The Pearl Read online

  The doorbell rang. Arthur went to the door and there was Zoot again in her red coat and boots, holding out another notecard to him.

  “We meet again,” Arthur said. “I promise to mind my Ps and Qs today.”

  “Just read the note,” she said, glaring. “I can’t go until you’ve read it and given me your answer.”

  He opened the card, expecting to find another note from Regan summoning him to her bedroom.

  Instead he found an invitation.

  “The Fox and Hen Hunting Club Ball,” Arthur read aloud. “A hunt ball? Brilliant. My favorite.” Of course he was being sarcastic. Hunt balls were an old English tradition, hunting clubs celebrating the end of their season. He didn’t hunt, and he tried to avoid balls. Regan really was a sadist.

  “The boss wants to know if you’ve got a tux or something formal to wear,” Zoot said. “She needs a date to the ball. Geezer friends of her crap dead husband are throwing it, and she wants them to see she’s getting fresh young cock these days.”

  That statement was a lot to take in.

  “Her crap dead husband,” Arthur repeated. “Do I want to know what you call me behind my back?”

  “Lord Dogshit. Viscount Manwhore. The Rude Baron.”

  “Am I a baron?” he asked solely to make Regan’s underling roll her eyes. It worked. “I’ll have to ask Dad. I can’t remember my own titles, much less his. Anyway, I do like ‘Viscount Manwhore.’ I’ll put that on my stationery. What should be on the crest? One big cock or three smaller cocks in a triangular formation?”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Why are you laughing then?”

  “Pity for the madman.”

  “I’ll take all the sympathy I can get. Please tell ‘the boss’ that I do have formal attire, and my fresh young cock will gleefully—” his sarcasm was out of control by this point “—escort her to the hunt ball being thrown by the geezer friends of her crap dead husband.” He shoved the invitation back into the envelope. “And you have my answer, so you may go unless you’d like to come in and call me more names over tea.”

  She raised her eyebrows, and he noted that her blue eyes were even bluer when they were glowing with pure venom.

  “No need for airs, my lord,” she said. “We’re both on her payroll, remember?”

  Laughing, she turned away and half-walked, half-skipped down the path to the iron gate. Someone—not him, but definitely someone—needed to turn her over their knee. Immediately.

  Upon returning to his bedroom, Arthur checked the mantel clock. 6:30. The hunt ball began at eight. Plenty of time for a shower and shave and stealing a splash of his father’s Le Labo cologne.

  * * *

  Arthur arrived at The Pearl Hotel a few minutes before eight. On his way to the lift, he heard the strains of music from the ballroom and saw well-heeled guests streaming through the doors.

  At the penthouse door he knocked and waited. He expected Regan’s redcoat to answer it, but Regan herself opened the door.

  She stood there in her robe, hair tied back, make-up understated but for her full burgundy lips. Pearl drops dangled from her ears.

  “Am I late?” he asked.

  “You’re in uniform,” she said.

  He glanced down as if just now noticing his own clothing.

  “Mess dress,” he said. “Pretty standard attire for a hunt ball. Did you want a tux instead? I can run home.”

  Mess dress was military party dress—in his case, a scarlet cutaway jacket with gold trim, dark waistcoat, and navy trousers with braid down the outseam.

  “No, no,” she said softly. “You’d said you were joining your regiment in January. I suppose I’d forgotten. I’d been picturing you in a tuxedo, that’s all.”

  “Really, I can run home and—”

  “Absolutely not. You look…very nice.” She let him into the sitting room. “Have a drink if you like. I’ll run up and finish dressing.”

  In her silk kimono, she didn’t so much run up the stairs but flowed up them, robe lightly billowing behind her like a black cloud. He went to the fireplace and saw that she’d left de Morgan’s The Gilded Cage hanging above it but had now added a new work of art to the mantel.

  A small bronze sculpture of a dancing couple. The man was nude, but the female form wore a sort of skirt from the waist down. They were dancing so close their lower bodies merged into one.

  “It’s The Waltz by Camille Claudel,” Regan said.

  Arthur turned and looked up at her as she came down the stairs. She wore a low-cut gown of ice blue, the skirt fitting her hips like a glove and then falling in soft folds to the floor. The words “Old Hollywood” came to Arthur’s mind, especially with her hair parted on the side and laying on her shoulder in thick dark waves.

  “You look stunning,” Arthur said simply.

  “I am stunning.” It seemed she’d recovered from the shock of seeing him in uniform. He still didn’t know if it was a good shock or a bad shock, but he was hoping for good.

  “Is this sculpture the artwork we’re ‘playing’ tonight in honor of old Malcolm?” he asked. “Are you going to make me waltz nude with you?”

  “Can you waltz?”

  “Well enough not to humiliate myself or break your toes.”

  “Good.” She took a heavy breath.

  “Nervous?”

  “Why should I be?” She gave him a look that told him quite clearly that wasn’t a question he was supposed to answer out loud.

  She turned to the mantel. “She was originally nude, too.” Regan stroked the bronze folds on the skirt of the woman in The Waltz sculpture. “Art critics savaged her for that. Can you believe it? Male sculptors had been portraying female nudes since Zeus ran the world, but God forbid a woman in 1905 sculpted a female nude. They excoriated Camille, and she added the skirt so as not to offend their wounded male sensibilities.”

  “Men are fools,” Arthur said, nodding. “You don’t have to tell me. My mother and sister have me well-informed on the matter.”

  “Perhaps I’m reminding myself.”

  “Why would you need reminding?”

  “Oh, what do they say? I’m a sucker for a man in uniform.”

  Flirting? He knew he shouldn’t press his luck. He did it anyway.

  “I keep thinking about you,” he said. “I can’t seem to stop.”

  “What do you think about?”

  “Trying to figure you out. One second you hate me. The next second you seem to almost like me. Almost. It’s like you want to hate me but can’t. You work constantly, until nine at night, too busy to date, but you admit you hate the work. And practically blackmailing me to sleep with you when you could have anyone you wanted… I don’t know. Nothing fits.”

  “Everything fits,” she said. “You just can’t see the big picture. I can.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “No, you don’t. I wish I couldn’t…” She sighed and her grey eyes looked suddenly sorrowful. Then she turned them on the sculpture of the couple waltzing. “But we have no say in which cards are dealt to us at birth. We can only decide how to play the hand we’re given. And I’ve decided to play for high stakes. Why not? We all lose everything in the end anyway.”

  Her words were so pessimistic, so dark, he wanted to shake sense into her. “Regan—”

  “I’m fine,” she said, then smiled widely. “Don’t mind me.”

  “Your first officer mentioned the hunt ball was being thrown by friends of your husband’s. Are you nervous about seeing them again?”

  “Lord and Lady Somers. The wife, Caroline, is fine. She’s a harmless gossip. But Sir Jack and Nigel were close. They always hold the ball at The Pearl. This is the first time in ten years I’m not there with Sir Jack. I’m expecting commentary.”

  “I won’t embarrass you.”

  “No, you won’t. But I fully intend to embarrass you. Come on. Let’s go and get this over with, shall we?

  He held out his arm to her, but she ignor
ed it and walked alone to the door. He followed and held it open for her. They said nothing to each other in the lift on their way down, and Arthur was wounded by the silence until it occurred to him there was a very good chance Regan was simply sick with nerves.

  “They won’t expect me to bring a date,” she said when the lift arrived at the main floor. “That’s all.” It was as if she were answering a question he hadn’t asked but was clearly on her mind.

  “It’s not the Victorian era,” he said as the doors opened. “Widows are allowed to date after six months.”

  “Tell that to them.”

  “If you want me to,” Arthur said, “I will.”

  When he held out his arm to her this time, she took it. ‘

  * * *

  They walked arm in arm to the open double doors of The Pearl’s ballroom, an Art Deco addition to the hotel, all crimson and chrome.

  The ball was in full swing already, but there was no hope of an anonymous entrance, what with an actual herald at the door who blew a hunting horn as every guest entered and shouted their name to small, medium, or great acclaim.

  And so it was their turn to be—loudly—announced as Lady Ferry and Lieutenant Arthur Godwick.

  Heads turned at her name.

  Jaws dropped at his.

  They really hadn’t been expecting Regan to bring a date, Arthur thought. Especially not another member of the peerage. The shocked expressions he saw reminded him of Munch’s famous Scream.

  He placed his hand over Regan’s and escorted her into the throng of guests who stared and smiled awkwardly at them. Of course, it made sense they’d be shocked if this was her dead husband’s crowd. It would be like bringing a date to your dead spouse’s annual family reunion a mere six months after their funeral.

  Arthur chuckled softly when he realized how audacious she was being.

  “What?” she said, playing innocent.

  “You really did hate your husband, didn’t you?”

  “When we waltz tonight, I’ll imagine we’re waltzing on his grave.”

  “The sooner the better, then.”

  Arthur took her by the arm and led her not to the bar or to a table or toward a group of ladies who’d waved at her but straight into the dance floor as a waltz began to play.

  Regan’s eyes slightly widened as they took their first steps together. Arthur hadn’t waltzed since his sister’s wedding, but he’d had to practice so much when Lia was younger than he could have done it in his sleep. He could still hear her muttering instructions in his ear—slow, quick, quick, slow, quick, quick, right foot forward, left foot side, right foot closed. The music was unfamiliar but pretty, played by a small yet loud orchestra.

  “You’re very good at this,” she said, her hand clinging to his shoulder.

  He felt the heat of her body all the way through her gown and his uniform. “Learning to waltz with your sister is a rite of passage.”

  “For you toffs, maybe,” she said. “Not for us poor unwashed commoners.”

  “Right, Lady Ferry. Of course, Lady Ferry.”

  “I was born in the stable, married into the castle. And they’ve never let me forget where I came from.” She glanced around the room at the other toffs.

  “You’re good enough for me,” he said. “I’m one-half American, remember? That’s as common as it comes.”

  “Ugh. Forgot that. Excuse me.”

  She tried to turn away from him, but he grabbed her and pulled her back to him, laughing.

  “Snob,” he said.

  “Brat,” she said.

  And on and on they waltzed until the dance ended. Arthur escorted Regan to the bar where they ordered cocktails. A man approached, older, about seventy. Florid face, bristle brush mustache, and a barrel chest stuffed into a white waistcoat about to burst and send the buttons flying into the crowd like a hail of bullets.

  “Reggie,” the man said and mashed his mustache against Regan’s cheek. “Good to see you out and about, old girl.”

  “Nigel,” she said with a tight smile. “Nice to be out.”

  “Who’s this lad now? Godwick? Must be Spencer’s boy, yes?”

  “You know my father, sir?” Arthur asked, his tone neutral.

  “Thrashes me at Sotheby’s every time we turn up for the same sale. I keep trying to get him in the Hunt Club, but he’s certain I’ll set the dogs on him and call it an accident.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first to plot his murder,” Arthur said gamely. “That would be my mother.”

  The big man laughed a big laugh. “Good lad. Still at Sandhurst, are you?”

  “Not anymore. I begin my training as a medical support officer in January.”

  “This one’s quite a switch from old Jack,” Lord Nigel said to Regan. “Was this one even born when you married Jack?”

  “Yes,” Regan said. “Arthur’s older than ten.”

  “Ah, well, pendulums always swing the other direction eventually, they say.”

  Did they say that? Arthur wanted to ask.

  “Jack wouldn’t want me to be lonely,” Regan said. She was doing a good job of keeping a straight face.

  “Suppose not. Suppose not,” the man said. “This one’s an earl sooner or later. You’re reaching even higher this time around, aren’t you, girl?”

  “You assume I have nothing going for me but my rank?” Arthur asked.

  Lord Nigel turned to him. “No offense, lad, but you’re just a boy. What else would she want you for?”

  Regan spoke up for him. “He’s not a cruel, possessive controlling old fart, for starters.”

  “And I do have a fresh young cock,” Arthur added, as Lord Nigel’s eyes went wide.

  “It’s true, Nige,” Regan said, straight-faced. “It’s really quite massive.”

  Arthur held out his hand to her. “Shall we dance, my lady?”

  “You won’t trip over your cock, will you?”

  “I make no promises, so watch your step.”

  They set their drinks down as the music swelled. They returned to the dance floor, leaving Lord Nigel Somers sputtering like a car that had just run out of petrol.

  Once they were in step, Regan started to laugh. “Did we really say all that out loud to the husband of the biggest gossip in London?”

  “We did. Wonder how long before I’ll be hearing from my family about that.”

  “The speed of posh gossip is faster than the speed of light.”

  She appeared to be right. Arthur saw, as they spun around the floor, that more eyes were on them than even before, that what they’d said to Nigel had been overheard and was now being passed around.

  “Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut?” Regan said. “Standing up to these people is more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “I like your mouth open,” Arthur said, dropping a kiss onto her lips.

  She looked up at him, startled, then laughed.

  “What are you laughing at?” he asked.

  “At you, at me, at the mad, mad world. That’s all. Can you believe that the waltz used to be considered the height of scandalous dancing? The couple held each other in their arms like lovers. The man’s foot could disappear under his partner’s gown. His knee sometimes slipped between her thighs… Claudel’s sculpture was the last time the waltz caused a scandal. Until tonight.”

  “We’re only dancing. Not very scandalous.”

  “I can make it scandalous,” she said. “Do you want to hear about when and how I lost my virginity?”

  “Right now?”

  “I was eighteen years and needed money for art school. I’d been accepted, but the scholarship wouldn’t cover rent in London or supplies. So I came to The Pearl and found the madam, asked her how much I could get for my virginity if I sold it.”

  “Regan, if you tell me—”

  “You’ll get hard on the dance floor. That’s the plan.”

  * * *

  As they spun around the room, she spun the story, so clearly that he could envision
it as if it were happening before him…

  The client’s name was Giles Russell. He’d played rugby in his youth and inherited a fortune from his father and now owned his own team. Built like a rugby player gone to seed. He’d been handsome twenty years earlier and still had the charm.

  Giles rented the Diamond Suite at The Pearl and Regan was summoned to his room around nine. The madam had dressed her in a little white frock, white lace-trimmed ankle socks and Mary Jane shoes. Giles laughed when he saw her at the door. He didn’t care about virgins. He just preferred it in the raw and didn’t want to catch anything. The dress was overkill but that was fine by him. She looked sweet enough to eat, he said. So he did.

  “Right on the rug,” Regan said. “He ate me like a starving man at a feast. Dress up to my neck, face in my cunt. I could feel his tongue in my stomach, I swear.”

  “Regan.”

  “I was so nervous that I think I came from pure adrenaline, but I did come. Hard. He had these thick fat fingers,” she said. “I still think about those thick fingers sometimes.”

  After she came, he picked her up off the rug and took her into the bedroom, stripped her naked—except for her little white lace-edged socks—and laid her out on the big white bed. He stuck his fingers in her and declared her still too tight. Didn’t want to tear her, or he’d only get one turn on her before she’d tap out.

  “One turn, he called it.” Regan’s eyes glinted. “He really was a wicked man.”

  He’d brought all these lovely weighted metal balls, about the size of large marbles, and he used them to open Regan’s vagina. She remembered him putting her over his lap and spanking her good and hard until her bottom was burning and red as fire. He worked one large metal ball into her, then another. She felt them nestling into the hollow in the front wall of her vagina so they would hit her g-spot and clit.

  “He let me get close to coming… I was really panting for it, but instead of putting his cock in me, he spanked me again. I had to keep my legs shut tight so the balls wouldn’t come out. And the wicked part was, squeezing my legs together so tightly and being spanked like that…I came so hard I screamed. Then he took the balls out and fucked me.”