Florence had known how the preparations would proceed.  She would have her hair brushed and pinned and sprayed and spritzed; her dress fitted and laced; her veil tacked gently into place; her lips carmined and cheeks rouged and lashes mascara’d; scent applied, jewels clipped on, feet daintily shod.

She had known how the wedding would proceed.  Up the aisle to the Bridal Chorus from Wagner’s Lohengrin, avoid looking at Hunter-Fox for as long as possible, vows, rings, pronunciation of Man And Wife, kiss (a shudder passed through her slight frame of either fear of anticipation), sign the register, some singing and suchlike, a procession, lots of congratulations and bellringing and Mendelssohn.

She had even known more or less how the Reception would proceed.  A feast she would not be able to stomach, a desire to drink too much champagne (though her groom had kept a close eye on her alcohol consumption throughout the banquet), a hypocritical speech from her father and some German fellow Hunter-Fox had roped in as Best Man, heaps of insincere congratulations and an overarching dread of the party coming to an end.  She had not predicted her pleasurable, slightly squirmy flashbacks to the kiss in church, nor Lord Hunter-Fox’s perfect gentlemanliness and near-affectionate demeanour as he sat at her side.  Many times he took her hand and held it close, with no further intention than checking that the ring was truly on her finger and had not disappeared along with her.  He seemed truly…happy.

But now the time had come for her to enter into the nebulous hours after the Reception, and this was the moment on which all her fears of the day had centred.  This was where her ability to mentally organise and rationalise the day’s events disappeared and events slipped catastrophically beyond her control.  What on earth happened next?  She had tried asking her mother, but a faint, “Oh, my poor dear, how we women suffer,” had been the unsatisfactory outcome of her queries.  Exactly the same remark she recalled from mention of the onset of her monthlies at thirteen.

At nine o’clock, the men had moved through to one of the drawing rooms, while an unsmiling maidservant had come forward and offered to help her undress and make ready for bed.

Following her up the stairs, Florence could feel her chest tighten with every step, her bridal train shushing on the cold marble behind her.  The maid carried a candle, even though Hunter-Fox seemed to have the latest electrical lighting installed, and the shadow of herself on the wall was fascinating to her eyes; the silhouette of a reluctant bride, like something from an illustration in a Gothic horror novel.

“I’ll help you undress, Ma’am, and then I shall run a sponge bath before dressing for bed.  I have laid out your night things on the wicker chair.”

Florence squinted around the room into which she had been shown; it was very large for a bedroom, and decorated to a decidedly masculine taste, in greens and golds.  The bed was a high four-poster, and Florence shivered at the sight of the drawn-back covers, waiting for her…but not her alone.

The maid seemed little given to conversation, for which Florence was quite relieved, for she knew she would have gibbered like an idiot if pressed.  Instead she unlaced, unhooked, unpinned with deft precision, folding the wedding garments over her arm once her mistress was down to underclothes, and announcing her intention of putting them away and fetching a basin of warm water and a sponge.

While she waited, Florence sat heavily on the dressing-table stool, looking about her at the pictures on the wall.  There were some patches of lighter wallpaper, in oval and rectangular shapes, where pictures had presumably been taken down.  With an internal gasp, she realised that they were probably portraits of the first Lady Hunter-Fox, a woman about whom she still knew almost nothing.  Her husband had done this all before.  At least he might know the form, even if she did not.

The grim-faced maid returned and wordlessly stood by as Florence removed her underclothes prior to a sponge bath and the anointing of her arms and legs with some kind of scented balm.  Then she was helped into the nightgown from her trousseau – the special nightgown, all frills and froth, that felt like a whisper against her skin.

“Is there anything else you would like me to do for you, my Lady?” asked the girl, folding the towel and picking up the basin ready for her exit.

“No, just…what is your name?  Shall you be my regular maidservant?”

“My name is Ada, and no, I believe his Lordship will be hiring somebody especially for that position.  Will that be all, Ma’am?”

“Oh…yes…I suppose so.  Goodnight.”

Florence trudged around the bed, noting the paisley pattern of the counterpane, running a hand along the smooth, cold silk.  She supposed there was nothing for it now but to wait.  Should she wait in bed?  Or might she sit in the basket chair and read a book.  But the only book in the room was a Bible on the nightstand, and she really did not feel in the correct frame of mind for spiritual instruction.

All the same, she could hardly just lie there, stiff as a board, clenching her stomach in anticipation of his footfall on the stair, his hand on the doorknob…

She grabbed the Bible and scooted under the bedclothes, opening the book at the passage in Corinthians that had been running through her mind all day.  Love.  What was it?

The Bible called it charity, but her mother had always told her it was about love.  So did she and could she feel it?

“Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

Florence knitted her brow, puzzled.  Really, this sounded nothing like the way she had felt for Alex, and had precious little to do with the way she felt about anything or anyone.  Did this mean she could not love?  Long-suffering and kind were certainly not epithets often applied to her.  Yet if she came to love Lord Hunter-Fox, then she would be able to bear anything, apparently.

But what if he put his hands on her body?  Could she bear that?  How would he touch her?  She put the book down and crossed her legs, feeling her stomach and breasts through the sheer ruffles on her gown.  They felt so warm, so soft, and so pure.  Perhaps she could pretend to sleep?  Yes, that’s what she could do.

She reached for the Bible, preparing to replace it on the nightstand and burrow beneath the covers, but it was too late.

The doorknob was turning.  Lord Hunter-Fox had arrived to claim his conjugal rights.

If there was one feature of the Life Of Vice that Molly found quite acceptable, it was the implicit permission to rise late of a morning.  In the workhouse, and later in service, she had been accustomed to rising at five or earlier, to help set the great kitchen ranges and fireplaces alight, and to go to the market early for the best of the day’s produce.

But now, she and Tilly staggered out of bed just in time for Tilly to dress and grab a pie from the street hawker outside on the way to an afternoon rehearsal or matinée performance.  As for Molly, she was free to mooch around town until the late hours of the evening.

The concept of free time had taken Molly a little while to adapt to, but now that spring was in full swing, she found she could fritter away entire afternoons wandering through Hyde Park or window shopping in Regent Street.  Wonderful, enormous temples of commerce were to be found all over London, and Molly’s very favourite pastime was to visit Whiteleys in Westbourne Grove and marvel at the Aladdin’s Cave of treasures within.

She was on her way there on this particular April Saturday, fancying that she might buy herself a new pair of gloves with the previous evening’s takings, and wondering if her funds might stretch to calfskin and pearl buttons, when her progress was detained by a large crowd outside the church on Eaton Square.

“Oh!  A wedding!” she exclaimed, joining the throng and standing on tiptoes in the hope of seeing the bride.  It seemed it must be a swanky Society affair, for there appeared to be reporters and sketchers from the newspapers in attendance, not to mention a great many enormous feathered hats swaying up the steps and inside.  “It is a lovely day for a wedding,” she mentioned to the woman standing beside her.  “Such sunshine; I’ll say it’s a good omen.”

“I’d think it was a good omen to be marrying a man with ‘is fortune!” laughed her neighbour.  “Good for over a million quid, so they say.”

“Lawks!” exclaimed Molly.  “That’s more’n I can imagine.  Bride won’t want for nothing then.”

“I suppose.  Oh, here she is now.”

A carriage, surprisingly discreet for such a grand affair, pulled up at the kerb, and several footmen jostled the crowd back to make way for their passengers.

Molly squealed with shocked incomprehension when the first person out of the cab was her erstwhile lover, Sir Rupert.  Was he getting married?  How could it be?

Her wits returned when she saw that he was helping somebody else out of the carriage – a huge frothy fountain of tulle and sparkling gemstones – it could only be…

“Florence!”

“Is that ‘er name?” asked Molly’s companion indifferently.

Molly stared for a while at the vision of her former coldhearted mistress, pale beneath her antique lace veil and corseted so tightly that she seemed almost waistless.

“So…excuse me, but I never realised Alex had that much money to his name!”

The woman frowned.  “Alex who?  Or is that his first name?  I thought it was Robert, though – that’s what it said in the papers.  Lord Robert Hunter-Fox.”

“NO!” gasped Molly, staring.

“What’s come over you?  Are you at the right wedding?”

“I…just don’t understand.”  Molly’s eyes watched Florence process slowly up the steps, leaning on her father’s arm as if she would stagger and fall without his support.  “I don’t understand at all.”  She stood there staring long after Florence and Sir Rupert had entered the church, long after the bride and groom had left, long after the bells had finished pealing, long after the knots of well wishers and nosy parkers had melted away and all that remained of the occasion was rice mixed with the fallen blossom from the cherry trees on the pavement.

Leaning back on Vyvyan’s lap, her head lolling on his shoulder, Jessie knew that she was showing a lot of leg to the diners in the café, but she did not care.  Truth be known, neither did they.  They were very pleased to have the sight of a long white limb with a frilled green garter at the top to accompany their coq au vin.

Joining the lovers in their louche repast were Walter and Mary – the artist playing a game of trying to hand-feed his redhaired Irish colleen.

“Janey Mac, Walter, I’m not a child, now.  I can feed meself,” she complained, but she giggled as he homed on for a quick kiss.

“The resemblance between you two is very odd,” remarked Vyvyan, not for the first time.  “You could be her younger sister.”

“Well, perhaps if I had an iota of Irish blood in my veins,” retorted Jessie.  “But I don’t.”  She yawned and stretched langorously, lifting her face to Vyvyan’s for a long garlic and red wine scented kiss.  “Oh, darling, I haven’t told you all the gossip.  Alex is in prison.”

Vyvyan spilt a splash of wine on the checkered tablecloth in his shock.  “Jess!  Surely not?  Why?”

“Trespass and attempted burglary, though he wasn’t trying to steal anything.  Apart from Miss Florence Smythson.”

“Oh, is he still after her?  I thought that bird had flown.”

“Well, she has.  She is marrying Lord Hunter-Fox.”

“Curiouser and curiouser.  But for how long will Alex be incarcerated?”

“I’ve no idea, I’m afraid.  I fled from the scene of the crime, leaving him to the tender mercies of the Peelers.  I suppose he might have been let off, but I can’t see Smythson or Hunter-Fox seeing the amusing side and agreeing to let bygones be bygones.”

“But, good God, Jessie, we can’t sit here drinking wine and perfecting our Gallic accents while Alex languishes!  We must go back and help him in whichever way we can.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose,” sighed Jessie dubiously.  “I confess I had no further thought on my mind than finding you, my love.  I have not been a good friend to Alex.”

“Then you and I must both make our amends to him.  Let us go to the harbour tonight and charter a boat.”

“’Scuse us, I’m away to powder me nose!” brayed Mary,  half-staggering to the loos.

“Did I hear you say you were setting sail for Dover tonight?” asked Walter smoothly.

“We should.  Do you know Alex Winterton?”

“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure…”

“A dear friend of ours in London.  It seems he has run into some trouble.”

“Is a lady implicated?”

“Of course,” chuckled Vyvyan.

“Listen, old fellow, I don’t suppose you could do me an enormous favour, could you?  Take Mary back with you.  She’s been terrific fun these past weeks, but I must confess her charms are beginning to pall.  Look, here’s fifty pounds.  Pop her on the boat and set her free in London with the cash.  Tell you what, I’ll go to another bar now.  Tell her I’ve…gone back to see my wife.”

“But you’re not married!” exclaimed Jess.

“Actually,” said Walter with a rueful smile, “I am.  Good evening, dear, delighted to have met you!”

And with that, Walter made a swift exit from the bar, leaving Jessie and Vyvyan to stare incredulously at one another.

White linens, lace petticoats, stoppered crystal jars, pair after pair of cambric drawers.

Florence sat back on her heels, staring at the almost-complete trousseau in the big oak chest.  These were the things she would need for life as a married woman.

A married woman.  Lady Hunter-Fox.

Shivering dread engulfed her whenever she thought of it, unreal as it still seemed – but mixed with the dread was another kind of shivering, a little akin to excitement.  When she thought of his name she envisaged his tall, straight frame and that keen look in his eye, reinterpreted now from disgust to lust – a translation that made all the difference to her view of him.

Now as the day of her wedding crept ever closer, she imagined herself as a trembling little furry creature stalked by a tiger; feeling the heat and focus of his possessive intent, knowing that there could be no escape.  Of course, she knew she was unlikely to be rent limb from limb and devoured.  But her foggy preconceptions of what marriage entailed rendered the prospect no less terrifying.

There would be touching.  At least perhaps she would be able to keep on her nightgown; nothing could be more mortifying than to have to expose one’s naked body, and it would be cruel to demand it of her.  But would he want children?  And how did a child come to land in one’s stomach?  What did all this entail?  When a man ‘lay with’ a woman, what exactly did it mean?

Feeling sick and faint again, Florence essayed a complete banishment of these thoughts, and wandered over to her window to look out at the Square.  The blossom was full and bright on the trees; ladies were dressing in a rainbow of colours instead of the winter drabs now.  Soon it would be Easter.  Soon she would be a Lady.

The money earned for the night, Molly and Tilly treated themselves to the dregs of the bottle of red wine their client had brought over before retiring to bed.

“Here, let me unlace you, love,” invited Tilly, scooting up behind Molly and setting to work on her stays.  “Such skin you have.  I’d kill for skin like yours.”

“Oh, well, you know, yours is lovely too,” offered Molly, embarrassed by the compliment and slightly uneasy at Tilly’s continuing nearness.

“Oh no, mine is awful.  But yours feels so soft, softer than down.”  Tilly ran a hand slowly down Molly’s back to her coccyx, leaning in to take a deep draught of her hair.  “And you always smell so gorgeous too.  All that washing, I daresay.  I might take a leaf from your book, though that fancy soap doesn’t come cheap.”

Molly simulated a vast yawning fit, burrowing under the covers in her camisole and drawers.  “I’m half asleep already,” she said.  “That wine makes me drowsy.”

“It doesn’t have that effect on me,” said Tilly, eyes narrowed.  “It makes me feel…all loose and gay.”

Molly grunted and feigned sleep until Tilly, sighing, climbed in beside her.

Her eyes screwed tightly shut, Molly waited for the inevitable.  She heard Tilly blow out the candle, heard the bedsprings creak beneath her shifting body.  Slowly, very slowly, fraction by fraction, minute by minute, the thinner girl moved closer until Molly felt her pressed to her back.  Then the fingers, the stroking fingers, lightly over her hip.  Then the lips against her neck, the nose snuffling in her unpinned hair.  Finally, the arm around her, under her breasts, exploring and feeling their weight.

This was the nightly ritual now.  Perhaps it was for warmth or comfort, but Molly could not help but wonder how or where it might end.

Jessie had never seen a sight more welcome than the coast of France, distantly blurry at first, like one of those Impressionist paintings Vyvyan was always on about, then sharpening into focus under the bleached early Spring sun as it rose.

She had spent the entirety of the previous day and night hanging over the side of the boat, heaving and sobbing and cursing the day Vyvyan Stanford set his sights over the Channel.  It was said that the course of true love never did run smooth, but surely it did not have to run as rough as this.

“Will you be all right, lovely?” asked the skipper, still concerned at her ghastly greenish pallor when he set her on to the jetty at Dieppe.

Jessie pulled her shawl tighter, doubling over in an effort to settle her stomach, but it was not easy in the keen wind of the early morning.

“I shall be perfectly fine,” she assured him weakly.  “When I have some tea and a little broth inside me.”

The skipper belly-laughed.  “You won’t find a drop of tea in Dieppe, sweetheart.  These Frenchies are coffee drinkers.  And they like sweet pastries in the morning.  Don’t hold with it myself.”

“Oh.  Thank you.  I wish I’d learned some French, but it was never taught at the Board School.  No matter – my friend speaks the language perfectly well.  I’m sure he will translate for me.  Goodbye.”  Her last word was spoken with firm emphasis, her spine straight once more.  She could feel the sickness receding and her confidence returning.  She might be a stranger in a strange land, but she would be all right.  She always knew that she would be all right.

The skipper doffed his cap and disappeared back into the cabin.  It was not often he got to transport a mysterious beauty across the Channel, and he was keen to get back to the crew and discuss her.

Jessie walked through curious knots of Gallic fishermen, breathing in the strong tobacco that blended with the smell of the morning’s catch until she arrived at the quayside.  She scurried around the railway station and found herself in the town.  Hearteningly, it seemed quite a small place.  If she could find somebody who spoke English, surely someone would have seen Vyvyan.  He was noticeable enough, after all.  But who should she ask?

A bar and tobacconist on the corner was open for breakfast, serving a motley array of fishermen and costers seeking refreshment after a hard early shift.  Jessie hesitated at the door.  It did not look quite reputable and the men had all swivelled around to regard her with hard, hungry eyes.  No, perhaps not here after all.  She turned and flitted along the cobbles, looking for something more promising.

A hotel stood on the far corner.  Now this might be promising.  Buoyed by the thought that Vyvyan could be sleeping beyond one of the windows looking down at her, she entered the lobby.  They might even speak English, if this was a coastal town dealing with tourists from overseas.

She hurried up to the polished walnut reception desk, where a disdainful-looking man sat sorting through the morning newspapers.

“Bonjour, madame, puis-je vous aider?”

Jessie coughed.  “Oh…sorry,” she floundered.  “Anglaise.”

The man stared.  Jessie ploughed onwards.  “Vyvyan Stanford!” she said, over-enunciating every syllable, as if talking to a deaf person.  “Er, mossoo Stanford.  Artist.  Arteeeeste.  Er…oui?”  She gestured broadly at the lobby, hoping her intention would be correctly construed.

The man shook his head, frowning.  “Je pense que non,” he said, looking severely back down at his newspapers.

A disconsolate Jessie trudged back towards the door.  A man in tweeds with pale ginger hair was leaning against the wall, watching her.  She refused to look at him, but as she drew level he leaned towards her and said, “What business do you have with Vyvyan Stanford?”

She gasped and whipped around to face him.  “You know him?”

“Yes, I know him.  I know where he is staying as well.  As luck would have it, I am meeting him for breakfast.”

“Oh!  Please take me to him!  I’ve been all day and night on the boat and I’m starving and I’ve been missing him so much and…”

“Steady on, old girl.”  The man smiled.  “I’d wager good money that you are the Jessie he has been sighing and mooning over.  Am I right?”

Jessie laughed, a little hysterical with the weight of her relief.

He proffered a hand for her to shake.  “I’m Walter.  Stanford and I were at school together.”

“Gosh.”  Jessie was stunned, trotting down the stairs after him.  “And he is not staying here at the hotel with you?”

“Oh, no.  Well, he is staying with me.  But not at that hotel.  I’m not staying there either.”

“So…what were you doing..?”

Walter looked sheepishly at her and coughed.  “Actually, I was following you.  From behind, you look awfully like a young lady friend of mine, who is supposed to be meeting me at the restaurant with Stanford.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.  You and Mary are like peas in a pod.  Your Stanford was bowled over by the resemblance as well.”

“How curious.”

“Yes.  But I daresay your looks are all you have in common.  I gather from Stanford that you are a singer and a dreamer of dreams.  Little Mary is just an Irish tart from the backstreets.  A very pretty one though.”

Now they had reached another of the bars that seemed to populate every street corner of this harbour town.  Jessie’s breathing grew shallow and the seasickness made a jolting return.  Vyvyan was here.  Oh God, would he cast her off?  She did not think she could bear it if he did.

They walked through a beaded curtain into a half-lit den of red leather booths.  Thick plumes of tobacco smoke rose into a curling fog; even at this time of the morning there were men taking a pastis or a glass of beer.

“Ah!  There they are.”  Walter navigated them into a corner.  “You’ll never guess who I’ve bumped into, Stanford.”

Vyvyan looked up from the conversation he’d been having with a redheaded girl – Mary, presumably – and Jessie’s heart leapt to see the transfiguration of his face.  His eyes burned and his lips quivered.

“Oh, Jess,” he whispered.  “You have come to me.  Excuse me, Sickert, Mary.”

He swarmed out of the booth and held Jessie by the elbows, gazing deeply into her as if to establish her corporeal substance.  “It is really you.”

“Darling,” cooed Jessie, her fingers tracing the lines of his face.  “I could not live without you.”

“Come on.”  Vyvyan took her by the hand and whirled her out of the bar.  They ran, stumbling and laughing over the cobbles, back towards the quayside, their cheeks stinging and flushed in the clear, cold air, until they reached a rambling square dockside house, shuttered in green.

Vyvyan dragged Jessie through the passageway and up the first flight of stairs, into the front bedroom.  It was a large, square room containing only a disarranged bed and an easel, with all Vyvyan’s temporary belongings strewn over the floor.

“Oh God, Jessie,” he proclaimed, flinging her on to the bed.  “I’ve been such a fool.  Such an immortal fool.   Can you ever forgive me?”

“Only you,” said Jessie, pulling him down beside her.  “Nobody but you.”  She twisted on to her hip to face him, seizing his ponytail and using it to guide him down into a rapturous, ravenous kiss of reunion.  They squeezed and pinched and yanked and tugged at each other; his hands on her breasts, her hands on his bottom, sneaking under layers and between buttons.  Scarves and waistcoats piled up at the side of the bed.

“So many petticoats,” moaned Vyvyan, unearthing yet another frothy lace barrier to the object of his lusts.  “What are they all for?”

“I might as well ask why a gentleman must have so many buttons?” giggled Jessie, finally triumphant against the placket of Vyvyan’s trousers.

Now there were fingers in hair, between thighs, around stiffening rods while their tongues competed in their own arena; there was shifting and jerking, stroking and spreading, and then finally they were conjoined.

Jessie’s legs, still booted, kicked in the air either side of her lover’s hips, while he plunged back and forth with trousers lowered to his knees.  She pulled the ribbon in his hair so that it tumbled loose, brushing her neck and face and breasts where he had ripped the top of her camisole.  Jessie revelled in his familiar weight and warmth, the perfect fit of his John Thomas and her Lady Jane, two of a kind, forever.

Even in the extremity of his passion, Vyvyan never stinted on the pleasure he gave his lover, reaching a hand down to rub at her clitoris while she gasped and wriggled beneath him.  Together they hit their ecstatic peak, crying out in unison before subsiding again into the blissful lovelit aftermath.

“O, never leave me again,” sighed Jessie, basking in the safety of his arms.

“My Jessie, my Savoy angel,” he murmured in response.