shocked him. Not one word passed her lips, not so much as a frown marred her face, but the tension that rolled off her in great crashing waves was a living, breathing, palpable thing. He wondered that no one else in the room seemed to be aware of it. And then the door closed as suddenly as it had opened and there was nothing there to suggest that she was in any way discomfited.
‘If you will excuse me, Lord Linwood,’ she said in a voice that made him doubt what he had seen in her eyes. And then she was gone.
Venetia asked the footman to fetch her cloak, then discreetly took Alice to one side in the hallway instead of entering the drawing room with the rest of the women.
‘Come with me. Do not stay here.’ Venetia spoke low and urgently, for her friend only. But Alice shook her head.
‘I think Razeby means to increase his offer and I know how to handle him.’ She touched a hand to Venetia’s arm. ‘You shouldn’t trouble yourself about Ellen…’ her eyes slid in the direction of the dining room they had just left ‘… Miss Vert, that is. Razeby won’t let anything happen to her and he’s paying her well enough.’
‘The woman in there, Ellen… was she a friend of yours?’
Alice nodded. ‘Still is. All Mrs Silver’s girls look out for one another, always.’
‘Tell her she can come to me. Tell her I can help her to leave Mrs Silver’s just like I did you.’
‘She doesn’t want to leave. She earns more money than I do. And she likes what she does.’
‘Does she like being at the mercy of all those men in the dining room right now?’
Alice glanced away, an uncomfortable expression on her face. ‘It’s the way of the world, Venetia.’
‘Just make her the offer, Alice.’ Venetia looked at her friend. ‘Please.’
Alice nodded. ‘I will, but I know what she’ll say.’
The two women looked at one another.
‘I will see you back at the house later.’
‘Maybe.’
Venetia knew it was pointless to argue with Alice. ‘Remember what I said about holding out despite all of Razeby’s persuasions.’
Alice nodded. ‘I will.’
The footman arrived with her dark fur-lined cloak, sweeping it around Venetia’s shoulders. She thanked him before he disappeared into the background once more.
‘And I’ll convey your apologies to Razeby.’
‘With the utmost insincerity, please.’ Venetia smiled and watched her friend slip into the drawing room.
‘Has my carriage arrived?’ she enquired of the same footman who had brought her cloak.
‘It has, ma’am, but there’s been an accident involving two carts along at the junction. None of the carriages can get out that way. They think it will be an hour before the road will be cleared. Shall you be joining the other ladies while you wait?’
The ribald laughter of the men sounded from the dining room, stoking the disgust and anger in Venetia’s belly. ‘No.’ She would be damned if she’d stay in this house a moment longer. Her stomach cramped tight at the thought. ‘My home is not so far. I will walk.’
‘Walk, ma’am? Alone, ma’am?’
‘Positively scandalous, is it not?’ She smiled at the footman, who was staring at her as if she had grown two heads, and swept through the door that he scrambled to open.
It was a relief to feel the chill of the night air against her skin and in her lungs. And even more of a relief to hear the front door close behind her. She instructed her carriage to wait in case Alice decided to use it. Her slippers made no noise against the pavement as she made her way past the few carriages that waited there, along to the end of the street and past the scene of the collision of the two carts.
She thought of Miss Vert lying there on the salver, exposed and vulnerable, and the thought made a hollow of her stomach. She thought, too, of Linwood in there with the other men, feasting upon the woman, and a wave of disgust flooded through her blood. She walked on, turning down Bear Street and heading towards Cecil Court. She was listening, watching, aware of the darkness that surrounded her and the emptiness of the streets. There was a risk in walking, especially alone, but the thought of staying in that house, knowing what was happening in the dining room, made the risk one she was prepared to take. Ten minutes more and she would be home. Ten minutes more and she would be safe.
The street lamps in this stretch had not been lit, which whetted her nervousness all the more. She found herself walking faster and clutching all the tighter to her reticule. A small dark shape darted out from the stairs that led down to beneath the door of the smart town house she was passing, making her start and inhale a breathy gasp. The cat mewed at her before running off into the night, its sooty fur merging with the blackness of the night. She gave a small shaky laugh, annoyed at herself for being so jumpy, telling herself not to be so ridiculous… just as the two men stepped out from where they had been sitting on the same stone-hewn stairs and, side by side, sauntered towards her.
Venetia stopped.
‘Didn’t mean to startle you, ma’am.’ The man’s voice was as rough as he looked. He was about thirty years of age, of medium height and bulky build. A dark cap had been pulled over his head, hiding his hair. There was a sleazy insolence in the way he was looking at her that negated the politeness of his words. His companion was younger, with a face that had been ravaged by the pox and eyes that threatened violence and more. Venetia’s heart began to thud in earnest.
She saw their gazes wander over the heavy fineness of her long cloak, over the small glittering reticule, the handle of which was looped around her wrist beside the sparkle of her diamond bracelet, before sweeping back up to her face.
‘Bit dangerous for a lady to be walkin’ the streets all alone at this time of night,’ the bulky man said. ‘Especially one that looks like you.’
Venetia did not deign a reply.
‘But then again, maybe you’re no lady.’ That brazen appraisal swept the length of her body again, as if he could see through the thickness of the cloak that shrouded her. ‘Ain’t you that actress?’
Her mouth felt as arid as a desert as she hid her hands and the reticule within her cloak.
The man saw the slight movement and laughed. ‘That’s not gonna help you, darlin’.’
‘Perhaps not,’ she said, ‘but this might.’ She slipped her hand from the cloak and aimed the small ivory-handled pistol at the ruffian.
He smiled, but she saw something flicker in his eyes. ‘So you want to play it the hard way?’
Her own lips curved in the semblance of a smile. ‘Walk away now and I will not shoot you.’
‘I don’t think so, lady. Besides, I doubt you even know how to—’
‘Oh, but I assure you….’ her finger squeezed before the sentence was finished ‘… that I do.’ The shot was loud for such a small weapon.
‘You shot me!’ He stared at her as if he could not believe it, clutching at his blood-seeping thigh.
Venetia