A Precious Jewel Read Free

exactly as I ask.”
    “But it is my job and my pleasure to please you, sir,” she said.
    “I will be visiting you again,” he said, one hand on the knob of the door.
    “I shall look forward to it,” she said.
    He almost believed her as he let himself out of the room, so warm was her smile. She was a good actress as well as being very good at her profession.
    He tapped on Kit’s door.
    “Ah,” she said after summoning him inside. She set aside her book and removed the spectacles she was wearing. “You decided to stay, then, Sir Gerald? I thought you would once you had seen Prissy.”
    “I want her again,” he said, “in three days’ time. Is she much in demand?”
    “Indeed she is,” Miss Blythe said. “Almost all of her clients return and become regulars. You were fortunate that one of them was out of town this evening.”
    “Yes,” he said. “Three days’ time?”
    She drew an appointment book toward her from a table at her elbow. “Four is the best I can do, I am afraid, Sir Gerald,” she said. “Of course, Sonia will be free.”
    “Four days will do,” he said. “The usual time?”
    “I shall record it,” she said. “I am glad that Prissy pleased you so well, Sir Gerald.”
    “Good night, ma’am,” he said. He nodded to her and took his leave.
    He did not, as he usually did when he left Kit’s, go to White’s in search of a card game and congenial company. He returned to his bachelor rooms and wasin bed before midnight. He had a relaxed feeling of well-being and thought he would sleep well without the drugs of liquor and cards and male conversation until the early hours of the morning. He was not normally a good sleeper.
    M ISS K ATHERINE B LYTHE had eight girls working for her, all carefully chosen and well-trained—trained not only to provide the essential physical services, but also to do it in an atmosphere of some refinement. Her girls were young ladies who entertained gentlemen in order to earn a living. That fact was always the main focus of the very first lesson.
    Not all gentlemen were allowed to visit. Miss Blythe had a personal interview with each of her girls every morning and listened to a report on the previous day’s dealings. Any gentleman who was deemed unsuitable to the gentility of her establishment was denied further admittance. There were strict rules about what was allowed and what was not allowed in her house.
    Each of her girls was allowed no more than three clients each day, and none was to stay for longer than one hour. A full half hour after each left was to be spent by each girl carefully cleansing herself. No gentleman ever acquired a disease from one of Miss Blythe’s girls. And only rarely did one of her girls get with child. When it did happen, the girl concernedwas roundly scolded for carelessness and then sent away and well looked after during her confinement. The child was found adoptive parents who would bring it up well.
    Girls who had chosen prostitution as a profession coveted a place in Miss Blythe’s finishing school, as she liked to call it. There was no more desirable place in London to work.
    Priscilla Wentworth had been given one of those places with no trouble at all. And Miss Blythe had never made any secret of the fact that she was a favorite
—the
favorite.
    “Sit down, dear,” she said when Priscilla came for her morning interview the day after Sir Gerald Stapleton’s visit. “Let me pour you some tea.”
    “Thank you, Miss Blythe.” Priscilla crossed the room to take the cup and saucer from her employer’s hand and seated herself on a chair beside the fire. “It is still chilly this morning, though the air is marvelously fresh.”
    “You went for an early walk as usual, then?” Miss Blythe asked. “I hope you dressed warmly, Priscilla, and that you did not go alone?”
    Priscilla smiled. “After hearing your opinion of Sonia yesterday,” she said, “I would not have dared to go out without my winter cloak. And I