“We generally don’t inquire too closely into such details. But from one or two things Hannah—yes, that was the other girl’s name. Hannah, not Helen. At any rate, from one or two things she let slip, Margaret Crowley received the impression the women had been at a residential brothel.” He paused, his thin chest rising on a sigh. “Margaret Crowley was the matron at the Magdalene House, you know.”
Miss Jarvis leaned forward to pat his hand, where it lay on the chair’s arm. “Yes. I’m so sorry.”
“Any idea where the brothel may have been located?” Sebastian asked.
Walden cleared his throat. “The one girl—Hannah—was very talkative. I believe she mentioned Portman Square.”
Sebastian nodded. Closed, stay-in brothels were rare in London. More common were lodging-house brothels, where the girls were—nominally, at least—independent. Picking up their customers from the pleasure gardens or the theater or even the streets of the city, they then brought them back to the lodging house where they kept a room. Other girls took their men to “accommodation houses” where they didn’t actually live; they simply hired one of its rooms for the requisite number of hours—or minutes. Others made use of the numerous chop houses, cigar rooms, and coffeehouses that also had bedrooms available for use—their exclusively male clientele making them good hunting grounds, as well.
“I’m afraid there’s really not much else I can tell you about Rose Jones,” Walden was saying. “Many of the girls chafe at the restrictions we impose upon them, but Rose never did. She never left the house.”
“Because she was still afraid?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Did she ever say anything about her life before she . . .” Miss Jarvis hesitated.
Walden shook his head. “No. Although it was obvious she was gently born. We don’t often see women quite like her. For some reason, many of the women who come to us claim to be clergymen’s daughters, although I suspect few actually are. But I’ve no doubt Rose was very wellborn. Very wellborn indeed.” He looked from Miss Jarvis to Sebastian. “This has something to do with the fire, doesn’t it? Dost thou think it’s possible the fire was not an accident?”
“I think so, yes.”
Joshua Walden nodded, his lips pressed together tightly.
It was when he was escorting them to the door that he said suddenly, “There is one more thing that might help. We had a young girl in the house who called herself Rachel. I don’t think she could have been more than thirteen—a lovely fair-haired child. One evening—just by chance—I overheard Rose say to the child, ‘I was once called Rachel.’ It stuck in my head because Rachel laughed merrily and said, ‘I was once called Rose.’ ”
He smiled gently at the memory, the smile rapidly fading. “But it may mean nothing. Some girls change their names frequently.”
“Perhaps,” said Sebastian, pausing in the Quaker’s simple entrance hall. “But it could also be Rose’s real name. Thank you.”
“That was fortuitous,” said Miss Jarvis as Sebastian handed her up into her waiting carriage. “I hadn’t expected to learn so much.”
“You think we learned a great deal, do you?”
“You don’t?” She turned to look at him in surprise. “How many brothels can there be near Portman Square?”
He took a step back. “Believe it or not, Miss Jarvis, I haven’t the slightest idea. But I know someone who will.”
Chapter 8
In addition to the modest estate in Hampshire bequeathed to him by a maiden great-aunt, Sebastian also kept a bow-fronted house in Brook Street. The establishment at Number 41 Brook Street was considerably smaller and less imposing than the Grosvenor Square townhouse of his father, Alistair St. Cyr, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Fifth Earl of Hendon. But Sebastian had not visited either his father’s Grosvenor Square house or his ancestral estates in Cornwall since September of the previous year.
A distant rumble of thunder shook the cloudy afternoon as Sebastian took the short flight of stairs to his own front door. He handed his hat to his majordomo, Morey, and said, “Where is Calhoun?”
Jules Calhoun was Sebastian’s valet. The less than orthodox nature of some of Sebastian’s activities had in the past made it difficult for him to retain the services of a gentleman’s gentleman. But it had been eight months now since Calhoun had joined the Brook Street household, and he’d never shown the least tendency to leave in horror or a fit of pique.
The majordomo, however, was not one of Calhoun’s fans. He sniffed. “Some valets might have more sense than to invade the kitchen this close to the dinner hour,” said Morey in sepulchral tones. “Unfortunately, Calhoun is not of their company.”
Sebastian hid a smile. “Brewing boot polish, is he?”
A muscle bunched along Morey’s tight jaw. “If Madame LeClerc should quit over this—”
“Madame LeClerc quit because Calhoun has chosen to spend some time in the kitchen?” Sebastian jerked off his gloves. “Not likely.”
Madame LeClerc would have banished any other valet with a pot of boot polish to the stables. But the cook was called “Madame” solely out of courtesy; she was actually a young French-woman in her late twenties, a softly rounded woman with black hair and laughing eyes and a short upper lip. And Jules Calhoun was a very dashing gentleman’s gentleman.
Morey sniffed again. “Would you like me to have him wait upon you, my lord?”
Sebastian swung off his driving coat. “Good God, no.” Boot polish was serious business. “I’ll go to him.”
Morey bowed in majestic silence and withdrew.
The descent of the Viscount into his own kitchens caused something of a flutter. The kitchen maid dropped a pot of half-shelled peas, while Madame LeClerc gasped and said, “Ees something wrong, my lord? You deed not like the sole I fixed for last night’s dinner, perhaps?”
“The sole was wonderful,” said Sebastian, carefully avoiding the cascade of rolling peas. “I’ve come to discuss boot polish with Calhoun. If you’ll excuse us?”
Madame LeClerc threw a soulful glance at the small, lithe man stirring the contents of a heavy pot on the stove, and withdrew.
The air in the kitchen was redolent with the scent of hot beeswax and resin. In deference to the stove’s heat, Jules Calhoun had removed his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves, yet he still managed to convey a sense of punctilious neatness. Nothing about either his demeanor or his impressive skills as a gentleman’s gentleman betrayed the fact that he had grown up in the most notorious flash house in London.
“As keen as your lordship is about the shine on his boots,” said Calhoun, not looking around, “I can’t see it luring you down into the kitchens.”
Sebastian went to sprawl in one of the straight-backed chairs beside the scrubbed kitchen table. “I want to know what you can tell me about the residential brothels near Portman Square.”
Calhoun glanced around, a lock of his straight flaxen hair falling across his high forehead. “Were you looking for anything in particular, my lord?”