Chapter 12

The next day, when the two girls went to see the house that had been described by the notaire, it was as perfect as Angélique had hoped, and she could envision just how it would be set up. It was referred to as an “hôtel particulier,” a private home. The owners had left three chandeliers in the dining room, largest reception room, and front hall, and the rest of the house had to be decorated. Angélique had some experience with that from Belgrave, and what she’d seen at the Fergusons’ two homes, but she wanted this to be warmer and more inviting, while still elegant, without spending a fortune on it. Entering the house had to be like a warm embrace, and so comfortable that the men wouldn’t want to leave it, and would be anxious to return as soon as possible. Everything at the house had to go smoothly, and be set up for their clients’ ultimate happiness.

Angélique told the notaire that they’d take it, once they had toured the entire house. It was clean and in good order, and as sunny as he had promised. Fabienne said they would put screens in each room, where the girls could do whatever they needed to with washbasins, out of sight. Angélique really didn’t want to know those details. She preferred to take care of the grander scheme of things and the decorating project, while Fabienne found their “staff.”

She told the notaire that she would return to his office with the money that afternoon. She preferred to pay in cash, and didn’t tell him that she had to exchange British pounds for French francs. He wanted the first month’s rent, which was quite reasonable. She went back to the hotel to get it, went to the bank with Fabienne, and their first month’s rent was paid by that afternoon, and she had signed a lease for a year. In sympathy for her as a widow, he allowed her to do so on her own, and he asked for no proof of her status. She appeared to be entirely above reproach, and made no fuss over the money. He liked doing business that way, and said that the owner would be pleased to have rented it to such a nice family. A widow with six daughters.

Both girls were almost shaking with excitement when they left the notaire’s office after paying for it and signing the lease. It was happening! The dream was becoming real, and very quickly. But they had so much to do now before they opened. They needed to buy furniture, and find servants. Two maids and a cook, Angélique decided, and they couldn’t be shocked at what went on at the house. And a man to help, and protect them, and do the heavy work. And above all, Fabienne needed to find the girls they needed. That was key. The rest would be easy. But the women whose charms they would be offering had to be impeccably selected, and Angélique wanted to meet each of them and make the final decision. Fabienne knew women of the streets, and young girls, but Angélique knew far better the kind of men they’d be serving.

Fabienne began the search two days later. She sent a message to Juliette, the girl she’d mentioned at Madame Albin’s, and asked to meet her somewhere. It took her five more days to get away on a pretext, and meet at a café, where she was surprised to see Fabienne look far more elegant than she had during her time at Madame Albin’s. Juliette was stunned, as Fabienne described Angélique and her plan. She was eager to join them, and Fabienne arranged a meeting for her with Angélique. She found her a sweet girl, with an angelic innocence about her, who appeared younger than her eighteen years. But she could see the sensual woman under the surface too, and thought she had qualities that would appeal to some of their clients. Fabienne and Juliette could be the angelic young girls of the group, with greater knowledge of how to please a man than it appeared. But after that, she wanted racier women, and was counting on Fabienne to find them, which was no easy task. They told Juliette to bide her time at Madame Albin’s, say nothing, and they would let her know when they were ready, they hoped in a month or two. Angélique wanted to do it right, and not hurry, although she was anxious to open their doors too.

Meanwhile she spent her days buying furniture and having it delivered to the house they’d rented. She bought ten large canopied beds in different places, and miles of fabric to cover them, which she did herself, and a smaller bed for herself. She bought nightstands, dressers, comfortable chairs in silks and satins, rugs for every room, including the reception rooms, oil lamps, a handsome English dining table and chairs, and divinely comfortable couches and Egyptian benches to recline on for the drawing room, where she could imagine the girls lounging as they talked to their clients before they went upstairs. She bought two card tables for the drawing room, and beautiful heavy damask curtains. The house was coming together nicely, and she was spending her father’s money, but keeping good track of it, and staying within the budget she had set for herself. And the house was starting to look beautiful, warm, and opulent, as the pieces arrived, and she wanted the lighting to be just right at night, so that it would be romantic and flattering. And she bought a multitude of mirrors for the drawing room and bedrooms. And Fabienne showed her how to place them strategically in the bedrooms. They were doing all the work themselves, and as the furniture began arriving, even for the maids’ bedrooms, the two women agreed that they needed a man to help them. The furniture was heavy, the curtains hard for them to hang, and they couldn’t do it all alone, although Angélique was working magic. She had even found a few pieces she loved for her own rooms, which reminded her of her bedroom in Belgrave, the one Gwyneth had stolen from her when she arrived, with her parents’ blessing. This time Angélique was in the attic by choice, but in a lovely suite of rooms no one would ever see but herself, away from the girls. And she bought a few simple paintings that she loved, by unknown French artists, which cost almost nothing.

They looked in the newspaper for a man to hire, and interviewed several. It was a delicate business telling each prospect that he would be protecting a houseful of women, but not telling him what they’d be doing. Several asked if it was a school, or a boardinghouse, but the last one they saw asked them nothing, and he and Fabienne instantly liked each other. He had broad shoulders and a strong back, came from the South as she did, and spoke the same patois. He said he had grown up on a farm and had four sisters and no brothers. His father had died when he was young, and he was used to being the only man in the house with a flock of women. His name was Jacques, and when they showed him the house, he followed Fabienne like a puppy. He didn’t mind the small spare room in the carriage house, and Angélique explained to him that he would need to be discreet about whatever went on in the main house. She tried to feel him out for his values, and was relieved when he said he wasn’t religious. One of his sisters was a nun, and he thought she was misguided. The others were married and had children.

“There will be men here, not just women,” Angélique said, watching him intently. “Perhaps many men. And some very beautiful women.” He asked if it was going to be a hotel, and she said no. And as he looked at her, she saw the light dawn in his eyes, and he said he understood. He was not as innocent as he appeared. He seemed worried for a minute and then nodded, and then asked her a question.

“Fabienne too?” He had a decided soft spot for her, which Angélique was not sure was a good idea, if he fell in love with her, and was jealous. It was a complication they didn’t need.

“Yes, Fabienne too,” she said definitely, and he nodded.

“I understand. It’s a job like any other. We all have to make a living. I will protect all of you,” he said seriously, and she could see that he meant it. They hired him immediately, and he was an enormous help, moving furniture, carrying things that arrived, hanging curtains and paintings, and assisting Angélique as she set up the bedrooms, while Fabienne conducted her search for the women.

The first few Fabienne met, through other women she knew, weren’t interested. They liked the arrangements they had, and didn’t want to join a house so recently set up by women who weren’t experienced at running a brothel. Fabienne told them they would be properly registered at the gendarmerie, and protected and paid fairly, but it wasn’t enough to entice them. But they referred her to some others who were dissatisfied with their pimps or madams. And two girls seemed like good possibilities to her, and intrigued Angélique.

One was obviously from a good French family, and for whatever reason had chosen a very different path from her bourgeois sisters and parents. At twenty-four, she had been a prostitute for seven years, looked like a lady and apparently wasn’t. And she made it clear that some of the more “exotic” requests of her clients appealed to her. She said casually that she used a small whip, and was an expert at bondage. She never injured her clients or allowed them to hurt her, but she was more than willing to experiment with new “techniques,” and said she had a large collection of sexual aids. Angélique tried to look nonchalant about it, although she was somewhat unnerved by her. But she was a beautiful woman, and she was very erotic and appealing in a subtle, sensual way. Her name was Ambre, and she had worn a very elegant dress to the meeting, which showed that she knew how to dress well. Ambre had jet black hair and smoldering eyes, and was a tall woman with long legs and big breasts. She had been working alone for a while near the Palais Royal, and said she preferred a house, and hadn’t found one she liked. What Angélique was doing had piqued her interest, and she could see that Angélique was intelligent, and liked that about her. She wanted to be in a house that was run like a business. She charged a fairly high rate because of her unusual specialties. And she had none of the seeming innocence of Fabienne and Juliette. She said she enjoyed her work, and was said to be skilled at her trade. Angélique told her she would be welcome to join them, and Fabienne approved when they talked about it later.

“She scares me a little,” Fabienne admitted. “She’s very cold. But I think some men like that.”

“Apparently,” Angélique said, feeling a little overwhelmed by the meeting, but pleased with their decision.

The other girl Fabienne thought was a possibility was a slightly round, very jovial girl with a great sense of humor and a quick wit, who had fled the convent in Bordeaux her parents had sent her to, and come to Paris on her own. She was twenty-two, had a warm personality, and seemed like everyone’s favorite sister. Her name was Philippine, and Angélique enjoyed meeting her. She was a pretty blonde with a lovely face, slim legs, and a huge bosom, which Fabienne said men would want to dive into, and she was intelligent too.

“I didn’t know if she looked fancy enough for you,” Fabienne said, worried. There was a straightforward, open quality to her that Angélique liked.

“She’s fun to talk to. Some men will really love that. And we can dress her up elegantly. She’s very pretty. It’s not a problem.” They had laughed through the whole interview, and she had a lovely singing voice, could play the piano, and had sung in the convent choir. It reminded Angélique that she needed to buy a piano for the drawing room. They hired Philippine too, which left them four more women to find. They had half the number they needed now.

The next girl Fabienne located was an Ethiopian woman, with coffee-colored skin, delicate features, and huge green eyes. She had been sold into slavery by her father at a young age, brought to Paris by the family who bought her, and abandoned, and had been fending for herself ever since. She was nineteen, and the most exquisite girl of all. Her name was Yaba, and she added another kind of exoticism to the group they were trying to form. With Yaba, they now had five.

Angélique and Fabienne agreed that they could open the house with six women, but they both preferred the idea of eight, to give the men more choices, and the girls could linger with them longer that way, without rushing to the next client. And ultimately, since they had enough bedrooms, Angélique thought they could have ten. But eight was her goal for now.

It took several weeks for Fabienne to meet two more girls. One of them was suggested by Philippine. She was a beautiful flaming redhead named Agathe, she was a little older than the others, more sophisticated, and she’d had a patron who recently died, so she wanted to join a house again. He had been a politician, and she had interesting connections with the men around him, and said she would bring several clients with her. She was a true courtesan. They invited her to join them too.

Agathe recommended a friend to them, who also had the potential to bring them many clients. She had started as an actress on the stage, and found prostitution more lucrative. She had a star quality about her, and like Agathe was twenty-five years old, and had a strong self-assured presence, while remaining accessible. Her name was Camille, and she was a blonde with big blue eyes. She was every inch a star.

They were just debating if seven girls were enough, when Ambre, who preferred exotic practices and whips, contacted them to say she had met someone they might be interested in hiring. She was Japanese, had gotten stranded in Paris, when jilted by a man she’d been engaged to, and was too ashamed to go back to Japan to her relatives. She had disappeared into the underworld in Paris, but had been trained as a geisha before she left Japan. She sounded intriguing, and when Angélique met her, she looked like a little doll, and was even smaller than Angélique. She wore a traditional kimono, and spoke adequate French. She was a shy woman, but a long conversation about the art of being a geisha fascinated Angélique. She would be the last touch of exoticism they needed. She was twenty-two, and her name was Hiroko. They had someone for every male taste now, Asian, African, European, tall, small, bold, shy, Philippine with her sense of humor, and Ambre with her fondness for bondage. They had everyone they needed.

And with Jacques’s help, the house was finally ready to move into. Fabienne and Angélique contacted all seven women and invited them to arrive as soon as possible to settle into their rooms. And Angélique wanted to take them to buy clothes and have some made. She wanted them to have fabulous lingerie, and the kind of evening gowns worthy of their clients. Agathe said she already had several, but Angélique wanted them all exquisitely dressed, their hair done perfectly. She wanted all eight of them to be a vision of beauty the moment a man stepped through the door. She had told Hiroko that for now she could wear her kimonos, which would be exciting too.

Over a span of a week, the women arrived with bags and trunks and boxes, and at last they had all moved in. Fabienne and Angélique had moved out of the hotel several weeks before. Fabienne had been allowed to pick the room she wanted, and Angélique was upstairs in the attic. And the others selected their rooms as they arrived, and each of them added little personal touches to their rooms. Juliette had a little stuffed bear on her bed, and Ambre had a small whip and riding crop hanging next to hers. Everyone seemed happy with the setup and loved the house. And Angélique had hired a young cook and two maids to serve them.

“I feel like I died and went to Heaven,” Philippine said the first time they all had supper together in the dining room, at the handsome new table, which seated twenty. The girls and their clients could even dine there. Jacques ate his meals in the kitchen with the cook and maids. And everyone seemed comfortable with the kind of business they were going to run there. It was no longer a secret, except outside the house. But within it, the employees they had hired were clear.

After the meal, Philippine and Camille sang for them at the new piano, and the girls all joined in, and Angélique informed them that they were going shopping the next day, and there was excited conversation among them. It was like a boarding school full of girls. Everyone was in great spirits and couldn’t wait to begin receiving their clients.

Fabienne and Angélique smiled at each other. “We did it,” Angélique said to Fabienne, as she admired the women they’d chosen, chatting with each other between songs.

“No, you did it,” Fabienne said gratefully, still amazed at how smoothly it had all gone, with Angélique’s impeccable organization and boundless energy.

“All I did was the decorating. We’d have an empty house if you hadn’t found the girls.”

“You did a lot more than decorate.” She had fronted all the money, and the girls had agreed to their rates, and the amount they would be paid. Angélique was going to pay them half of what they earned, which they all agreed was extremely generous. No one had ever done that for them before.

“We’re going to be the talk of Paris,” Agathe said pleasantly. She had already contacted her late patron’s friends, and invited them to join her there when they opened, even if just to look around and share a meal. Angélique wanted them to feel welcome and comfortable, and said she didn’t mind if they didn’t go upstairs at first, until they met and liked the girls. She hoped it would be more than just a brothel—she envisioned it almost like a salon, until they got upstairs, where it was so much more. Camille and Ambre had contacted their regulars as well, and had much to contribute. They all did, each in her special way.

“And you, Angélique, will you be entertaining clients?” Ambre asked her in her very direct way, as Angélique shook her head.

“No, I won’t. I’ll talk to the men in the drawing room, and entertain them with you, but I’ll be running the place, and working in other ways.” Ambre nodded, and none of the girls seemed to mind. She wasn’t exploiting them like most madams, she was opening doors to them to better clients than they’d ever had—at least that was Ambre’s hope.

“What are we calling the house?” Yaba asked her. There was a flurry of conversation after that, with assorted suggestions, and the one they all liked best was “Le Boudoir,” which had a sensual intimate ring to it, without being bawdy. And Angélique liked it too.

She took them shopping the next day, with all of them in two carriages Jacques hired for them for the afternoon. There was an old one in the carriage house, which was serviceable but not elegant enough to use. And Angélique was shocked when they arrived at a dressmaker’s shop she had been told about and the woman who ran it refused to serve them and asked them to leave. She knew exactly what they were and wanted no part of it. It reminded Angélique that the polite world would not be amused by her new business, no matter how well she ran it, or how pretty the girls were. They had all dressed respectably for the outing, but they were a little too beautiful, a little exotic, and a little too exuberant. They didn’t have the pinched look of bourgeois housewives, and even women in the street looked at them with disapproval while men stared.

They went to another shop then that she and Fabienne had been to before. They had some very pretty things, and even though the woman who ran it understood who and what she was dealing with, she was happy to serve them, and thanked them for their business. She was very polite, and gracious to the girls. And after that, they went to a store for corsets and lacy underwear, where they all went wild. As much as they were excited by the evening gowns they would be wearing in the drawing room, and one or two day dresses to wear, they needed what went under them far more. They came away with fabulous things in silks and satins, some with exotic openings, lace, garters, tiny corsets, and every kind of item to enhance their already beautiful bodies, and Philippine convinced Angélique to buy one set of satin and lace underthings for herself.

“No one will ever see it,” Angélique said practically, laughing.

“Oh, don’t be such a nun,” Philippine teased her. “You could be run over by a carriage, and think how exciting it will be when you go to the hospital and they see your underthings! Come on, be one of us.” She was so funny about it that Angélique bought it along with all the rest, and claimed it when they got back to the house, and the girls each took their pile of treasures.

The girls all modeled their new finery for each other, and they decided to have a dress rehearsal that night for supper, and wear their new evening gowns.

When they came downstairs for supper, Angélique thought she had never seen a more spectacular-looking group of women and knew she had made the right choices. She was relieved to see that all of them had good table manners. All eight of them behaved like ladies, no matter what profession they had decided on for whatever reason. And she was proud of them.

She had worn the one truly fine evening gown she had brought from Belgrave, in a rich blue velvet, with her mother’s sapphires at her ears and around her throat, and all the women told her how beautiful she was, and were impressed. They were proud of her too.

“You look like a princess,” Camille said generously, and meant it, and Angélique corrected her, laughing, before she could stop the words.

“No, just a duchess.” And as soon as she said it, she was shocked at herself and regretted the words.

“What do you mean?” Agathe asked her pointedly.

“Nothing. I was just being silly.”

“No, you weren’t,” they persisted. They had all sensed some mystery about her from the first. “Tell us the truth. Are you a duchess?” She hesitated for a moment, but she knew all of their stories, about where they came from, why they were there, and how they had come to this way of life. They might as well know hers.

“No, I’m not a duchess,” she said honestly. “I’m only a lady. But my father was a duke. My brother inherited the title and the estate, according to British law, and the family fortune, all of it, except for a small house on the estate that went to my other brother. As a woman in England, I inherited nothing, neither the property, nor the title, nor the money. My mother was a duchess, married to my father, and her father was a French marquis. And when my father died, my brother sent me away to people he knew, to work as a nanny, and pretended that we were only distant cousins. So I have nothing, and I am nothing. My brother’s wife is the Duchess of Westerfield. I am not,” she said humbly.

“So how did you pay for all this?” Juliette asked her shyly, which the others had wondered too.

“My father gave me a gift before he died, which was meant to last me for the rest of my life, if I ever needed it. This is not what he intended me to do with it, to say the least. But hopefully we will all make money at it, and can eventually retire. In the meantime, thanks to my father we’re all here.”

“Le Boudoir de la Duchesse!” Philippine shouted enthusiastically, renaming the house as the others added their approval. “And to hell with your sister-in-law. You will be the Duchess to us. You really should be a princess, but Duchess will do.” They all looked pleased, and Angélique was amused.

“When do we open?” Ambre wanted to know. They had their costumes now, the house looked impeccable, and all the girls were there. Angélique had registered all of them at the gendarmerie. There was no reason to wait.

“Why don’t you all rest tomorrow?” Angélique suggested to them. “And we’ll open the next day.” It had taken two months for the entire process. “You can send messages to your clients tomorrow, and ask them to bring their friends to have a look. They’re not obliged to do anything when they get here except meet all of you and get to know the place. We will open officially the day after tomorrow,” she announced, having just decided it. And she raised her glass to all of them. “To you, ladies! Thank you for being here.” She smiled at them, grateful that they believed in her.

“To the Duchess!” they said in unison, and raised their glasses to her.