Louise Allen - Those Scandalous Ravenhursts Volume Two

Jessica pulled the deep collar up to hide the lower half of her face. With clothing came some semblance of inner calm; it was incredible how the very fact of being naked clouded the wits. She found she could look around her and see the whole room, not tiny details of it magnified as though in a nightmare. The two women on the bed became clearly twin mortals; the room was not a crystal palace of light, but simply a tawdry chamber lined with smoke-smudged mirrors; and the naked god sitting up on the rumpled sheets was just a blond young man with an incipient pot belly and a flushed face.

‘Hello, Fell, Morant,’ he managed before slumping back on to the pillows. ‘Brought your own, have you?’

‘What?’ The man at the back—Fell?—pushed past and stared. ‘Where did you get this little ladybird, Morant? We didn’t have her with us when we started out, did we?’ He reached towards Jessica.

‘Hands off,’ the big man said easily, pushing his friend towards the bed. ‘You go and help Rotherham get his money’s worth: he doesn’t seem to be up to it, all by himself.’

The two black-haired girls held out their arms in welcome and Fell stumbled forwards, collapsing on to the bed with a hoot of laughter amidst his friend’s vehement protests.

The big man reached out and scooped up a pile of clothing from the chair, then propelled Jessica out into the passageway again. ‘Get dressed.’ He dropped the things at her feet. A tall silk hat rolled away, teetered on its brim for a moment, then fell over.

‘These are men’s clothes.’ Jessica clutched the silk robe even tighter around her.

‘Exactly. Do you think you are going to walk out of here dressed like that?’ He gestured at the robe. Jessica had a vivid mental picture of her hair, her bare feet, the naked skin under the lush brocade.

‘You are taking me with you, then?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She could not see properly, but she knew he was smiling—it was in his voice. ‘I am certainly taking you.’ Something inside her, something very complicated indeed, was making it hard to think. He would take her out of here, yes, but his words meant more than that—or did they? She shook her head: deal with the immediate problem, Jessica .

‘You are right, this is a good idea.’ She picked up the pantaloons and hauled them on under cover of the robe, rummaged and found the neckcloth and used it to tie round the waist to hold them up. ‘Turn round.’ The passageway was barely lit, she could make out the shape of him, the flash of white teeth as he grinned, the shape of a closely barbered head.

‘I’ve seen all there is to see already, sweetheart.’

‘Well, I don’t want you seeing it again,’ she retorted and to her amazement he turned a shoulder with a grunt of amusement, leant against the panelling and began to whistle softly while she shucked off the robe, dragged the shirt over her head and pulled on the greatcoat. It came down to her feet. Her bare pink toes peeked out. ‘Shoes?’ she said.

‘And hair.’ He turned back and looked at her. ‘Heaven help us. Here.’ His hands on her hair were ruthless. With one hand he gathered up the whole unruly mass, twisted it into a knot and then into the tall hat, which he jammed on her head. It came down to her nose.

He was heeling off his own evening slippers. Balancing on one foot, he dragged off the black silk socks, then repeated the gesture with the other foot before putting the shoes back on. ‘Try these. At least your feet won’t seem to be bare. If they notice my bare calves, they’ll think I was too fuddled to get dressed properly.’

This was insanity, yet now, with this man she could not even see properly, she felt safe. She had no idea how he could rescue her, but somehow she knew that he would. She was going to survive this. But the illusion of safety was just that, an illusion, and she must not forget it.

Feeling like an exceptionally well-dressed scarecrow Jessica stood in front of the looming dark bulk of her rescuer. ‘We will never get out of here with all these people still awake.’

He pulled a watch out of his waistcoat pocket and held it up close to his eyes in the gloom. ‘Oh, yes, we will, it is two minutes to midnight. Come on.’

What midnight had to do with it Jessica could not imagine, although images of coaches and pumpkins floated into her mind. She obediently padded along in his wake, one hand holding the hat so she could squint under the brim, the other clutching the coat around her.

They reached the head of a broad staircase, not the narrow one she had been so unceremoniously bundled up, struggling and scratching, only an hour before. The heat and the noise rising from the room below were overwhelming. Jessica took a firm hold of the man’s coat tails.

‘Don’t do that,’ he said mildly, ‘My valet will complain. Here, beside me.’ She forced her clenched fist to relax and, stumbling in her trailing greatcoat, went to stand on his left side. She tried to look up, see him now the light was better, but the hat brim defeated her.

‘You are drunk,’ her rescuer ordered, his deep voice calm and definite. ‘You can do that?’

‘Yes.’ Actually she wanted to scream, have the vapours and faint dead away. Do all the things, in fact, that the well-bred women lucky enough to be in a position to think themselves her superiors would do if they found themselves captives in a brothel. But she owed it to herself, and to this calm capable man, to have courage, even if she was going to have to pay for her rescue by losing her virtue in his bed. She could not imagine any man would remove a naked woman from a brothel and not expect the logical reciprocal gesture. After all, why else would he be here, if not for a woman? That was what he had meant when he had said he would take her.

‘Slump against me, then, and, whatever happens, don’t panic.’ One arm came round her shoulders and clamped her to his side. He smells nice , Jessica thought irrelevantly. Spicy citrus and clean linen and leather. ‘And whatever happens, hang on to that hat.’

They began to stagger down the stairs, the man keeping up a slurred, grumbling commentary that taught Jessica, in two terrifying minutes, more cant and bad language than she had ever heard in her life.

The noise swelled, overwhelming her; the stink of hot oil, candle wax, alcohol, sweat and excited masculinity enveloped her, driving away the comforting smell of the man beside her. Then their feet hit the level floor of the entranceway and she drew in a deep, sobbing breath. They were down. The door was right in front of them.

‘Off already, gentlemen?’ It was the false-genteel accents of the woman who had picked her up at the inn, the woman whose face she had glimpsed, hard and merciless, as the bullies had swept her up the stairs into the nightmare of captivity. Madame Synthia.

‘Unfort…unfortunately, Madame, Lord Rotherham ish…is overcome. We will have to return another night—see your famed midnight ex’bition.’

Jessica pressed herself against the tall, gently swaying figure as the madam took her rescuer’s other arm and tried to urge him into the room. ‘He’ll be all right, my lord, one of the girls will look after him. Or I’ll get the lads to keep an eye on him. Here, Geordie…’

‘Hat,’ he hissed, sweeping her up and over his shoulder. Jessica made a grab and held it on. ‘Too late, Madame, you don’t want him throwing up on your nice marble floor.’ Then the doors were open and with an exaggerated stagger they were out. Out into the blissful cold of the night, out into the quiet of a side street with only a hackney cab driving past.

‘Cab!’ The carriage reined in. Jessica tried to catch a glimpse of the man’s face in the light from the windows of the brothel, but he bundled her into the musty interior before she could focus.