But her parents clearly saw him as the lowest of the low.
Damn you, he muttered under his breath as he walked. Minutes might have passed, or hours. Still, his rage wasn’t spent. Damn you, damn you, Rosalind, for doing this to me, even if I deserve it.
When he finally looked about him, he discovered he’d left the more picturesque environs of London and carried himself to the brothel district. He was on the same block as Pearl’s, which seemed appropriate in his state of mental dissolution. It was barely noon, but Pearl’s was an all-hours bawdy house, with a kitchen and barroom to fortify himself should his energy lag during his stay.
Which was fortunate, because he planned to hole up there for a long, long time.
He rapped upon the front door, too arsed to care about slinking in at the back. Who would take notice, anyway? The wantons strolling the district, the other perverts come for a midday session?
The man at the door admitted him, knowing him well as a patron. It was the same ugly blighter who’d escorted him out two days ago, and he looked at him now with something akin to pity. Another dash of salt upon his manhood’s wound.
Marlow scowled at him and proceeded into the main salon where Pearl presided over her lounging, preening beauties. Even with his reputation for mayhem and madness, Pearl’s courtesans sought his favor, perhaps because they found his physique and visage pleasing. Perhaps because he merely paid them well.
“You again?” said Pearl, in her kindly, motherly manner. “Who’ll you have, then?”
“All of them.”
The girls tittered, positioning themselves to the most flattering effect.
“You can’t have them all, you greedy bastard.” The matron shifted her skirts and reached for her filigreed snuff pot. “Who are you in the mood for, my dread lord? Berta? Ellie? Fleurette?”
He scanned the velvet and gilt parlor, his eyes coming to rest on one of the newer girls, who happened to have honey brown, finely curled hair and light-colored eyes. “That one. I’m in the mood for that one.”
“Honora, dear, it’s your lucky day.”
This Honora came to him, her step too bouncy and brash to recall Rosalind’s graceful floating, but the rest of her came close enough, at least for his purposes. She did not smell like Rosalind either, covered as she was in perfume and powder, but her hair was the right color. He would pretend about the rest. He would pretend her eyes were silver-gray-blue, and shone with wonder and goodness, that her limbs were airy and graceful, and her breasts the most shapely and gorgeous in the ton.
He followed the courtesan to her chamber. This too, surely, did not resemble Rosalind’s inner sanctum, strewn as it was with the tools of her trade: bondage scarves, cuffs, toys, and ticklers.
“What shall we do, my lord?” she asked. “What do you have a taste for?”
“Punishment.”
She cooed in manufactured delight. She wouldn’t be happy for long. He had some fury to dole out and since Rosalind’s deserving hindquarters weren’t available to him, bright little Honora would have to fill in.
“I’ve been so naughty,” she said, getting right to the game. “I deserve to be punished oh so severely.”
“My dear girl, you’re about to get your wish.”
“Don’t be kind, sir.”
“I won’t be.”
He brought a straight-backed chair to the center of the room, discarding the negligees draped over it, and set it upon the wood floor with a bang. “Come,” he said, beckoning her. “Right over my lap.”
“Oooh, yes sir. I’ve been such a bad girl.”
She was acting her naughty wanton role with winking cuteness, but he was not in the same state of mind. He did not feel playful. He was still angry with Rosalind, lustfully, heartbrokenly angry. When the not-really-Rosalind came to him, he upended her forcefully, depositing her across his knees. Her giggling was not so lighthearted as it had been. He could feel the tension in her body as he hiked up her petticoat and skirt.
“All this nonsense,” he muttered as the courtesan’s frilly underthings and garters were exposed.
“Don’t you like them, my lord?” she asked, wiggling her bottom suggestively.
“I hate them.”
“But Madame Pearl ordered them from France!”
He ignored her protests as he stripped the whorish things off her. She could not play Rosalind in such scandalous attire. “There now,” he said. “You’ve got this spanking coming to you. You’re lucky I don’t do worse.”