The Captain's Courtesan

When she’d first seen her dress, laid across Mrs Barnard’s plump arm, it had looked perfectly respectable. She was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, after all, so a long white-muslin tunic girdled with a turquoise cord seemed appropriately demure. ‘The turquoise will match your eyes, my dear!’ had simpered Mrs B.

Up until now, Rosalie had never really considered that she had much of a figure to hide. She was twenty-one years old, of medium height, and rather too thin; her legs, she considered, were too long and her bosom decidedly undistinguished compared to the voluptuous figures that were on display around her. Besides, she’d always made a point of dressing to deter any roving male eye. She’d never in her life up till now worn her hair loose and tumbling to her shoulders, had never worn a gown remotely like this one. Demure? That was before she got it on. It was sheer, it was clinging … For heaven’s sake! How could she go out on stage like this?

She’d done her very best to adjust the ridiculously low neckline by quickly threading a turquoise ribbon through the scalloped lace that edged the yoke and pulling it together into a bow just above the curve of her breasts. But Sal, who was busy powdering her own extremely well-displayed plump bosom, turned to her, powder puff in hand. ‘Ma Barnard will never let you get away with that cover-up, darlin’. Not in a thousand years.’

Rosalie protested. ‘I’ve no intention of going out there half-naked!’

‘What did you expect, in Dr Barnard’s Temple of Beauty? Gawd, dearie, I wish I had your looks. Your face and figure, that gorgeous hair of yours—’

‘My figure? My hair?’ echoed Rosalie.

Sal sighed. ‘Own up, now. You ain’t done nothing like this before, ever, have you?’

‘Well, no. Not exactly …’

‘Not on the run, are you, from the law, or some cross husband?’

‘No! Not at all, Sal! And anyway, I don’t suppose that any of them will be paying much attention to me. Will they?’

‘New girl at Dr B.’s Temple of Beauty? Course they’ll be lookin’ at you!’ Sal drew closer. ‘And after the show—did Mrs B. explain? There’s a bit of music in what they call the Inner Temple on the next floor up, and it’s there that the gents pay to come to dance with us.’

‘Just dancing?’ Rosalie enquired rather faintly. She had already discovered that this place was like a rabbit warren, with five floors of rooms and various twisting staircases.

Sal winked. ‘Just dancin’ to start with. Then—who knows?—you might end up with a nice rich lord to milk for a while, if you just shut yer eyes through all the grunting and heaving. But watch out, gal. If they promise love, they’re lying through their teeth.’

Rosalie nodded, her heart sinking. She knew that. But so many didn’t.

Rosalie, I’m in London. I’m in trouble. Please help me. That was all that was in Linette’s pitiful letter last October. Nothing else—no address, no other clue—except that Rosalie knew Linette had always wanted to be an actress.

Now emotion squeezed at Rosalie’s throat like a necklet of iron when she thought what had become of that dream, and a touch of fear also; Linette had been only two years younger than Rosalie, and though Linette’s blonde locks were more luxuriant and her figure more shapely, the sisters did bear a resemblance. At the interview yesterday, Rosalie had worried that Dr Barnard might spot it.

But his gaze had been one of cursory approval. ‘Oh, they come and they go, our girls!’ he’d said airily, when she asked him why he had vacancies. ‘A world of opportunities awaits them, after all!’

Opportunities. Anger, as well as despair, surged through her. Then the door flew open and Danny, the lad who helped backstage, burst in. ‘Three minutes to go, lay-dees!’ He looked straight at Rosalie and winked.

‘Dirty little rascal,’ said Sal amiably. ‘Always hopes he’ll catch us with nothing on. Here—have some rouge.’

‘No thanks.’ Rosalie turned to face her. ‘Sal, how long have you worked here?’

‘Feels like a lifetime, but I’ve been here all of six months! What with Mrs B.’s sharp tongue and her hubby docking our pay at any excuse, no one sticks it more than a year.’ Sal was piling on more rouge. ‘Why are you workin’ here, gal? Standin’ about on stage in next to nothing isn’t what you was brought up to, anyone can see that! You’re clever, you speak like a lady. You could have bin a governess or something, surely!’

‘I have a child to care for,’ Rosalie answered simply. ‘Governesses with children don’t get hired.’

Sal looked at her quickly. ‘How old’s your little one?’

‘Two. She’s just two years old.’

‘Ah, bless! She’s lucky, then, havin’ you to watch over her,’ said Sal wistfully. ‘Me, I was put on the streets by my ma when I was ten. To think I’m playin’ Hebe, the virgin goddess—Lord knows I can hardly remember bein’ a virgin meself. But I’ve learnt lessons. I know the ways of the so-called gentry like the back of my hand. And remember, the best way to make life comfortable for yourself and your little ‘un is to open your legs to a rich man—but get his money first, you hear me?’

‘Ladies!’ shrieked the boy Danny, flinging the door wide open. ‘Ready to go on stage!’

‘Here we go.’ Sal grinned.

Here we go indeed, echoed Rosalie silently.

But not before Mrs Patty Barnard, inspecting every goddess as they filed through the door, ripped open the bow securing the neckline of Rosalie’s bodice and tugged it down to show the curve of her breasts. ‘Told you before, Athena. Think you’re in a damned nunnery?’

Rosalie pressed her lips firmly together, but a faint flush of defiance rose in her cheeks.

With the curtains still closed, all the girls hurried to take up position on stage. Charlotte was carefully seating herself on a damask-covered throne and preening her dyed golden locks, while the others clustered around. Now Rosalie could hear Dr Barnard standing in front of the stage and announcing to the gathered audience, ‘For your delectation, my honoured friends! A scene of exquisite and ennobling artistry—the Greek goddesses!’

Rosalie had kept as far to the back as she could. Oh, she wondered, the breath hitching in her throat, what had she let herself in for?

The heavy curtains were gliding back.

There must be nigh-on a hundred men out there.

She felt rather sick. For Linette, her beloved sister. She would see this through, for Linette—and for Linette’s child, Katy.

Chapter Three

‘Dear Rosalie, why on earth are you asking me about such a place?’ had been her friend Helen’s startled response when Rosalie mentioned the Temple of Beauty two days ago. They were in Helen’s printing shop, and all around them were heaps of freshly printed broadsheets. ‘From what I’ve heard,’ Helen went on, ‘that Temple is nothing but a glorified brothel!’

‘Bwothel,’ little Katy had lisped. ‘Bwothel.’

Quickly Helen turned to the two children, who were drawing stick men on some scraps of paper. ‘Toby, darling, take Katy to the kitchen and get her a glass of milk, will you?’

‘And a treacle bun?’ Six-year-old Toby, always hungry, asked the question hopefully.

‘And a treacle bun each, yes, if Katy wants. Look after Katy, now!’

‘C’mon, Kate.’ Holding out his hand, Toby had valiantly led the toddling two-year-old past the for-once silent printing press towards the kitchen. Katy was still lisping, ‘Bwothel. Bwothel …’

Rosalie watched them go with a catch in her throat, then said quietly to Helen, ‘Toby’s wonderful with Katy. I’m so very grateful to you for letting us stay here with you, Helen. I wish you’d let me pay you for our food, at least!’

‘And I wish you’d take my advice and stop going round these dreadful places on your own.’ Helen had sighed. ‘Men who visit the Temple of Beauty have only one thing on their mind! Are you going because you’ve heard that Linette might have been there?’

‘Exactly. You know how Linette always talked of being an actress? Well, now I’ve found out she may have worked at this Temple of Beauty, three years ago.’

‘That place! Oh, poor, poor Linette!’

Helen had been a teacher at the little school in the village where Rosalie and Linette grew up, then she’d married and moved to London, where her husband ran a small publishing press in Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell. But a few years later he’d abandoned Helen and their little son, Toby, for a singer from Sadler’s Wells. Helen had always kept in touch with Rosalie by letter, and after her husband’s departure she wrote to her young friend that she’d resolved to make a success of the publishing business on her own. When Rosalie’s search for Linette brought her to London last autumn, it was to Helen that she turned.

‘I will pay you, Helen, for my accommodation,’ Rosalie had insisted when she arrived outside Helen’s door.

‘Nonsense.’ Helen had hugged her warmly. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you find your poor sister. As for payment—well, how about writing for The Scribbler?’

‘The Scribbler? Helen, what’s that?’

And Helen had gone on to explain.

The Scribbler was a weekly news sheet Helen produced, a round-up of London events and advertisements, which Helen also used from time to time to denounce the greed of the rich and the plight of the poor.

All this Helen had told Rosalie as she’d unpacked her bags last October. ‘What I really need,’ Helen had said, eyeing her former pupil thoughtfully, ‘is someone who’ll write a weekly diary of London life. Something light, about the theatre, for example, or an amusing commentary on the latest women’s fashions … How about it, Rosalie? You have talent—I realised it when you were my pupil.’

‘But I’ve never thought of writing for publication!’

‘Why not? I remember you write with such charm, such humour—just try it, please?’

Helen’s suggestion certainly paid off, because Rosalie’s weekly articles—published under the pen name of Ro Rowland, a fictional young man about town—had become resoundingly popular. In other circumstances, Rosalie would have revelled in her new life. She’d come to love this little Clerkenwell printer’s shop with its ancient hand press that rattled away merrily in the front parlour. But Helen could be stubborn, and every so often Rosalie had to make clear what she was after. What her purpose was.

‘All I want is to find out the truth about Linette,’ Rosalie had repeated steadily in the face of Helen’s objections. ‘I thought we’d discussed this. My sister might have met him at the Temple of Beauty and I cannot leave any stone unturned.’

‘Then …’ Helen had hesitated ‘… it might just help you to know that Dr Barnard keeps a secret register of clients. Names, addresses, the dates they visited, that sort of thing. I only heard about it because once I was offered the chance to publish some of it by a man who worked for Dr Barnard and showed me some pages he’d copied. I refused, of course—I’d have made too many enemies. But I learnt that Dr Barnard keeps this register—he calls it his green book—in his office, hidden inside a hollowed-out copy of a big old book called The Myths of Apollodorus. And since you know, roughly, the dates that Linette was there, it just might help you! It’s such a tragedy that you don’t know the name of her villainous seducer—’

Rosalie cut in, giving Helen’s hand a squeeze. ‘Thank you for the news about the register. You are such a good friend.’

Helen shook her head, sighing. Though over thirty now, she still looked just like the village schoolteacher she once was, with her brown hair pinned up tightly and her eyes behind her spectacles shining with intelligence. ‘Just look after yourself, my dear, won’t you? Get out of that “Temple place” just as soon as you can. Men.’

‘Men don’t worry me, since I’ve got a foolproof defence, Helen,’ Rosalie said lightly. ‘I’m simply not interested in them. Though we mustn’t forget that there are some good men in the world!’

‘Not that I’ve met lately!’ snapped Helen.

Rosalie put her head on one side mischievously. ‘What about your friend Mr Wheeldon?’

‘Francis! Oh, well, he’s different.’ Helen was busily putting the latest copies of The Scribbler into piles for distribution. ‘And you certainly wouldn’t find him at Dr Barnard’s Temple of Beauty!’

True. Rosalie had chuckled at the thought of the kind, middle-aged churchwarden Francis Wheeldon visiting such a place. She picked up a Scribbler. ‘Shall I take some copies of this to the news vendor in the Strand for you, Helen? You usually sell quite a few there, don’t you?’

Subject changed. But Rosalie hadn’t wavered in her resolve to visit the Temple of Beauty. If appearing on stage for a night was the only way to get further in her quest, then so be it. That register could be a breakthrough—because Rosalie had lied to Helen. She did know the name of the man who had ruined her sister. But she was keeping it to herself, for she had no doubt that he was not only hateful, but dangerous.

Now Rosalie was looking down from the stage at all these lecherous roués in fresh disbelief. How could her darling sister have fallen in love with someone who came to a place like this?

‘Athena!’ Mrs Barnard was hissing at her from the wings. ‘You, new girl, stop glaring down at our guests like that! And pull your bodice lower, or I’ll come out and do it myself!’

Rosalie muttered a retort under her breath and dragged down her bodice just the tiniest fraction. Sal winked at her. It was going to be a long ten minutes. Lifting her chin, deliberately staring at a fixed point at the very back of the hall, Rosalie mentally started composing a piece for The Scribbler. ‘Tonight your fellow about town Ro Rowland took himself to the well-known Temple of Beauty. And there he observed that a large number of the male spectators, being over fifty years old, were alas too short-sighted to fully enjoy the beauteous goddesses on display …’

Suddenly, the door at the back crashed open. A latecomer strode in and halted abruptly. He looked around, not up at the stage, but at the men in the audience, some of whom had turned in irritation at the slam of the door. Rosalie caught her breath.

He was not an old, fat lecher. He was tall and dark-haired, thirty at most. He was quite unmissable.

‘Now, there’s a sight for sore eyes,’ Sal murmured appreciatively at her side.

Rosalie nodded mutely. Most of the men in here favoured the current fashion for fancy tailcoats in blue or bottle-green superfine, padded at the shoulders and adorned with ridiculously large silver-gilt buttons that would lend themselves to the cartoons of Cruikshank or Gillray. But he—her man—was dressed casually, almost roughly, in a long grey overcoat that hung open to reveal a rumpled linen shirt and a horseman’s tight buckskin breeches tucked into worn leather riding boots. Instead of a high starched cravat, he wore a simple white neckerchief knotted loosely at his throat.

He looked angry, determined, and—absolutely gorgeous. His wide-set eyes smouldered with fiery challenge beneath jet-black brows. And his careless attire served only to emphasise the masculine perfection of his body—that broad chest, tapering downwards to lean hips and muscular thighs … I’m sorry to let you down, Helen, but perfect is the only word for it. Fascinated, she let her gaze rove back up to his face, noting how his untamed dark hair lent dramatic emphasis to those lean, sculpted features and that amazingly sensual mouth.

His firm jaw was shadowed with at least a day’s stubble. He looked as though he didn’t give a fig for the company he’d disturbed. An aura of danger emanated from him, together with the cynicism of a man who’d already seen rather more of life than he should.

Yet—you only had to look at him to imagine being in his arms. To imagine doing things a well-bred girl shouldn’t even be thinking of. What was he doing here? You know the answer to that, you fool. Yet somehow, he—her man—looked as if he hated all this just as much as she did.

Don’t be an idiot, Rosalie. She could just imagine Helen proclaiming with a snort of derision, ‘Of course, a man prefers to pay for a woman, because the act of purchase means he can discard her the minute he’s had enough of her!’

Just for one incredible moment, his gaze met hers so searingly that she felt as if he was undressing her with his eyes. The warm colour suffused her skin. Then he turned his back on the place with a shrug of scorn and walked out. She felt, ridiculously, a sense of loss. A few minutes later the curtains were gliding shut and the girls, chattering avidly, were being shepherded off the stage. Back in the dressing room Rosalie put her hands to her flushed cheeks. Sweet heaven, who was that man?

And then Sal came over, and was digging her in the ribs. ‘Isn’t he just about the most gorgeous creature you’ve ever seen? Don’t try to deny it. I saw you staring!’ She chuckled.

Rosalie’s heart plummeted. ‘Does he … come here regularly, then?’

‘Lord alive, never seen him in here before, more’s the pity. Shouldn’t think he has to pay for his pleasures, should you?’ Sal put more powder on her nose. ‘But I’ve just heard one of the girls saying he teaches sword fighting to the gentry and is known as the Captain, because he was in the army for years.’

Never seen him in here before. Rosalie was already scraping her long hair back into a tight coil. That was as well. Because she could just imagine Linette—anyone—going off with him at one beckoning glint from those wicked, slanting dark eyes.

Then she reached for the everyday clothes she’d arrived in and started towards the changing room. Sal jumped in front of her. ‘Now, just a minute. What are you doing, gal?’

‘Going home,’ answered Rosalie calmly. Just as soon as I’ve paid a quick visit to Dr Barnard’s office.

‘What? You’re not stayin’ on?’

‘I was only hired to do the stage show, I made that quite clear … Whatever’s the matter, Sal? You look worried!’ In fact, more than worried—Sal looked almost frightened.

‘Dr Barnard spoke to me about you earlier,’ Sal whispered, glancing round to make sure they weren’t overheard. ‘He said I had to make sure you stayed on for the dancin’, see, even if it’s just for a bit!’

‘But why? I told him I’d appear on stage and nothing further, at least for the first night!’ In fact, Rosalie didn’t have the slightest intention of coming back here at all if she could help it.

Sal bit her lip. ‘Dr B. was hopin’ that perhaps you’d change your mind. New girls are always a draw, see, especially ones as pretty as you. And—’ her fingers knotted together nervously ‘—if you don’t show upstairs, I get the push, Rosalie.’

‘Oh, Sal …’

‘But it’s all right,’ went on Sal bravely, ‘you go, it’s not your fault—it’s a lousy place, this!’

Rosalie was desperate to get at that secret register. If not tonight, then she’d come back tomorrow and endure the stage show yet again; there was nothing else for it. But to go upstairs, on offer to all those men …

‘Well, look at little Miss Prim and Proper!’ It was Charlotte, sneering at Rosalie’s drab cloak. ‘So you’re disappearin’ already, are you? Of course, you won’t want to face the fact that nobody out there is going to be in the slightest bit interested in paying out good money for you!’

‘That’s as well, isn’t it?’ answered Rosalie calmly. ‘Since I never wanted them to.’

Charlotte glared. ‘I told Perceval—Dr Barnard—you was too high in the instep for this place! He’s just doin’ his accounts, down in his office, but soon as he arrives up here, I’ll tell him you ain’t nothing but a stuck-up troublemaker!’

Down in his office. Botheration. Rosalie put down her clothes and shook her hair loose. ‘Actually, Charlotte,’ she said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I am staying.’

Charlotte’s mouth opened and closed. Sal swung back to Rosalie. ‘Oh, my Gawd, girl, don’t do this just for me! You said you were dead set against joining the dancing, and I understand, I really do …’

Rosalie set her chin stubbornly. ‘Sal, how long does Dr Barnard usually take to do his accounts?’

‘Oh, ten minutes or so, that’s all, then he’s eager to mingle with his gents upstairs!’

‘Well, I’ll go upstairs, too,’ declared Rosalie. ‘Just long enough to make sure he sees me there, then I’ll slip away. Will that do?’

‘Won’t it, just!’ breathed Sal. ‘Thanks, gal, for savin’ my job here. But …’ she patted Rosalie’s cheek ‘… put some rouge on, eh? You got to look as if you mean it!’

Sal hurried off upstairs. Slowly Rosalie dabbed on a little rouge, hating it. Once more, now that she was on her own, she remembered that terrible winter night two months ago, when she’d received the message from Helen. Rosalie, I’m so sorry, I’ve found your sister.

Memories of a spring morning came back to her unbidden. She had been a small but leggy ten-year-old and Linette just eight. There’d been a storm in the night, with the wind and rain howling around the oak woods that surrounded their village, and at first light she and Linette had raced down to the stream at the bottom of their garden to see how the moorhens’ nest they’d been watching for days had fared.

Linette had been entranced by the newly hatched chicks, huddled in their sprawling mound of twigs that was lodged precariously against a small island in the centre of the river. But the morning after the storm Rosalie saw that the high waters had loosened the nest and any minute it might be dragged away, chicks and all, by the muddy brown flow.

Hitching up her skirts and pulling off her shoes, Rosalie had waded in, while little Linette, so pretty even then, had watched from the bank, her hands pressed to her cheeks. Rosalie, up to her knees in water and challenged by the mother moorhen squawking its outrage, steadily placed stones and twigs around the unwieldy nest full of open-beaked chicks until it was firmly anchored again in a cleft of the leafy island.

‘Oh, Rosalie! You’ve saved the babies!’ Linette had been ecstatic.

From the top of their garden, Rosalie and Linette’s mother, not well even then, had been watching, too. As they ran back up to her, she’d hugged her girls tightly to her. ‘My brave darling Rosalie,’ she’d said in her broken English. ‘And Linette. You are both mes petits anges, my little angels!’

That was when Rosalie had noticed the bucket and brush by the wall of the house and realised that their mother had been crying. And then she had seen the words, painted on the side of their outhouse, that her mother must have been trying to scrub away when they came running up from the river. You don’t belong here, French whore.

Later that morning at the village school Rosalie had shown her new teacher the story she’d written about a bird in its floating nest travelling far downstream and finding a new life.

That young teacher was Helen Fazackerley and she had read Rosalie’s story with absorbed attention. ‘This is wonderful, Rosalie,’ she had said quietly. ‘Is this something you would like to do? Travel and discover new places?’

Rosalie had looked steadily up at her teacher. ‘If we went somewhere else, would they be kinder to my mother, Miss Fazackerley?’

* * *

On, on flew Rosalie’s memories, to the December of last year. A cold evening, a bitter evening, in damp, bleak London. Rosalie had by then been staying with Helen for two months, searching all the daylight hours and more for Linette; asking at the theatres, the opera houses, everywhere she could think of for her sister; following clues that too quickly went cold. Rosalie, I’m in London. I’m in trouble. Please help me.