The Scandalous Life of a True Lady Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Scandalous Life of a True Lady

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  The Scandalous Life of a True Lady

  By Barbara Metzger

  Copyright 2013 by Barbara Metzger

  Cover Copyright 2013 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 2008.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Barbara Metzger and Untreed Reads Publishing

  A Loyal Companion

  A Suspicious Affair

  An Angel for the Earl

  An Enchanted Affair

  Cupboard Kisses

  Father Christmas

  Lady Whilton’s Wedding

  Rake’s Ransom

  The Duel

  The House of Cards Trilogy:

  Ace of Hearts

  Jack of Clubs

  Queen of Diamonds

  Valentines

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  To Dreamers and Believers

  The Scandalous Life of a True Lady

  By Barbara Metzger

  Chapter One

  Virginity was just another commodity, like coal or carrots. That’s what Simone told herself, anyway. She had no coal to heat her rented attic room, no carrots—or anything else—in her tiny larder. In fact she would not have a cot to sleep in or a roof over her head at the end of the week, not without the rent money. She had no hidden skills, no new talents, nothing that could earn her a living, much less keep her young brother in school and out of the manufacturies or mines.

  Simone Ryland was willing to work, and had tried for the last three years since her parents’ deaths. She had taught languages learned from her half-French mother, and tutored in Latin, her scholar father’s passion. Each position had ended in failure or flight, since each post had included dealing with the master of the house, an older son, a superior male servant, even a visiting clergyman at one residence. They all seemed to think that the red-haired governess was fair game. One so-called gentleman would bear the brand of a fireplace poker for the rest of his life, proof she was not playing. Simone almost landed in prison that time, except the baron’s wife did not wish the scandal of a trial. Now Simone had no references, thus no chance of being hired by a school as instructress, or a respectable household as governess, nursemaid, companion, secretary, or parlor maid. She did not cook well enough to be considered for kitchen staff.

  Shopkeepers wanted male clerks, seamstresses wanted faster sewers, theaters wanted women who could sing or dance, if they could not act. Simone had tried her hand at serving in a tavern. She’d raised her hand at two lecherous drunks, lost the pub money, and lost her job, along with her bed and board. For a peaceful person, Simone was resorting to more violence than she had seen in her life, all to protect her last valuable asset. Diamonds could be sold and recut, then sold again. Virginity, that sought-after commodity, had one sale, once. A man had no other way of knowing his children were of his own line. The loftier the title, the greater the wealth, the wider the acres, the more a chaste bride was valued. Let a stableboy’s son inherit an earldom? Hell, no.

  Simone’s worth as a bride no longer mattered; finding her next meal did. She had nothing left to sell, no jewels or books or fancy fabrics, only herself. And time was running out. Not just the month’s rent and her brother’s tuition, but her looks and her youth. At twenty-two, she was growing old in a business that valued fresh-faced girls from the country; worry and hunger did nothing for her appearance. It was now or never, do or die. Then her brother Auguste would die with her, his chances of a better life at least. Condemn Auguste to ignorance and poverty? She could not do that, at whatever cost.

  Her half-French mother would shriek and tear at her clothes. Her English father would bluster and bellow. But they were the ones who left her—unintentionally, of course; no one could have foreseen the riding accident or the influenza epidemic that carried them away—without a guardian, without a dowry, without a bank account. Her mother’s relations had likely perished in France; her father’s family had paid him an annuity to stay away after his embarrassing misalliance to tainted blood. The Ryland remittance had ended with Papa’s death, with no acknowledgment except a message from the bank saying the payments would cease. The only legacy her parents left were medical bills and a little boy. Simone sold their house, then her father’s books and her mother’s clothes and trinkets, just to get Auggie to boarding school, so he could go on to university to become something, anything. Simone hoped he’d choose the law, since she’d lost respect for the church and was afraid of his chances in the army.

  Auggie would join up in an instant, she knew. He’d stick his scrawny chest out and forbid her to take up a life of sin. Then he’d go get himself shot. Or else he’d take a job at the mills and die in the machines.

  No. Simone had sworn to her mother to look after him. Besides, her practical side reminded her, his sacrifice would not help her one bit. A bookish boy could never earn enough to support the both of them, not even as a clerk in some dreary office. She could, by sacrificing her honor, her hopes for marriage, her self-esteem. To be realistic—which hunger encouraged her to be—Simone knew she was lucky to have kept her maidenhead this long. Sooner or later some employer or customer or chance-met stranger was going to trap her in a dark corner, simply because she was unprotected and too weak to defend herself, despite the long hat pin that adorned her reticule. Why, even Mr. Fordyce, the first floor boarder, crowded her on the stairs when he thought their landlady wasn’t looking. Mrs. Olmstead said he was a financier of some kind, making investments and reaping the profits. Simone thought he was peculiar, if not scary, the way he never spoke or smiled, and always wore a black knitted scarf around his neck, even when the weather was mild. The thought of being his victim made Simone shudder now, while the sun shone brightly.

  No, better she sell her virginity, rather than let some dastard steal it from her. She might as well profit
from its loss.

  Her degradation would not last forever, either. Well, her purposeful fall from grace was irredeemable, Simone supposed, but her new occupation would last only until Auguste became a solicitor, perhaps even a barrister in time, able to keep them both from the poorhouse. He, at least, would be respectable enough to tell the Rylands to go to the devil.

  Which was right where Simone was headed now, before she lost her nerve.

  Luckily the path to perdition started nearby.

  Mrs. Olmstead’s rooming house faced a larger, more handsome establishment diagonally across the street. From her high, narrow window, Simone could see carriages coming and going all evening. Some were hired hacks, but many of the coaches had crests on their doors, liveried grooms, and high-bred horses between the traces. Others were expensive sporting vehicles, with, she guessed, more expensive horses. By the street lamp’s light she could tell that the gentlemen who stepped down were all elegantly dressed, swinging their walking sticks and top hats as if they had no concerns. They could afford a night’s pleasure; their reputations were not in jeopardy for entering the premises. None appeared terribly inebriated, although Simone never stayed awake to watch the last departures. They never escorted any of the women out, unless they used a rear door.

  Simone had seen the women. To her landlady’s horror, the ladies of the night attended Sunday morning services at nearby St. Jerome’s. Mrs. Olmstead had pulled Simone away to a further pew, lest she be tainted. The females, some mere girls, were not all painted and rouged, with raddled cheeks or bare chests. Granted some of them looked tired, many appeared petulant at having to come out on their day off, but they did not seem all that different from the rest of the congregants. They had no horns sprouting from their heads, no marks of shame branded on their foreheads.

  The madam herded them in, then proceeded them out after the sermon, which always dwelled on the sins of the flesh. The abbess, as Mrs. Olmstead called her, stared straight ahead and held her chin high.

  “Arrogant, that’s what,” Mrs. Olmstead had declared, “and if that Mrs. Lydia Burton was ever married, I’ll eat my Sunday bonnet. Disrespectful, her coming to church like that, no matter what she leaves on the plate or in the poor box. Money won’t buy her way into heaven.”

  No, but it did purchase her the finest building on the street. Mrs. Burton’s house was freshly painted, her flower beds well tended, and her kitchens always sent out enticing aromas. The girls there did not starve, it seemed. No matter, becoming one of them was not Simone’s intention. Being bachelor fare in a house of accommodation would not serve her purposes. Her parents had taught her better than that, with a higher estimation of her own worth.

  The man who opened the door at Mrs. Burton’s establishment did not share her opinion. He was as formidable as any starchy butler in his black coat, and as rough-hewn as a dock-worker. Simone supposed he served as gatekeeper, to keep undesirables out and keep the gentlemen in order. He was large enough, that was for certain, and appeared to be built of stone, with crags and crevices. He was as immoveable as granite when she asked to see Mrs. Burton about a position.

  He looked her over, looking down, from her ugly bonnet to her rusty black cloak and her dull grey gown to her serviceable boots.

  “We ain’t hiring no schoolmarms.” He started to shut the door in Simone’s face, but she placed one of those sturdy boots in the opening.

  “I fear your grammar could use the improvement, sir. But I am well aware of the nature of Mrs. Burton’s establishment.”

  “Then you know you ain’t one of her type. Go on back to governessing where you belong.”

  The primrose path might have been short, merely across the street, but Simone felt as if she’d climbed a mountain, trekked across a desert, waded through quicksand. She might as well have, for the difference in the two worlds between Mrs. Olmstead’s and Mrs. Burton’s. She’d never have the courage to make the journey twice, so she stiffened her backbone, thought of her younger brother, and glanced around the entryway behind the major-domo. She nodded at the valuable Chinese urn holding canes and umbrellas, the silk wallpaper, and the spotless marble tiles.

  “Mrs. Burton’s enterprise appears to pay better than educating young minds,” she said. “I wish to speak to her about becoming a…a…” She couldn’t say it. She could do it, she hoped. She went on: “If someone is going to take what they wish, I want to be paid for it. And paid well.”

  “You got bottom, missy, I’ll grant you that. The nobs like a wench with spirit. You might do, with some fancifying. I’ll ask Lydia if she’s hiring.”

  The madam found Simone’s request amusing. “You wish to become a courtesan?”

  Simone swallowed her indignation. Who knew the standards for the low life were so high? “I wish to become a rich man’s chérie amour, yes.” She had decided on that course as her best option. She would choose the man herself, one man. He had to be clean, respectful, and rich. Also generous and kind, but mostly rich. “A gentleman’s mistress.”

  “Then why did you come here, where the arrangements are far less formal and certainly shorter? You should attend the Cyprian’s Ball or some such to make a more permanent kind of arrangement.” Her half smile showed what she thought of Simone’s chances among the fashionable impures. “Not that any such, ah, liaisons are lasting.”

  “I do not seek permanency. And I came to you because I live across the street and I have seen you at church. I have heard that your reputation is for honesty,” Simone said, “and for treating your, ah, employees well. I thought you might assist me in making that other kind of connection, for a fee, of course.”

  “Of course. No nob dips his wick for free, not here.”

  Simone blushed. It was all well to put her foot in the waters, so to speak, but she’d been raised in a genteel household. Perhaps coming here was not such a good idea.

  Mrs. Burton ignored Simone’s reddened cheeks as she poured tea. “I’m not certain I want to be known as a procuress.”

  What else was the madam of a bordello, a matchmaker? Simone accepted a cup of tea. “I merely hoped you might know of a gentleman seeking a longer, more, ah, personal, relationship.”

  “Tell me, why not look for a husband?”

  Maybe the woman was a matchmaker after all. So Simone explained how she had no dowry, no family connections, no great wealth or title. She did not mention that her father had been disowned, that her half-French mother was also half-Gypsy, or that she had a young brother to support. His existence, his innocence, his very name, did not belong here with her disgrace. She did tell Mrs. Burton about her one-time suitor in Oxford, a neighbor who was not willing to take a penniless bride after her parents’ deaths.

  The madam shrugged. “It’s a common enough story, a girl disappointed by a cad who was less interested in her than in what she could bring him. Men are selfish swine at the best of times. Remember that. It is not enough to have a lovely mother for their sons, a willing woman in their beds, a helpmate for life. They want gold, too, the fools.”

  Simone nodded as if she agreed with the businesswoman who made a good living selling love. “Were you disappointed that way?”

  Mrs. Burton did not take offense at Simone’s personal question, thank goodness. “Hell no. I married a rich old man who did me the favor of leaving me enough brass to set myself up in business, bless him and his bad heart. I chose this business because I thought I’d be good at it. Why did you?” she asked, just as bluntly.

  So Simone repeated her tale of work gone wretched, fire poker and all. “I no longer have references for”—she almost said honest employment before recalling her hostess’s profession—“teaching positions. Other jobs I tried offered insult and injury, without decent wage. I feel the, ah, demi-monde is my best course. Will you help me?”

  Mrs. Burton tidied the dish of biscuits in front of her. “You say you speak several languages?”

  Perhaps the madam knew of a foreign gentleman in need of a mistress. Si
mone counted off her qualifications. “French, Italian, and Spanish, a bit of German. I can read and translate Latin, but not Greek.” Again, she made no mention of Romany, which, in her experience, only led to distrust and fear, as if she were going to steal their horses or children or candlesticks, or put a curse on their houses. She wished she could, a few times, but no one had taught her that Gypsy magic, if it existed.

  “You say you have served in homes of Polite Society? Yes, I can see where your manners are refined enough.”

  Simone had wondered why the older woman had watched so carefully as Simone handled the fragile tea cup, used her serviette, and nibbled daintily at the tiny biscuits that were the only meal she’d have this day. She’d taken a second one only when Mrs. Burton did. Now she said, “One child I taught was the daughter of a Member of Parliament; another was of a titled family.” The so-called gentlemen at those addresses were no better than the patrons of the pub where she briefly worked. Inebriated, poorly washed, they all thought their coins entitled them to take liberties. “I learned my manners from my parents, however. My father was manor-born. And my mother’s mother”—who scandalously wed a Gypsy horse trader—“was descended from French nobility.”

  “You just might do. Take off your bonnet, if that is what you call that monstrosity, and let your hair down, please.”

  “Here, now?”

  “Modesty is out of place for this calling, my dear. And I need to see what your governessy garments are hiding. All cats might be alike in the dark, but a tom who’s going to have a pampered kitten on his arm at the opera expects more.”

  “Of course.” At least Simone thought she understood. She stood and set her hat down, then started pulling out pins from her straight red hair, inherited from her English father. Her nearly black eyes must have come from the Gypsies, along with her almond complexion, for both of her parents had light eyes and fair skin. Simone unbraided the coronet of curls fixed to the back of her head and spread it out with her fingers. She always wore her hair scraped back and carefully confined like this to avoid any hint of wantonness. Now it fell over her shoulders, down her back, in red-gold waves where it had been in the braid so long. Her serviceable grey gown pulled across her chest as she combed out the curls, and Mrs. Burton walked around her, clucking her tongue.