Faced with the murder of a senior government leader for the
City of London, Chief Constable Salter Lambrick realizes
that this is one investigation where he would have to use
every trick he knows to solve this crime.
His key clue is a letter inviting the Lord to the Pleasure
Emporium, so wanting not to alert the possible murderer
with his actions, Salter pretends to be the Lord seeking
out the author of the letter. When he meets Mina Halliday,
he realizes that not only is she not a courtesan, but she
is also not the murderer. Intrigued by her, he soon
realizes that while she may be as innocent as a Sunday
morning; she has some very interesting and lurid late night
ideas.
Meanwhile, Mina is bound and determined to continue her
quest to discover the person who caused her beloved father
to be arrested and convicted for a crime he didn't commit.
While used a quality life when her father was a renowned
jeweler, since his arrest, they had lost everything. So
faced with no money, Mina had sought work in the Pleasure
Emporium where Madame Fynch quickly made use of her
cleverness as a writer for marketing their luxury bordello
to the cream of London's gents.
As Salter discovers stolen jewels and further clues, his
actions put both Mina and his own life at risk. But will
her own cleverness put her at risk for death if she
continues her own investigation? Yet, how can she stay
once she finds the man she is falling in love with is
already engaged to be married?
With her excellent research, Michelle Marcos instantly
transports you to the sights and smells of Regency London
as well as the gaudy red velvet underworld of the Pleasure
Emporium. A talented storyteller, Marcos gives a very human
face to all her characters and the moral dilemmas and
situations they face. I appreciated the strong character
development of both Mina and Salter as their relationship
grows as well as the secondary characters, especially
Lollie, and the insights into their motivations. I am
thrilled to know that we will soon have more tales from the
Pleasure Emporium! A solid gold read! Enjoy this tale
of "Gentlemen Behaving Badly"!
Destitute and alone, Mina Halliday ventured into a notorious
bordello and offered the only talents at her disposal—her
writing skill
and her scandalous imagination. Mina’s erotic letters have
enticed
London’s wealthiest noblemen to the Pleasure Emporium, but
her real
goal is to find the person responsible for her father’s
ruin. Even if
that means defying the orders of Chief Constable Salter
Lambrick, a man
who makes her feel like a wanton seductress instead of a
plain-faced
wallflower.
The only clue Salter has to a government
official’s
murder is the naughty invitation found in the victim’s
pocket, leading
him to the most intriguing woman he has ever met. Mina may
be an
innocent in a den of lust, but Salter detects the sensuality
beneath
her surface. And uncovering the truth about the woman who
stirs his
deepest desires will be his most dangerous adventure yet...
Excerpt
My dear Lord Prescott,
It has taken me a long time to find the courage to write
this letter. I beg your forgiveness for corresponding with
you without first having made our acquaintance, but this is
a matter of greatest urgency. To put it plainly, I need
you.
You see, as a lady of leisure in the employ of Madame
Fynch, proprietress of the Pleasure Emporium, it is my duty
to provide entertainment for the members of our exclusive
club for gentlemen. The Madame has told me that I am idle
and do not try hard enough. It is my belief that the ardor
of my gentleman callers is evidence of my work, and I told
her so. She was furious with my impertinent response and
forced me to find a gentleman who would implement a course
in humiliation under which I would learn to treat better
those charges which she appoints me.
I know I’ve been very naughty in the past, but the Madame
says this time she is prepared to discharge me for my
insolence. She has given my performance here bottom marks,
and she says that my only hope of reprieve is to have an
impartial observer judge my innocence or guilt in the
matter. I therefore come to you. If found guilty in your
eyes, I am to submit to whatever brand and expression of
discipline you see fit, even if it means you must give
me “bottom marks” as well. Between us, sir, I will do
anything – anything at all – to be able to remain here.
Please come at once, and exercise your ruling. You have
only to decree how grateful I should be.
Yours completely,
Lollie
Mina Halliday smirked wickedly as she folded the stiff blue
paper. Whetting a man’s appetite for sex was so very easy,
especially when you knew precisely what form his appetites
took. And at this incendiary invitation, this particular
man would certainly come. She’d stake her entire collection
of erotica on it.
With a practiced hand, she tilted her candle over the flap,
and the red wax pooled into the shape of a heart. She
glanced at the shelf above her writing desk, where a row of
monogrammed seals sat like tiny soldiers awaiting orders.
She ran her finger down the line until she found the right
one, and then she pressed it firmly into the warm wax – L.
With customary neglect of the rules of propriety, Lollie
flung open Mina’s bedroom door. “Ye didn’t come down for
tea. So, nice as I am, I brought it up for you.”
Mina smiled broadly. “I’ve got a good one for you, Lollie,”
she said, the gleam in her eye intensifying as she waved
the letter at her. “And this quill is very special indeed.
To both of us.”
Lollie pursed her generous lips as she snatched the letter
from Mina’s hands. “Lord Roderick Prescott. Never ’eard
of ’im.”
“You’ll meet him soon enough, if my letter does what it’s
supposed to. I can promise you that he’s got pots and pots
of money. You want to take your time with this one, Loll.
In fact, I wouldn’t doubt it if he brought you a shiny
bauble or two to relieve your discomfort.”
“Relieve my—” Lollie's expression dissolved from puzzlement
to dismay. “Oh, no…not another spanker!”
Mina held up her hands to calm her. “He’s very rich, and—”
Lollie jumped out of her seat, her pretty blond curls
bouncing against her shoulders. “No! I told you I don’t
want them kind o’ quills. Give ’im to Serafina. She goes in
for all that ‘masterchism’ or whatever you calls it.”
“Please, Lollie. It’s got to be you.”
“Why?”
“Because...because…” Mina fumbled for a coherent order to
express all her pent-up emotions. “Because I think this may
have been the man who had my father arrested.”
“What?”
Mina pulled Lollie to her bed and sat her down. “First,
you’ve got to swear to me you won’t breathe a word of this
to the Madame.”
Lollie’s graceful eyebrows drew together in
concern. “Course I won’t.”
“Before I came to work here, my dad was a jeweler on Fulsom
Street. Well, one day, a man came to his shop and brought
with him a tiara. It was a lovely thing, lots of diamonds
and a great big sapphire in it—I saw it later when my dad
worked in it. Well, this man asked my dad to replace the
expensive jewels in it with semiprecious stones. He paid
well for the job—in advance—so my dad thought nothing of
it. When my dad had finished the job, he turned over the
tiara and the precious gems. The man left, pleased with my
dad’s work. A few hours later, the constabulary came to the
shop and arrested my dad, saying that one of his clients
had brought in a tiara in for cleaning and it was returned
to him with substandard jewels in it. Within four days, my
father was convicted of thievery and fraud—and shipped to
Australia’s penal colony.”
“Never! Who was that client?”
“I don’t know. I never saw him. I wasn’t even at the shop
when my dad got arrested. And none of the authorities would
tell me the name of the man who accused him. The clerks at
the Old Bailey all tell me the same incredible thing…the
case is a matter of national security and they can reveal
nothing about it. National security! They won’t even tell
me where I can write to him. It’s just so frustrating! It’s
been three months since he was arrested…three months since
I haven’t laid eyes on him. I don’t even know if he
survived the voyage.”
“Poor duck,” she said, placing her hand on Mina’s
shoulder. “And you think this Prescott bloke is the one
what turned yer dad in?”
“That’s what I want to find out. The man who accused him
had to have had some political influence. No one gets
sentenced so quickly. No one! And to have a closed-door
trial, where even I’m not allowed to testify on my father’s
behalf? Who can arrange that quick a conviction? It has to
be someone high up in government.”
“How do you know it was Prescott?”
“Well, I don’t. Not for sure. But my dad had only a handful
of clients with so much power. In fact, only two men that I
know of. The only thing I know about Mr. Tiara is his
predilection for aggression, because he had been bragging
to my dad about a woman he had taught a lesson to the night
before. So I have to find out for certain which of these
two men is the one who ruined my father.”
Lollie blinked her large blue eyes. “What are you going to
do if it’s ’im?”
The question hung in the air as Mina’s anger filled the
room. “Ruin him back.”
Lollie’s porcelain features twisted into a grimace. “So
what you want me to do?”
“You have to find a way to get him to admit to it.”
Lollie’s pretty blue eyes flew open. “How?”
“Talk to him. All night if you have to.”
She harrumphed. “I can see you’ve never been with a
quill, ’specially not a spanker. Believe me, you don’t want
to entertain them all night. You’ll be wanting them in and
done with…right quick.”
Mina shoved a lock of her straight brown hair behind one
ear. “No. I mean, keep him in the salon. Sit at the bar,
and I’ll keep plying him with drinks. This way, I can
listen in on your conversation.”
“What am I supposed to do? Ask him if he had the owner of
Halliday’s Jewelry Shop arrested? He’s not going to confess
something like that to the likes of me.”
“Of course he would!” Mina exclaimed, her brown eyes
widening. “One of the most astonishing things I’ve seen
since I started working here is how incredibly talkative
these quills are with you girls. Men talk to courtesans as
if you were the most discreet and sympathetic of
confidantes. They share things with you they would never
tell a father confessor, or even their own spouses. They
brag about even the most depraved and wicked things they’ve
done. And all because as courtesans, you’ve no right to
judge them.” Mina gripped Lollie’s arm tightly. “I’m sure
you can get something out of Lord Prescott. All you need do
is get him to talk about jewelry. Show him your necklace.
Ask him what he thinks about it, or how much he thinks it
may be worth. We’ll see whether he brings up my father’s
name or his shop.”
“I don’t know, Mina. If this is so important to you, why
don’t you take this quill yourself?”
Mina backed away, her expression sobering with unspoken
emotion. “You know that’s impossible.” Mina had long since
accepted that she was no beauty. Of the dozen courtesans in
the Madame’s employ, none was less than flawless. With such
a dazzling array of gorgeous women to satisfy the lust of a
man’s eyes, no one paid any attention to Mina. She might as
well be part of the furniture. “Please, Lollie. This is
important to me. I’ll give you one week’s wages if you do
this for me. A month’s. Anything you ask. Please.”
Lollie sighed noisily, her petulance only adding to her
charm. “All right. But this better be the last perverted
quill you get for me. The next one better be a good-looking
prince eager to marry a Covent Garden trollop.”
Mina exhaled her relief. “I’ll start making inquiries right
away,” she replied wryly.
But after Lollie left the room, doubts pressed heavily upon
Mina. What if Lollie couldn’t get Lord Prescott to open up?
Worse still, what if neither of the men accepted her
invitation to visit the bordello? Unbidden images flashed
in her mind of her father enduring hard labor under the
lash of a merciless prison guard, and her heart twisted
inside her. She had to find out who had consigned her
father to a hell on earth. If he did the damage, he could
undo it. Or at the very least, let her get in contact with
her father. All her best hopes were pinned to that one
missive to Lord Prescott.
There was no room for failure. At all costs, she simply had
to get Lord Prescott to come.
Salter Lambrick leaned over the body of the dead man to get
a look at his face. There was no mistaking it…Lord Prescott
was no more.
Salter rubbed the thick black stubble on his own face, a
gesture that reminded him of the haste of the call. He
stood up to get a better perspective on the murder scene,
but was disappointed – not at what he saw, but at what he
didn’t see. Whoever had met Prescott here was careful not
to leave any evidence of his presence.
Salter walked around the room slowly, allowing the alchemy
of all his senses to paint a picture of what happened last
night. The victim and the murderer had met here in Lord
Prescott’s study. Prescott had been sitting at his desk,
and at some point, the murderer came round behind him and
strangled him with a garrote. Prescott was wrestled to the
floor, where he fell face down. Once in the superior
position, the murderer leveraged his weight to hold the
victim down as he tightened the cord around the man’s neck.
From the boot scuffs on the marble floor, Salter could tell
that Lord Prescott thrashed a good deal. But with a man
kneeling on his back, there was no way Prescott could have
defended himself.
Salter crouched and turned the body over. Prescott’s face
was waxy and pallid, and his tongue spilled over his blue
lips. It was a hideous death mask, but Salter had shed the
horror of death long ago on the battlefield. He lifted the
man’s chin to get a closer look at the murder weapon. The
crease between Salter’s thick brows deepened as he realized
it was not a garrote at all. He untwisted the cord embedded
into the dead man’s neck. It was a leather whip! Not a long
one, like the kind used on carriage horses…nor even a
bullwhip used on insubordinate soldiers. This was a
peculiar instrument, with a sturdy handle and a thong about
three feet long. Like the kind they used to chastise
schoolboys.
Salter frowned. Why would a murderer bring an object like
this to kill someone? If the murderer wanted to do Prescott
in quietly, surely he would have brought a dagger or some
poison, or even a better fashioned garrote than a whip.
Salter let the leather cord slither from his large hands.
Perhaps the murderer wanted to sneak it in without
detection. Or maybe the whip belonged to Prescott, and the
murderer obtained it here. The answer to that question
would explain whether the murder was premeditated, or the
tragic result of a vehement quarrel.
Salter fished around in Lord Prescott’s pockets. He found
the man’s untouched billfold in his coat pocket. Evidently,
robbery was not the motive. In his other breast pocket,
Salter found two items: a folded piece of paper, and a
leather tawse. Salter unfolded the piece of paper, and what
he found astonished him.
My dear Lord Prescott,
It has taken me a long time to find the courage to write
this letter.
As he read the rest of the missive, Salter had to smile. So
that’s where Prescott was headed with all these implements
of torture…a bordello! Prescott seemed to have a peculiar
affinity for dominating women, and he was being invited by
a courtesan to indulge that inclination.
Salter’s shook his head at the writer’s lewdness. He had
never made use of a bordello, but had the letter been
addressed to him, he just might have been tempted enough to
try it.
Salter refolded the blue parchment, a frown casting a
shadow over his hazel eyes. Come to think of it, there
might be more to be read from this letter than a sexual
proposition. What if Prescott’s murderer was someone at
this bordello? An irate Madame to whom he owed money?
Another customer, jealous over his chosen courtesan? Or
maybe even the very woman who wrote this letter…
“Alcott,” he called out.
A young constable wearing a weathered brown coat came to
the door. “Yes, sir?”
“Have you met with all the servants?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, thumbing through his notepad. “Their
statements ring true. None of them seemed to have any
knowledge of the murder. After they retired for the night,
no one ’eard a sound till this mornin’ when the butler
raised the alarm. Frankly,” he said, lowering his voice, “I
don’t think any of them could do it. Cook’s a frail woman,
the maids are little things no bigger’n me sister, and the
butler’s older than the Lord Almighty.”
Salter chuckled. “Fine. You can release them to their
duties. Tell them that with their master gone, they should
start looking for employment elsewhere.”
“Right you are.” Alcott jerked his head toward the
body. “So what you reckon, Chief Constable?”
Salter put the letter in his coat pocket. “I think that
this case isn’t going to be easy. Lord Prescott was senior
aide to the Lord Mayor of London. And the Lord Mayor is not
going to like the scandal this will stir up. Besides, as
the Chief Magistrate of London, his office will be placed
under a great deal of scrutiny. I think we had better be
prepared for the pressure to solve this case quickly and
quietly.”
“Any ideas who done it?”
“Not yet, but I’ve got a lead to track down. Ask that
butler fellow to get me one of Prescott’s coats. I think
I’m going to do a bit of impersonating.”
Alcott scratched his blond head with the end of his
pencil. “Impersonatin’, sir?”
Salter stood up straight. “Call me Lord Prescott.”
He glanced down at the tawse in his hand, its supple
leather strap split into two pain-inflicting tails.
Whoever wrote that letter had some explaining to do.
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