Nicola Cornick - Forbidden

“For pity’s sake,” Margery said, pulling on her brother’s arm to draw him away. “Why don’t you just charge by the hour?”

Jem laughed again. “Now there’s a thought.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Tong would give you a job,” Margery said. “She likes pretty boys.”

“She’s not the only one,” Jem said complacently. He patted her hand. “Come along then, Miss Mallon. You had better lend me some of your respectability.”

Margery stopped dead again on the pavement, causing another couple to cannon off them in a volley of exclamations and apologies.

“What the devil?” Jem enquired mildly.

Margery did not hear him. She was clutching the handle of the basket a little more tightly as a frisson of disquiet rippled through her. She was back again in the hallway of the brothel, feeling the stranger’s hands on her, tasting his kiss and hearing his voice, smooth, mellow, charming the bawd out of her anger.

Miss Mallon was doing no more than giving me directions… .

For the first time, Margery realized that he had known her name.

The Magician Reversed: Trickery and deception

MARGERY WAS SITTING on the top step of the sweeping staircase in Lady Grant’s house in Bedford Street. Next to her sat Betty, the second housemaid. They were hidden by the curve of the stair and the soaring marble pillar at the top. None of the guests thronging the hall below could see them, but they had the most marvelous view. Tonight, Lord and Lady Grant were hosting a dinner and a ball—one of the first major events of the new London Season—and word was that the ton were begging, buying and bartering for tickets. Lady Grant’s events were always frightfully fashionable. To fail to secure an invitation was social death.

“Oh, Miss Mallon,” Betty said, her big brown eyes as huge as dinner plates as she stared down on the scene below. “Look at the clothes! Look at the jewels!” She dug Margery slyly in the ribs with her elbow. “Look at the gentlemen! They are so handsome!”

“I’m studying the gowns, Betty, not the gentlemen,” Margery reproved, “and so should you if you wish one day to be a lady’s maid.”

She made a quick pencil sketch of one of the gowns in her notebook. Lady Grant was modish to a fault, a leader of fashion, and as her personal maid it was Margery’s responsibility to keep her at the forefront of style. She watched the ladies as they strolled out of the dining room, making notes of the dresses and the jewels, the combination of colors, materials and styles. She could spot the work of individual modistes and guess to within a guinea or two the price of each gown. She was good at her job and on evenings like this, she enjoyed it.

Margery paused in her sketches, chewing the end of her pencil. Betty was correct. There were some very handsome men present tonight. She could hardly pretend otherwise. For a moment she saw another face, a man with a wicked smile and laughing dark eyes, and she remembered a kiss that was hot and tender and promised so much. She felt a tingling warmth sweep through her, as though her entire body was slowly catching alight.

Margery had thought about the gentleman from the brothel in the week since they had met, and it was starting to annoy her that she could not banish him from her mind. She had thought about his voice, smooth but with that note of command, she had remembered the tilt of his head, the light in his eyes, his smile. Oh, yes, she had remembered his smile. She had seen nothing else when she went about her work, whether she was dressing Lady Grant for a drive in the park, or re-dressing her for an evening at the theater or undressing her afterward. She had been so distracted that she had over-starched the lace, mended Lady Grant’s hem with a most uneven stitch and added the wrong color of feather to her French bonnet. She had mislaid Lady Grant’s jewel box and had folded her favorite pelisse away in the wrong clothes press.

Then there was the kiss. It had haunted her dreams as well as her waking moments. She had lain in her narrow bed under the eaves and dreamed of kissing him, and she had woken flushed and confused, her heart racing, her body quivering with a delicious foretaste of passion. She was not quite sure what it was she wanted, only that her body ached and trembled for him, and that the more she tried to ignore it the more those illicit, demanding sensations rose up in her to beg for fulfillment. She felt on edge and inflamed, angry with herself that she could not conquer it. She was not a girl normally given to fantasies and it was odd and disquieting to be dreaming of a man, especially one she had met only once.

“How red your face is, Miss Mallon.” Betty was looking at her curiously.

“It’s very hot in here,” Margery said. She pushed the memory of the kiss from her mind and concentrated sharply on the crowd of guests now thronging the hall. Lady Rothbury, Lady Grant’s sister, was looking particularly stunning in a gown of eau de nil that shimmered with gold thread. Her gaze moved on, over the welter of colors and styles, the flash of diamonds and the flutter of fans. The air was scented now with a mixture of hothouse flowers and perfume. The chatter of the guests rang in her ears. Margery craned forward for a closer look at a tall, thin woman in a striped gown that shrieked Parisian design . The movement caught the eye of the gentleman by her side. He looked up and their eyes met.

All the air left Margery’s body in a rush. The candles spun in the chandeliers like a wheel of light.

It was the gentleman from the brothel.

For one very long moment they stared at each other while the sound beat in Margery’s ears, and the light dazzled her eyes and she could neither move nor breathe. Then the gentleman inclined his head in the slightest of bows, and a mocking smile curled his mouth, and Margery knew he had recognized her. Movement returned to her body, and with it an intensification of the hot blush that spread through her so fast she felt as though she were burning up. The pencil slid from her fingers. The book tumbled off her lap as she jumped to her feet, smoothing her skirts with clumsy hands. She drew back behind the shelter of the pillar. Her heart was hammering underneath her bodice and her palms felt damp.

Who was he? What was he doing here? Would he give her away?

If he should mention to Lady Grant that one of her maids had been in Mrs. Tong’s brothel, that would be the end of her. She would be thrown out in the street without a reference and with no prospect of another respectable job. Her heated body turned cold. She would be forced to beg her brother Billy for work. She could not be a tavern wench or even a courtesan because she was not pretty enough, and anyway, that was no way to think….

“Miss Mallon!”

Margery’s frightened thoughts were scuttling around and it was a moment before she realized that she was being addressed. Mrs. Biddle, the housekeeper, was standing a foot away, glaring at them. Betty gave a little gasp and leapt up, pressing her hands to her reddening cheeks, horror in her eyes at being caught. Margery retrieved her pencil and notebook, trying to regain a little composure.

“Run along, Betty,” Mrs. Biddle said sharply. “You have work to do.”

Betty scrambled a curtsy and scurried away.

“I’m sorry,” Margery said. “It was my fault. Betty would like to be lady’s maid one day and I was teaching her a little about the job.”

“Lady Grant is asking for her silver gauze scarf,” Mrs. Biddle said, her tone softening. She was always respectful of Margery’s position as a senior servant. In other ways, she mothered her. “If you could take it down to the parlor, Miss Mallon, Mr. Soames will deliver it to the ballroom for her ladyship.”