And what a joy it is, in turn, to observe the creasing about his eyes when he smiles, and to kiss the little margin of skin, pale and tender as a girl’s, between the pink edge of his lips and the first of his carefully shaved bristles. And to discover the scar on his chin, which he received falling out of a tree when he was six; and the crook in his right little finger, which he received falling out of a club when he was nineteen. To learn these secrets about him.
They sleep at first at Mrs Chappell’s house, in one of the bedrooms designed for receiving. The bed is so large it is almost a room in itself, and sprung with a buoyant ingenuity to which Mrs Chappell herself holds the patent. Angelica divests herself immediately of her wet chemise, slopping it onto the floorboards without a second thought. If the lieutenant glimpses her naked body before she burrows beneath the covers, it can only be for a moment; her desire to be warm trumps all thoughts of seduction. It is not, after all, as if any seduction is necessary, for this occurred all at first sight and now they are only eager to be closer together. The lieutenant strips as dawn breaks in King’s Place, and Angelica watches out of one eye, already beginning to drowse. He is a lean and long-limbed person, with a furze of dark hair along his thighs, which curve like a taut bow.
When he slips into the bed she is already nearly asleep, and she nestles her spine up against his belly. They knot naked around one another, but nothing is done: they are delighted by the bliss of their bare skin, this is all, and his fingers tangle loosely in her thick hair and she glides her fingers along the back of his thigh. He puts his face by hers, his nose grazing her ear and his lips just upon her neck, until each of their breaths slows.
Thus they sleep and thus they wake. There ought to be little else said on the matter, for lovers are all the same, and only of interest to themselves, but on this count it is remarkable: Angelica Neal has not felt this way before.
Or if she has, she has forgot.
She who has made it her living to be touched thus, looked at thus, and rarely found it onerous, has forgot until now the joy of it. She feels as if she were made of glue – or magnets, or kindling ready to take the first spark that leapt on it – and is astounded by it as if this were an entirely new discovery. Later she will whisper that she will never want any other man again. Such is the drug which, dewed on the eyelids, makes yesterday inconsequential, and tomorrow certain, and today golden.
Angelica and George (for overnight they have dispensed with honorifics) sigh smugly together in the bed until mid-afternoon, hearing far away the clatter of the girls loaded into the carriage for their exercise, and the scamper of servants in the passages behind the wall as they set right what was made wrong during the night. They take of one another for the first time as a persistent little dog scratches and whines outside their door to be let in, and then doze before doing it again. Their only disturbance is by a maid who brings them chocolate and rolls, and retreats in haste.
‘We should leave,’ whispers Angelica, touching her fingertips to his as they lie face to face.
‘Do not make me part with you,’ says George.
‘I have no intention of it,’ she says, ‘but I do not wish to be overlooked by Mother Chappell.’ They are silent a moment. ‘What are your engagements?’ she asks. Their palms press flat against one another.
‘None I cannot break, for the next two days.’
She grows brighter. ‘Nor I. Come back with me.’
He draws her to him, his fingers finding their home in the small of her back, for truly every part of his body finds its correspondence in hers. ‘Let us stay together as long as we can,’ he says. ‘I could not wish to be anywhere else.’
‘I have an apartment,’ she says. ‘We’ll not be disturbed.’
‘A little longer here,’ he says. ‘A little longer.’
By the time they are dressed it is late in the afternoon, and the sun has gone from the courtyard. They emerge into the city as if they had been gone from it a long time; its customs unfamiliar and all but irrelevant to them, in their republic of two. They take a carriage and press close against one another within, and kiss and whisper as they watch the strange new world pass by outside.
NINETEEN
Not two hours after his message is sent to Mrs Chappell’s, Mr Hancock is returned to the Exchange, and upon hearing his name called turns to see one of her beautiful footmen striding through the crowd towards him. His livery shines blue as the most virgin winter morning. His wig is white as angel’s wings. His skin is brown and smooth.
‘Mr Hancock,’ he repeats. ‘Sir.’ The crowd parts as he advances. This man, whose name in fact is Simeon Stanley, is not the only black in the room, but he may be the very smartest. The most peculiar thing about him is his scent. He smells of starch. He also smells of lavender-water, tallow soap, damp wool (for the mist has left its dropples on the sleek shoulders of his greatcoat), and a sparing dab of middling-quality eau de cologne, but what he does not smell of, not one atom, is his own man’s body. He is so miraculous clean it is as if he fell direct out of the blue sky: not even a whiff of armpit emanates from him, not a hint of onions on his breath, not a notion that he has traversed the streets in haste. His Adam-blue breeches must be fresh on, for a man’s trousers become swiftly seasoned with the chafed, perspiring intricacies of their owner. Simeon Stanley may look like a man of flesh and blood, but for all his scent betrays it, from his crisply folded stock to the toes of his stockings, he might be made complete of feather-packed calico.
‘I am sent by Mrs Chappell,’ he says.
‘She has received my letter then?’
‘Aye, and is much troubled by its contents. She begs that you inform her what made you change your mind.’
Mr Hancock struggles what to say. ‘You know the nature of that house yourself,’ he says.
‘Certainly I do, and I am proud to represent it,’ says Simeon. ‘Mrs Chappell has the ear of men who—’
‘Aye, they are my betters,’ Mr Hancock cuts him off. ‘Mine and yours. I have heard it many times, only I find I have left off believing it. I am not less honourable than those men I saw in attitudes of the most appalling degradation.’
Mr Stanley clings to his original message. ‘Do you feel you were misled? My mistress would be much grieved to think so. If there is something we can do – what would set this situation right, Mr Hancock? What will please you?’
‘Nothing, but to have my mermaid returned to me.’
The black man turns his eyes up most earnest. ‘Mrs Chappell is anxious that you are happy.’
‘That is easily settled,’ rejoins Mr Hancock. ‘Now leave me be, for I am a busy man.’
Simeon clears his throat. He is not particularly heavyset, but he is tall, and now straightens his back so that his shoulders broaden. With perfect mildness he forms a fist – whose knuckles are notably scuffed and scarred for one so otherwise refined – and touches it into the pale palm of his other hand. There is the pat of skin upon skin. ‘My mistress begs you recall the agreement you made with her,’ he says quietly. ‘The contract she signed to hire your mermaid for one week, and the sum of three hundred guineas she agreed to pay you in good faith.’
‘Do not think to intimidate me,’ Mr Hancock says, his eyes upon Simeon’s clasped fist. ‘I am a man of business, and I do not deal with bullies.’
This rankles. ‘You call me a bully, sir?’
‘What else were I to call you? You are employed by a madam to menace her clients. If you know of a better word, please, I should like to know it.’
‘I am a professional,’ Simeon says sulkily. ‘A servant as good as any to be found in London’s finest houses.’
‘Right you are. So let us have no more of this thuggery. I am not in the habit of breaking my agreements, but needs must, do you not find? Sometimes for the sake of one’s good standing ’tis better to break a contract than to honour it.’
‘She will pay you more,’ says Simeon promptly, for Mrs Chappell has briefed him thoroughly on what might tempt the merchant back into tractability. ‘Another fifty pounds, what say you?’
‘Guineas, she and I agreed …’
‘Fifty guineas then.’
‘… but that’s a detail. I still refuse.’