THE FIRST MONTH after Jerome’s death, she missed his eyes most of all. How they lit up when he saw her, and how they sparkled when she said his name. She missed the way they flashed beneath his brow when he was boxing, like they could lash a man with just reflected light.

  As the months bled to a year, she missed the things she’d never liked.

  Jerome’s whiskers floating in the washing bowl in a scum of frothy soap. His heavy snoring, his taste for mutton, the way he raised his voice loud enough to wake the house next door the few times that they’d quarreled.

  What she’d give to wake her neighbors one more time.

  As the months somehow lingered on, she craved his smell, which no longer lingered on his clothes or pillow—a second death.

  She missed awareness of his body, and her own. The feeling of his gaze on her when she was washing, his hands loosening her stays. She missed the shiver of the chilly sheets when he pressed her down into the mattress. The way he’d come home proud and sweaty from a win at boxing and take her up against the parlor wall, leaving love marks on her neck.

  She missed her husband’s cock. The taste of it upon her lips as his hands pressed her down to take it deeper in her throat. The way he said her name

  — Anne, my Anne—as he pinned her wrists above her head until she squirmed and begged.

  She missed the days when she did not notice other men when she went marketing.

  She missed the innocence she’d had before she’d learned that grief could slowly fade.

  And that she was still here, a body. A woman.

  Wanting.

  ***

  “YOU’RE LONESOME,” SHE told herself as the endless spring thawed into summer.

  But when she saw the couples she and Jerome had socialized with, she felt more alone.

  For company, she bought a spaniel she named Molly.

  She walked her to the market every morning, marveling at how the pup was friendly in a way that Anne had never been. Her dog was eager to meet strangers, and especially liked men.

  Or perhaps, in her way, she knew that Anne did.

  Molly flirted with the bearded fishmonger, who fed her bits of salted herring while Anne kept her gaze upon her shoes.

  Molly greeted the thick-thighed baker with a firm thump of her tail and exulted when he scratched behind her ears, while Anne avoided his hand when he made change.

  Molly rolled onto her back, beseeching belly rubs from the red-haired candlemaker—who always rolled his shirtsleeves up before indulging her, revealing golden hairs along his forearms—while Anne inspected beeswax like she’d never seen a candle in her life.

  But Molly’s favorite gentleman was the man who read the papers on the bench in the park along the square. The pup trotted toward him every morning with a bark of recognition, and strained against her leash until Anne gave up and let her run to sniff his polished boots.

  He nodded at Anne each morning, his eyes bright and kind and filled with amusement at the antics of her dog. She nodded back, for there was nothing else to do except seem rude.

  He began to bring small morsels in his pockets for his canine friend, who fell ever more resplendently in love. Anne hung back as he fawned over her pup, not wanting to get too close, to hear his voice, to speak to him.

  But she could not help but notice he was the kind of man who sat with ease, long-limbed, more elegant than the vendors at the market. He had a sloping nose and a sly mouth. But it was his eyes that grabbed her. So blue, so warm, set off by dark brows that seemed to speak a language all their own.

  She tried not to look forward to those five minutes every morning when she and Molly stopped to see him. She tried not to think about his long fingers and the freckles on his cheekbones. Not to meet those eyes, though they pulled at hers, soft and beckoning it seemed, though no doubt she was imagining it. Not to feel the pinpricks rising on her skin, giving her away, if only to herself.

  She desired every man she encountered in the market. But she especially wanted him.

  She wanted him as badly as she could not—must not—want him.

  For what would it leave of Jerome, if others filled his bed? If another touched his wife in the way that only he had?

  And who else could ever sense, the way Jerome had known innately, the helpless, private, desperate way she needed to be taken?

  ***

  THE LONG SUMMER turned to winter without much of an autumn, making the

  mornings sharp and bitter. Her walks with Molly shortened with the days. It was too cold for strolling, as Anne’s coat was thin and frayed.

  She’d not bought any gowns or garments since Jerome, for who would look at her now besides herself? But she missed the lovely feeling of a new, fine, pretty thing. And Jerome, having had no heirs, had left her well looked after—

  the owner of the boxing school he’d built.

  She could afford nice things, if she let herself indulge. And soon it would be Christmas. If she could not treat Jerome with little luxuries, she would treat herself.

  The week before, she’d noticed a striking coat in the window of a mantua maker. It was a shade of green like a forest after rain—the exact color of Anne’s eyes, which Jerome had always called her finest feature. The coat was like a mantle from the wardrobe of a royal witch. It cinched tightly at the waist and swept out around the hips, cascading into ample skirts in a style far too dramatic for Anne’s needs or station.

  But she loved it. Every time she passed it by, she gasped.

  And so one afternoon she put on her finest dress—still pretty, but frayed now at the cuffs and hem, for she’d been too glum to mend it with fresh lace—and set off for the shop.

  The door said Valeria Parc, Mantua Maker, and the brass plate was so finely filigreed that she almost lost the nerve to knock. A young lady in an apron more beautiful than anything in Anne’s attire opened the door.

  She stared at Anne without a note of welcome.

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, good day,” Anne said. “I hoped to buy a coat.”

  The girl looked askance at the drab, threadbare one Anne shivered in.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, I’m afraid I didn’t know one was required. I’ve admired that coat in the window, you see, and…”

  She was losing the nerve to go on. She didn’t really need that coat, and it had been foolish to think of herself in it, when her life was confined to market walks and books and ledgers. She’d look absurd in such a thing, and she felt her cheeks flame at her own vanity.

  “Apologies, I must have—“

  “Lisette,” a sharp voice said from behind the curtain. A woman with a cascade of jet-black hair and eyes the color of that coat—the color of Anne’s eyes—appeared in a red gown made of slashing angles.

  “No need for rudeness,” the woman murmured to the girl in an accent that sounded continental. “And that silk hasn’t the capacity to cut itself, I think.

  Allez. ” She tossed her chin, shooing the girl inside the shop.

  The woman, who must be Madame Parc, scanned Anne’s person from her hairline to her shoes, and Anne was once again consumed with the desire to shrink away. But the woman’s beckoned Anne toward the coat on the dummy doll inside the window box.

  “It’s meant for you, is it not? This very one.”

  The woman idly lifted a finger and traced a crimson nail along the curve of Anne’s waist. Anne shivered, and hoped the woman didn’t notice.

  “You have the figure of the model who stood for the sample.” Her hands moved down and framed Anne’s breasts, as though she was inspecting a grouse to see how many it would feed.

  The way she posed Anne to her liking reminded Anne of Jerome.

  “Lisette will take it up an inch and you can wear it out. Come.”

  “Oh, I wondered at the cost—“

  “Expensive. Ruinously.”

  Anne did not know what sum ruinously expensive might add up to, but she regretted having put herself in the position of having to demur if it was far too dear.

  Madame Parc reached up and tilted up Anne’s chin before she could say a word. “But you must have it.”

  “Oh but—“

  “You have the eyes for it,” Madame Parc went on. “My eyes. I bought the fabric for myself and made the sample from the remnants. Small, because there was not much left over. I am greedy.”

  Madame Parc took her by the wrist. Anne froze. No one had touched her there since—

  “Come in. You’ll buy a gown or two from me, moins chères, and you’ll leave with the coat. Who else will it flatter? And when you are stopped in the street, you will say it is a Valeria Parc, and others will come to buy one of their own. A payment of another kind.”

  Within minutes, Anne was being measured by Lisette as Madame Parc looked sternly on, speaking to her seamstress with her eyes. She chose two fabrics and two patterns for Anne without brooking much discussion and named a price that, though it made Anne gasp, was well within her means.

  “Bring the coat, Lisette. I’ll fit it to her myself.”

  Anne inhaled sharply at the pleasure as the weight of velvet fell around her shoulders. Madame Parc’s hands were all around her, prodding here and there.

  Unlike the girl, Lisette, she did not use a tape to measure, but seemed to do it with her hands alone, her eyes trained on Anne’s reflection in the mirror.

  Madame Parc’s hands paused, and came to rest on her shoulders.

  “You have not been touched in some time,” she observed, meeting Anne’s eye in the reflection.

  Anne straightened, wondering how she had given this away.

  The woman’s thumbs came to rest behind Anne’s neck and found a point that sent a bolt through her—so startling and sudden that she jumped. Her body plumed with something—not lust but awareness of her skin, her limbs, her breathing.

  Madame Parc clearly noticed every trace of Anne’s reaction.

  “And yet you wear a wedding ring.”

  “I’m widowed,” Anne said quietly.

  “And the coat is for a lover?”

  “No,” Anne said quickly.

  Madame Parc’s slashing eyebrows raised in a way that seemed like approval.

  “A pleasure for yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  She reached for Anne’s wrist, rubbing a thumb over her pulse, nodding again. “But you would like a lover.”

  Hearing it aloud made all that longing rush onto the surface of her skin, and she felt the blotches as they bloomed upon her neck. She jerked her wrist away.

  “I couldn’t.”

  “You could,” Madame Parc rejoined, cinching the bodice of the coat so tight against Anne’s ribs it stung.

  “No, my husband…it’s all I have of him. His memory, our—my … loyalty. I couldn’t.”

  Madame Parc paused. Her face, for just a moment, slackened, and she looked at least half a decade older. “I see.”

  Anne sighed, feeling lighter in this moment, under this woman’s hands and eyes, which seemed to understand her.

  “But one can’t live forever without another’s touch,” Madame Parc said in an authoritative tone. She took the sides of the coat’s skirt and pulled them sharply outward, sending pools of fabric swirling along Anne’s legs, like she’d been caught in a sudden wind.

  Madame Parc watched the skirts settle. “Some would say it is too long, but the length suits your figure.”

  Was it wrong to feel disappointed that the conversation had turned to hem length? Well, no matter. Madame Parc was right; the silhouette, with its impractical, long skirts was stunning. She felt like she was looking at, if not a different woman than herself, a more intriguing one. A woman with a life more

  colorful than the one Anne had been leading since she lost Jerome.

  “Et voilà,” Madame Parc said, stepping away with a nod. “Shall I have Lisette call you a carriage?”

  “No, thank you,” Anne murmured, still gazing at her reflection in the mirror.

  “I think I’ll walk.”

  Lisette appeared with Anne’s hat and gloves.

  “Take her address, for the delivery,” Madame Parc said to Lisette over her shoulder. She disappeared through a doorway.

  Anne recited it to the girl, who wrinkled her nose at the name of the street, north of anywhere considered fashionable.

  “Thank you,” Anne said, moving toward the door.

  “One moment,” Madam Parc commanded, striding back into the room. She held a piece of paper embossed with the same scrollwork from the placard on the door.

  “There is a place for you,” she said in a low voice. “You can be had any way you wish. Any way you wish.”

  Anne looked into the woman’s eyes, certain she had misunderstood.

  “I…forgive me, but—”

  Madame Parc gently shook her head. She pressed the card into Anne’s palm, letting her fingers linger there. “You understand, I think.”

  In truth, Anne thought she did. The chatter in the boxing club exchanged by sweaty men ran spirited, or worse. She knew of brothels. But she’d never heard of a lady setting foot in one, nor of a man plying such a trade. She would never

  —

  “An elegant establishment. Very discreet. You needn’t know his name, or even see his face without a mask. You will tell the mistress what you require, and it will be so. Expensive. But it will soothe you.”

  Anne found her fingers closing around the card.

  Madame Parc nodded briskly, like an apothecary certain she’d dispensed a potent tincture. “You’ll send this card saying I referred you for an appointment.

  They’ll know what it means.”

  Anne said nothing, too shocked to move her lips.

  “You need it,” Madame Parc said, brushing the strip of skin above Anne’s leather glove.

  Without another word she swirled away behind the curtains, leaving Anne alone in her beautiful green coat, her pulse pounding in her wrist.

  ***

  ANNE WALKED HOME quickly, not pausing in the market to admire the holly strung up around the stalls for Christmas, or inhale the festive scent of spiced wine and roasting chestnuts. The swirling of the coat, so luxurious inside the shop, scarcely registered now, for her attention was trained on the sharp edge of the card in her pocket as she worried it with her thumb.

  Any way you wish.

  Could she possibly?

  You needn’t know his name, see his face.

  But would it still feel like betrayal? Like another loss?

  You need it.

  The feet that had so ably carried her the hour’s walk across town slipped on something slick, and all at once she was moving in the wrong direction, her boots tripping on her skirts.

  She put her hands out just in time to avoid landing on her face.

  She cried out, more from shock than pain, feeling grit grind through the thin leather of her gloves. She blinked, staring down at an icy paving stone.

  She needed to get up. Her wrists hurt, but were not broken. If she could just collect herself—

  “Are you injured?”

  She looked up toward the stranger’s voice. But it was not a stranger.

  Not entirely, at least.

  The man from the bench—Molly’s greatest bosom friend—was walking quickly toward her, concern in his blue eyes.

  She struggled to right herself, not wishing to seem pathetic, but the long skirts of her coat were caught beneath her boots, making it difficult to right herself on her raw-scraped hands.

  Before she could protest, he knelt down and took her by one wrist, his arm behind her back, and righted her. It was a touch that knew about anatomy and pain, like that of a physician.

  She felt the firmness of his grip lingering on her wrist, the fact that he still touched her as shocking as the fall itself.

  He turned her hands over to inspect her ruined gloves.

  “No sprain, I’d guess,” he said.

  She nodded, trying to clear her head.

  His eyes found hers, forcing her to meet his gaze in a way he never had in their morning salutations. His eyes were like the feeling of hot tea on a cold day.

  “Can you walk?”

  She took a step and nodded.

  “I’ll see you home,” he said.

  “No,” she replied quickly. “No, thank you. I’m quite all right, just clumsy, and I live just around the corner.”

  His shoulders dropped at the dullness of her tone, immediately relenting.

  She almost wished he had insisted.

  “’Til morning, then,” he said, his brow lifting in that subtle way that meant farewell.

  She nodded quickly and turned toward home.

  “And that’s a pretty coat.”

  She did not reply. But before she took a step, she made sure the skirts billowed out behind her feet, so she would not trip. And so, perhaps, she would cut a striking figure as they swirled around her legs, in case he watched her walk away.

  She still ached, but not where her hands had caught her fall.

  At her wrists, where he had touched her.

  As soon as she was inside, she fumbled in her pocket for the card from Madame Parc.

  ***

  THE KEY HAD arrived with a short note.

  23 Charlotte Street. Wednesday noon.

  At the door, a small, stern woman greeted her.

  “Your key?”

  Anne handed her the heavy piece of iron. The girl glanced at the scrollwork at its end.

  “Ah. Mistress Brearley is expecting you,” she said. But she did not open the door.

  Anne shifted on the step, feeling conspicuous. Mary-le-Bone was not a place for respectable ladies to be seen alone. She wished she had not worn her green coat.

  “No speaking in the corridors,” the girl said. “And no wandering about unless you are escorted.”

 

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