“Gracias a Dios,” said the señora.
“Indeed.” Arthur returned to his seat and took the reins again. He pulled up before the front door. No groom appeared to take the carriage. It seemed they had not yet been noticed.
“Should I go and knock?” asked Señora Alvarez.
Her voice did not tremble, but Arthur could see the effort she was making to control it. “Let us wait a moment,” he answered.
They waited several, and then the door opened and a woman emerged. She was finely dressed, but her square face showed the bitter lines of a hard life. Her hair was gray, her frame stocky. Arthur guessed she was around sixty. “What the devil do you mean by keeping me waiting?” he said before she could speak.
“We had no word…”
“Have you no one to care for my horses?” The key was to keep these people off-balance, goaded to obey by the voice of command. Arthur had heard such arrogance from others. “I do not see why Lord Simon spoke well of this place,” he added.
“His lordship never said anyone was…”
“What has that to say to anything?”
“Everything’s to be by appointment.”
“And I have one.”
“I never heard…”
“I could not be less interested in what you have or have not heard.” Arthur debated whether to climb down from the curricle. His team was well trained and would stand. No, better to loom over this woman from above. He twitched his whip. “Do you intend to keep me waiting here?” He thought he managed threatening incredulity rather well.
After a brief inner debate, visible on her seamed face, the woman bobbed a perfunctory curtsy. She turned to the open door. “Fetch Joe,” she called to someone unseen.
A groom appeared a few minutes later and took charge of the vehicle. Arthur watched where it was taken, hoping that he would soon be retrieving it and leaving this place. Then he put a hand on the señora’s back to guide her. Though it wasn’t noticeable at any distance, she was shaking.
They walked together into a spacious entry hall. A curving staircase rose at the back. Their—Arthur supposed she must be seen as—hostess looked Señora Alvarez up and down like a stockman evaluating cattle. Her attitude confirmed Arthur’s opinion of her, and of the nature of this house. She’d certainly been a procuress of some sort. “She’s a bit old,” the creature said. “We have fresher meat than her in here.”
“I brought her for my own reasons,” Arthur replied. “No one else is to touch her.”
The woman’s answering grin was mocking.
“We require privacy.”
The grin became a leer. “Oh yes, sir, we can give you all the privacy in the world. That’s our spec-ee-ality, it is. Always supposing you’ve brought the fee.”
“Naturally.”
She held out her hand like a confident beggar.
“How much?”
Her eyes hardened with suspicion. “Lord Simon would’ve told you that.”
“He was drunk. As he so often is. And he mumbles when he’s drunk. And I am not accustomed to being kept standing.”
Muttering something disparaging about toffs, the woman named a number that startled Arthur. Knowing it was probably inflated, and not caring, he opened his purse and paid her. He’d made sure to bring plenty of cash. She closed her hand over the bills and gestured. “Upstairs,” she said.
They followed her to an upper hall. She threw open a door and waved them into a large luxurious bedchamber with a canopied bed.
“I was assured we would not be disturbed,” said Arthur. “For any reason.”
“Not until you ring,” the woman replied. “That’s what we do here. Nobody hears nothing. Nobody says nothing. And we can take care of things, after.”
Arthur was more and more appalled with each thing he learned about this place. “I require the key to this room.”
“I told you, nobody’ll be botherin’…”
He silenced her with a look borrowed from his patrician grandfather in his later years and held out his hand.
Grumbling, the woman turned away. They stood in silence until she returned with the key. Then Arthur closed the door in her face and locked it. “I didn’t want to discover later that they’d locked us in,” he said quietly to Señora Alvarez.
“This is a bawdy house, isn’t it?” she replied.
He nodded. “A very private one, apparently.”
“Because here men can do whatever they like to women, and no one comes to inquire. Or cares.”
“Seemingly.”
She spat out a word Arthur had never heard from a lady. Her dark eyes glittered with fury, and he thought that she had a hand on the pistol in her pocket. He couldn’t blame her. “We will wait a few minutes to let that creature go about her business and then search for the dancers,” he said.
“I fear what we will find.”
He could only agree with her.
They waited in silence. There was nothing to say; they were here to act. “That should be sufficient,” Arthur said. “Will you stay here and lock the door behind me?”
“No!” Señora Alvarez gave him an impatient look. “The girls know me. They will be afraid of any man in this place. Why would they come with you?”
“Ah.” He had been thinking of keeping her safe. Which was not possible. “Of course.” He unlocked the door and looked into the corridor. It was empty.
They stepped out. Arthur relocked the door. “You don’t think she has another key?” asked the señora.
“She may. We can only trust that she meant what she said about not returning until summoned.”
“You would trust such a person?”
He shrugged. “We had best hurry.”
There were several other bedchambers like the one they had been given along the hall that ran through the center of the house. They were all empty, for which Arthur gave silent thanks. The place was eerily quiet. He was used to a household where people bustled about completing various tasks at this time of day.
They took the stairs up to the next floor. The corridor was narrower here, and the rooms smaller. Servants’ quarters, Arthur thought. A glance into the first two chambers confirmed this. They were much more plainly furnished than those below.
The next door was locked, as were the five following. They heard weeping from behind the last, which stopped abruptly when Arthur tried the doorknob. He pictured a girl cowering behind the panels, praying that they did not open. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so angry.