The Girl Behind The Fan (Hidden Women) (23 page)

It was as though we were two dancers, stepping back into a routine we had practised so many times. We moved as one, without interruption or awkwardness. I let myself be led and he responded in turn to my own moves. Stroking, kissing, caressing.

I soon opened myself up to him. I folded my legs round him to lock him in tighter. When he made his first thrust, I felt a sense of relief and release.

We roamed all around the bed, changing position every few minutes. When he took me from behind, we both watched ourselves in the mirror on the wardrobe door. I was surprised by the way he had made me look. My hair was wild. My eyes were dark, with my pupils so dilated. I looked hungry with desire and so did he.

He came when I was on top. It was a position that had always worked well for us and especially for me, because I could control the intensity. At the same time, he could touch my breasts and massage my clitoris so that as he drew nearer to his climax, so did I. When we were most in tune with each other, we could come at the same time. Those moments were precious and spectacular.

It was the first time I had actually had sex since Steven and I were last together back in London. Since then, every encounter I’d had had been imaginary or virtual. I’d had nothing but a love life of dreams.

I had forgotten about the feel of two bodies slick with sweat. I had forgotten about the smell of sex, which lingered in the air when I came back from the kitchen with two glasses of water. I had forgotten how warm a bed became when two people were sharing it. Climbing back beneath the sheets, I moulded my body to Steven’s, curling round his back and tucking my thighs tight against his. In the time it had taken me to fetch that water, he had turned over and fallen asleep. I had forgotten that part of it too.

But this was real. This was not some ridiculous virtual assignation. This was flesh and blood and sweat and semen. It was messy and complicated – not least because I’d just made love to Steven without resolving anything first – but it was also so very, very real.

Chapter 31

Paris, 1840

Arlette let it be known that I would receive the Vicomte in private at her house the following week. When the day came, she let me wear a green silk gown that she’d grown a little too big for. It wasn’t of the very latest style but Arlette said that was actually a good thing in the circumstances. The Vicomte knew quite a bit about fashion – for a man – and if I was going to be his consort, he would want me to be dressed in the very latest styles. Of course he’d have to buy them.

Entertaining the Vicomte was an excruciating experience. Not only did he gurn at me like a gargoyle from Notre Dame, he was half deaf and made me repeat everything I said a dozen times before he nodded vaguely and returned to gazing at my tits. The thought of his hands following his eyes made me feel faint with disgust.

But Arlette was right that the Vicomte’s vileness was matched by his generosity. The day after his visit, he sent me an Indian shawl and instructions that I should meet with the best seamstress in Paris who would make me a dress for every day of the week. I was dumbfounded. Elaine was envious enough to spit! Arlette patted me on the hand and said, ‘You see. You’re a natural!’

A natural what? A whore? I am ashamed to admit that I was very happy to have the dresses, but I knew that I had taken the first step on a path I did not want to follow. The Vicomte wanted to see me in my new dresses, of course. And later he would want to see me out of them. What would I do then?

Fortunately, Arlette and Clemence were both shrewd businesswomen. They assured me that the very worst thing I could do was give in to the Vicomte too quickly. The dresses that seemed so expensive to me were nothing to a man of his wealth. If I gave myself to him now, he might even have been disappointed to think he’d bought me so cheaply. If I held out, he would pay out. They were right.

The next time the Vicomte visited, he brought me a gold brooch shaped like a cherub. He invited me to see another opera as his guest, with Arlette as chaperone. Other outings and presents followed. Arlette took the valuable gifts from me and had them sold. Half would go into my bank account and half into hers, to cover the expense of keeping me now I was no longer a maid.

At the same time, now that I was dressed like a woman of fashion and attended the opera or the theatre almost every night as the Vicomte’s guest, I started to attract other suitors, including a politician and a famous newspaper editor. Arlette managed their visits and their donations towards my upkeep. I could not believe how much they were willing to spend on me. If one man sent a bouquet, the next would send two. There were evenings at expensive restaurants and weekends in the country. When the politician bought me a silver sugar bowl, the newspaper editor sent a silver milk jug. The Vicomte sent a silver coffee pot, two candlesticks and two spoons.

Arlette turned everything into cash, explaining to the men that I was an incredibly devout girl who insisted on selling their gifts to provide hot meals for the poor. That made them even more generous. The poor newspaper editor, who was not as wealthy as the other men, was almost ruined by the competition. As it was, his wife threw him out when she discovered he had been using her family money to buy me trinkets.

The Vicomte, however, still seemed closest to winning the right to go to bed with me. I heard him discussing his entitlement with Clemence one evening when she joined us all for dinner.

‘Do I have to?’ I asked Clemence.

‘By now, you probably do.’

When the 84-year-old Vicomte died in his bed that very night, I thanked God for his mercy.

Unfortunately, he was soon replaced by another wealthy beast.

Chapter 32

Shortly after the Vicomte’s sudden death, Arlette was visited by the Duc de Rocambeau. I had not seen this man before, though I knew him by reputation. The whole of Paris knew about de Rocambeau. He was wealthy beyond imagination. His servants called him a tyrant.

I was upstairs in my room when the Duc arrived. I had planned to spend the afternoon repairing some old stockings, but Arlette sent Elaine to tell me that I was required downstairs and that I should make sure I looked my prettiest. Cursing my bad luck, I dressed quickly and had Elaine help me with my hair. Within fifteen minutes, I was in the salon. I curtseyed to the Duc and awaited an introduction, but rather than tell me his name, the Duc merely stared at me, as though seeing a ghost. He stared so hard that after a while I began to squirm a little and even Arlette gave a nervous laugh.

‘This is my cousin Augustine,’ she told him. ‘But you look at her as though you’ve already met.’

‘I don’t believe we have,’ he said. ‘And yet at the same time I could swear I know her very well.’

‘From a past life?’ Arlette suggested, clapping her hands together. She was fond of the dark arts since she met a gypsy who said Arlette had lived in Egypt as a queen.

‘No. From a painting.’

When he said that, I felt dizzy. It could only have been one painting.

‘I saw a charming nude in the window of a junk shop in the Marais,’ the Duc explained to Arlette. ‘It was fairly crudely executed and very badly framed by someone who had no idea what he was doing but I fell in love with it at once. It’s such a wonderful composition. The girl is sitting on a bed, covering her most private treasure with her hand, but she looks out of the canvas so brazenly, it makes even a man of my experience shiver at the thrill of taking that hand’s place. If I didn’t know this girl was your cousin and thus an entirely respectable young woman, I might have thought she was the subject. It’s really quite remarkable.’

Arlette and I shared a knowing look. Arlette knew all about the painting and Remi’s visit to the pawn shop.

‘How I would love to meet that girl,’ the Duc continued dreamily.

‘Won’t Augustine suffice in the meantime?’ Arlette asked.

It seemed I would suffice indeed. The Duc was smitten. Like the Vicomte, he asked if he might see me in private. Arlette assured him it could be arranged.

‘He is far wealthier than that old twit de Chanteduc,’ said Arlette after de Rocambeau left us. ‘If you get this right, you’ll have more money than Marie Antoinette!’

The thought of giving myself to the Duc was scarcely better than the thought of going to bed with the Vicomte. He was not quite so old as de Chanteduc had been, but de Rocambeau was still at least three times my age. He had the look of someone hard and mean. His face was thin and long and his eyes bulged out of their sockets. His fingers put me in mind of a skeleton’s bare-bone hands.

‘But oh, he’s so rich!’ was all the other women would say when I voiced my reservations.

Arlette and Elaine speculated on what the Duc might give me in return for my favours. Arlette had already mentioned to him that I needed a new wardrobe for the summer.

‘I’m certain he’ll have picked up on my hint.’

Elaine hoped he would buy me a little dog. But that would just be the start of it. The Duc had bought one of his previous mistresses a house in the country and an apartment in the best part of town.

As it was, his first gift to me was far more valuable than any of us had dared hope. All because I let him think he’d taken something absolutely priceless from me.

It was Arlette’s suggestion. She made it while she was braiding my hair in readiness for the Duc’s next visit. She put her hands on my shoulders and regarded me in the mirror with the grave and loving expression of a caring mother, about to impart advice to her dear daughter on her wedding night.

‘You’ve had only one lover,’ she said. ‘And given how short he is, I don’t suppose Remi Sauvageon is hung like a donkey. Or even a goat.’

‘Arlette!’ I protested, but she continued.

‘So the Duc will never know you’re not a virgin if you don’t tell him otherwise. Let him assume your purity and pay for it accordingly.’

I blanched at the thought.

Arlette squeezed my shoulders.

‘It’s not such a terrible thing. He will still want to have you if he knows you’re not a virgin, but he will not be prepared to pay nearly as much. You need to think of it as doing him a favour. He will be happier and you will be happier too. You’ll certainly be richer if he thinks he’s the only one to have had you. You remember what to do, don’t you? Be a good actress. Make sure you wince when he tries to put it in. Just re-enact the first time.’

I told Arlette that my actual first time had not been anything like the horror she described. It had been tender. I had not been scared. It had not hurt a bit and there had been no blood either.

‘No blood?’ said Arlette. ‘Well, that’s sometimes the case. But it won’t do for the Duc. We’ll have to engineer it so he comes to you at the right moment in the month.’

‘You mean . . .’

Arlette nodded. ‘It’s all in the timing.’

The very idea turned my stomach.

‘Think of yourself as an actress, my dear. Real life played out on a stage would seem much too small to be true. Thus you must create true drama around your first time with de Rocambeau. It’s what I did when I went to bed with him myself and I’d had five lovers before he got anywhere near me. But men will believe what they want to believe. So make a fuss. Be sure to cry. I promise you it will be worth it.’

I started to cry for real then. Arlette had me stand and pulled me close.

‘Hey, hey. It’s not as bad as all that. There are worse things than becoming the mistress of a duke. Put on the green dress and make yourself beautiful. Be courteous and polite but hold yourself a little aloof. Get into the part, dear Augustine. You are a sweet and fearful virgin. You have never allowed a man to touch you. You still hope you might avoid your terrible fate.’

‘I do!’ I cried.

‘Yes, that’s good,’ said Arlette, mistaking my genuine distress for play-acting. ‘Let him woo you. Even a man as rich as the Duc likes to feel he has worked for what he has. You must make him think you have the right to choose but that your desire for him has overwhelmed you.’

If only I did have the right to choose.

‘Hurry, hurry.’ Arlette clapped her hands. ‘Your visitor will be here in an hour!’

The Duc arrived exactly on time. Without the benefit of wine, such as we had drunk at our previous meeting, he seemed a little nervous. But his nervousness was not like Remi’s. When Remi was nervous, he became quiet and intense. The Duc was the opposite. He talked and smiled too much. His teeth were big and yellow and his smile was not his best expression; he looked far better when he was being stern. But that afternoon, he seemed determined to play the friendly uncle. He enquired after my upbringing in Brittany. I found it too sad to tell him the truth of my childhood, which had been wonderful until the day Papa was lost at sea. I didn’t want to share any of my early joy with him lest it be tainted. Instead, I weaved a story. I told him my father was an apple farmer and my mother was a milkmaid. I vowed there and then that the Duc would never see my father’s painting. He might be able to buy every other part of me, but he would never own my heart.

After an hour had passed, Arlette came to show the Duc out. It still amazed me that we whores had to go through the dance of propriety too. I heard them talking in the hallway, negotiating another visit. The Duc wanted to come back as soon as possible; he said he could come back that evening. Arlette told him that was out of the question and suggested instead that he return in three days’ time. I knew why she had picked that day. Oh, friendly moon.