Free How to Handle a Scandal by Emily Greenwood Page B

house—but when they merely glanced at her and went back to talking to each other, she repressed a sigh of relief and kept moving.
    Masculine laughter issued from the far room, which had to be the card room. As she drew close to the nearer doorway, she confirmed that it led to the drawing room and moved inside. As she made her way toward a large plant that she hoped would offer a little concealment, Eliza counted a dozen women standing about in groups, laughing and chatting. The prostitutes’ lips were rosy with lip paint, and rouged cheeks peeked out from the bottom edges of their masks. They were all nearly falling out of their gowns, and Eliza could feel her cheeks burning as she realized the tops of their nipples had been rouged as well.
    She stationed herself behind the plant without drawing more than a passing glance from anyone and prepared to take an inventory of tawdriness. She had expected cheap furnishings and bad taste, but as her eyes lingered over the room and its occupants, she was disappointed to find that everything was remarkably tasteful. There was a handsome carpet on the floor, and several beautiful landscape paintings adorned the walls. The settee that stood near her would not have been out of place in her own drawing room.
    Neither did the women seem coarse, aside from the exaggerated allure of their clothes and faces. Their hair was prettily styled, and though she had steeled herself to withstand the sort of odors to be expected from a place that employed desperate women to fulfill the desires of men, she smelled nothing but the sorts of floral scents favored by society women. She frowned.
    A group of three women moved closer to her as they cleared a space for a couple who had started dancing the waltz. Here, at last, was something she might use to discourage the girls, because the dancing prostitute, whose pretty lips and softly rounded jaw suggested she was about twenty-five, was dancing with a fat, balding man of at least sixty. She might even have been Nancy, though because of the mask, Eliza couldn’t have said for certain.
    As the couple passed near Eliza, she was startled to see that the man was Lord Renfrew, a prominent judge. Renfrew was a nice man married to a very nice woman. What on earth was he doing in this place?
    What he was doing, apparently, was enjoying himself. He was smiling at his partner, and the woman had curled her hand over Renfrew’s shoulder in what looked like affection. But how could it be? She was being exploited.
    The three women standing on the other side of Eliza’s plant laughed.
    “Millie will keep him busy tonight,” said one of them, a brunette with full, painted lips.
    “Oh, be serious, Daniela,” said one of the others, a blond whose petite nose peeked pertly from the bottom of her mask. “You know Renfrew just wants to talk and rub her feet.”
    Rub her feet? Eliza nearly burst out laughing. Why would he want to do that?
    But instead of laughing, the three women shook their heads sadly. “The poor, sweet man,” the brunette said. “To think that when his wife told him she wouldn’t lie with him anymore after the spare heir was born fourteen years ago, he just accepted it. All she wants to do anymore is shop. I wouldn’t have their wealth for all the tea in China.”
    “If you had their money, you could have all the tea in China.” They laughed again, and Eliza wondered at them. They were driven by poverty to sell their bodies—how could they be so jolly?
    The blond spoke again. “Look, there’s Steventon.” The three women turned their gazes to the doorway and emitted a collective sigh as a tall, handsome gentleman entered.
    “ He doesn’t need to pay,” the blond said. “I tell you, what that man can do. There’s kissing, and there’s better kissing, and there’s the other kind of kissing.” Husky laughter greeted this comment, and Eliza frowned. The woman was clearly talking about something sexual, but Eliza didn’t know what she