An Angel for the Earl by Bárbara Metzger Page A

bills and closets full of frippery waistcoats and such? I’m going to hell in two weeks and you’re going to the tailor?”
    â€œCertes, my dear, I need to be fitted for a strait-jacket.”

Chapter Six
    After spending the evening tracking down one creditor after another through all the clubs and gambling parlors of London, Lord Stanford sank into a contented sleep. A few hours later, unhappily, he awoke to an embarrassing dampness in his sheets for the first time in years.
    A woman. He needed a woman, was all. Once the stress and strain of all those debts was lifted from his mind, his body had reasserted its own needs. He hadn’t kept a regular mistress since Claudine, last year, and hadn’t even partaken of the offerings of widows or wandering wives in months. Even those free spirits expected a show of gratitude his finances did not permit. Hell, in the past weeks a hasty doorway coupling with a Haymarket whore was above his touch, if not beneath his dignity.
That’s
why he was seeing visions of half-naked women all the time, awake and asleep. Relieved to have a satisfactory explanation, Kerry got up and pulled on his clothes.
    Fortnam’s Mimi might still be available and in need of consolation, he thought. But demireps like Mimi expected to be treated like ladies. One didn’t call without an appointment, especially at three in the morning. He could always go down to Covent Garden and pick up a streetwalker. They were out all night. But who knew what else he might pick up there?
    So Lil’s place it would be. The girls were clean, the sheets were fresh, and Lil’s cellar was superb—not that he meant to overindulge. Never again, once he started hallucinating.
    Lil gave him an effusive welcome. Of course she did, word having spread through town that the dashing young earl was flush in the pocket again. In fact, tonight’s surge of business could be credited to his account, what with at least three or four of his former note-holders spreading his rhino at Lil’s.
    â€œAnd lucky money I heard, too. The best kind, my lord. May Lady Luck stay looking over your shoulder, dearie, as long as one of my girls is sitting on your lap!” And she cackled so loudly, the bruiser by the front door came charging into the parlor. Lil dismissed the bully with one beringed hand. “So what’s your pleasure tonight, my lord? Being so late and all, a lot of the girls is already in bed. Asleep, that is.” She laughed again. “They’d be more’n happy to have you wake ’em, I’m sure, if you don’t see what you want down here.”
    Kerry was already looking over the sleepy-eyed girls in the gilt-and-fringe-decorated parlor. They looked tired and pale despite the painted smiles trying to win his attention. He chided himself for being disappointed. What did he expect at Lil’s, some pink-cheeked charmer with dewy eyes?
    â€œI was, uh, hoping for a redhead,” he heard himself saying. “Young, but, ah…”
    â€œBosomy?” Lil didn’t go into this business yesterday. “I have just the girl for you. She’s new and eager to please. You go on up with our Sally here. I’ll send Lucille along in just a minute or two.”
    Lucille? Kerry gave the maid Sally a coin, but she couldn’t tell him anything about the girl, she was that new. He hung his jacket over the back of the small room’s only chair, then started pacing. Not even noticing the faded wallpaper or the patched quilt on the bed, he paced until the door opened, then shut behind his lady of the evening.
    Lucille. She was eager, all right, eager to tear him apart with her long, blood-red fingernails. Kerry’d heard of someone being so mad they smoked; he used to think it was a figure of speech.
    Putrid fumes and fiery sparks billowed out of Lucy’s mouth, nose, and ears. Red flames glittered in her green eyes.
    â€œUh, jealous, my pet?”