Regency Seduction. Lucy Ashford

Street, St James’s Later that evening

      The first-floor dressing room was crowded and smelled of cheap perfume. Rosalie Rowland edged her way towards the nearest door and opened it a few inches, hoping for a breath of cooler, fresher air.

      Oh, fiddlesticks. She shut it again quickly.

      Men. Dozens of them, queuing from the ground floor all the way up the staircase. Men, tall and short, rich and poor, plump and thin, all filling the air with the smells of tobacco and strong drink. Men, queuing to see—amongst others—her. On stage tonight, in the upstairs hall of the notorious Temple of Beauty.

      Rosalie fought down a renewed wave of panic. If she didn’t catch her death of cold in this— costume that was as flimsy as a bride’s veil, she’d catch something horrible from the dirt. Not that such a minor detail bothered the proud proprietor, Dr Perceval Barnard, or his wife. Or the other girls, who chattered and giggled as they clustered to paint their faces in front of the looking-glasses hung askew on the walls.

      ‘On stage in ten minutes, Greek goddesses!’ squawked Mrs Patty Barnard. ‘Make sure you’re all looking ravishing, now!’

      ‘Think she means—ready to be ravished,’ drily put in dark-haired Sal close by. Within minutes of Rosalie’s arrival here earlier today, kind Sal had promptly taken her under her wing. And people to watch out for, Sal told her, most definitely included Patty Barnard, a shrill, domineering forty-year-old, whose dyed red hair dazzled the eye.

      Mrs Barnard didn’t hear Sal’s comment, but her sharp eyes shot to Rosalie. ‘You. New girl. Pull your gown lower. Our gents haven’t paid to see a bunch of Vestal Virgins!’

      Rosalie kept her expression demure. ‘Certainly it’s the last place on earth they’d expect to find any, ma’am.’

      The rest of the girls sniggered. Mrs Barnard looked at her, frowning, uncertain, then swung round to the others. ‘Girls, stop squabbling over those Grecian arm-bracelets. There should be sufficient for you all … Charlotte, my dear, what a truly exquisite Aphrodite you make!’

      And the normal hubbub of chatter and preparation resumed.

      The Temple of Beauty was, Dr Barnard liked to declare, a gentlemen’s club. But there were no rules for membership, merely an initial payment for the evening’s entry, after which the clients could indulge in the usual pursuits of dining, drinking and gaming. Many other clubs in London offered the same. But here, at the stroke of ten, all the patrons moved as one to join the queue for the upstairs hall, because the Temple of Beauty was known throughout London for its classical tableaux featuring scantily-clad girls in costumes who posed in what Dr Barnard called ‘attitudes’ for around ten minutes while the gentlemen in the audience, already mellow with food and wine, feasted their eyes.

      ‘I have an exclusive clientele, my dear, most of them highly educated in the Greek and Roman myths,’ Dr Barnard had earnestly assured Rosalie yesterday morning when she’d called about a post. ‘And I pride myself,’ he went on, ‘on my own knowledge of those ancient times of glory!’ He’d waved an expansive hand towards his crowded bookshelves, though his lecherous appraisal of her face and figure had rather spoiled the effect of his lofty words.

      Rosalie had dragged her eyes from an oversized volume called The Myths of Apollodorus and gazed back at him brightly. Now she looked anew round the crowded dressing room. Greek goddesses? Well, the chief of his girls, Charlotte—’the star of our firmament!’ was how Dr Barnard had introduced her to Rosalie earlier—looked more like a Covent Garden streetwalker than a heavenly deity. Tonight, as Patty Barnard adjusted Charlotte’s dyed locks fondly, Sal hissed to Rosalie, ‘D’you think our Mrs B. would find Charlotte quite so exquisite if she caught her romping in bed with ‘er husband whenever Mrs B.’s back’s turned?’

      Rosalie felt laughter bubbling up. But it faded, as she glanced at herself in the mirror and thought, just for a moment, that she saw another face—pale, wistful—gazing back at her.

      Her sister. Oh, her sister might have stood here. Might have looked into this very mirror …

      She jumped as Mrs Barnard’s harsh voice rasped in her ear, ‘You, girl. Take that ribbon off!’

      Rosalie’s fingers flew up to the pale blue ribbon with which she’d tied back her silvery-blonde hair. ‘But I thought …’

      ‘Do you think,’ went on Mrs Barnard, ‘that the Ancient Greeks tied back their hair in that fashion, my girl?’

      Rosalie rather suspected they did and was prepared to argue the point; Sal stood heavily on her toe.

      As it happened, Rosalie was now quite happy to let her long hair hang free. It meant she could hide behind it. And heavens above, looking at this garment they’d given her to wear, she’d need to.

      When she’d first seen her dress, laid across Mrs Barnard’s plump arm, it had looked perfectly respectable. She was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, after all, so a long white-muslin tunic girdled with a turquoise cord seemed appropriately demure. ‘The turquoise will match your eyes, my dear!’ had simpered Mrs B.

      Up until now, Rosalie had never really considered that she had much of a figure to hide. She was twenty-one years old, of medium height, and rather too thin; her legs, she considered, were too long and her bosom decidedly undistinguished compared to the voluptuous figures that were on display around her. Besides, she’d always made a point of dressing to deter any roving male eye. She’d never in her life up till now worn her hair loose and tumbling to her shoulders, had never worn a gown remotely like this one. Demure? That was before she got it on. It was sheer, it was clinging … For heaven’s sake! How could she go out on stage like this?

      She’d done her very best to adjust the ridiculously low neckline by quickly threading a turquoise ribbon through the scalloped lace that edged the yoke and pulling it together into a bow just above the curve of her breasts. But Sal, who was busy powdering her own extremely well-displayed plump bosom, turned to her, powder puff in hand. ‘Ma Barnard will never let you get away with that cover-up, darlin’. Not in a thousand years.’

      Rosalie protested. ‘I’ve no intention of going out there half-naked!’

      ‘What did you expect, in Dr Barnard’s Temple of Beauty? Gawd, dearie, I wish I had your looks. Your face and figure, that gorgeous hair of yours—’

      ‘My figure? My hair?’ echoed Rosalie.

      Sal sighed. ‘Own up, now. You ain’t done nothing like this before, ever, have you?’

      ‘Well, no. Not exactly …’

      ‘Not on the run, are you, from the law, or some cross husband?’

      ‘No! Not at all, Sal! And anyway, I don’t suppose that any of them will be paying much attention to me. Will they?’

      ‘New girl at Dr B.’s Temple of Beauty? Course they’ll be lookin’ at you!’ Sal drew closer. ‘And after the show—did Mrs B. explain? There’s a bit of music in what they call the Inner Temple on the next floor up, and it’s there that the gents pay to come to dance with us.’

      ‘Just dancing?’ Rosalie enquired rather faintly. She had already discovered that this place was like a rabbit warren, with five floors of rooms and various twisting staircases.

      Sal winked. ‘Just dancin’ to start with. Then—who knows?—you might end up with a nice rich lord to milk for a while, if you just shut yer eyes through all the grunting and heaving. But watch out, gal. If they promise love, they’re lying through their teeth.’

      Rosalie nodded, her heart sinking. She knew that. But so many didn’t.

      Rosalie, I’m in London. I’m in trouble. Please help me. That was all that was in Linette’s pitiful letter last October. Nothing else—no address, no other clue—except that Rosalie knew Linette had always wanted to be an actress.

      Now emotion squeezed at Rosalie’s throat