All guests will eat dinner together at least four times per week.
The food here was heavenly. It was all she could do not to seize her plate and lick it after every dinner. Helga, the cook, was a genius. One had to be quick, however, to keep up with Mr. Delacorte, who created foodscapes, mountains of potatoes and rivers of gravy, on his plate, which he then swiftly, cleanly demolished the way a vengeful God might with a tornado. It was an awe-inspiring thing to witness.
All guests must gather in the drawing room after dinner for at least an hour at least four times per week. We feel it fosters a sense of friendship and the warm, familial, congenial atmosphere we strive to create here at The Grand Palace on the Thames.
She would not be flirting with anyone’s husbands, though when she got a look at Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt, she had cause to be grateful indeed for their sheer decorative appeal. But there was a sort of sealed, inviolable contentment to people deeply in love; she’d recognized the same quality in her parents. It made her wistful and restless. The whirlwind world in which she found herself now was full of the window dressings of it, the flirting and sex and flattery and drama. When all of that was cleared away—say, by a gunshot—emptiness remained. She wasn’t certain whether it was a mercy or not that she knew this.
All guests should be quietly respectful and courteous of other guests at all times, though spirited discourse is welcome.
So far the spirited discourse involved how they intended to decorate the ballroom for the Night of the Nightingale and whether they ought to play Whist or read aloud from The Ghost in the Attic.
Mr. Delacorte was jolly and pleasant, and his lovely blue eyes were twinklingly appreciative of Mariana’s feminine charms, but she got the sense he preferred a cozier sort of female, rather than the more sparkly sort, which she was. They recognized in each other a fellow card, and became fast friends. He imported remedies from the Orient and India, which he then sold to surgeons and apothecaries up and down England, and he’d shown her the samples in his case, little pills, vials, teas, and powders. “Ground-up herbs and animal whatnot!” he’d said. “Most of ’em work a treat.” He’d entered a business partnership with Captain Hardy, who owned a ship, and Lord Bolt, who already had a successful enterprise importing goods from the Orient. He resembled a sturdy, well-fed Welsh pony, and laughed a good deal.
Mrs. Pariseau, a dashing widow with snapping dark eyes and wonderful silver stripes in her dark hair, was clever and worldly but quick with a laugh and a wink. She’d played Faro with Mariana last night; they’d placed wagers using buttons, and Mrs. Pariseau had lost nearly all of them. And now Mariana was learning to play chess from Dot, who had learned it from Delacorte.
She’d learned that Dot was a collector of vocabulary words, too, another person who was compelled to learn by listening.
They all got on famously. No one seemed to mind that she had been in the gossip columns. After all, Lord Bolt lived here, too.
There was also, unfortunately, an epithet jar, however. It always seemed to hover accusingly on the periphery of her vision, as if it knew how often she wanted to let fly with a “bloody,” which would cost her a pence. She couldn’t risk it.
Guests may entertain other guests in the drawing room.
Which was the genteelest possible way of saying that bedrooms were for sleeping, not for orgies.
Curfew is at 11:00 p.m. The front door will be securely locked then. You will need to wait until morning to be admitted if you miss curfew.
She quite liked knowing she was securely locked in at night. Dot might have opened the door to one gently pleading woman, but surely she wouldn’t be tempted to allow in a mob howling for her blood? She amused herself briefly by imagining the proprietresses calmly conducting interviews with people holding torches and pitchforks, one at a time.
If the proprietresses collectively decide that a transgression or series of transgressions warrants your eviction from The Grand Palace on the Thames, you will find your belongings neatly packed and placed near the front door. You will not be refunded the balance of your rent.
She could not imagine doing a thing to jeopardize those rules, in light of the kindness of the ladies of The Grand Palace on the Thames. She could well understand why Mr. Delacorte and Mrs. Pariseau never wanted to leave, if their rooms were anything like hers.
Against the wall was shoved a narrow, soft bed heaped in layers of coverlets, topped with a quilt, and crowned with a plump pillow. Alongside it lay a braided rug in shades of rose and green; it was a pleasure to press her feet into it first thing in the morning. A mirror the size of her face was hung on the wall above a basin and a water pitcher painted in little pink flowers. Across from the wardrobe was a desk, and on it perched a tiny vase from which a sprig of white blossoms peeped. It made the entire room smell like spring. She’d carefully tied her cherished pink satin ribbon, the one her parents had given her on her tenth birthday, around the vase, to make the room feel a little more like home.
Her window offered a view of another building, all brick, and an alley in which she’d seen two cats making love.
She rehearsed in her head another approach to the letter.
Dear Mama,
I hope this letter finds you well. I’ve some wonderful news. I’ve moved into a lovely new room at an exclusive boardinghouse. You must pass an interview to be admitted. If you’re found wanting they won’t let you in! I’ve made many fine new friends and the food is very good. I’m to sing at an event featuring only me at the end of the month, and lords and ladies will be invited. Right now, there is a little blossom in a vase on my writing table, and the smell of it reminds me of the first trip you and Papa and I made to the seashore so many years ago. Do you remember the green hills on the way? Sometimes I picture them when I can’t sleep.
It was neither untrue, nor entirely true. Much like the gossip written about her, the difference was in what was omitted and what was included.
Was it dishonest?
It left out the part where she’d awakened with a start last time, from a dream in which she plummeted out her window into the gaping maw of someone screeching the word harlot harlot harlot.
She suspected those dreams would be her lot for a while.
But she’d be fed and housed at least through the month.
At any rate, she didn’t write the letter.
She would try again tomorrow. It was time to go downstairs to the sitting room to join in the cozy familial atmosphere and spirited discussions, and revel in the fact that for now, she was safe from anyone in the ton who might judge her, even if she wasn’t quite safe from the epithet jar.
Chapter Three
She came to an abrupt halt when she noticed a man standing between Mrs. Durand and Mrs. Hardy.
Something about him seemed immediately as stark and strange as if an obelisk had been dropped into the sitting room. The lines of him—the span of his shoulders, the incline between them and his waist, his jaw—were as elegant, severe, and clean as if his maker had trimmed them out with the tip of a rapier. The top of her head, she suspected, would just about reach the knot in his cravat.