Silk and Shadows(22)

She scrutinized his face, as if wondering if he were some kind of spy, before finally nodding. "If that's what you want, sir. But promise you won't tell her?" She was surprisingly well-spoken, though the sound of the London slums was in her voice.

"I promise." Casually Peregrine folded his arms across his chest, wanting to look unthreatening so the girl would talk more freely. "Do you play the role of tender virgin very often?"

"Aye, two, three times a week," she said matter-of-factly. "I expect you know how it's done—vinegar steam for tightness, then a bit of sponge soaked in blood. Most men never know the difference, especially if you twitch and cry enough."

"What's your name?"

"She calls me Jennifer, but I was Jenny Miller at home."

"Were you stolen from your family?"

Jenny shook her head. "Sometimes they snatch a girl off the streets, but mostly it's not necessary, since girls can be bought so cheap. My pa sold me for five pounds. Mrs. Kent said that's the most she's ever paid, but she thought I was pretty, worth keeping and using over and over."

"Are most of the girls professional virgins like you?"

"No, there are only two others like me. The real virgins are usually girls who agree to come here just once and do it for a guinea, or their parents sell them for the one night. Some men with a clap think a virgin will cure them, so they usually get girls like that, ones who won't be staying. She says it would be bad for business if her regulars were diseased." Jenny was beginning to relax, the tension going out of her small body. "Sometimes she sends in men who like a girl who looks young but is 'old in sin.' Doing that is more work than playing virgin."

"How long have you been in the house?"

Jenny shrugged her slim shoulders. "Years—three or four maybe. She keeps a record to make sure that the same man doesn't get me more than once. There was bloody hell to pay one time when she made a mistake, till she convinced the gent I was the younger sister of the first one he'd had."

In three or four years, at perhaps fifty guineas per episode, Mrs. Kent must have made a fortune off the child. "How old are you now, Jenny?"

"Seventeen, I think. Maybe eighteen."

"Really?" he said in surprise. "You look much younger.''

"Aye, that's why I'm so valuable," she replied with acid humor. "But it gets harder and harder for me to look like a little girl, even with clothes like these. I'm afraid that soon I'll be sent to a regular house, where I'll have to do more men in an evening than I do now in a week. That'll be hard."

Peregrine could see that under the shift, her body was more that of a woman than a child. Even beribboned gowns would not disguise her much longer.

His mouth tightened. A prostitute could earn much more than a shop girl or mill worker, and for some women prostitution was a brief, profitable interlude before they moved on to more respectable lives. But for a girl who was virtually a slave, the future was bleak. He wondered if Jenny thought the security of being cared for was worth the price she had to pay. "Would you be allowed to leave if you wanted to?"

"Not bloody likely," she said bitterly. "Even if I could escape, I've nowhere to go. Won't go home, the only reason Pap didn't use me himself was because he knew I was worth more untouched. Working the streets is worse than this, and going into service can be pretty bad. My older sister was a housemaid, worked fifteen hours a day, and every man there had his way with her as well, till she died trying to get rid of a babe."

Obviously leaving was a topic Jenny had considered, and with an impressive degree of common sense. "Is there something you would rather do if you could have your wish?"

Her delicate face became wistful. "I've always thought it'd be nice to be a lady's maid. They get to work with pretty things, and they're important belowstairs, not like a housemaid. I'd like to work for a lady who was young and fashionable, and who would give me her gowns when she was done with them. Maybe someday I'd marry a handsome footman."

She thought a moment, then added vehemently. "One that doesn't drink like Pap."

Her eyes met his, eagerness lighting up the clear blue depths. "Why are you asking? Do you want me for a mistress? I'd be a good one, I know everything a man likes. Or... or I can be a virgin every night if that's what you fancy."

"I'm not looking for a mistress, and if I was, I prefer women who look like women, not children," he said curtly, irritated at himself for inadvertently giving her ideas when he had only been indulging his curiosity.

Jenny's small face was a painful mixture of hope and pleading. "Please? I swear you'll not regret it."