had taken on the man’s son as secretary, providing him with a chance at a respectable profession. Even if Elliot was disposed to be loyal in return, was it fair to ask him to share the risk of Morgana’s courtesan school being discovered?
Who was he fooling? If the courtesan school was discovered, Elliot would sink with the rest of them. Better for him to be warned.
‘Drink your port, Elliot,’ Sloane said. ‘And I will endeavour to explain.’
A quarter of an hour later, Sloane had told Elliot the whole story. When he finished, he refilled Elliot’s empty glass.
‘That young maid wishes to be a courtesan?’ Elliot asked incredulously.
Sloane sipped his own drink. ‘She is bent on some sort of harlotry, Miss Hart insists. That is how this whole courtesan school came about.’
Elliot stared into his port. ‘I wonder why she should wish to do such a thing.’
Sloane leaned back in his chair. ‘Living with her father, I expect. He was one of the King’s diplomats in Spain during the war. I suspect she pretty much did as she pleased in his house.’
Elliot looked baffled. It took several moments before comprehension dawned on his face. ‘Oh, you meant Miss Hart. I was speaking of the maid.’
‘The maid?’ It was Sloane’s turn to be bewildered. He took another sip. ‘In any event, if this business reaches the ears of the ton, it shall be the downfall of us all. I may find your assistance useful from time to time. May I depend upon you?’
‘Indeed, sir,’ Elliot responded, but in a distracted manner.
Elliot proceeded to inform Sloane of the financial business he had transacted in town. The complexity of the investments Elliot had set up were a bore to Sloane, but the profits continued to be gratifying. He kept watch on the mantel clock.
He returned to Morgana’s house early to collect Penny.
Miss Hart’s butler admitted him. ‘I shall announce you directly, sir.’
‘In a moment.’ Sloane handed him his hat and gloves. ‘What is your name, man?’
‘Cripps, sir.’ The butler placed his hat and gloves on the marble-topped hall table and turned back to him.
Sloane gave the man a steely stare. ‘It has come to my attention, Cripps, that the servants under you are passing tales about this household to my servants.’
Cripps returned his look impassively.
Sloane continued, ‘This will not do. You have shirked your responsibility to protect this lady’s privacy.’
A muscle in Cripps’s cheek twitched, but he remained stiff and erect.
The man gave away little. Sloane decided to increase the stakes. ‘I am a wealthy man, Cripps, but I can also be a dangerous man to cross. Treat this lady and her guests well and you and your staff will be rewarded. Bonuses to them all from me.’ He leaned forward menacingly. ‘Harm her with loose tongues or otherwise and you will incur my wrath.’ He paused for Cripps’s reaction.
The butler did not change expression.
‘I assure you, you do not wish to displease me,’ he emphasised.
Cripps finally responded in a low voice. ‘I will do my duty, as I always do.’ His face remained bland. ‘Shall I announce you now, sir?’
Once with the students, Madame Bisou dropped her French accent and her flirtatious ways. Oddly, she reminded Morgana of one of the Spanish noblemen her father had entertained in Spain. The gentleman had been incredibly shrewd, extracting from her father exactly what he wanted, and exactly what her father had originally refused to give him. Morgana discovered later that the nobleman had manipulated the French just as effectively.
Madame Bisou had the same kind of cleverness and charm. She drew in the girls with a very friendly, motherly manner, and held them in her palm while she spoke of her origins.
‘I was not always Madame Bisou,’ she began in the spellbinding voice of a practised story-teller. ‘I was born Penny Jones, and my mother died giving birth to me. As a child I walked at my father’s side while he hawked dirty old clothes on Petticoat Lane. “Old clo,” he’d cry over and over. “Old clo.”’ She looked heavenward. ‘I can still remember it. Hearing the other street vendors’ songs all day as well as my father’s. I used to sing them myself and dance, and passers-by would throw me pennies. Pennies for Penny.’ Her smile left her face. ‘It was not long before men paid for more than my dancing.’ She gave them all a significant look. ‘By day I’d follow my father in the street and by night in the pubs, until one night he had no more coins for his gin.’ Her voice got very low and Morgana could see each of the girls and Miss Moore, too, straining to hear. ‘That night he sold me to a man in the pub for a few shillings. I never saw my father again.’
‘That’s dastardly,’ cried Katy. ‘What happened next?’
Madame Bisou gave a ghost of a smile. ‘The man sold me at a profit to a bawdy house. After he had his way with me, that is. He sold me to a mean old abbess who beat her girls if they gave her any trouble. She kept all the money.’
There was a collective exclamation of outrage, and the madam went on to tell how she fooled the procuress and wound up with enough money and power to take over the house and drive the woman away.
Katy and Rose cheered with enthusiasm at this triumph.
Madame Bisou looked each of the girls in the eye. ‘I know how to get gents willing to die for me,’ she said dramatically. ‘And that is what I will teach you. I’ll show you how to make them beg to do what you want them to do. I’ll teach you how to trick them into paying you much more than they thought they would. And how to have them stumble over each other to see who can buy you the biggest ring, the most expensive necklace or the most beautiful bracelet.’
Morgana was as mesmerised by the tale as the others, but she could not think of any gift she would want from a man, no dragon he could slay for her, no bauble he could purchase. Still, being such a temptress would be heady stuff indeed.
Cripps knocked on the door and announced Sloane, who entered the room to collect Madame Bisou. Katy and Rose begged her to stay longer. She laughed, saying she would return very soon. None the less, they detained her with more questions.
Sloane leaned over to Morgana. ‘How did she do?’
Morgana looked into his smoky grey eyes. ‘She told us the terrible story of how she came to be as she is today.’
‘The terrible story?’ The corners of his eyes crinkled. It so distracted her, she forgot what she’d just said to him.
‘Oh—yes.’ She swallowed. ‘You know, how her father sold her for a pint of gin.’
His eyes shone. ‘It is a hum, Morgana. Penny was an innkeeper’s daughter who found life too tame and struck out on her own. I suspect her father still owns his pub somewhere in Chelsea and makes a fine living.’
Morgana burst out laughing, holding her hand over her mouth so the others would not heed her. ‘Oh, she is splendid, Sloane. She had us all completely at her mercy.
