Chapter 8
Devil’s books: Cards.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Fascinated, Nick watched a parade of emotion march across his wife's face. Shock . . . Perplexity . . . Disbelief . . . Those were the expected ones. When the disbelief evolved into thoughtfulness, however, he experienced a jolt of surprise. She was considering the proposition. Of course.
If Mariana had an Achilles’ heel, it was her inability to resist the call to adventure. It was this quality that had brought her to Paris. It was this quality that had brought her into this room. And it was this quality he’d sought to exploit by involving her in the assassination intrigue.
His plan for tonight had been to allow her to deplete her funds and then to supply her with more coinage before beginning their spy lesson in earnest. It hadn’t been necessary to repeat Yvette and Lisette’s proposal.
Why had he deviated from the plan? He knew why. Because he couldn’t help himself. Because he’d partially undressed her last night, and the basest part of him would see the job done tonight, however cheaply. And because, given the opportunity, he would undermine himself time and time again when it came to her.
That was why he’d arranged this lesson here of all places. And that was why he’d repeated Yvette and Lisette’s proposition.
Her eyes fixed on the kitty in the middle of the table, Mariana nodded once in assent. Yvette and Lisette squealed in delight. “What’s the old saying? When in a whorehouse, do as the whores do?” Her legs swung right, toward Nick. “A little space, if you don’t mind?”
His mouth went dry when she bent forward and untied the laces of her boot. She kicked the boot off her foot and paused, possibly having second thoughts. “You don’t have to do this.”
Her gaze shot up to meet his. “But Yvette and Lisette are so impressed.”
“A dubious honor, at best.”
Her eyes lit up with humor before they darted away, and gratification surged within him. How he delighted in amusing her. He was in trouble.
From the edge of his peripheral vision, he watched Mariana take her dress in hand and lift it fold over fold until the hem rested on her thigh. In a thrice, she freed the stocking from its garter and slipped it down the smooth length of her leg. Secured between forefinger and thumb, she tossed the delicate stocking, allowing it to flutter to the table. Yvette and Lisette clapped with glee.
Nick needed a large dose of spirits for his suddenly parched mouth. He reached for the whiskey and refilled his tumbler before setting the decanter on the felt. He suspected he would need several more top ups before this night was finished.
Play resumed, and Mariana lay a flush face up, a shy, sly smile curling about her rosy lips. Delectable was that smile. He wanted a nip of it. Of course, she wouldn’t give him one, not once he showed his cards.
Yvette and Lisette laid down two pairs each, and Nick hesitated. Mariana had agreed to potentially strip naked based on the strength of her hand, and his full house was one of the few combinations that beat a flush.
Like ripping a bandage off a fresh wound, he slapped his cards face up onto the felt tabletop. He half expected Mariana to throw her cards at his face or, perhaps, never speak to him again.
She did neither. Her lips firmed into a straight frown—he experienced a pang of loss for her cute, curly smile—and she fixed him with an intense glare. “How do you know of this place?”
Impressed by her restraint, he cleared his throat. “In my métier, one learns of such venues.” He tugged his cravat loose and tossed it into the pot as his wager.
“Paris,” she began in a conversational tone that he didn’t trust, “must be ripe with such venues.”
He nodded a terse response, hoping to suppress this particular conversational thread, and pretended to focus on the game. Yvette and Lisette tossed one garter each into the kitty. Mariana reached down and again gathered up her dress fold by fold before unhooking the garters on her other leg, her movements quick and efficient as if this situation was mundane, banal even.
Like a green boy on the verge of his first view of female flesh, Nick’s heart doubled its rate. He should avert his gaze. It was the gentlemanly course of action, but all hope of the high ground was lost when his gaze snagged on the instep of her narrow foot. The bones of her feet matched the rest of her: long and lithe. Elegant. The woman had elegant feet.
He must gain control over himself. This was an example of how a moment could spin out of control around Mariana. How easily he could ask if her feet ached, if they required a massage. It was this sort of moment he’d been avoiding for most of their marriage. No matter how he feigned indifference, he wasn’t. The word cheap came to him again.
Finally, she straightened and tossed both stocking and bright pink garter into the kitty. It was an unusual pink of the sort one would expect to find in the tropics where everything and everyone ran just a bit hotter . . .
In a desperate bid to regain control of this night, Nick picked up the discarded remnant of their conversation and began stating facts in the hope they would rescue him from the erotic fiction his mind was creating. “In the thirteenth century,” he began, his tone brisk and matter-of-fact, “Louis the Ninth decreed prostitution legal on nine streets in Paris in an effort to control its spread throughout the city. Rue de la Huchette was one of those streets. Today, more than one hundred and eighty brothels populate Paris.”
“Such a precise number,” she said. “One might think you a connoisseur.”
Her voice had grown cold and distant. Just where he needed it to be. Hot and close was too distracting. “Connoisseur isn’t the correct word for my interest. And you know it.”
“Do I?” she countered. “Do I know a single true thing about you?”
“Yes,” he stated, daring her to look at him.
Her gaze, however, remained steady on her cards. She was processing his response and, more specifically, that word. Yes. Wouldn’t it have simplified matters to have said no? Implicit in that word would have been that she’d never known him.
But he’d replied the opposite. It was as if he had a basic need to preserve the thread of their old connection, a thread he’d severed. Or so he’d convinced himself. One day in her presence outed the lie.
Her brows lifted to her hairline, and she gasped, bringing her fingertips to her mouth. Nick followed the direction of her gaze, and a far more cynical response escaped him in the form of a short, single-note chortle.
Yvette and Lisette had stood and were now slinking around each other, slowly unbuttoning one another’s dresses. In unison, they shimmied their shoulders and allowed their dresses to fall to the floor. Neither wore a chemise, only short pantalettes and small corsets that served to lift exposed breasts, nipples immodestly puckered.
Waves of tension radiated off Mariana as the trollops tossed their dresses into the pot and giggled. Nick knew better than to react.
All eyes swung toward Mariana, even the croupier’s. Hers was the next move. A flush of deep rose crept along the delicate ridge of her collarbone as she did the unexpected: her fingers reached across her body and found the three buttons located on the side of her dress before flicking them out of their loops.
The night might have gotten away from him.
“Mariana”—He spoke up, because he must—“you don’t have to do this.”
“Don’t I? I must abide by the rules of the game if I’m to stay in the game, correct?”
Nick’s hand shot out and trapped Mariana’s fingers on the table. Her eyes widened and flew up to meet his as a spark of electrical current raced up his arm. She must have felt it, too. “This is your game, Mariana. You make the rules.”
“How will I learn to play the game if I’m a delicate flower for whom allowances must be made? I thought you live in a harsher world than that.”
“I do.”
Sudden awareness caught Nick by surprise, the bare flesh of their hands pressed skin to skin. He pulled his hand back as if scalded. She rose to her feet and wiggled out of her dress, allowing it to fall to the floor in a heap of coarse wool. Yvette and Lisette first gasped, then collectively cooed at the sight of her.
The dress was dull as used bathwater, but dull wasn’t the correct word for the garments that lay beneath. He wasn’t certain the fuchsia of the corset and garters existed in nature, but the color came alive against Mariana’s honey-toned skin, even as the corset embraced her lush body, pushing ripe breasts up and forward, curving in at her waist and subtly flaring out at her hips. She was a hothouse flower in bloom. She was incomparable.
His mouth again went dry. He must busy himself if he was to keep his head, the one atop his shoulders, in the game. Slowly, as not to startle this exquisite confection before him, he shrugged off his jacket and added it to the pot. His contribution felt meager compared to Mariana’s.
She settled into her chair with an insouciance as if nothing of consequence had occurred. Very French was that insouciance. Very unlike the Mariana he knew. The croupier dealt the next hand.
As they changed cards, it was undeniable that the tone of the room had altered. How could it not? Mariana had thrown down the gauntlet.
No longer did Yvette and Lisette whisper and giggle. Instead, they became more . . . tactile . . . with one another. Yvette feathered light fingertips across Lisette’s collarbone before reaching up to remove an earring. She repeated the motion on the other side and tossed the pair into the pot. Lisette responded in kind.
And Mariana? Captivation writ plainly across her face, she watched Yvette and Lisette play out an erotic scene for which patrons paid outlandish sums of money to witness and even join. For the uninitiated, it could be overwhelming. Yet Mariana’s cool response was to reach up, remove the silver brooch holding her simple chignon in place, and drop it into the pot.
The action itself was simple; the effect was anything but. Her hair tumbled about her shoulders, stray tendrils finding their way to the cleft between her breasts, transforming her into the most alluring woman in Paris. Nick added his waistcoat and averted his gaze. Play was ready to resume.
The round that had begun so dramatically concluded with a whimper when he showed his hand. Mariana sighed and folded. As he gathered his winnings, he watched her attention again stray toward Yvette and Lisette, who were now caressing one another’s faces. Then, one whispered into the other’s ear, and they both angled their bodies toward Mariana. Likely she’d never seen such a display between two women. Or even considered its possibility.
Lisette reached out a hand and tenderly cupped one side of Mariana’s face, while Yvette cupped the other. Mariana sat stone still as if bewitched by a spell. Experienced fingertips began tracing a path down her cheeks and neck, inch by inch, trailing lower before hesitating at the space just above her breasts. Suddenly, the equilibrium of the room felt balanced on the tip of a needle with no margin for a wrong movement. One either toppled over, or one was pricked.
It occurred to Nick that blood might be drawn tonight.
Emboldened by Mariana’s lack of response, Yvette and Lisette sidled closer. The three women looked like they were forming a sacred pact, its secrets known only to them. And all Nick could do was watch, helpless on his side of the table. He glanced at the croupier whose attention remained fixed on the whispery fuzz of his cards.
Fingertips resumed their progress ever lower toward the curve of Mariana’s scantily clad breasts. He could see the outline of her nipples puckered beneath her white chemise.
Before Nick had a chance to consider what this night might reveal, Mariana’s hands reached up and grabbed each trollop by a wrist, eliciting annoyed whines from each. The pact was broken.
A relieved Nick shot to his feet. At last, he could be of some use. “That will be all,” he told the visibly bewildered Yvette and Lisette in their native language. Petulantly, they grabbed their discarded apparel and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind them.
He made eye contact with the croupier. “You must go, too. And leave the cards.” The man nodded and was through the door in a thrice of heartbeats.
Nick turned the lock behind him and faced a Mariana altered from the one who had entered this room an hour ago. This woman could be the most sought after and expensive courtesan in Paris.
“There is nothing those women won’t do, is there?” came her first words in what felt like hours, but must have been no more than five minutes. Anything could happen in five minutes.
“No.”
“Must that be me as I work for you?”
Her voice emerged quiet and soft, and he detected an uncharacteristic strand of uncertainty running through it. “You will never be forced to do anything you don’t want to do,” he responded with a fervid earnestness he hadn’t expressed in years, if ever. He sat in the croupier’s vacated chair across from her and pushed a stack of coins across the table. “Ready?”
She pushed the coins back toward him. “Let’s keep the stakes high, shall we?”