Free A Tattooed Heart by Deborah Challinor

nodded. They all knew how much Friday had hated her old job. ‘And the work? Not that I want to know all the gory details, thanks.’
    â€˜Child’s play, compared to what I’ve been doing. Well, nearly child’s play.’ Friday rubbed at her right shoulder. ‘I think I might have done myself a slight injury. I had seven customers one after the other and it was a bit much even though I kept changing hands. We were busier than Mrs H thought we’d be. And my feet hurt from standing for so long in those stupid boots. The heels on them!’
    â€˜What does the room look like?’ Harrie asked. ‘Are the drapes nice? I’m thinking about new drapes for here, but velvet seems a bit extravagant.’
    Friday lit her pipe. ‘Not really what you’d expect.’
    â€˜Some of us have no idea what to expect,’ Harrie said prissily. ‘Charlotte, no! That’s a snail. We don’t eat snails.’
    â€˜Oh, leave her, it won’t hurt her,’ Friday said. ‘A lot of flogging rooms tend to look a bit gaudy but ours doesn’t. Jack gave all the trims and the ceiling boards a fresh coat of white paint, repolished the floor, and hung this pale grey Chinese silk with white flowers and birds on the walls. Pheasants, I think. Then Mrs H added the dark grey velvet drapes, a big blue and grey carpet and a white cabinet for the whips and stuff. And there’s good bleached linen sheets on the bed, because she says we’re not having common old oilcloth in our flogging room, and it’s all come together really nicely. It’s quite . . . well, elegant.’
    Harrie made a face. ‘Don’t the sheets get, er, mucky?’
    â€˜No muckier than the sheets in the other rooms. Which is why we’ve got two coppers in the hotel laundry.’
    â€˜How much do you charge?’ Sarah asked, pouring herself more tea. ‘Anyone else want another cup?’
    â€˜Seven pounds an hour.’
    â€˜Bloody hell! That’s as much as some folk get paid a year!’
    â€˜Well, not quite. And I bloody well work hard for my sixty per cent, I can assure you.’
    â€˜So it’s just for wealthy men, really, isn’t it?’ Harrie made another face. ‘I have to say, I can’t really see the appeal of it.’
    â€˜Not just men,’ Friday said. ‘Mistress Ruby at Mrs Thompson’s reckons she gets women now and then as well. Only rich ones, though.’
    An escalating wail reached them: Charlotte had fallen flat on her face. Harrie crossed the lawn and picked her up, brushing damp leaves off the little girl’s pinafore and the knees of her pantaloons.
    Sitting down again with Charlotte on her lap, she said, ‘I’ve done a new series of flash for Leo. Do you want to see them?’
    â€˜Yes, please,’ Friday said quickly.
    She’d always loved Harrie’s tattoo designs, and wore one herself. She already had a peacock, roses and the name of her deceased daughter tattooed on her left arm, a Chinese dragon on her right, a bat with outstretched wings on her right calf (that one was Harrie’s), and an enormous phoenix on her back, but felt it was time to get something else.
    Blushing, Harrie rang a small silver bell on the tea tray. ‘Look at me,’ she said. ‘What a lazy cow I’m turning into.’
    When Daisy appeared, Harrie asked her to fetch her book of drawings from the parlour. Daisy trotted off, returning almost immediately.
    Harrie moved the tea tray and opened the book on the table. ‘I’ve been getting interested in birds lately. The garden’s full of them. I think it’s all the berries. So I thought I might as well do a series. What do you think?’
    â€˜Mama’s pitchers,’ Charlotte said, planting a grubby finger on the corner of one.
    The stylised drawings depicted common local birds such as the crow, pigeon, petrel, sandpiper, cockatoo, gull,