Sexual Hunger. Melissa MacNeal
of pleasure as an unattached man!”
He glanced toward the rear of this room, noting a sailor—or were there two?—seated at the shadowy bar. They nodded, seemingly unconcerned, when the madam waved as though she’d return after she’d wrung him dry. The furnishings of scarlet chintz and black lacquer blurred as he followed her down the hall. Jason tried desperately to think of an escape, a story that would satisfy Miss Beddow’s proposition, as far as his friends were concerned. To their delight, three voluptuous sirens had appeared in the hall.
So, once behind the madam’s door, perhaps he could buy his way out of this predicament…offer the sloe-eyed madam more to let him go home than his chums had paid her to seduce him. It was a coward’s way out; a ploy that would disgust his father, who’d been a legend with the ladies. But his body prickled with unsettling little signs that he shouldn’t stay here. Some predatory women inspired the playful rake in him, but this vixen felt too sure of herself. Too smug by half.
Did she know who he was? As her door shut behind him, Jason nearly blurted out his father’s name and pedigree—yet something silenced him. While he’d paid a few sporting girls for the occasional in-and-out, he’d remained anonymous and that seemed the better idea here: Mother would die, mortified, if he returned to Wildwood with telltale bruises and his clothes reeking of cheap perfume. She’d already announced that this wedding must outdo the matrimonial events her friends had engineered—especially since he’d chosen a bride none of them knew. A foreigner whose only virtue was her beauty, the way they saw it.
Maria’s lovely face flashed before him and Jason faltered. Amelia poured him a drink he had no desire for. Why the hell didn’t he just walk away? Now. She’d been well paid for her time, after all.
The madam assessed him coolly. She looked older from this proximity, and the lines around her world-weary eyes appeared deeper in the shadows of her dim room. “Methinks the gentleman might benefit more from a tonic than a fumbling match,” she offered. “Something to steady your stomach before the wedding.” The crystal decanters on her tea cart whispered as she chose one.
“That’s very kind of you. I—”
“I’m not partial to cleaning up your dinner after it splatters my floor—or my sheets. And besides” she dribbled the potion into the brandy she’d poured—“I’ve already been paid. Your friends were quite generous, so it’s the least I can do.” The snifter she offered beckoned him. “I’ll have my driver take you home while your friends have their fun. Easier on everyone, should they pass out. Don’t you agree?”
It seemed so unexpectedly practical. Amelia went to her window, so he stepped up beside her, more grateful than he could say. The harbor stretched before them, a sea of deep blue punctuated by the skeletal black masts of ships bobbing nearby…a picture of tranquility few lanterns interrupted. The stench of dead fish drifted in with the breeze to poke him in the stomach, so he quickly quaffed his tonic. “How kind of you to realize needs my…friends don’t understand. They…envy me my…bride, I…think.”
Amelia’s face blurred. He felt the sudden urge to retch, nearly opened the window to lean out, but he couldn’t grip the handle on the windowsill. The room swung sideways and he lost his balance. The snifter fell from his hand to shatter on the floor, a crash that echoed mercilessly inside his head. He tried to focus on her, tried to right himself and demand—
She pulled a lever camouflaged by the curtain and the floor dropped out from under him. Jason flailed—had the sensation of falling like a rock—and then landed with an impact that knocked the wind out of him as it racked his entire body. His head struck the hard surface and he saw shooting stars like fireworks before he passed out.
“Thank you, Captain. This is most generous…but considering who he is, my fee is double.”
The seaman scowled. “I didn’t get a good look at ’im, so—”
“Were I you, Terrence, I’d set sail immediately. Lady Darington doesn’t take it well when her plans go awry.”
His bloodshot eyes widened, and he fished more money from his pocket.
“Pleasure doin’ business with you, Amelia. Here—let me deposit that for you.” He chortled, slipping his hands down the front of her dress. Took his sweet time fondling her breasts, and then pressed them together to kiss the crevice. His money remained in the cups of her corset as he reverently placed her assets back inside her gown. “Looked like a solid enough sort, for peerage. Might have to beat some obedience into him, though.”
“Never met a man who didn’t require training.”
Captain Dunner and his first mate laughed as they slid from their stools. “Might I bring you anything from the Americas, my dear? Trinkets, perhaps? Least I can do, for the way you supply me with crewmen.”
Amelia shook her head. Captain Dunner and his sailors lavished a lot of their pay on her and the girls, but it was best not to accept any gifts that might leave her beholden. Terrence wasn’t the sort she fancied. Had a mean streak as deep and wide as the sea when he got provoked: she couldn’t recall how many smashed lamps and chairs she’d replaced after his rampages. “Smooth sailing, gents. Come back and see us when you return.”
As the two seamen lumbered out her back door to fetch the fellow who’d fallen to the deck of the Sea Witch, she finished her drink…listened for signs of activity in the rooms above. None of those girls kept their passion quiet, so the absence of creaking and moaning told her their three guests had probably passed out.
As Amelia quietly opened the doors to their upstairs compartments, she was greeted with knowing female smiles as well as soft snores. The young man who’d handled the money snorted and turned restlessly, so she grabbed his shoulders. “You must go now!” she ordered as she shook him. “And take your friends with you!”
He sat up with a start, glancing around the unfamiliar room as he raked his blond hair out of his bloodshot eyes. When he spotted Violet beside him, he flushed. “I—could be I was so tired from—and what of Jason? Our groom?”
“He was magnificent. I sent him home in my personal carriage.”
“Ah. Right kind of you.”
“The least I could do. You’ve been most generous, but other guests await my girls.” She gazed at the disoriented young man and raised her voice. “I suggest you take your friends down the back stairs, as the four stevedores in my parlor are becoming…impatient. And, as I have only these three girls tonight…” She shrugged, allowing him to figure the odds.
He struggled to the edge of the bed. “Don’t reckon we’re in any shape to tangle with stevedores.”
“My thoughts precisely.” Amelia stood with her arms crossed; exchanged a glance with Violet as the young man bent to pull on his boots. Hastily dressed and ready to keel over, he swayed out the door, cursed loudly at his cohort in Cynthia’s room, and stumbled across the hall to hail the friend who was dead asleep in Polly’s bed.
As their boots clumped unevenly down the narrow wooden stairs that exited into the alley, Amelia emptied her corset of the captain’s commission and then pulled the entire evening’s take from her skirt pocket. Not a bad night’s wages, considering she and her doves had done so little work for most of it. Violet, Polly, and Cynthia were dressed and proceeding down the main stairway so she followed them into the empty front parlor. She smiled at their quizzical expressions as they looked for those stevedores.
“Seems an opportune time to visit my house in Brighton. I recall rumors of conventions there this week—lay pastors and undertakers, I believe.” Amelia opened the safe hidden beneath the carved bar. She counted out the three girls’ wages and added an extra twenty pounds to each pile. Then she smiled as her daughter, Millicent, came from the back room where she kept their accounts. “If anyone inquires, dear, you have no idea where we’ve gone or when we’ll return. And if you see Phillip, Lord Darington, approaching tomorrow, lock up.”
Millicent smiled slyly. Had she not been born as