Paullina Simons - A Beggar’s Kingdom

The man grabs his arm. “What do you think of our beauty, sir?” he says, chuffing like a horse.

Julian still won’t look at her. Our? “Beautiful.” He yanks his arm away.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Nope.” Julian doesn’t bother faking politeness. He doesn’t need to. He’s in charge. His antenna is up, and so is his concern for Mallory.

“This is Lord Fabian, sire,” Mallory says softly. “He is one of our most kind and generous patrons.”

“I know who you are,” the fat man says to Julian. His puffy white shirt is open. His chest is hairy, he’s perspiring, sickly perfumed. “And you certainly know who the girl is.” He sniggers, winded even from speaking.

“Lord Fabian watched us the other night, sire,” Mallory says. She points to a tapestried panel on the wall. “From a hidden enclosure.”

That does not endear Julian to the man. He backs away to stand between Mallory and the lord, shielding her from the man’s lecherous gaze.

“You put on quite a show, young man. Well done.” Fabian wipes his brow with a soiled handkerchief. “I’d like you to do it again.” He pauses. “But this time while I watch comfortably from a chair instead of peeping through a hole in a wall like a burglar.”

“No,” Julian says.

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me. Mallory, get dressed, come with me. The Baroness is asking for you downstairs.”

“No, sire,” Mallory says calmly. “The Baroness knows where I am. She allows me this indulgence from time to time—because it’s Lord Fabian.”

“I should think she allows it,” Fabian says, bristling, “all the money she’s made off me.”

“Yes, you have been very good to me, my lord.”

“Come, Mallory,” Julian says, reaching for her.

She pulls away from his hand. “No.”

From me you pull away, Julian wants to say to her.

“I demand you stay,” Fabian says to Julian, “or God help me, I’ll have your job. And possibly your head on a spike.”

Julian walks out, leaving the door open behind him.

He returns to his room and sits on the bed, contemplating his options. Before he has time to get more upset, there’s a knock. It’s Mallory, hastily dressed.

“Sire, may I talk to you?” She shuts the door behind her. “Why won’t you help me?” She comes forward. “Is it because I refuse to come to you privately?”

“No.”

“If you help me, I will agree to see you from time to time.”

“No.” He frowns. Is she trying to make him more upset? “I don’t want you to come to me because we made a bargain, Mallory. I want you to come to me because you want to.”

“I’m too busy around here to want to do anything, sire. But you don’t seem as if you are too busy tonight to help me. So why are you saying no?”

“I’m saying no because I don’t want to do it.”

“You don’t want to be with me?” Her voice is soft, cajoling, her brown eyes large like a baby fawn’s.

“Not like this.”

“I know you must think him vile, but if you touch me, he won’t touch me. Don’t you want that? In some way, this is to protect me.”

“There must be another way.”

“There isn’t,” Mallory says. “Not at the moment. The lord wants to perform and can’t. This makes him angry, first with himself, and then with me. He says I judge him for his malady, and no matter what I try to do or say to let him know it’s not true is wrong. Unfortunately, the pressure of my willing body works on him in reverse. But then you appeared to us, sire, to me and Margrave! Afterward, the lord told me he hadn’t felt as aroused and happy in many years.”

“Good for him. Nothing I enjoy more than hearing I make that man happy and aroused. But you’re not one of Tilly’s girls. You’re a maid.” Julian is trying to shut his heart to her. “Just do your job and stay away from him.”

Mallory wrings her hands. “The Baroness allows me to be with him because he promised her he wouldn’t really touch me. He is my only customer. Mostly all he does is look, because that’s all he can do, and that’s the truth. I only do it to make a little money on the side.”

“What’s it to me?”

“The other girls get paid more, and I work so much harder.”

“So complain, Mallory. Speak up. The Baroness says you never say a word.”

“What’s there to say!” The girl takes a deep breath, and then lowers her deathless voice. “Listen to me, sire, please .”

Julian closes his eyes, to avoid looking at her. He wants to put his hands over his ears to not hear her.

“You’re an idling satyr,” she purrs, reaching for him, caressing him through his silk hose. “Why waste your unused pillar of gold? Put it to use, sire. Put it to good use.”

“Don’t butter me up, I’m not toast. You know I don’t want to be idle,” Julian says after a beat. “I’m just not going up on his stage.”

“It’s your life and your stage,” says Mallory. “As it is mine. Decide if you want to be in the center of it or in the wings.” She takes his hand. “In the center of it, with me .”

“No.” He turns to the window. What is she doing to him?

“Please, Julian.”

She calls him by his name. Next to the things she did to him when they were together, it’s the ultimate seduction. Will the vixen stop at nothing ?

“The lord said he’ll give me a crown if you lie with me,” Mallory says. “A crown , sire! A quarter of a pound. A crown for a few minutes of your time. I make a shilling a week. I have to work five back-breaking weeks to make one crown. The other smuts, with all their experience, make three pennies a customer. Even Brynhilda’s tits fetch her barely six. And the lord is offering us a crown! Why can’t you help me? You did it the other night.”

“The other night, I did it for free.” He pulls his hand away from her.

“ You may have done it for free,” Mallory returns cruelly. “But Marg and I knew he was watching us. We got paid for touching each other, and I got paid a bonus for touching you. Two extra shillings after you broke in.”

“Did you split that with Margrave?”

Mallory’s face is cold. “She makes plenty as it is.”

Julian is astonished. “The other night … that was you performing for him ?”

“I beg pardon, sire, I hate to be impertinent, but … are you aware where you are? Where you and I both work?”

“Quite aware, thank you. I just thought you had been performing for me. My mistake.” Julian stares into his hands. This is Josephine’s acting life. Mary Collins told her lady mother: all she wanted was to be up on a stage. Josephine told him she invented a stage everywhere she went. Well, here is what the stage looks like in 1666.

Minutes pass. He pulls up his velvet sleeve, counts the ink dots. Seven . A week has passed since his first night here with her. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll do it. But tell your lord it’s a crown only if he leaves the room and spies through the hole.” Julian pauses. “It’s two crowns if he stays in the chair.”

Mallory beams. Julian doesn’t beam.

Without hesitation, Fabian agrees to two crowns. They should’ve asked for more, Julian thinks, as he pushes the heavy bed farther away from the man’s repugnant feet, and he and Mallory undress. Julian wishes he had money he could offer her instead of the toady watching them from three floorboards away.

He and Mallory stand naked in front of each other.

Julian really wants to touch her.

Can he even perform in front of Lord Odious?

Why, yes, it turns out he can.