Chapter 11

Angélique began laying the groundwork for her plan that day. She took out her dresses to examine them. She wanted to look like a respectable widow when she went to search for a house to rent, and Fabienne could pose as her lady’s maid. She wasn’t going to buy a house, but rent in a good neighborhood, and not one where they would be too closely observed.

She took out a dark navy silk dress with a slim waist, wide skirt, and lace collar, with a matching coat over it, which she had worn to dinner at Belgrave with her father, a deep red gown with a matching shawl and a high neck, and two simple black dresses that she had worn when she was in mourning, both of which would be serviceable in her role as genteel young widow, and her very bearing showed that she was an aristocrat, as well as the way she spoke. She had brought gloves with her, and a fan of her mother’s, and a small purse from Paris. She had what she needed to be convincing as a woman who wanted to rent a house in a proper neighborhood in Paris. And she had a very simple black wool gown she’d worn at the Fergusons’. She could add a bit of lace at the neck for Fabienne for her outfits as lady’s maid in the coming days while they set things up. All of the clothes that Angélique had were obviously of quality. But when she pulled her hats out, they looked sadly squashed after two years packed away. She held each gown up and studied it carefully. The fashions for respectable young women hadn’t changed much in two years, and she had always worn sober gowns, and not flashy ones like Eugenia Ferguson, in her case, more suited to her age and station as a duke’s daughter.

“Where did you get those clothes?” Fabienne asked as she watched her. They were the prettiest gowns she’d ever seen, in velvets and silks, with exquisite lace collars.

“I had them from before I was a nanny,” she said quietly.

“What were you? A queen?” she asked, only partly joking, and her new friend didn’t answer—she obviously had secrets of her own.

“Of course not.” She wished she had the rest of her clothes from Belgrave, but she had no way to get them. She wouldn’t dare ask Mrs. White, who would want to know what she was up to. She hadn’t written to her yet to tell her she had left the Fergusons, and wanted to find a new situation first, so she didn’t worry. And Tristan would never want to release her clothes or send her other trunks. He had probably thrown them all away by now, hoping never to lay eyes on her again.

“Can you stand up?” she asked Fabienne, whose ribs were still painful, but she did as she was told. She was a few inches taller than Angélique, but other than that their figures were similar, although Fabienne’s bust was slightly larger. Angélique held the simple black dresses up to her, and narrowed her eyes. “I can lower the hems. And with a bit of lace at the collar and cuffs, you’ll look like a very proper lady’s maid, and quite an elegant one at that.” She smiled at her.

“I’m going to be a lady’s maid?” Fabienne was shocked for a minute. That hadn’t been part of the plan.

“While we search for a house to rent. I’m a widow, you’re my lady’s maid, or my young cousin. We’ve just come from Lyon, to be near relatives here. How old do I look?”

Fabienne studied her intensely. “About fifteen,” she said honestly. She was lithe and small, and her pale blond hair somehow made her look younger than Fabienne’s dark mass of hair.

“That won’t do. Do you suppose I could look twenty-five or twenty-six?”

“Maybe with more elaborate dresses, with your bosom showing.”

“That’ll do when we’re at the house. I don’t want the clients to know I’m twenty. It’s all right for you to be young, but the clients and the girls won’t respect me if they think I am. I think I’ll be twenty-six. That’s a good age for a young widow.”

“What did your husband die of?” Fabienne grinned. She liked the part they were playing. She had never had so much fun in her life as with this enterprising young girl who had pulled her out of the gutter and nursed her at her hotel. Angélique was the angel of mercy in her life, and they were about to become two young devils together, if they followed Angélique’s plan.

“I killed him,” Angélique said matter-of-factly, and Fabienne laughed. “Oh, I don’t know, cholera, malaria, something dreadful. I’m quite heartbroken over it, or I will be when we rent the house. I’ll be a happy widow when we receive clients. But one who loved her husband deeply and won’t betray his memory, so that I’m untouchable to the clients. How does that sound?”

“Fascinating. I’m not sure if you’re crazy, or very, very smart.” Fabienne was sincere, and meant it.

“Let’s hope I’m a little bit of both,” she said seriously. “Crazy enough to do it, and smart enough to pull it off.” It was a wild stretch of the imagination. She had to acquire and set up a home, one that men would be drawn to, and run a business, selling the flesh of beautiful young women, who might be challenging to control. And she wanted it to work so that they would all make money, and could eventually go away pleased, and richer for what they’d done. She just wanted to make some money at it, to add to her father’s gift, and then retire. Fabienne said she wanted to make money and then leave Paris and get married and have children. She wanted to go back to the South, but not back home. Angélique had no idea where she’d go afterward. She had no home to go back to either, and no wish to marry, and be subjugated by a man. That seemed dangerous to her, and so many of them were dishonest. Her brothers were, and she had heard all the stories and backstairs gossip about Harry Ferguson. And Sir Bertie had wanted to have an affair with her and her employer. They all seemed like a bad lot, except her father, who had been a wonderful, honest man, and truly loved his wife.

“We’ll need new bonnets. My hats are a mess now. Something simple for you, and perhaps a big one for me to make me look older.”

“Won’t that be expensive?” Fabienne was worried.

“Probably. And we’ll need clothes for all the girls. Beautiful gowns. We don’t have to buy very expensive ones at first, but they’ll have to be elegant, for the kind of men we want as clients. You can’t all sit around in your underclothes like at Madame Albin’s. We’ll need to have a proper drawing room to entertain them like the gentlemen they are, and then you can show them the rest when you go upstairs.”

“How do you know all this?” Fabienne looked at her in fascination. Until then, Angélique had never met a prostitute in her life. Now she was ready to run a high-class brothel for the men who were the cream of Paris.

“I’m just making it up as I go along.” She grinned like a delighted child. “Do you feel well enough to go out today?” Fabienne’s face looked better, but she still had some bruises. The cut on her forehead was healing nicely, and her lips were no longer swollen. Her ribs were painful, but she could move around better, although she wouldn’t have wanted to wear a corset, and Angélique said she didn’t have to. It would make her look more like a lady’s maid not to highlight her youthful figure.

“And how old am I in this fairyland you’re inventing?” Fabienne asked her new madam. Fabienne already had great respect for Angélique, and what she’d done for her, and was intending to do. She had said several times that she would protect the girls and pay them well, which would be a strong selling point for all of them if it was true, and Fabienne believed her.

“Eighteen, I think. That sounds old enough,” Angélique said, laying their clothes out on the bed, and discarding the somber dress she had worn hoping to have interviews as a nanny. Her nanny life had just ended, possibly forever. Although if she had to, she thought she might be a governess one day. She liked the idea of teaching older children, well-born young ladies who wanted to learn. She was adept at languages, read voraciously, and had a good head for numbers, which would serve her well in her new business. She had often looked over the estate ledgers with her father and understood them.

Just from listening to her, and watching her, and seeing the clothes she had with her, Fabienne had guessed that she must have come from an aristocratic background and something had gone very wrong, but she didn’t want to pry, and thought that Angélique might tell her one day, when they knew each other better.

They dressed carefully then, after Angélique went downstairs to the laundry, to press their gowns. Angélique added a bit of lace to the neck of Fabienne’s dress, helped her arrange her hair simply, since she couldn’t raise her arms, and they left the hotel like two proper young ladies, hired a carriage, and went to a milliner the hotel had recommended, in the first arrondissement. When they got there, it was run by a very pretty older woman, and some of the hats were fabulous. Fabienne wanted to try them all. Angélique indulged her with one exceptionally pretty light blue one that framed her face, bought one small simple black one to go with her imaginary role as a lady’s maid, and bought three very elegant ones for herself that went with the gowns she had with her. They could share most of their clothes with a little adjustment here and there.

They had dinner at a respectable restaurant, with Fabienne’s eyes agog. She had never been in a place like it before. And with Fabienne with her, Angélique no longer looked questionable being alone.

After dinner, they went to meet with a “notaire” who handled real estate transactions, including the rental and sale of houses. Fabienne nearly choked when Angélique told him when they got there that she needed quite a lot of bedrooms, as her six children would be joining them.

“Six children?” Fabienne whispered when the notaire, who was like a lawyer, went into another room to get some files to show them. “Are we running an orphanage?” Angélique just smiled, and the man returned a moment later to describe three houses to them, all of them for rent. One of them was fearsomely expensive, and Angélique could tell he was testing the waters and how far she would go. She said demurely that it was a little out of her budget and the pension her late husband had left her. But the other two were possible. Both had handsome gardens, and one of them seemed crowded from the drawings, with all of the bedrooms crammed together. The other had a large reception room, a drawing room, a dining room, and a small parlor on the main floor. A kitchen and four maids’ rooms were in the basement, and ten bedrooms divided five to a floor on the two top floors, plus a very handsome master suite, and some additional smaller rooms in the attic. The notaire said it was in good condition, the owners had moved to Limoges, but wanted to keep the house and rent it. The husband was a wealthy factory owner, and the rental price was more or less what Angélique had hoped it would be. It was across the street from a small park, and around the corner from another. The only less attractive feature of the house, he admitted, was that it was in an alley on its own, on the fringes of an excellent neighborhood but not exactly in it, and the kind of people who wanted a house as large and fine as that wanted to be in the heart of one of the best areas, not simply on the outer reaches of it, which for Angélique’s purposes was absolutely perfect. They did not want to be surrounded by respectable households, outraged by male traffic in and out of the house, particularly if they were successful, and anyone was observing them closely. The alley and borderline location couldn’t have been better suited to them, if they had designed it themselves.

“Is it safe?” Angélique asked, looking slightly worried, for the notaire’s benefit. “My children are very young, and we’re a household of women. My servants are all women. We can’t be in a dangerous area.”

“Of course,” he said grandly, “I assure you it’s quite safe for women and children.” The house had been available for rent for six months, and the families that had looked at it had been disappointed by the location and looked for a better one. But he realized this young widow didn’t seem to mind, since the rental price was right. He said she could rent it for a year, or two, whatever she preferred, and renew it if the arrangement worked well for her.

“I think a year to start,” she said without batting an eye, as Fabienne watched her, admiring how easily she pulled it off. “With an option to renew of course, if my children are happy there.”

“I’m sure they will be, and the park nearby is very nice. Will they be going to school?” he inquired.

“They’re tutored at home,” she said demurely. “They’re all girls.” At least that much was true, since nothing else was. He told them there was a carriage house for two carriages around the corner, and she was pleased, since she didn’t know how their clients would come. “With a room for your coachman,” he added. And the four small rooms in the basement, next to the kitchen, were adequate for servants. It was a very fine house, he assured her.

“When may we see it?” she asked him.

“It’s a little late in the day to see it now. I’d rather you see it in morning sunlight. I could take you there tomorrow.” And he had another appointment that afternoon anyway. They made an appointment for noon the next day, and after shaking hands, both young women left his office, and took a carriage for hire back to the hotel.

“My God, you’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Fabienne asked her, stunned by the hour they had just spent with the notaire. “I keep thinking I just dreamed it and I’m going to wake up.” But Angélique was determined, with Fabienne’s help, if she could find the right girls, which remained to be seen. But Angélique thought the house sounded like a gift from Heaven, or Hell, depending on how she looked at it, given what they were planning to do there. It sounded perfect for them.

“Of course I’m serious,” Angélique said with a gleam in her eye.

“What are we going to do for furniture?”

“Buy it. That’s the least of our worries. Now you have to find the girls, and the right ones. The kind of men we want as clients won’t want girls off the streets. We have to find beautiful, intelligent girls who will fascinate them.” She laughed to herself, thinking that Eugenia Ferguson would have been perfect. She was a beautiful woman of loose morals who liked men. But she was also tiresome and spoiled. They needed better girls than Eugenia. Angélique sensed that her clients would want women who enjoyed catering to men, and pleasing them. It was a life of service of a different kind—they had to be beautiful and elegant in the drawing room, and exotic when they went upstairs. She guessed it from some of the novels she enjoyed reading, and added the rest from her imagination. “Do you know where to start searching for them?” Angélique asked her as they got to the hotel.

“I’ll need to go and talk to some people. I know one girl from Madame Albin’s who’s a sweet girl. She’s young and pretty, and appears very innocent, but she isn’t. The men who come to Madame Albin’s love her. She makes all her clients feel important, and nothing seems to frighten her. And she isn’t ruined by drink or drugs, she says she just likes what she’s doing, and does it well.”

“Remember, we’ll need some other girls, slightly older, more sophisticated ones. These men will want to talk to them too. They have to be good listeners, playful, beautiful, elegant.” She had exactly the kind of girl she wanted in mind. Fabienne could be one of the young sweet girls, but she wanted some enticing, mysterious women too. They walked into the hotel, talking about the house again, with their new bonnets in several large hatboxes. As soon as they got to the room, Fabienne put on her big beautiful pale blue one and pranced around the room, looking ecstatic, and thanked Angélique again.

“Thank you for being so good to me.” She beamed at her new friend, and future employer.

“We’re partners in crime now,” Angélique told her, and put on one of her new hats too. They were like little girls playing dress-up with their mothers’ clothes. But Angélique was taking her new role very seriously. She was going to establish the best bordel in town. Houses of its kind were legal, as was prostitution, as long as the prostitutes were registered with the gendarmerie, although the practice was frowned on by respectable citizens. But brothels had existed for hundreds of years, and the police paid no attention to them. All they would have to do was use discretion, and keep all their activities invisible behind their walls. And word would travel like wildfire if it was a good house and men wanted to come there. Angélique was determined to maintain high standards and make it more appealing to their clients than their clubs or homes. Angélique and Fabienne both knew that their clients were out there, just waiting for them. Now they needed to set up the house and locate the girls who would attract them like bees to honey.