Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

London, October 14, 1889

MISS HYACINTH’S HOUSE OF PLEASURE

2:15 p.m. Monday

HYACINTH STOMPED DOWN THE STAIRS OF HER PLEASURE house, fingering the whip at her belt. She played at punishment for a living, but at the moment she wanted to lash out in earnest. “Where is Mr. Tunbridge?” she demanded, each word a jagged shard of flint. She stopped at the third stair from the bottom, using the height to glare around her drawing room.

It was all but empty. Only Gareth, the useless young lout, lounged on the sofa. He was half pet, half dogsbody, and spent most of his free time eating her food. He was also one of the few she wouldn’t automatically savage when the mood was on her. He rose now, his eyes cautious. “Were you expecting him?”

“Of course I am. It is Tuesday, and it is two o’clock. He always comes for his beating at two.”

“A man of regular habits, then?”

“Like clockwork,” she said, biting off every syllable. “But he is not here. And neither was Monsieur Dubois, nor yet again Lady Christopher. They are my top-drawer clients, so what is going on?” She looked around the empty drawing room, experiencing a moment of panic. “Where are any of my clients?”

Gareth gave a short, solemn nod. “I don’t know about t’others, but I had a word with the Frenchie.”

“With Dubois?” Hyacinth folded her arms across the elaborate bow adorning the front of her bodice. Her outfit was a startling pink striped with cream, the front of her skirts cut away to display her elaborately embroidered black stockings. Men liked fantasy, and she looked good in it.

Gareth nodded.

“What,” she asked, “could possibly be more enticing than me?”

“The Violet Queen offered to do him personal, like.” Gareth shrugged. “No one’s going to tell her to shove off.”

Confusion made her sway on her ridiculously high heels, and she put a hand on the stair rail. “What would that old carcass want with Dubois?” Hyacinth wrinkled her nose. “She doesn’t even have to work anymore.”

“Didn’t you go see her the other day?”

“Yes. She was all good manners and second-best tea.” But still, the woman had to be up to something. “Is that all Dubois said?”

Gareth shrugged.

“Damn it all.” She turned and clattered back up the stairs. She strode to her private chambers, where she should have found a plump, pale body strapped to her chevalet—a tilting frame vulgarly known as a Berkley Horse—waiting for the first kiss of pain. She gave it a savage snap of her whip, as if the smooth wood could feel the burn of her displeasure.

Then she stood glaring at the rack of switches, whips, and cat-o’-nine-tails she’d mounted on her wall. There were more extensive collections out there, but she fancied herself an artist who had no need of an excess of tools. So then where are my regulars?

“Forgive me, Miss Hyacinth, but I overheard,” said a soft voice from the doorway. It was Tigress, a new girl the Violet Queen had sent over and most likely there to spy on Hyacinth’s activities. “I know my former mistress. You have the essence of what she wants.”

Hyacinth’s head snapped up. “What does that mean?”

The girl bowed. She was slender and dark-eyed, her black hair long and straight. A fool might have called her delicate, but Hyacinth could see the lean muscle beneath the girl’s tawny skin.

“You interest her,” said Tigress. “Perhaps she wishes to understand your success.”

“So she takes all my customers?” Hyacinth asked indignantly.

“Forgive me if I am mistaken.” The girl bowed again, retreating. “Perhaps it is not the queen, but just the war that keeps your customers away.”

“I don’t believe that.”

But Tigress was already gone.

Irritation soaked Hyacinth’s mood, coupled with alarm. The Violet Queen had been anxious to bring Hyacinth to heel, but there had to be more than an urge to discipline an underling at work. After all, if a business failed, the Violet Queen could take none of the profit. And in Hyacinth’s book, the only thing stronger than money was irrational, overwhelming emotion—not exactly the response one wanted to inspire in a steam baron.

Perhaps she wishes to understand my success? Unlikely. The woman had been in the business for years, and had made it to the top. She knew what made it successful. It was something else—something more primal. Something that looked too much like what the Violet Queen had lost.

Hyacinth wanted another talk with the old baggage, and she wanted it now.

HYACINTH CHANGED INTO a more sedate ensemble—this one at least covered her ankles, if it left rather a lot of visible décolletage—and decided to take Gareth and Tigress with her. There were no cabs on the rubble-strewn streets, so they had to walk the distance to the Violet Queen’s house. Hyacinth had never lacked confidence, but there were times when numbers gave one a feeling of security, and crossing London had just become one of them. Police and soldiers were out in force, but they were sorely outnumbered. Looters circled the carcasses of the banks like hungry dogs, and mercenaries—the Gold King’s Yellowbacks or King Coal’s Blue Boys—fended them off or joined them, depending on the odds at the time.

“How much farther?” Gareth asked nervously, listening to distant rifle shots. Tigress lifted her head as if mildly interested in the noise, but said nothing.

“It’s just up ahead.” Hyacinth kept her voice even, even if her heart was pounding hard enough to make her light-headed. They’d seen a lot of Blue Boys in the last few blocks, and they were far enough out of Whitechapel to catch the attention of rival crews. The last thing she wanted was to get caught in the middle of a fight.

“What exactly do you hope to accomplish, Miss H?” he asked. “You can’t just give the Queen of Whores a talking to.”

“She took what’s mine. She took what I laid my skin and sweat down to have. The last girl who did that to me …”

Hyacinth trailed off. It had been a lot of years since anyone had crossed her quite that way. “It was Sarah Makepeace, who took my paint box at school. I waited until we were at archery and then taught her a lesson.” But even that hadn’t been the same. The paint box had been a gift. She’d cultivated her customers, and that made them more truly hers than any ordinary possession.

They turned a corner and the large, elegant house came into view. Hyacinth’s two-story, in need of paint and a proper gardener, was a hovel in comparison. This place had four levels, an enormous porch, and an acre of stained glass. The grounds were no less stately, with a rose garden flanked in ornate iron benches.

Gareth gave a low whistle. “Where do the customers go?”

Hyacinth was about to say this was the Violet Queen’s residence, not her whorehouse, but Tigress spoke up. “The pleasure rooms are in the back. You see, there are no windows. Discretion is complete.”

Hyacinth cleared her throat. “I should go in alone. Sit out here and wait for me.”

Tigress bowed and Gareth folded his arms unhappily. Ignoring them both, Hyacinth mounted the broad porch with its scrollwork ornamentation and reached for the bell. But then, almost of its own accord, her hand drifted to the bright brass of the doorknob and turned it.

The door opened easily and she stepped inside. The front hall, with its potted palms and black-and-white tiles, was as elegant as upon her last visit, but something was different. There are no servants . A footman should have reacted the moment she came up the porch. Now that she was inside, she should have heard a maid or the butler or even just a tweenie bustling about. Hyacinth narrowed her eyes. Something was going on—if the servants had run away, they would have picked the place clean, and there was still a valuable china vase on the hall table.