Chapter 13

As promised, the girls who had clients alerted them that the house was now open, and for three terrifying weeks, no one came. The girls put on evening gowns every night, draped themselves on the furniture in the drawing room, in gentle candlelight, while Jacques stood at the door in livery, waiting to admit their guests, and not a single one of their clients showed up. Angélique was panicking, and by the end of the second week, the girls were depressed.

Not knowing what else to do, she took them all to the Louvre one afternoon, and for a walk in the park. She took them all to dinner at a restaurant called Maison Catherine on the Place du Tertre in Montmartre, where proper women stared them down, and people glanced at them with icy expressions, guessing what they were, no matter how well dressed they were, or perhaps because of it. And the nights continued to be painfully long with no men in the room. The girls played cards, Philippine entertained them with jokes, Camille played the piano, and Angélique tried to calm everyone down and assure them that the men would come in time, and prayed that she was right. The men they wanted as clients were busy people and had careers to pursue and lives to arrange. And then, finally, miraculously after three endless weeks, in the first week of June, one of Agathe’s contacts arrived, and brought a friend. They were acquaintances of her late patron, and high-up political men. And when they walked into the drawing room of Le Boudoir, they were astounded by what they saw. Nine spectacularly beautiful women in elegant gowns, one of them wearing handsome jewels, and all of them with smiles that welcomed them.

“My, my,” Alphonse Cardin said, looking around, happy to see Agathe again. They had come only out of curiosity, but were enchanted by the ladies in the drawing room. They drank and played cards with them, smoked cigars as they were welcome to do, and since no one else came that night, Angélique quietly mentioned to Mr. Cardin that he was welcome to take as many girls upstairs with him as he liked, or try them all, as a gift from her this first time. He looked thrilled, and he and his friend each chose four, and Angélique found herself alone in the drawing room, looking pleased. Both gentlemen stayed until six in the morning. She had gone to bed by then, but Cardin was kind enough to send her a note the next day with a magnum of champagne. The note said, “Bravo, ma chèrie! Merci. A.C.” His night had apparently been a great success, as had his friend’s, who had a preference for the exotic, and had been with Ambre, once her specialties were explained to him, as well as Yaba, Hiroko, and Agathe. He had enjoyed them all so much that he told Cardin he had no idea which, or how many, he would select again, although he wanted to try the girls Alphonse had been with too, who he said had been sublime. They were younger and more lighthearted, and didn’t take things quite as seriously as the other group. It had been his friend’s first experience being expertly and deliciously whipped, and he wanted to come back for more.

Alphonse had discreetly asked Angélique if she would be joining them—she would have been his first choice. And with a demurely sensual look, she told him that no, she wouldn’t, which only made him more determined to convince her otherwise in the future. Fabienne complimented her the next day that she had done that very well. “They’re all going to want you,” she said, “because you refuse them.” Angélique laughed in response, but she was delighted the night had gone well, and pleased with herself that she had thought to offer it to them as a gift. The girls reported to Angélique that the men had been extremely pleased and promised to return soon. Now they would be able to tell their friends how good the girls were, since between them they had been with them all, and sampled the wares of Le Boudoir lavishly.

Both men came back the following night, and every night for a week, taking two or three of the girls upstairs with them, or one by one. By the end of the week, other men had come, having heard from Cardin and his friend how terrific the house was, how elegant the madam, and how pleasant the furnishings, and what an interesting assortment the women were. Their friends and acquaintances wanted to see for themselves, and within two weeks, the house was crowded every night. Their guests were paying handsomely for the girls’ services, and Angélique was keeping close track of the books. They were making a lot of money, serving light meals in the dining room, some played cards with the girls for a while, getting to know them, others wanted to talk, and a great many of them went directly upstairs with the girl of their choice. And a surprising number of their clients had a marked preference for Ambre and her specialties, which she apparently did extremely well, sometimes wearing nothing but a pair of riding boots.

The men who began frequenting Le Boudoir were exactly what Angélique had wanted right from the beginning. Political figures whose names were well known, bankers, lawyers, aristocrats, men with enormous fortunes willing to pay almost any price for the right women who could arouse them. The evenings began like an elegant party with impressive men and beautiful women, and thinned out quickly, as their guests disappeared with the girls. Some stayed for a short time, others longer. Several said immediately that they wanted to spend the night, though not many were able to do that with wives they had to go home to, unless they were at their country homes with the children. But the house was alive until five and six every morning, and the girls slept until one o’clock the next day. And every Sunday afternoon, Angélique paid out to them their half of what they had made the previous week, with meticulous lists of which clients they had been with on what night. All the girls agreed they had never made as much in their lives, as quickly and easily, and been paid so handsomely. Angélique had set her fees high, in anticipation of who would be coming. They wanted no paupers among their guests but only men with fortunes, and not one of them balked at her prices, or complained about the value of what they got. They came back again and again for more.

And as their wives left for the seaside or the country, or their châteaux in Périgord and Dordogne in July, and the men stayed in the city, allegedly to work, and dally, the house was more crowded than ever, and business was booming. Angélique even mentioned to Fabienne that she thought they should get two more girls. The women they had were constantly in demand, and some of the men had to wait an hour or two in the drawing room for the girl they wanted to be free. And while they did, Angélique entertained them, and became acquainted with many of them. Much to her own amazement, she had found a profession that suited her. She didn’t want to think of what her father would have thought of it, but necessity had driven her to it, with the Fergusons firing her without a character unjustly, and the disastrous situation her brother had put her in. At least she was not one of the women working in the bedrooms, she was the madam, which was slightly more respectable, and her virginity was intact. And there was no question in anyone’s mind, the girls’ or the clients’, she was a lady of distinction, and an aristocrat to the core. The girls called her the Duchess, and some of the clients had picked it up, while many wondered if it was true, and she denied it, since she wasn’t, despite her noble lineage, but only the daughter and sister of a duke, and the granddaughter of a marquis on her mother’s side in France, which she didn’t explain to their clients, but she had the grace and demeanor of a duchess, no matter how often she claimed not to be one. And none of the clients suspected how young she was. She stuck to her invented story that she was twenty-six, and they believed her. No one would have imagined her to be a girl of twenty, given the enterprise she was running so smoothly. Even the girls who worked for her didn’t know her real age, except Fabienne, who kept it a secret.

Fabienne had continued to flirt with Jacques, when she had the opportunity, but now that she was working constantly, she was too busy to pursue it. He was her willing slave and did whatever she wished, and Angélique kept a watchful eye on them to make sure it went no further, and so far it hadn’t.

The names of many of the men in the drawing room were familiar to Angélique. They were men of power, many of them part of the current Bourbon government that had followed Bonaparte, when Charles X took the throne and restored the monarchy. The heads of several banks were there, and she enjoyed talking finance with them, and learning from them. And in the first week of August, an imposing man arrived one night with a group of friends. He looked familiar to her, and she couldn’t place his face. It was Agathe, with her political connections, who told her who he was. She knew many of the politicians through her previous patron, and they came for her at first, and then discovered the others whom they liked as well.

“Do you know who that is?” she whispered to Angélique, impressed herself for once, as they played cards. Angélique admitted she didn’t know, and couldn’t place the face. He had piercing eyes, an almost military bearing, and was strikingly handsome, with a chiseled face. “He’s the minister of the interior,” Agathe told her. “It’s a big statement that he’s here. He’s very careful where he goes. He doesn’t like anyone to know what he’s up to.” He had identified himself only as Thomas, by first name only, which was an invented alias. But everyone knew who he was. He didn’t need to use his real name and was known to be a secretive person, which went with his job.

“Do you know him?” Angélique asked, impressed.

“We’ve met,” Agathe said softly, “but I didn’t invite him here. I don’t know him well enough for that. Someone must have told him about us.” Both women noticed him carefully looking around the room, observing who was there, while smoking a cigar.

Angélique watched him circle the room and chat with some of the men. He smiled at the women, but didn’t engage them in conversation, and then she saw him watching her, and she nodded her head in acknowledgment, and he smiled. And a little while later, after Agathe had gone upstairs with one of her clients, he came over to sit next to her.

“So you are the Duchess all of Paris is talking about,” he said softly, his eyes drinking her in. “Is the title real?”

“It is, but never destined to be mine,” she told him honestly, as their eyes met and held. She could feel him near her, with an almost electric charge.

“Whose then?”

“My father’s, and now my brother’s.”

“Ah,” he said, even more intrigued. “You’re British,” he guessed, although one couldn’t hear it in her flawless French.

“Half. My mother was French.”

“And on her side, equally blue blood?” He was fascinated by her, and could see how highborn she was. He couldn’t imagine what she was doing here, running the house. For a girl of her birth to be running a brothel seemed unthinkable, but she ran it with the grace of a dinner party.

“Bourbon and Orléans,” she answered, which were both of the royal houses of France.

“I’ve been hearing about you,” he said, mesmerized by her.

“Good things, I hope,” she said demurely, her eyes never leaving his. She didn’t try to avoid his intense gaze, and he liked that about her too.

“Only good things. I’m told that you don’t go upstairs with the clients, and have the best girls in the city.”

“I tried to put together an interesting group, in a pleasant atmosphere,” she said modestly, and he smiled at her warmly.

“I’d say you’ve succeeded. I like it here, and so do my friends. Everyone feels at home here.”

“That was my goal. I hope you’ll come to see us often.” She smiled invitingly at him, but not so much as to mislead him. She was exquisitely elegant and well bred in her manner as well as dress, and yet gentle and warm at the same time. He had never met a woman who intrigued him more.

“And if I do, will you come upstairs with me? As a special arrangement?” He was asking her to be his mistress in no uncertain terms, and she understood it perfectly. She had learned a lot in the past three months that she had never dreamed of before. And she could tell he was serious by the way he spoke to her.

“It would spoil our friendship if I did,” she said quietly, with obvious respect.

“Are we to be friends then?” he asked, raising an eyebrow, hopeful and disappointed all at the same time. She was setting limits in advance.

“That’s up to you, but I hope so. You are always welcome here,” she said graciously. He looked satisfied for the moment, but not entirely. She wondered if he would actually have gone upstairs with her if she’d allowed it, but knew instinctively she would have been a fool to do so. He was much too dangerous and powerful to toy with, or be dependent on. He was far more valuable to her as an ally, protector, and friend, if he became that. And Agathe had told her he went to the best brothels often, but never went upstairs with the girls. But Angélique had a strong sense that he would have made an exception for her, and perhaps would have come back after hours, if she’d let him. “Thomas” was thoroughly enthralled and enchanted by her, and sat talking to her for a long time. He eventually bade her goodnight politely with a deep bow, and left, promising to return soon.

He appeared again a week later, and had supper in the dining room with her. The crowd had thinned by then, as everyone left Paris for summer holidays, and he said he had stayed in town to work.

“You’re welcome to join me for supper anytime,” Angélique reiterated her earlier invitation to him, and after that, he took her up on it, and came to dine with her, or visit her, or simply sit in the drawing room with her for a while several times a week, sometimes as often as four or five. He couldn’t stay away from her, and they loved talking to each other. He described what they shared as an “amitié amoureuse,” a “romantic friendship,” or a loving one. It involved the meshing of their minds in their exchanges, with a constant aura of flirtation and romance that she allowed to go nowhere except the drawing room. He respected her for that. Their admiration of each other was mutual, and richer for its limitations. He treated her like the lady she was, and not a madam.

“Why this?” he asked her one day about the house and how it had come about.

“It’s a long story, the usual sad tale about a property and title entailed in England, a jealous half-brother who was determined to get rid of me and succeeded, and sent me off to be a servant in someone’s home.”

“And you’d rather die than become a servant?” he teased her as she shook her head.

“Not at all. I was shocked at first, but I came to enjoy it. I was a nanny to six young children, and would have stayed, but one of their friends tried to take advantage of me. I rebuffed him, so he lied to them and said I tried to seduce him, which wasn’t true. I bit him when he tried. They sent me away the next day without a character, and I could get no domestic job in London, or Paris when I came here. I met Fabienne then, one of the girls here, who had been beaten and dumped in a gutter, and I took her in and nursed her. And when she told me about her life, I got the idea of a house where women are protected, respected, and well paid, serving exciting, interesting, powerful men who deserve to be with charming, beautiful women”—she smiled at him—“and treat them well. I pay the girls half of everything we make, and use the rest to run the house, and put money aside for the future,” she said wisely. “It’s working very nicely.” She looked pleased, and he was visibly impressed.

“And you preside over all of it, and engage in none of it, and don’t judge them, or any of us.” He had noticed that about her. She was kind to everyone, but had eyes of steel that saw all. She had that in common with him, nothing escaped his intense gaze, no matter how relaxed he seemed. “You’re a remarkable woman.” And then he thought of something. “How old are you, really?”

“I told you, I’m twenty-six,” she said, smiling.

“Why is it that I don’t believe you?” he said in a low tone so no one would hear him, as he watched her gently.

“Because it’s not true,” she lowered her voice to match his, and hesitated only for the fraction of an instant. She trusted him—they were indeed becoming friends. “I’m twenty, but even the girls here don’t know that, except Fabienne.”

“You are an amazing, amazing girl,” he said admiringly. “And you must be very careful that no one ever tries to hurt you, or destroy you. If they do, I want you to come to me immediately. Paris is a dangerous place these days. Many people are unhappy with the government, they think that Charles is weak and doesn’t understand his subjects. Prices are high, and so is unemployment. Finances are poor. There will be trouble at some point, but not for a while. I will warn you,” he promised. “And there are some who will be jealous of you, if you succeed too well at this.” He gestured around the room. And then he thought of something else. “Would you meet me for a midday meal sometime, in a discreet place?” He liked keeping his personal activities private, to a reasonable degree.

“I’d love to,” she said, smiling at him. She knew that he was married, but was never seen with his wife publicly, like so many of the men she knew now. Someone had mentioned to her that his wife had been ill for years.

Thomas stood up to leave then, and smiled down at her. “I always enjoy talking to you.”

“And I with you,” she said honestly. He was more than twice her age, but by far the most exciting man who came there. And he never went upstairs. And she knew now he never would.

She didn’t see him again after that for a while, and heard he had gone on holiday in Brittany, but she knew he would be back. Of that, she was sure.