“Normal.”
“Yes. Normal.” She lifted her hands helplessly. “I realize now that my original request—for the experience of ruination?” she asked as though he might have somehow forgotten the request in question. As though he might ever forget it. He nodded, nonetheless. “Well, I realize now that it is not at all a strange request.”
“It’s not?”
She smiled. “No. Indeed. In fact, it seems that there are plenty of women in London who fully experience those things that I am interested in before their wedding night—including my sisters. That bit is between us, I hope?”
Finally, a question to which he knew the reply. “Of course.”
She was already moving on. “You see, I thought I would require a certain amount of knowledge on the night in question because Lord Castleton might not have the knowledge himself. But now, I realize . . . well . . . I require it because it’s ordinary.”
“It’s ordinary.”
She tilted her head and considered him curiously. “You do a great deal of repeating me, Mr. Cross.”
Because listening to her was like learning a second language. Arabic. Or Hindi.
She was still talking. “It’s ordinary. After all, if Olivia has it, and Lord Tottenham is quite the gentleman, well then, many must have it, don’t you think?”
“It.”
“Knowledge of the inner workings of the marital . . .” She hesitated. “Process.”
He took a long breath and let it out. “I’m still not certain why you need a prostitute to teach you such . . . workings.”
“It’s no different, really. I continue to require a research partner. Only, it seems now I require research on normalcy. I need to know how it is that ordinary females behave. I need help. Rather urgently. Since you refused, Miss Tasser will do.”
She was killing him. Slowly. Painfully.
“Sally Tasser is no ordinary female.”
“Well, I understand that she is a prostitute, but I assume she has all the required parts?”
He choked. “Yes.”
She hesitated, and something flashed across her face. Disappointment? “You’ve seen them?”
“No.” Truth.
“Hmm.” She did not seem to believe him. “You do not frequent prostitutes?”
“I do not.”
“I am not entirely certain that I support the profession.”
“No?” Thank God. He would not put it past Pippa to simply pronounce a newfound desire to explore all aspects of the world’s oldest profession.
“No.” She shook her head. “I am concerned that the ladies are ill-treated.”
“The ladies who frequent The Fallen Angel are not ill-treated.”
Her brows knit together. “How do you know?”
“Because they are under my protection.”
She froze. “They are?”
He was suddenly warm. “They are. We do all we can to ensure that they are well treated and well paid while under our roof. If they are manhandled, they call for one of the security detail. They file a complaint with me. And if I discover a member is mistreating ladies beneath this roof, his membership is revoked.”
She paused for a long moment, considering the words, and finally said, “I have a passion for horticulture.”
He wasn’t certain how plants had anything to do with prostitutes, but he knew better than to interrupt.
She continued, the words quick and forthright, as though they entirely made sense. “I’ve made a rather remarkable discovery recently,” she said, and his attention lingered on the breathlessness of the words. On the way her mouth curved in a small, private smile. She was proud of herself, and he found—even before she admitted her finding—that he was proud of her. Odd, that. “It is possible to take a piece of one rosebush and affix it to another. And when the process is completed properly . . . say, a white piece on a red bush . . . an entirely new rose grows . . .” She paused, and the rest of the words rushed out, as though she were almost afraid of them. “A pink one.”
Cross did not know much about horticulture, but he knew enough about scientific study to know that the finding would be groundbreaking. “How did you—”
She raised a hand to stop the question. “I’ll happily show you. It’s very exciting. But that’s not the point.”
He waited for her to arrive at the point in question.
She did. “The career . . . it is not their choice. They’re not red or white anymore. They’re pink. And you’re why.”
Somehow, it made sense that she compared the ladies of the Angel to this experiment in roses. Somehow, this woman’s strange, wonderful brain worked in a way that he completely understood.
And as he considered that odd, remarkable truth, she prodded, “Aren’t you?”
It was not the simplest of questions. Nor was it the easiest of answers. “It is not always their choice, no. In many cases, girls fall into it. But here, they are well treated. Well fed. Well paid. And the moment they want to stop their work, we find them other places.”