Mme. Eugenie reared back as if astonished at his stupidity. “This young girl is a flower that has never been plucked.”
A virgin? Even in his inebriated state, Sinclair knew that that was the oldest con in the trade. Virgins commanded a premium price not only because they were, by definition, safe as houses, but because they were also reputed to be able to cure—through vigorous use—several of the amatory infections. It was all balderdash, of course, and Sinclair would normally have put the whole business out of mind already—what concern was it of his, after all?—were it not for that stricken look in the young girl’s eye. She was either such an accomplished actress that she belonged on center stage at Covent Garden…or else it was genuine. There was no law against prostitution, and the age of consent was twelve; girls of her tender years were, quite legally, corrupted every day. Fitzroy had no doubt spent twenty-five or thirty pounds for the privilege.
“Come now,” Rutherford cajoled him. “That fat bastard’s going to be your neighbor for years to come. Don’t begin a fracas now.”
Mme. Eugenie winked at one of the other women, with bright red hair spread across a pair of creamy, well-exposed shoulders, who artfully drew Sinclair off the ottoman and onto a loveseat beneath a picture of a nymph fleeing a satyr. The servant appeared with the gin.
Frenchie had taken the country girl’s place at the pianoforte, and was playing, as well as his own compromised condition would allow, a lugubrious version of something by Herr Mozart.
The redhead introduced herself as Marybeth, and tried to engage Sinclair in conversation, asking first about his regiment, then where they might be posted, before expressing deep concern—somewhat premature, in his view—for his continued safety. But all the while, Sinclair could only think of that girl, with the coltish frame and the frightened eyes, being dragged up the stairs behind John-O and his golden teeth.
Sinclair had had a sister once. She’d died about that age, of consumption.
“That’s quite enough of that,” one of the other men called out to Le Maitre. “Give us something with a bit of a song to it. If I wanted to attend the Lyceum, I’d be off with my wife.”
A round of laughter and applause followed, and Frenchie, bowing to public opinion, launched into a sloppy rendition of “My Heart’s in the Highlands.” He had finished with it, and played another number just then sweeping the Strand, when Sinclair heard a cry from upstairs.
Everyone else scrupulously ignored it—though Frenchie did pause for a second, and Marybeth took sudden pains to adjust the buttons and collar of Sinclair’s shirt. An elderly gent with a matronly brunette on his arm continued his slow ascent of the stairs. When the song ended, Sinclair listened more closely, and even though the Suite des Dieux was a full floor above, he could hear a muffled cry, and the sound of something falling to the floor.
“The table d’h?te has just been replenished,” Mme. Eugenie said, clapping her hands together. “Please, gentlemen, enjoy le canard aux cerises and oysters on the half shell.”
Several of the guests roused themselves—Rutherford among them—and made their way toward the buffet in the next room. But Sinclair neatly disengaged himself and went toward the stairs. As luck would have it, John-O was just then welcoming a trio of inebriated men about town, taking their cloaks and hats, and Sinclair was able to mount the stairs unobserved.
The suite was on the second floor, just above the porte-cochere; Sinclair had occupied it himself once or twice. And he knew that its door—like all the doors in the Salon d’Aphrodite—was not locked while occupied. Mme. Eugenie had long since discovered that exigencies of the trade required her, or John-O, to have immediate—if judiciously employed—access to any chamber.
He kept his feet to the carpet runner as he went to the door, and quietly put his ear against the wood. There were two small rooms, he knew—an antechamber with a few sticks of maple furniture, and a bedroom with a massive, canopied four-poster. He could hear the rumble of Fitzroy’s voice, in the bedroom, and then a low sob from the girl.
“You will,” Fitzroy said, his voice raised.
The girl cried again, repeatedly calling him sir, and it sounded as if she were moving slowly, warily, about the room. A vase, or bottle, smashed on the floor.
“I’ll not pay for that!” Fitzroy said, and Sinclair heard the whistle of a whip cutting the air, and a scream.
He threw open the door and ran through the antechamber to the bedroom. A bare-chested Fitzroy was standing, his white trousers still on, with one suspender hanging down; the other suspender he held in his hand.
“Sinclair, I’ll be damned!”
The girl was naked, holding a bloodied sheet around her. All of her powder and rouge had run down her face in a flood of tears.
“You’ve got a bloody nerve to break in here!” Fitzroy said, moving toward his clothing thrown on the settee. “Where’s John-O?”