"Will you come back?" Nicolette asked. She had decided that the lady was pretty, even though she didn't smile much. And she was nice. Nicolette wouldn't mind seeing her again, especially if she brought another present.

"I want to. But if your father finds me here, he'll be very angry."

"Do you live in the district?"

"No."

"You work here?"

"No!"

"Then I guess I won't see you again." Nicolette pushed the door open and started to stand.

"May I hug you?" the woman asked. "For your mother?"

"I guess."

She reached for Nicolette and pulled her onto her lap for a hug. Nicolette was surprised at the ferocity of it, but she circled the woman's neck and hugged her back.

"Remember, don't tell your father," the woman whispered. She tucked the locket inside Nicolette's dress so that it wasn't visible.

"I like secrets."

"Goodbye, dearest."

Nicolette slid off the woman's lap and jumped to the ground. She started to run toward the stable yard, but just before she was out of sight, she turned and waved. The woman was still there. Watching.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Nicolette stood on tiptoe in the closet and rested the side of her face against the wall to peer through the hole. As sweat dripped into her eyes, she blinked, but she didn't move. She could feel the lady's locket brushing her chest. She hadn't seen the lady in the carriage again, but the locket was still a secret. She had found a hiding place in her room, a missing chunk of plaster covered by peeling wallpaper. When she was forced to take a bath, or when she was wearing her nightgown, she hid the locket there.

Now it felt cool against her skin, but the rest of her was hotter than a summer afternoon. There was no air stirring in the small s.p.a.ce where she stood, and the heavy folds of Florence's gowns were smothering her.

"See anything yet?" f.a.n.n.y whispered.

"Shhh...." Nicolette squinted to bring the room next door into sharper focus. Most of the rooms at the Magnolia Palace had armoires. A closet, like the one in which she stood, was unusual, and therefore worthy of exploration. f.a.n.n.y had been the first to find the peephole. She had been dusting Flo's room, and she had gone into the closet to put away a corset.

The hole was perfectly round, as if someone had put it there on purpose. It was high over their heads, but the girls had solved that problem by piling hatboxes one on top of the other until they could peek through the hole into Violet's room. Now they were taking turns.

There was a man with Violet. Nicolette could just see him. He wasn't short or tall. His hair wasn't dark or light, but somewhere in between. There wasn't anything interesting about him except the way he leaned back in an upholstered chair and watched while Violet took down her hair.

Nicolette knew that Violet always took her time for this particular man. The other women said that Violet could lure a man into her depths, then close like steel around him until she had wrung out every last drop of pa.s.sion. All in sixty seconds or less. But this man was a regular, and Violet had told Nicolette that he paid her well not to hurry.

Nicolette didn't know exactly what any of the women meant, but she thought maybe she'd learn if she stayed on the hatboxes long enough.

Now she watched as Violet removed the last hairpin. Gold slid over her shoulders and hid her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s from view. It spilled over her back and the sleek curve of her bottom, shimmering as she crossed the room. "Shall I leave my shoes on, Henri?"

"Can you see somethin'?" f.a.n.n.y whispered again.

"Shh... Nothin' to see yet," Nicolette lied.

"f.a.n.n.y..." The sound drifted into the closet, despite the fact that there were two closed doors and a staircase between them and its source.

f.a.n.n.y muttered. "s.h.i.t. My mama's calling. She be coming to look for me, I don't git."

"Better go. She finds you in here, she'll beat you good."

f.a.n.n.y cursed again. Nicolette was jealous of her vocabulary. "You caught, don't go tellin' anybody I was in here," f.a.n.n.y warned. "Tell, and I'll git you."

"You don't go tellin' anybody where I am!"

There was a discreet swish of the closet door, and f.a.n.n.y was gone.

Nicolette returned her attention to the man in Violet's room. She couldn't believe her good fortune. She could see everything, but n.o.body seemed to know she was watching. f.a.n.n.y had searched for the hole on the other side when she dusted Violet's room. It was between two pictures hanging close together. Even though she knew it was on the wall somewhere, it had taken f.a.n.n.y a long time to find it, because of the pattern in the wallpaper.

The man shoved his hand through Violet's hair and took her breast in his hand. She didn't flinch when he squeezed it. "Leave the garters on, too," he said.

"Oui."

Violet wasn't French, but Nicky knew some of the men liked her to pretend that she was. For enough money, she would be anything they wanted. The d.u.c.h.ess was familiar with all the girls in the Basin Street mansions, and she said that Violet, with her baby-doll blue eyes, golden hair and touch of colored blood, suited more customers than almost anyone in the district. The d.u.c.h.ess claimed that the colored blood was for flavor. All her girls had a touch of color for flavor.

Clarence said that the d.u.c.h.ess herself had more than a touch. "Shall I take off your clothes, Henri?" Violet asked.

"Unless you want me to f.u.c.k you with them on."

"This will be better." She slid onto his lap and spread her legs around him. Then she began to undress him. Her hands slid against his skin, and his head slipped back.

More sweat dripped into Nicolette's eyes. The air in the closet, like the rest of Florence's room, smelled terrible, as bad as castor oil tasted. f.a.n.n.y said the smell came from medicine the women used when they washed the men.

As Violet's hands fluttered over the man, he stared at the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

"You smell like a wh.o.r.e," he said. "Like the man who had you last."

"I smell like violets, M'sieu."

"Five-and-dime-store toilet water."

"Perhaps you'd like to give me expensive perfume to wear for you. You have no wife to spend your money on, Henri."

"That's about to change."

Violet's hands stilled for a moment. "Then you won't be coming to see Violet anymore?" Nicolette thought she sounded glad.

"I don't think that's what I said." He leaned forward so that she could slip off his shirt. His hands rested at her waist before they slid to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He cupped them and drew them close together into one hand.

Nicolette heard Violet take a quick, sharp breath.

"Such tiny b.r.e.a.s.t.s for a wh.o.r.e," he said. "I don't know why I bother with you, Vi."

"Because I give you pleasure," she said.

Nicolette frowned. Violet sounded funny. The man was tugging at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Do you like that?"

"Oh, oui. oui." She whimpered, deep in her throat, and Nicolette thought she was lying. The man had hurt her.

"I like to hear you whimper. No woman should forget who controls her."

She unb.u.t.toned his trousers and slid her hands inside. "Henri," she whispered. "Come to my bed."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he asked.

"I'll wash you there."

He tugged her closer. "Tell me how bad you've been this week."

She whimpered louder. "Oh, I've been very, very bad."

He released her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and she sighed. But before she could move away, his hands tangled in her hair, and he began to twist. "Tell me."

"I've...I've slept with other men, Henri."

"And did you like it when you did?"

Her eyes rose to meet his. "No. No, Henri."

"You're a liar." He jerked, and her head snapped back sharply. She cried out as he grazed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with his teeth. "What else did you do?"

"I...I danced naked for money. I'm sorry!" She put her hands on his shoulders. "Please, I'm sorry!"

"Sorry enough?"

"Please..."

Nicolette wanted to run into Violet's room and make the man stop what he was doing, but she knew she wasn't big enough. Worse, she knew n.o.body else would stop him, either, because the man had paid to do this, and the d.u.c.h.ess always said that the men should get what they paid for. No matter what it was.

More sweat poured down her forehead, and her stomach began to roll. She had thought it would be fun to watch Violet, more fun than it had been to listen through the door. But now she wished that f.a.n.n.y had never found the peephole.

"Show me how sorry you are, Vi," Henri said. He yanked her hair again, then released it. Violet slipped off his lap, and he let her go. Nicolette felt a moment of hope; then he stood, and his trousers slid to the floor. He let Violet lead him to the bed.

Nicolette couldn't seem to stop watching, no matter how sick she felt. She knew what a man looked like. She had seen men in various states of undress in the halls. Once a naked man had run after her when she opened a parlor door early in the morning and found him on the floor with one of the maids.

But this man was different. His man-thing pointed straight at Violet, like one of the nightsticks the policemen who patrolled the district used to break up fights. Nicolette knew that his man-thing was a weapon, too, and that Henri was going to hurt Violet with it.

Violet washed him, and the smell of the disinfectant seeped through the peephole and nearly choked Nicolette. Violet took her time, murmuring in a voice so low that Nicolette couldn't hear her. When she was finished, she lay down beside him in her little-girl shoes, her stockings and garters. She didn't move toward him. She waited for him, wide-eyed and apprehensive.

He stretched out over her, pressing down on her shoulders so that she would remain still. "Don't play the wh.o.r.e for me," he said. "Don't move, and don't pretend. I plan to take as long as I want, and when I'm finished, I might start all over again. Do you understand?"

Violet nodded, gnawing nervously at her bottom lip.

"You're nothing," he said. "A vessel to catch my seed. You exist to give me pleasure, and not for any other reason."

But as Nicolette watched, she didn't think that the man really took any pleasure from what he was doing to Violet. He didn't smile, and he didn't make any noise. He moved up and down on top of her like he wanted to force all the breath out of her body. And when he was finished, he threaded her hair through his fingers so that she couldn't escape and fell asleep.

Violet, trapped by her own golden hair, lay quietly beside him and stared at the ceiling. Nicolette watched her for a while, just to make sure she was all right. Violet didn't cry. She just stared at the ceiling, like there was something there she wanted to see.

That evening, Nicolette bathed and struggled into her prettiest dress, then slipped the locket around her neck again. She wished Violet was around to help her with the b.u.t.tons, but Violet still hadn't come downstairs. Her father was gone, and she guessed he wouldn't be coming back that night. If she had expected Mr. Rafe to return, the d.u.c.h.ess wouldn't have told Nicolette that she could listen to Clarence play.

The d.u.c.h.ess didn't like Nicolette, but she didn't mind having her in the parlor sometimes. She said the men behaved more like gentlemen when she was around, and some of them were particularly fond of little girls. Tonight she had promised Nicolette that she could serve wine and keep whatever coins the men gave her. In only a few months it would be Christmas, and Nicolette was saving to buy Clarence and Violet presents.

Clarence was playing the piano when she skipped into the dogwood parlor. It was a fine piano of l.u.s.trous dark wood, with almost all the ivory still on the keys. There was a mechanical piano in the Azalea parlor. A man could feed it two bits if he wanted music. But the Azalea parlor was where the newest girls entertained, and the men the d.u.c.h.ess seated there didn't deserve a professor of their own. The d.u.c.h.ess could tell by looking at a man which parlor he belonged in.

Clarence didn't approve of her being in the parlor when the gentlemen were there, so she said nothing to him, slinking past the piano as quickly as possible. Two men were seated on plush green chairs beside the stained-gla.s.s windows. Dora and Emma sat with them, and Maggie, who had just been moved up from the Azalea parlor, was wandering the room, twitching her hips as she went from fireplace to window. Nicolette saw one of the men eyeing Maggie, and she knew he wouldn't be downstairs for long.

"Please, gen'lmen," she said, just the way Violet had taught her, "may I get you some wine? Or mebbe champagne?"

One of the men laughed. He was tall, with whiskers all over his face. "What have we here?" he asked. "A baby wh.o.r.e?"

"Hush." Auburn-haired Emma looked down her elegant nose at him. She was very good at looking down her nose at gentlemen-she claimed some of them came especially for that. "Come here, Nicolette, and meet our callers."

Nicolette moved closer. She wasn't sure about the man with the whiskers, but the other one looked nice. She was glad that neither of them was the man she had seen with Violet earlier. "We have Mumm's Extra Dry," she said. "Only the best."

Both men laughed, and the one without whiskers ordered a bottle. When she came back, Maggie took it and poured it into gla.s.ses on a table by the door. Nicolette brought the men their gla.s.ses first. She knew that what Maggie served the women would be mostly water.

The man with the whiskers held out a dollar when she handed him his gla.s.s. "Give me a kiss, sugar, and I'll give you this."

"You be careful with her," Emma warned.

"A kiss on the cheek," he said.

Nicolette thought that was a fair swap. She kissed his cheek. His whiskers were soft, but not unpleasant; then he turned his head before she could pull away and kissed her hard on the lips. She jumped back, and everyone roared with laughter.

Nicolette narrowed her eyes. "Two dollars," she said, holding out her hand. They laughed harder. "I mean it!" she said, stamping her foot. "Two dollars!"

The man reached in his pocket and pulled out another dollar bill. "You're worth the price, sugar," he said.

She decided she liked him. She took the money and stuffed it down her dress, like she'd seen the women in the house do. "I can sing. Do you wanna hear me sing?"