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Chapter Eight

The woman, who sounded like a drill sergeant, looked no more than forty and exotic in that Mediterranean way with big, dark eyes and black hair pulled back and secured with a net. Even in her staid, conservative navy blue dress with a high neckline, her shape was apparent—big boobs, tiny waist, wide hips. If she were a little younger, she could have given any Victoria’s Secret model a run for her money.

Wait… who was Victoria, and what would Sue know about her secret? What were these random phrases and words that floated in her head? She didn’t understand half of them anymore.

“Mrs. Hicks, here is Sue,” Violet mumbled, stepping forward. “I brung her in last night.”

“Goddamn it, child! For the last time, I’m not running an orphan—” The woman’s mouth dropped open as she turned around and saw Sue. Without warning, she pulled Sue forward and circled her, as though checking her out from all sides. She picked up a lock of Sue’s hair and rubbed it between her fingers. “My dear, do you speak English?” she asked after inspecting the delicate lace of the sleeve of Sue’s gown.

“Absolutely,” Sue answered, a tiny bit miffed. She realized that non-white folks were probably a real rarity in these parts, so she couldn’t really blame them for thinking she was an oddity. What year was this, anyway? “Quite fluently, madame.”

The lady of the house raised her eyebrows, seemingly surprised at Sue’s supercilious tone. Behind her, Sue studied the row of young women gathered in the mid-sized kitchen. Some of them were sitting, some of them standing, all of them eating.

Among all the women—curly-haired, straight-haired, blond, brunette, ginger, young, oldish—no one stood out. They all had that world-weary, let’s-set-it-all-on-fire expression on their faces, which Sue thought she probably looked like after a thirty-hour shift.

She blinked. Where had she worked that she would be on duty non-stop for thirty hours? That was a day and some change.

“This is a splendid ball gown and custom-fitted to you. Parisian, I’d say,” Mrs. Hicks said with suspicion in her dark eyes. “Where did you come from, child? Did you escape from a harem?”

Sue touched her head as a vein in her temple throbbed in warning. “I don’t remember. I don’t know.

“She don’t know nuffin’,” Violet confirmed. “I think she coshed her noggin real hard and forgot everything. She don’t know no one in London.”

Mrs. Hicks’ scrutiny sharpened upon hearing this, and her full lips pursed in what looked like contemplation. “Nowhere to stay, either, I suppose?”

Sue nodded, feeling the weight of everyone’s eyes on her like a blanket of hovering mosquitoes. “No, ma’am.” She peeked at her scruffy kid boots made muddy by last night’s trek and scuffed by her melee with those aristocratic jerkholes. She didn’t realize until this morning that her shoes, just like her gown, were fire-engine red. Harlot-red. Her stomach growled as if on cue. “I should like to stay here until I can find appropriate lodgings for myself.”

“Oh, I bet you would.” The woman scoffed and inspected her from head to toe. “Just look at this gown of yours. Do you know how much I could get for it if I put it on the market? I’m not running a boardinghouse for proper little ladies, Miss China Doll.”

Sue gritted her teeth. She’d had enough of this China Doll bullshit. “My name is Susan.” She was one hundred percent certain of it.

Mrs. Hicks guffawed, and most of the girls brayed along with her. “Is that the name your master gave you? What is your true name—your Chinese name?”

Sue glared at the woman, unable to answer. She didn’t know if she had one. “My name is Susan. That’s it. I don’t have a master. I don’t belong to anyone but myself.”

“Well, you’ll have to come up with a more exotic name than Susan. Susan is a wee dishwasher from a little hamlet in Cornwall,” she said with a smirk. “Have you ever worked in a bawdhouse before?”

Sue’s mind went blank, then it dawned on her that she was standing in the kitchen of a brothel. A whorehouse. The tired-looking women in the shabby, but revealing dresses; the woman’s keen interest in her looks; what Violet was doing out and about late at night on the streets when she should have been warm in bed—this was not just a house where whores lived, they did their business here. She opened her mouth to respond, thought better of what she was about to say, and closed her mouth again.

She had to be smart here. She didn’t know anyone in the world—she felt this sharply. She had nowhere else to go. She had no friends, no family. She didn’t want to get raped, murdered, and/or freeze to death out there. She glanced at Violet, who inclined her head. Behind the bawd, Violet gesticulated with her hands and exaggerated mouth movements, but Sue couldn’t understand her.

“I don’t mean to work here,” Sue hedged, trying to gauge Mrs. Hicks’ reaction. “I would like to live here for a bit if I can. I have money!” She rushed to add when she saw the woman’s lips tightening.

“As I’ve told you, I’m not running a boardinghouse. If you stay here, you will have to work.” She propped her hands on her ample hips and glared at Sue. “How much money do you have, exactly?”

“She got seven guineas,” Violet volunteered like an eager student. “A gentleman gave it to her on account of her taking down three drunks on her own with no trouble.”

It was actually two drunks, and the mystery man took down the third before making off with him in Satan’s carriage. Sue watched in horror as Violet attempted to copy her moves to show Mrs. Hicks.

The woman gave Sue another considering appraisal, studying her like a cat who couldn’t decide if she wanted to just kill the mouse or kill it, then eat it. “Seven guineas, and you didn’t have to lie on your back… Patrice, my love, how much have you been charging per hour?”

A young, fresh-faced girl with curly red hair, but with a sneer on her face that didn’t quite match her pastoral, virginal looks, spat the answer at Sue. “Fifteen shillings. Five additional for anything extra.”

Mrs. Hicks smirked, then returned her attention to Sue, looking at her with pure disdain. “You’re obviously seven times her worth, Miss Susan, and then some. And how did you take down those men, pray tell?”

“It was this weird-looking dance, Mrs. H, with lots of kicking and elbowing,” Violet reported. “You should have seen her!”

Sue glared at Violet to get her to shut up, but the girl either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “It’s called mixed martial arts, Mrs. Hicks, a form of self-defense.”

The woman waved her hand dismissively, as though she were already tired of the subject. “Fine. What else can you do? Can you speak French? Can you play any musical instruments?”

Sue stared at her, unable to answer any of her questions for the knowledge about herself eluded her. Then she was nodding and saying out loud, “I can speak French, German, Cantonese, and a bit of Arabic. I can also play the violin and the pianoforte.”

As these words left her mouth, she realized she was speaking the truth. She didn’t think she could actually do these things. Her knowledge of French was middling to fair, and she spoke neither German nor Cantonese. A smattering of Mandarin, maybe. But with the certainty of breathing, she sensed she could do all of these things as though she were born with them.

Mrs. Hicks raised her eyebrows and spoke rapid French to her, saying there was a pianoforte in the drawing-room, and she should like to hear Sue play. She also asked Sue to tell her about her education, all in French.

Sue snorted. She crossed her arms over her breasts and shook her head. “This is a whorehouse, as you said. No offense to your girls, but they don’t exactly strike me as prime-quality escorts. They’re kind of bottom-shelf if you ask me. Why should I have these additional requirements when they obviously don’t?”

She marveled at the words that just came out of her mouth. First, they made her sound like a classist, elitist asshole, and secondly—Holy shit, she spoke French this well?

Mrs. Hicks widened in outrage. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, girl, but you stick out like a sore thumb among my ladies. I don’t want my swells thinking I’ve brought in some untamed, uncivilized foreigner that can’t function in society.”

“I told you, I don’t want to work for you as one of your ladies.” Sue continued the conversation in French because she didn’t want to insult the women who were gawking at them as though they were competitors in a tennis match during Wimbledon. “I just need to stay for a little bit. I will pay you.”

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