Straightening her spine, Kitty met the rancorous gaze of her brother-in-law. Cold brown eyes, so unlike those of his brother’s gleamed in victory.
Swallowing several times, she willed herself to say the words. “I’ll go?—”
“Madame, no!” A chorus of voices rang out around the ballroom.
The occupants of Pleasure House had slowly crept into the ballroom. Their livelihoods were at stake, after all. With Kitty they could always depend on full bellies and stuffed pockets, but Pierre was unknown to them.
She held up her hand. “Do not fret, I will return.” Kitty shook her head, looking around the room as more and more people entered. “I will never stop fighting for Pleasure House and all of you.”
Kitty took a step but was suddenly stopped by Siegfried. “Madame, allow me to come with you.”
“No, you’re needed here. Besides, I couldn’t possibly steal you from Felton,” she whispered discreetly, squeezing his hand.
Felton was one of her male workers and Siegfried’s lover. She knew that he loved the younger man, and it would be cruel to separate them for her sake.
Beside her, Harrison squeezed her hand, giving her the strength she needed to walk out of the room. With every step she took, her heart broke into tiny pieces. When Kitty had first arrived at Pleasure House, it had been dilapidated, bare, and empty. With her own two hands, she had transformed it into something magnificent, five years after her husband’s death.
She would not give it up so easily.
No matter what.
Hours later, Kitty gazed around her chambers. Everything looked the same—except different. She had called the master’s bedroom her chambers for over eight years; now she was being forced out by an undeserving cretin.
Sitting on the black four poster bed she’d had especially made for herself, she peered around her sanctuary. It was the one place that she could be herself, the one place where the mask of Madame Delcour did not have to always be on. It was the place where her son had died, the room that she’d grieved for him countless days and nights.
It now had an emptiness to it without all the little things that made the room hers. A wooden ballerina, carved by her father for Christmas when she was eight. The painting her sister had given her before she went to London. Two dried and framed roses, they were a gift from Harrison when she was sixteen. All gone, and without those little pieces of her, the room seemed bare.
Harrison had sent for his carriage. All of Kitty’s belongings that she could take with her was being piled into his and Richmore’s.
I’ll return.
It was a phrase that she kept repeating to herself over and over. A phrase that she believed down to her very being.
“Madame, the carriages are packed and ready,” her maid, Jenny, said from the doorway.
Kitty faced the younger woman. Jenny’s red rimmed eyes were filled with tears, a handkerchief pressed to her small nose.
“Jenny, you’re welcome to stay. I won’t ask you to leave everyone you love if you do not wish to.” Kitty gave her a small smile.
Like most occupants of Pleasure House, Jenny’s entire life was at the mansion. The workers were her family. She was engaged to marry one of the footmen, and it would be selfish for Kitty to remove the girl from her home.
“No, Madame I’m going with you. I know we’ll return. I trust no one more than you to keep your word.” Jenny shook her blonde curls, pressing the handkerchief in her hand to her cheeks to stop her tears.
Kitty swallowed down her own emotions. Blinking several times, she willed the tears away, not wanting to cause a scene.
I’ll return.
She repeated the mantra over and over in her mind. This was not the end; it was the start of something new and exciting.
Her eyes roamed around her sanctuary one last time before she walked out of the room and into the empty hallway.
Eagerly gazing around, she fought back the melancholy that threatened to undo her as she willed her feet to move. Her slippers silently tapped against the upholstered carpet as she remembered the history of every object as she passed.
Wallpaper she and Lilias had hung as they worked tirelessly to repair the mansion after Jacques’ death. Vases from Italy that Kitty had flirted a ridiculous low price from the seller, with just a smile. A tapestry from China, and a painting from the Prince Regent himself.
Reaching the stairs, she took them slowly, her fingers teasing the freshly polished wood of the banister. It was the first thing she had repaired when she finally had the funds. It was a grand house and it deserved a spectacular staircase, one that represented what Pleasure House was.
Whispers pulled Kitty out of her reverie, her head snapping up.
