Page 13 of A Courtesan Countess Worth the Scandal
“No, but—”
“Then I don’t want to eat it, and I shouldn’t have to. Mrs. Moston should pity me because I’m blind, not torture me with hot plant water,” she jumped in before Nora could finish, giggling to herself.
While some might have mourned the loss of their eyesight, Lily Black used it as a comical weapon, and occasionally as a means of persuading her sister and mother to humor her. At three-and-ten, she was a feisty, perpetually cheerful young girl, who would not allow something like blindness to stop her from doing what she wanted.
“You’re a rare sort of lunatic, aren’t you?” Nora teased, placing a gentle kiss on Lily’s forehead.
The young girl beamed from ear to ear. “The rarest. No physician can diagnose me because I have them laughing out of the door.”
Born blind, Lily was the main reason that Nora had taken the path in life that had led her to her current employ. Sacrificing her innocence, and selling her charms, she had done it all so her little sister would never have to want for anything. Indeed, they would not have had this house, and the comforts it provided, if Nora had not met her first client.
How many courtesans can say they have a drawing room, and a luxurious residence on the edge of Mayfair?
It was not a point of pride, exactly, for Nora, but she did not regret the things that her employment purchased and offered. Without the fortunes, and gifts, and trinkets, and garments of her admirers, the Black family would be destitute. Not only that, but so many more would be in a state of suffering.
“You should hurry back up to your bedchamber before Ma catches you,” Nora warned, loath to say goodnight to her little sister.
Lily pouted. “I will, if you promise we can go to the orphanage tomorrow?”
“It might be later in the day, depending on how I sleep, but that sounds like a fair exchange to me.” Nora bent to kiss both of her sister’s cheeks, before ushering her off toward the staircase.
How does she do it?
Nora watched her sister climb the stairs as though she could see perfectly, one hand shuffling up the banister. After spending much of her life in this house, Lily knew it by heart. She could recite how many steps there were between any point in the house and another, know exactly when Mrs. Moston’s pies were done, and call out that the mail had arrived before it had even been delivered.
But the sight that Nora enjoyed best of all was seeing her sister playing with the children at the Roberts Orphanage… the place where Nora funneled a great deal of her earnings, to help improve the lives of the children.
“Were you talking to someone?” Her mother emerged from the hallway behind the staircase, carrying a tray, and peered upward suspiciously. But Lily had already disappeared from view.
Nora shook her head. “I was just thinking out loud that we should replace that painting.” She gestured to an ugly landscape, painted in drab colors, that was supposed to show the Lake District. “What do you think?”
Her mother sniffed. “I think we’ve got other things to be buyin’ before we replace that.”
Together, they headed back into the drawing room, where they sat down in their respective armchairs. Nora stretched out her legs and let the fire warm them, feeling her tight muscles unfurl like flowers on a spring morning.
“Are you goin’ to tell me what the whisky’s for?” Her mother passed the tray over to her, but not before taking a small snifter of the brown liquor for herself. “Did you get hurt again? I told you to keep a knife on you, but you’ll not listen to your old Ma.”
Nora cast her a disapproving look. “What, you’d have me put in Newgate for accidentally killing a client instead?”
“Ah, you’re always so dramatic. You’d not kill anyone; they just might bleed a bit.” Her mother sipped on her whisky, while Nora held hers up to the firelight and stared at the mesmerizing amber tones.
After a minute, Nora sank back into the armchair. “It took a turn tonight,” she admitted, before regaling her mother with the story of Lord Westleigh and his unexpected temper. “I reckon I’d be the one bleeding if that man hadn’t cut in to defend me.”
Lord Keswick… that was his name. I’ll not forget it in a hurry.
“I always told you not to trust any man. They might look nice enough, but they’ll all whip around and bite you, given the chance.” Her mother tutted under her breath. “It’s why you never rely on a man for anythin’ in this world. They’ll only disappoint you.”
Nora squinted at her mother. “You realize that’s exactly what I do, don’t you? We wouldn’t have any of this if I didn’t rely on men.”
“Aye, well, at least you ain’t workin’ on the seam for it. That’s all I can say.” Her mother liked to bring out that pearl of wisdom at every opportunity, whether it related to the conversation or not.
Mary Black, now five-and-forty, had spent most of her life as a seamstress, working all hours that God gave for very little in return.
“Don’t you ever let me catch you there!” she would always bleat when Nora was younger. “I don’t care what you do, so long as it’s not that. It’s inhumane, is what it is! You’re to find us a way out of our class, d’you hear? I didn’t push you into his world, wailin’ and warblin’, so you could end up like me.”
Between her mother’s work on the seam and her father’s work as a watchmaker, Nora’s childhood had not been so unpleasant… until she reached the age of seven and her father just walked out one day and never came back. And so began her mother’s hatred and distrust of men, from that day on, which she had dutifully passed on.
After that, it had just been her and her mother, trying to scrape a living however they could. Sometimes, when they had no coin for rent, they would sleep in alleyways in the freezing cold, their stomachs gnawing with hunger. Then, when Lily unexpectedly came along some eight years later, to an unknown father, it had been a blessing and a curse. Having an extra mouth to feed was hard enough, but taking care of a blind child had almost destroyed their mother.
