Free Simply Shameless by Kate Pearce

of stairs, checking the dust on the spindles as she descended. Michael was happy and so were most of her clients. In her establishment, they had complete privacy to indulge themselves as they wished with other consenting adults. She never recruited prostitutes of either sex from the streets, and nothing as vulgar as money ever changed hands between her customers and staff.
    Everyone who worked for her came with a personal recommendation, and every client was obliged to maintain the standards of the house or their membership was revoked.
    She paused to survey the largest salon on the third floor. Most of the rooms leading from this hallway were for private fantasies or more intimate lovemaking. They were distinct from the more public rooms below, where almost anything could happen and usually did.
    Those rooms were for the voyeurs and exhibitionists. The ones of this floor were for the connoisseurs of sexual passion and erotic desire. Helene tweaked a damask curtain into place and retied the sash. Not that she was judging any of the preferences expressed by her clients. It was not her place to form an opinion; she simply provided the most erotic and exotic sexual experiences the very rich could ever desire.
    Helene sighed as she walked through the rooms, righting a chair, moving a floral arrangement to a different table, retrieving a lost silk shawl and mask. When had her joy in her accomplishments turned into dreariness? She had achieved her aim. She partly owned and managed the most discreet and successful pleasure house in the city of London. Her waiting list was three years long, and membership was more difficult to obtain than vouchers for Almack's or admission to White's.
    She paused in the hallway and listened to the silence around her. The house was deliberately designed to conceal noise and create a sense of intimacy for her patrons. This morning it felt too quiet and too empty. Helene gripped one of the door frames until her fingers whitened. What was wrong with her? She sounded as jaded and out of sorts as her old friend Peter Howard.
    Was he right? Did every man and woman come to realize that all the sexual opportunity and pleasure in the world didn't make up for that loneliness, that empty bed, that lack of companionship ? He'd certainly reduced his visits to her establishment since he'd found love.
    "For goodness sake, Helene!"
    In an effort to rally herself, she said the words out loud. They sank quickly into the deadening silence of the walls and thick pink carpet.
    "I am not alone. And I can have any man in London with a snap of my fingers!" Helene demonstrated the snap and walked through to the main landing. "I refuse to turn into the kind of woman who walks around hallways talking to herself."
    "But you are talking to yourself."
    Helene gasped and peered down into the gloom of the open stairwell. Lord George Grant grinned up at her from the circular entry hall two stories below. His black hair was windblown, his cheeks red with cold, and his brown eyes sparked mischief. At forty-five, he was still a very attractive man. Helene leaned over the banister, hand to her heart.
    "You wretch, you startled me. I didn't realize anyone was there!" She started down the stairs, hands held out to him. "I didn't even know you were back in London! How are you, mon ami?"
    Lord George took both her hands in his and kissed them.
    "I'm well, thank you, busy with all this diplomatic nonsense with France but glad to be home for a few weeks."
    She linked her arm through his and drew him toward the back of the house. "Come and talk to me while I answer my correspondence—that is, if you have the time." She hesitated. "Have you been home to your family yet?"
    "To my loving wife, you mean?" He shrugged. "As far as I know, Julia's still busy fucking Lord Lambdon. I doubt she'd be pleased to see me at six-thirty in the morning."
    Helene patted his hand. "I'm sure your daughter would appreciate your company, though."
    Lord George threw