The River of No Return Bee Ridgway (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📖

“Stop pretending to be a prude, because I know for a fact that you are not. Who spied on the stable hands as they washed themselves, then broke her arm falling out of the hayloft because she leaned out to get a clear view of Martinson’s you-know-what?”

“His cock,” Julia muttered. “You taught me that word, Arabella Falcott. Now who’s the prude?” She sniffed. “Martinson didn’t have anything worth looking at, let me tell you.”

“Ha! Indeed. Welcome back to yourself, Julia Percy. This is exactly the sort of conversation we have had every day since we were thirteen years old.”

“We are not thirteen now.”

“No,” Bella said, “we certainly are not. That is why we must talk about these things without blushing.” She fixed Julia with a serious gaze. “It means ‘half the world,’ you know.”

“What does?”

“Demimonde.”

Julia stopped, bringing her friend to a standstill. “But of course it does. I never thought of that before. How remarkable. Half the world.”

They had now walked back around to the Gunter’s side of Berkeley Square. Carriages were lined up outside the shop, and gentlemen were procuring ices for ladies, then leaning against the park railings and chatting with one another while the ladies ate without alighting. “Look at them,” Bella said.

Julia looked. She began to see that each woman ate her ice differently. Some scraped the ice onto their spoons, others scooped it. Some took big bites, some little. Some allowed the relish they had for the treat to show on their faces, others appeared bored or even disgusted. Quite a number of them, she realized with a start, must have ordered their ice to match their gowns. “People can’t help but look ridiculous while they are eating,” she said.

Her friend looked at her blankly for a moment and then started laughing. “Oh, Julia.”

“What?”

“You are watching them eat.”

“Well, of course I am. Look at all the flavors I have yet to try.”

“Do you know what I see when I look?”

“You are probably looking at the gentlemen.”

“Not at all.” Bella gestured at the scene as if she were discussing a painting in a gallery. “Look at that lovely woman in pink, with the high-poke bonnet.”

“I see her.”

“Is any other woman looking at her? Now look at that beautiful creature in the dark blue spencer. Are any other women looking in her direction?”

Julia began to follow the eyes of all the females eating ices. A woman’s eyes slid unseeingly over one lady, to alight happily upon another. Waves and greetings were exchanged between two ladies across the body of another woman who stared straight ahead, as if she were alone on a mountaintop. “Oh,” Julia said. Suddenly her vision cleared and she could see, as if a veil had been lifted. All the women were eating ices, but only some women were acknowledged to exist, while others were subtly . . . spurned. Made invisible. Except that Julia could see them. It was like magic.

“Yes,” Bella said. “Half the world. Now you can see it.”

Julia looked at her friend with awe and something like pride. “How did you work it out? Surely your mother didn’t . . .”

Bella snorted. “My mother thinks a girl should reach her wedding night as ignorant as a fluffy duckling.”

“I know. Remember when she had the brass to tell a pair of sixteen-year-old girls that she had found all three of her children in cabbages?”

“How could I forget? And when you asked her to describe harvesting cabbage babies, she revealed that it is a dangerous matter, because apparently cabbages grow in trees.”

“I love your mother,” Julia said, “but her innocence—of vegetable life—is truly amazing.” The smile faded from her lips. “I’ve missed you, Bella.”

Bella pressed her hand. “I know. When we marry we most likely will not see one another from one end of the year to the next. We shall simply have to find husbands with neighboring estates. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”

They walked on in silence for a moment. Physical distance hadn’t been what Julia meant when she said she’d missed Bella. Neighboring estates wouldn’t mend the rift that now yawned between them. They could talk about men and sex and prostitutes until the cows came home. But time, and Grandfather, and the problem of being the Talisman . . . the problem of Blackdown and the Russian and the mysterious tribe they were hunting . . .

Pretend, Grandfather had said. Tell no one.

Julia felt the warmth of her friend’s arm tucked against her side. The arm felt sturdy, and her friend was true. But Bella, London, this day . . . it was all light and shadow. She could trust no one.

As they came again to the corner graced by the Falcott town house, Bella spoke. “I shall have to introduce you to a friend of mine. I met her on one of my walks. She showed me what I showed you today.”

“Is she a prostitute?”

Bella dropped her voice. “Of course not. But she believes in education. Of all kinds.”

“I am beginning to believe in education myself,” Julia said. She looked into Bella’s eyes and wished her friend could read her mind. “Thank you,” she said. “You have taught me something today.”

“You are most welcome,” Bella replied. “Now—shall we go home to Mother?”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Nick had indeed been with the Duke of Kirklaw the previous night. The butler had delivered a note at midday; “White’s tonight—Kirklaw.” Nick had groaned, crumpled the note, and tossed it back onto the silver salver. Back in America, his friends were ambivalent at best about their high school reunions, and now Nick knew why. The thought of going to his father’s club and strolling down memory lane with three dozen Georgian Tories—he would rather eat ground glass. But like his American friends, who once a decade found themselves traveling to their hometowns in order to compare weight gain and hair loss with people they had never intended to see again, Nick realized around dinnertime that his steps were carrying him toward the grand building in Mayfair.

Before he even mounted the stairs he was hailed by the bow-window set, including Beau