Nicola Cornick - Forbidden

Margery took another cautious step down, then another. Only three more to go and then she would be standing on the black-and-white-checkered floor of the brothel’s hall and the beautiful golden gown would be within her grasp. She would grab it, stuff it back in the basket and scoot through the green baize door that led to the servants’ quarters below stairs.

It was a simple plan and it almost worked.

She’d almost reached the entrance to the servants’ quarters when she saw that someone was blocking her way. It was not Mrs. Tong, full of righteous indignation, but a man, lounging in the shadows. He did not move. Nor did he speak.

The candlelight skipped across his face, emphasizing some features, concealing others. Margery could see that he had black hair but not the precise shade. It needed a cut. His face was thin and brown with high cheekbones that reminded her of the carved stone statues she had seen in churches. He had a groove down each cheek where he smiled and a groove in his chin, as well. An odd shiver rippled through her, for this was a man with a saint’s face but with sinner’s eyes, dark, wicked eyes, hiding secrets. His brows were strong and dark, too, and his mouth neither too thin nor too wide. When he smiled, Margery realized that she was staring at him, staring in fact at his mouth, which looked tantalizingly firm.

A bolt of heat streaked through her, fierce and unfamiliar, like the burn of spirits. It made her tingle and set her head spinning. She took a step back, trying to steady herself. It was very hot in the brothel. Perhaps that was why she felt so faint all of a sudden, or perhaps she was sickening for something, as her grandmother would have said.

Still the gentleman did not move. He looked at Margery. She looked back at him. He was a gentleman; there was no doubt about that. He was beautifully dressed, something Margery, with her eye for style and color, was quick to appreciate. His cravat was tied in a complicated arrangement she did not even recognize, and held by a diamond pin. A jacket of elegant proportions fit his shoulders without a wrinkle, in much the same way that his tight buckskins clung to his thighs. A dandy, Margery thought. She had a servant’s finely honed instinct for recognizing various qualities in men and women. This was a man of fashion, but she sensed that there was more to him than that, something dark, deep, dangerous perhaps, in a way she could not begin to understand. She shivered.

He was blocking her escape.

“May I help you, sir?” she asked, wanting to bite back the words as soon as they were spoken, for she realized that they were perhaps not the most felicitous choice in a brothel.

Something flared in his eyes like the shimmer of heat from the candles. He straightened and took a step closer to her. Margery involuntarily tightened her grip on the handle of her basket. The wooden struts creaked.

“I am sure that you can.” His voice was very mellow. He sounded amused. His mouth had curled into another slow smile. It crept into those dark eyes and lit them with warmth that made Margery’s face burn. The strange awareness drummed more persistently in her blood.

This is a rake. Take care… .

“I don’t work here,” she said quickly.

He paused. His gaze slid over her in a slow, thorough appraisal. Oh, yes, this was a rake. He knew how to look at a woman. There was an expression in his eyes that Margery had seen before. She had seen it in the eyes of many men looking upon the beautiful scandalous ladies for whom she had worked. She had also seen it in the gaze of people looking at her homemade sweetmeats. It was a mixture of greed and speculation and desire.

No one had ever looked at her in that way. No one had looked at her as though they wanted to eat her up, sample her, taste her and savor that pleasure. Such an idea was absurd, impossible.

Except that it was not, for this man was looking at her with acute interest and—she gulped, her throat suddenly dry—definite desire.

There had to be some mistake. He was confusing her with someone else.

“You don’t work here,” he repeated softly. He took a step closer to her, put out a hand and touched her cheek lightly with the back of his fingers. He wore no gloves and his hand was warm. Margery’s skin felt even hotter now.

“I’m only visiting,” she said in a rush.

His eyes widened. That smile, like sunshine on water, deepened. “There’s nothing wrong in that,” he said.

“No! I mean—” Margery floundered. “I’m not here to—” She stopped, wondering how on earth to describe the many and varied sexual practices that Mrs. Tong’s customers indulged in and she did not.

“I’m a lady’s maid,” she blurted out.

“Of course, you wish to be incognito.” The stranger shrugged. “Don’t worry. Mrs. Tong caters to all tastes. Many ladies enjoy dressing up as maids. Marie Antoinette, for example.” He smiled. “The marketing basket is a nice touch.”

“I’m not dressing up,” Margery said. She whispered it because he was now so close that she seemed to have lost the power of speech. “I really am a lady’s maid.”

The stranger laughed. “Then it is enterprising of you to supplement your income like this.”

Oh, lord. Now he thought she worked part-time as a lightskirt. It was not unheard of. Margery knew plenty of maidservants who sold their favors. It was more lucrative than scrubbing floors. It was whispered about Town that Lord Osborne had once visited his favorite brothel only to be confronted with his housemaid, who was working as a courtesan on the side. Margery had never considered supplementing her income that way. When she had left Berkshire for London it had been with her grandmother’s warnings ringing in her ears.

“London is a cesspool of vice,” Granny Mallon had said. “You take my word for it—I’ve been there once. Keep yourself nice for your husband, my girl.”

Margery had not cared much about finding a husband but she did care about keeping herself nice. It was important to her.

Besides, no one had asked her to give up her virtue anyway. Lady Grant’s twin footmen were too pretty and too much in love with themselves to notice anyone else, and the rest of the male staff were too young, or too old or too unattractive. And they were her friends. Margery had not felt a single amorous flutter toward any of them.

She did have a servant follower, Humphrey, who was the second gardener at the house next door. He brought her flowers and moped about the kitchen inarticulately, staring at her and reddening if she spoke to him. Humphrey reminded Margery of a stray animal. She felt pity for him and a kind of impatient affection. He did not make her tremble, or cause her knees to weaken, as they were weakening now. He did not make the breath catch in her throat or her heart beat like a drum, as it was beating now.

But Margery had also been warned about handsome gentlemen, men who preyed on naive country girls. Granny Mallon had not been wrong. London was indeed a home to every vice beneath the sun, and Margery was fairly certain that this man was intimately acquainted with quite a number of them. There was something downright wicked about him.

“We are at cross-purposes,” she said. She had to force the words out and her voice sounded husky and high-pitched at the same time. “I am not a lightskirt, nor am I here to sample any of the pleasures of the brothel—”

“Are you sure?”

Had he heard the note of wistfulness in her voice? Margery gulped.

“Not even—” his mouth was dangerously close to hers “—one kiss?”

“I’m a virgin!” Margery squeaked.

She saw him smile. “It takes more than one kiss to change that, sweetheart.”

There was a long, long moment in which Margery could feel the warmth of his body and hear the thunder of her pulse in her ears. She did want to kiss him. Her stomach dropped with shock as she realized it. Fierce curiosity licked through her, laced with wickedness. She could barely believe how she was feeling. Things like this did not happen to her; she was far too sensible to want to kiss strange gentlemen in brothels. Or so she had thought. Yet something of the sumptuous, bawdy atmosphere seemed to have infected her like too much wine in the blood, and here she was with this man who was temptation personified….