He muttered something, but she waved him off. “Send to the kitchens for a little refreshment. I would like to speak with my guest alone.”
He hurried off with his peculiar crablike gait as Madame Aurore turned to me. “You must forgive him. He is a new acquisition and not entirely au courant with the ways of politeness.”
“I am rather surprised you employ him in that case,” I told her with a candor she mightn’t have appreciated.
But to her credit, she smiled. “He was recommended by another member of my staff. Besides, I believe in giving everyone a first chance, mademoiselle. Won’t you come and sit with me awhile? I should so like to speak with you, if your compagnon de la nuit can spare you?” she asked with a coaxing tilt of the head.
As Stoker was nowhere in evidence, I could not use him for an excuse. I inclined my head, smiling beneath my mask, and she opened the door to her sanctum. I followed her in, not surprised to find more of the elegant grey-and-pink color scheme used elsewhere in the house. She clicked her fingers and a giant hound rose from an enormous cushion and trotted over, rubbing its head against her hip.
“Good evening, my love,” she crooned to the dog. She turned to me. “Sit,” she urged. “Make yourself comfortable.”
I did as she bade, wondering how to work the subject of her diamond stars into conversation. As I wrestled with the question, she seized the conversational reins, speaking in her low and musical voice about a variety of things—the décor, the excellence of the champagne that she poured. She opened a barrel of biscuits and fed a few to the dog, breaking them into bits and dropping the crumbs to the carpet, where the hound retrieved them happily.
“This is Vespertine.”
“Named for the sweetest hour of the evening,” I observed. “A lovely parallel to your own chosen name.”
She gave me a long look. “He is my stalwart companion, are you not, my darling?” she said, scratching him behind the ears. He rolled his eyes ecstatically. “He has a Latinate name, but he is a very British dog,” she told me.
“A Scottish deerhound?” I asked.
“Just so. He was given to me by an admirer who noticed a dog that looks just like this in one of my paintings of the dawn goddess. Every goddess should have a proper companion, he said.” She scratched Vespertine again and he sighed. He was almost as enormous as Lord Rosemorran’s Betony, but his form was much leaner, his legs long and elegant, as was his nose. Wide, expressive eyes stared at me from under a thicket of long, shaggy hair at his brow.
After a very few minutes, a scratch on the door heralded a page with a plate of confectionery from the kitchens. There were assorted pastries, each more delicate and elaborate than the next. Some were filled with cream, others robed in a sheen of chocolate.
“This is my favorite,” Madame Aurore told me, gesturing towards a tiny puff wearing a candied violet at a rakish angle. I took one and bit into it, savoring the crisp pastry, the cream flavored with vanilla and honey.
“I order so many things with vanilla to be served that my chef imports more than any other household in London,” she confided. “But it is an aphrodisiac.”
“Is it indeed?” I darted out my tongue to catch the last crumb of pastry.
“Madame de Pompadour, the great mistress of Louis XV, used to dose herself with it in an effort to rouse her ardor.”
“Was he so exacting?” I inquired. I surveyed the little plate and helped myself to a small bun decorated with a swirl of chocolate marbled to look like Florentine paper. Vespertine, sniffing deeply, rose from his mistress’s side and came to sit beside me.
She gave a Gallic shrug. “No more than most men, I suspect. But La Pompadour suffered from the malady of coldness. Her passions could not be awakened sufficiently to satisfy her king. So she resorted to aphrodisiacs.”
“Were they successful?” Vespertine dropped his head to my lap, the weight of his head crushing against my thigh.
She smiled, revealing tiny, pearly teeth. “Not entirely. But she was clever. She made herself a friend to her king, and whatever needs she could not satisfy personally, she satisfied by proxy.”
I was intrigued in spite of myself. “How?” I dropped a hand to Vespertine’s head, stroking his fur. It was coarser than I imagined, springy under my fingers. He gave another sigh and settled more comfortably.
“By establishing a house like this one. She kept it stocked with exactly the sort of maiden the king liked best, plump and rosy and eager for the pleasures of the flesh.”
“She was a procuress.”
“She was a businesswoman,” she corrected swiftly.
“Like you.” In spite of my determination to remain objective, I was beginning to like Madame Aurore. She harbored no illusions about who she was or what she did, and she would never apologize for either.
Again she shrugged. “I have been compared to many a worse woman, believe me. But I think you do not mean it as an insult?” She paused to smile at me before going on. “I am indeed a businesswoman, as you say. I see a need and I provide the remedy.”
“And what is the need?” I asked, biting into the chocolate bun. It was less sweet than the vanilla confection, edged with something dark and almost bitter. Vespertine looked up at me with adoring eyes and Madame Aurore passed me one of his biscuits. He took it from me as gently as a lamb, lapping up the treat with his broad tongue.
Madame went on. “Pleasure, escape, satiety. Some people come here to remember, some to forget. My task is to provide the fantasy, to give them a place to play the game.”
“The game?” I asked. I took up another bun, this one shaped like a horn filled with cream, and with madame’s encouragement, I offered it to Vespertine. He ate the entire thing in one bite, licking his lips when he finished.
“The game,” Aurore repeated. “Have you not considered what this place is? It is a nursery for grown-ups! This is what everyone wants—a return to the nursery.”
“Do they?” I put in. Vespertine gave me another beseeching look but I shook my head at him. He settled at my feet and lay his head on his great paws.
“You look skeptical,” she told me, her eyes crinkling at the edges as she smiled. “But consider life, my dear. It is dangerous and demanding, particularly in a city such as this. Every year more people crush into the capital. There are more trams and carts and carriages. The underground railway rumbles beneath us. Smoke belches out over the town, turning everything sooty and black. And in the streets, such noise! Such chaos! We must be warriors simply to cross the street.” She painted a vivid picture, but she was not wrong. I had grown to love London, but there was much to be said for the occasional escape into the countryside. Green meadows and blue skies were infinitely preferable at times to the choking grey fogs and teeming pavements.