‘Good evening, Cummings,’ Sloane greeted the man and handed him his hat.
Cummings made no sign of noticing that Sloane had not crossed this threshold for at least three months. ‘G’d evening, sir,’ Cummings responded in his deep monotone.
‘Is Madame Bisou available?’
‘In the card room.’ Cummings disappeared into the back room where he stowed the various cloaks, hats and canes.
Madame Bisou owned this establishment, a gaming hell and brothel, as honest and clean as any gentleman could expect. She was also indebted to Sloane, who, right before he made his decision to abandon this sort of gaming, had broken her faro bank with one mad night of reckless play. He’d not had the heart to call in the debt. She was, therefore, much beholden to him.
He climbed the stairs to the gaming room where he’d once played whist with a woman in disguise. The Wagering Widow, they’d called her, and it had been wagers over her that drove him to make his empty threats about Heronvale’s sister-in-law. Sloane had lost badly over the Widow. Twice. And he hadn’t fancied being known for it.
When he entered the room, several men looked up from their cards. One older fellow called to him, ‘Sloane! It has been an age! Come partner me.’
Sloane shook his head. ‘I’m not playing tonight, Sir Reginald.’
Madame Bisou caught sight of him and came bustling over. ‘Oh, Monsieur Sloane,’ she cried in her atrocious French accent. ‘How delightful to see you!’ Her flaming red curls bounced as energetically as the flesh the low neckline of her bright purple dress failed to conceal.
She gave him exuberant kisses on both cheeks, but regarded him with some wariness. ‘You have perhaps come to collect?’
He smiled. ‘No, but there is something I wish to discuss with you.’
‘You wish time with me?’ She spoke so loudly everyone in the room could hear.
He glanced around, but everyone was too busy with their cards or dice to heed her very public invitation.
‘To confer with you,’ he clarified. ‘But I will pay for your time.’
‘Oh, no,’ she protested as she led him out into the hall. ‘We shall deduct it from what I owe you.’
She took him to the supper room and they seated themselves at the same out-of-the-way table where he’d got bloody drunk over the loss of his first wager over Lady Widow.
Madame Bisou lowered herself into a chair with a noisy rustle of satin skirts. ‘What is it, mon cher, that you require of me?’ She fluttered her lashes seductively.
‘Ease off, Penny.’ Sloane took the seat across from her.
She frowned at his use of her given name. ‘Speak quietly, Cyprian, or I shall shout your name across the room.’ Her French accent fled and she talked like the Chelsea girl she’d once been.
He laughed. ‘As if everyone does not know it. My father has made certain of that.’ He signalled to one of the serving girls, who brought them a bottle of brandy and two crystal glasses.
He poured for her. ‘I am in need of a favour, Penny. An odd one, but I am persuaded you will be the perfect person for it.’
As methodically as he could, he described Morgana’s plan, trying to make it sound as if it were not completely irrational. After he finished he downed a whole glass of brandy in one gulp.
Penny leaned towards him. ‘Do you mean to say a baron’s daughter has taken in some of Fortuna Rice’s girls and she wants to train them to be high-flyers?’
Sloane poured himself more brandy. ‘You have grasped it, Penny.’
‘And you want me to teach them how to seduce men?’
He gave her a sly smile. ‘If you know such things.’
She slapped him playfully on the arm. ‘Of course I know such things! You know I do, darling. I am an expert!’ She straightened in her chair and fussed with the lace on her bodice. ‘I am to go to Mayfair, into this lady’s house?’
Sloane’s eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose I could bring them here—’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘I want to be invited to Mayfair. Now tell me, Cyprian. How much is she willing to pay?’
He wagged his finger at her. ‘Do not rook her, Penny, or you will answer to me. If you tutor these girls, your debt to me is forgiven. That should be payment enough.’
She grinned and her eyes danced. She looked almost like the ambitious and beautiful young doxy he’d met ten years earlier. ‘I declare I might have taken this on at no charge at all. It sounds a splendid lark.’
‘But I warn you, you must speak of this to no one.’ He leaned forward for emphasis. ‘No one. Or you will, indeed, answer to me.’
Early the next morning Sloane sent a message to Morgana that he would bring her tutor to her at eleven o’clock.
Morgana and Miss Moore spent the morning drilling the girls in how to walk, sit, stand and curtsy as a lady might do, but all Morgana could think of was that Sloane would be calling—with the tutor, of course.
Soon the clock struck eleven. Ten more excruciatingly slow minutes passed before the knocker sounded and Cripps came in to announce that Mr Sloane and ‘a female person’ were in the front drawing room.
‘Very good, Cripps.’ Morgana rushed out of the room. She left her grandmother and Miss Moore with the girls. With Sloane, the pretence of a chaperon was unnecessary.
When she entered the drawing room, he turned to face her. He was resplendent in dove grey pantaloons, shiny black boots, and a coat in a blue so dark it was almost black. He quite took her breath—and her speech—away.
‘Miss Hart.’ He stepped aside to reveal the woman he had brought with him. ‘May I present Madame Bisou.’
The woman looked perfectly respectable in a plain brown walking dress and spencer. Only the flaming red hair peeking out from under her sedate matching bonnet gave hint to her profession.
‘Madame Bisou.’ Morgana offered her hand. ‘I am grateful you have come.’
The woman appraised Morgana as she accepted the handshake. She gave Sloane a significant look. ‘Cyprian, I begin to understand how you came to make this request.’
His face filled with colour, and Morgana rushed to speak. ‘Mr Sloane is acting as my friend only because I have given him little choice, Madame.’
‘Little choice indeed!’ Madame Bisou exclaimed. ‘As if Cyprian does anything he does not wish to do.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Now, what is it you require of me?’
Morgana begged them to sit while she explained.
When she finished Madame Bisou’s eyes danced. ‘I am well able to teach your girls how to be pleasing to men. I have some experience in such matters, do I not, Cyprian?’
Sloane returned her glance with an ironic gleam in his eye. ‘You do, indeed, Penny.’
Madame Bisou made a face at him, and Morgana realised with shock that the madam must have once been intimate with him. Was she still? Morgana felt the same sick feeling she experienced when realising her father must have used The Whoremonger’s Guide.
No. Not the same feeling. This felt worse somehow.
She regarded Madame Bisou, her eyes narrowing. Surely the woman was older than Sloane, who must be in his thirties. There were faint lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Her skin had lost the tautness and clarity of youth. Still, she had an aura about her that made Morgana certain that if the two of them walked down the street, gentlemen would turn to look at Madame