And Amanda? The naughty sprite who’d collected all her secrets and her sorrows. Who’d bounced and giggled through life with nary a care.
“Speaking of disappointing husbands…mine will be back in town tomorrow night,” Amanda distracted Pru by saying. “And so, I think that one with the muscular legs will be my next acquisition.” Amanda pointed in the direction of the riders, and Pru blinked through gathering tears in confusion.
Her friend had never expressed a great interest in horseflesh, and her husband was more interested in estate acquisitions than equine. He owned half of Cheshire.
“I’ve always admired your taste,” Honoria said approvingly.
Amanda leaned in closer. “Lady Westlawn told me he brought her to completion twice in one night. In fact, he was so skilled, she gave him one of her coveted diamonds.” The sound Amanda made was laced with enough licentiousness to bring about a biblical plague.
Pru gaped. They weren’t speculating about horseflesh at all. But the men astride!
“To the Stags of St. James.” Amanda lifted her lemonade for a “cheers” in the fashion of a bawdy sailor at a public house. “Are you certain you won’t try one?”
Honoria clinked her glass with Amanda’s but set it down at her elbow. “As tempted as I am, William has me on a tight leash.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t come and look,” Amanda offered. “That’s nothing more than window-shopping, really.”
“No. I suppose it doesn’t.” Honoria stood and drifted toward the Row, a trailing Amanda in her wake.
Pru couldn’t stand any more. She’d fled home and immediately begged her father to break their engagement.
He’d blustered through his stately beard. “You and your sisters are beautiful enough to tempt men away from their mistresses, Pru. I dare say Honoria did, and you’re almost her equal.” He patted her head with the sort of fond deference he showed his hounds. “Sutherland is an Earl, a vital man of true English blue blood and the…passions and tempers to match.”
“But, Papa,” she’d sobbed. “He’ll humiliate me. He’ll make me a laughingstock.”
“Nonsense. Sutherland has always been a discreet man. This marriage is your duty to your family, so don’t let your doddle-headed fancies of romance get in the way of that, do you hear me? You will say nothing of this to Sutherland and when he next comes to court you, you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, or I’ll not be responsible for what I do!”
A distraught and sodden Pru had then taken her shattered soul to her mother, asking her to mend it. Begging her to intervene.
“It is the practice of men to have mistresses, dear. And you’ll find it’s a blessing in the end…” With that crisp reply, she’d nailed the coffin shut on any hope Pru had of reclaiming a sense of herself.
Something had hardened in her then. A fist of rebellious anger clenched around the last glowing shard of her heart.
The very next day, she had called upon Lady Westlawn and not-so-discreetly inquired about the Stags of St. James.
Which was how she’d ended up here. At the garden gate to Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies.
St. James, she was told, was not a reference to the park or buildings, but to the patron saint of riding.
Of all the vulgar things.
As she stared at the gate, Pru gathered her resolve. She wouldn’t be like George. Nor would she be like Amanda. Once she’d taken a wedding vow, she’d keep it, regardless of what George decided to do. And if any children resulted from their marriage, she’d teach them to do the same.
One deceit did not merit another.
But tonight, she’d take a lover. A man who was nothing like the Earl of Sutherland in all his dark, brutish glory.
She’d claim a night of pleasure for her very own. One night she controlled with her desires and whims, and where her satisfaction was the object of the deed.
Because from what she’d heard, she’d live without it for the rest of her life.
Pru pulled the hood of her cloak down to shadow her face from the gaslights perched atop the wrought iron gate and tapped on the third bar three times.
A footman melted from the shadows, a pretty lad, barely old enough to shave.
He gave her a curt nod. “Do you have an appointment, madam?”
What had Lady Westlawn told her to say if she hadn’t made prior arrangements at Hyde Park? Oh yes.
“I’m here to peruse the night-blooming jasmine.”
The gate swung open on silent hinges and she took in a shaking breath. Thresholds, she’d heard were dangerous. Places of in-between, where fairy folk and demons could meddle with the living.
Or so superstitious ancestors once believed.
Tonight, she could believe it. Out on this street, she’d done nothing to speak of. She was no one of great importance. Prudence Goode. A second daughter of second-rate nobility.
A virgin.
To cross this threshold, was to be forever altered. Did a night like this always seem so monumental? Did the specter of fate seem to hover above every woman’s head upon making such a decision?
Something intangible drifted above the lamplight but below the stars. Something sentient and dark. Perhaps a bit dangerous and wrathful, though she somehow wasn’t afraid.
Destiny was on the other side of that gate, it told her. More than her virginity would be taken tonight.
No. Prudence shook her head. No, not destiny. What whimsical tripe.
She wasn’t here to court fate…only fantasy.
It took two tries to swallow her nerves before she picked up her skirts, stepped over the threshold, and lost her breath to a marvel.
For a moment, she wondered if she had, indeed, been snatched by the Fae.
The gardens at Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies might have been a fairy patch. Strings of beads and ribbon flowed from curious shaped hedges and foreign willows with lush, wilting limbs. They glimmered and sparkled in the dim lamplight along lustrous cobbles, illuminating paths to dark places.
More importantly, they created concealing shadows, some of which were already full of revelry. The grounds were vast for the city, and the manor house glowed gaily on the other side of the garden.
She was not to approach the house, she was told. The ironically named school for cultured young ladies was anything but. Miss Henrietta’s was one of London’s most exclusive and expensive brothels where men took their pleasure among a menagerie of women.
The Stags of St. James, however, made discreet house calls.
And in the summer on certain clear nights…they rutted out-of-doors.
Except, Prudence realized as she ventured onto the grounds, the out-of-doors was not so rustic as one might assume. The gardens at Versailles might weep for the luxury here, and if one wanted to find a place to feel ensconced in privacy, one needn’t look too far.
“Approach any stag you like, madam, so long as he is not engaged by another,” the young footman startled her by appearing at her elbow. She’d quite forgotten he was there. He leaned down to whisper, “They’ll lock horns for the likes of you.”
“Who—who would you recommend?” she murmured, instantly regretting the ridiculous question.
The footman didn’t even break his perfect form. He might have been engaged by a Duke, not a derelict debutant looking to debauch herself.