Dancing in Red (a Wear Black novella) Read online

  SHE HAS BIGGER DREAMS THAN THE CURRAGH

  Nellie Clifton isn’t going to spend her life as a “wren,” one of the prostitutes serving the soldiers on the desolate plains of the Curragh outside Kildare, Ireland.

  THE PRINCE OF WALES IS HER ESCAPE PLAN

  Nellie is going to make something of herself, and to do so, she has a plan: she is going to be the mistress of Queen Victoria's son, Prince Albert—but if he is a mistake, she needs another escape plan.

  HER LIFE IS GOING TO CHANGE IN WAYS SHE COULD NEVER HAVE EXPECTED

  Nellie Clifton: Well on her way to becoming a legend, instead of just a footnote in history.

  DANCING IN RED

  By Eilis Flynn

  and

  Heather Hiestand

  DANCING IN RED

  By Eilis Flynn & Heather Hiestand

  Amazon Edition

  Copyright 2013 Eilis Flynn & Heather Hiestand

  ASIN:

  Cover art by David Hiestand

  No portion of this book may be used without the author’s written permission, except for excerpts used in reviews of this story.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to our long-suffering families

  Amazon Edition

  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: The Prettiest Wren

  Chapter Two: The Perfect Mistress

  Chapter Three: Riches to Rags

  About The Authors

  More Stories

  Coming Up Next

  Chapter One: The Prettiest Wren

  July 27, 1861 Kildare, Ireland

  “It is rather ironic. He has all the money in the world. Everyone wants to meet him, yet, despite the charm, he’s the most inexperienced lad you’ll ever meet.” The next sentence out of the soldier’s mouth disappeared as he pulled his stool closer to the table.

  Look at me! Nellie Clifton wanted to shout to the subaltern. If there was a new soldier with wealth and charm, she wanted to meet him. She hadn’t come to the Curragh intending to settle in for the rest of her life. Most of the girls here lasted less than a decade. The smarter ones came just for the summer, leaving before the snows covered the plain. That way, the experience felt like more of a lark and less like work.

  “I can’t imagine how Her Majesty thinks he’s going to be able to command a battalion by August. Why, I couldn’t do it,” said another subaltern, who looked a couple of years younger than the first one who’d spoken. This lad hadn’t even tried to grow a mustache. “Could you, Mills?”

  At the lad’s words, Nellie discarded her intention of displaying herself to the rest of the room. Higher-ranking officers were dotted around the tables near the empty fireplace in the pub’s main room, but these youngling’s aristocratic drawls had her attention piqued.

  “He’s the Prince of Wales, not an ordinary man,” said Mills. He lifted his arm and waved a hand at Mairead, demanding another round.

  It seemed all the action in the room slowed as Nellie heard that comment. Sure, she’d heard rumors that the prince had been at the Curragh since last month, but no one had seen him. They said he was kept busy with dinners and study. He never came out to the pubs, shops, or the wrens’ nests bordering the camp. She made her move as the barmaid arrived with a fresh pitcher, swinging her hips under her thin cotton gown. If she could land a prince as her protector, perhaps she could earn enough to keep her young sister Dulsine from this life. Her parents, back in Dublin, had been making noises that they couldn’t afford to keep the girl in school anymore.

  Mairead, one front tooth missing and with a slight limp, gave Nellie a dirty look for not rushing in, and grabbed the empty pitcher, leaving a nimbus of slopped ale, before walking toward her next patron. He’d just spilled his ale entirely. The girl was too religious to offer her favors to soldiers, but wasn’t Christian enough to wish well to the girls who made different decisions. But Nellie hadn’t wanted to reach for the pitcher and then walk away with it. She wanted a chat.

  She pulled a vial of Irish Patent Cleaner from her apron pocket and let one drop fall on the subalterns’ table, then gave it a swipe with her rag. The substance dissolved the ale, leaving a vaguely lemonish scent in the air for a moment before it vanished as quickly as the puddle. The influenza that was running through other parts of Britain had supposedly started in Ireland, and she wasn’t going to let any of these young soldiers get sick. She had a living to earn, and using the various concoctions and gadgets that were getting so much notoriety for their effectiveness would make sure that the pub kept its reputation for cleanliness.

  Nellie, after all, had plans. She didn’t want to be a barmaid any more than she wanted to be a wren. Well, you did what you had to. “Hello, boys,” she said in her naturally low-pitched voice. She let her thick curly black hair slide down one arm, provocatively.

  “And who might you be?” the younger subaltern said, with an unfocused grin.

  She noted his voice had started to slur ever so slightly. Cocking her hip, she folded her arms under her breasts, plumping them up. “Nellie. I’m an actress.”

  “Shakespeare, I assume,” said the older one, still sober. He smirked knowingly.

  She forced a light laugh and half turned, allowing her starched petticoat to bell out gracefully. “There weren’t any good roles for me in Dublin this summer, so I thought I would see what was going on here. I do love officers.”

  “We haven’t any use for women of talent here, just those of easy virtue.” The subaltern waggled his eyebrows.

  The younger man giggled and drank down half his mug. Making her decision, Nellie boldly dropped into the lap of the older one and lifted his mug to her lips.

  “I’m not going to go with any common man,” she said. “I’m better than that.”

  “You are, are you? I think you’re a wren, just like any of them.”

  She forced her expression to remain alluring. “You’d be wrong. I know things.”

  “You do?” he laughed.

  “I have a specialty,” she murmured, tilting the mug to his face and helping him to drink down a healthy swig of the beer.

  He nuzzled her neck but she batted him away. He frowned. “What’s your specialty, lass? We can go out back after I’ve finished the pitcher. I have a few coins in my pocket. More than you’re used to.”

  “No,” she said, feigning offense. “I specialize in…initiations.” She would have to this time, as she was a virgin herself.

  The subaltern narrowed his eyes, then drank down his glass, and slammed it on the table.

  The younger subaltern unsteadily poured out the rest of the pitcher, overflowing both glasses. He stood to hand over the glass, making a lewd gesture as he did so. “We don’t need any initiations around here. Fully ini-init-sexed here.”

  Dear God in Heaven. She gave him a disapproving stare, one that always kept her younger siblings in line. Though he was likely older than her just-turned-nineteen, he stopped gyrating and seated himself again.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m in need of that sort of help,” said Mills, shifting underneath her weight. She felt him harden slightly under her bottom.

  She grabbed the glass from him after he’d finished half of it and took a healthy gulp herself. “No, but it sounds like you have a friend who does. I’ll be happy to help you out. Prices reasonable.” She held out her palm.

  “Nothing of the sort, not without a sample.” He leaned toward her, his mustache tickl
ing her cheek.

  She tapped his cheek, laughing lightly. How did the others do this day after day? “I don’t give anything away for free. I don’t need to.” Big talk. Thankfully, the beer kept her empty stomach from rumbling.

  “She’s pretty enough,” said the younger one, his bleary eyes assessing her. She assessed right back, making sure her smile was friendly. From what she’d heard, some of these boys were just as likely to hit her as bed her if they were offended. “Be a lark to sneak her into Bertie’s bed, see what he does with her.”

  Mills sniffed her neck. “Smells clean. Don’t want you passing anything unsavory to our future king.”

  “I’m cleaner than you!” she said indignantly. That was for sure, since she made sure she had a bath as often as she could, but from a single whiff of this bunch, she could tell that wasn’t the case for them. “I’ve just come down from Dublin. I told you that.”

  “I don’t know if I’m drunk enough to risk the general’s wrath,” the other man said, belching and coughing. He wiped his nose. “You going to make this worth the risk?”

  She stared at him. Men had all the power. What risk was he taking? She risked disease, pregnancy, the ire of the Catholic Church. Her only weapon was charm.

  And she knew how to use it. She ran her fingertips down his arm. “You know the prince is going to like me, my lad,” she said with a wink, glancing at the men around the table. “After I blow his mind with pleasure, I’m sure you’ll find him grateful.”

  Two more subalterns joined them around the table, fresh from adventuring into another pub. They discussed their favorite wren loudly, making Nellie’s cheeks pink with embarrassment. Hard to believe these were the apple of the nation, that was for sure. Another pitcher was ordered and she was given a share.

  In for a penny, in for a pound. If nothing else, she couldn’t trust any of these drunken hoity toits to be clean after a night of pub-hopping. They had money, they had connections, they had breeding. They just had no common sense, no manners, and they couldn’t keep their parts in their pants. And it wasn’t just the English soldiers, because the Irish lads she’d met had pretty much the same problems. Idjits all.

  “I am someone not to be forgotten,” she said with a demure smile, widening her eyes just a little to emphasize her words. Their attention had been wandering away from the matter of her work, and more important, her price. “Fit for a…king, even.”

  There, she’d said it. She smiled a little more, making sure her dimples were visible. Men loved those.

  “Bertie’s due for a break,” Mills said, tilting his head and trying to judge the time. But then he’d been drinking so long that he had probably lost track. She said nothing, of course.

  “He needs one, that’s for sure,” the youngest of them muttered.

  That did it for the drunken louts. “Bertie’s due for a break!” the drunkest subaltern repeated, shouting at the top of his lungs, slapping his hand down. Then, having had quite enough, his head dropped straight onto the table and smacked the wood smartly. Before anyone had the chance to even worry about his health, however, he started to snore, and so thereafter the others went back to their conversation. The heart of the English nobility.

  “I think—when he goes to eat. And when he comes back, he’ll find her in his bed,” Mills, the only one among them still able to think, suggested. He glanced at Nellie, who made a point of not looking at him, instead casting her eyes downward and keeping a slight smile on her face. She was getting bored of their dithering, but she wanted this chance. She needed it for herself, for Dulsine, for her younger siblings. So she fluttered her eyelashes and looked to the side and forced herself to wait, dreaming of what a prince could do for her. A house, servants, a carriage, pretty dresses to dance in, even.

  “Yes!” the subaltern still awake said. He tried to drink his beer and when he realized his mug was empty, he slumped back in his chair.

  The only one awake before too long was Mills, and he seemed to be remarkably sober. Nellie suspected he played the drunkard more often than he truly drank. “So what do you think?” he finally asked, a glint in his eye. “Ready now? You’re going to be introduced to a great man, the son of the queen.”

  She smiled for the last time and straightened her back, making sure her assets were there to be admired. “I am indeed,” she said. “And I am worth every shilling.” She named her price and was pleased to see Mills didn’t object too much.

  In the end, Nellie and the man came to terms, so when he crossed her palm with coin, she accepted it and her new career was launched. She would have felt sorry for it, but she knew what she needed to do. Her future, and her sister’s, could be made this night. The man roused one of his friends for accompaniment, and the three of them headed toward Prince Albert’s quarters to change her life, the older, sober man virtually carrying the dead-drunk subaltern as Nellie walked beside them. She felt as though she were being escorted to her execution, and there was some truth to that. Comfort lay in having the men walk with her, since there were rumors of odd-looking creatures that had been seen on the roads at dusk and at night. Almost human, or maybe not. No reports of injury or death, but…odd creatures.

  In any case, she was deemed clean enough, so she let down her hair and stripped naked as the man and his sozzled companion watched and leered. She crawled into the prince’s bed, to rest with linens softer and more sumptuous than she had ever felt. If only for that the pact might have been worth it, but it didn’t much matter by then.

  The warmth and ease and her hunger was enough to send her into a doze, so she didn’t hear the men leave. Later, her eyes fluttered open when she heard men’s voices, becoming louder and louder until she heard the door open.

  It was time. She shook her head to clear her senses, she shaped her hair so it was less flat from sleep, and so, leaning on an elbow and facing the entry, she smiled in welcome. “Good evening, my prince,” she said as the slight young man with fluffy, pale hair came forward, his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Your fellow soldiers thought it was time you had a break from your studies. Don’t you agree?”

  With that she twitched her shoulder so that the coverlet fell, revealing her breast. He came forward quickly, so he certainly had to agree.

  A dry August had turned the roads to dust and the plains to a golden hue. Around the camps, the wrens fluttered in their nests, the branches creaking and cracking without rain to keep them moist. Nellie found dirt everywhere she looked in the hut she shared with Moira. The floor would not stay packed down in this unusual heat. They wetted it down with creek water twice a day and sprayed it with Irish Patented Dusting Fluid, but still the hems of their few good dresses, hung at the highest point of the wall, were stained soil brown. She had funds with which to clean them as she had squirreled away some of the coins the prince had given her, burying them in a handkerchief under two willow trees that had grown across each other in the shape of a cross, but she had to live on the rest. If the subalterns didn’t come for her soon she’d have to find a lesser protector, now that she’d left her position as a barmaid in order to be available for the prince. Another protector wouldn’t do. No one else would have those soft sheets, those melting, newborn calves’ eyes, his inborn nobility, or his higher life purpose.

  The prince was nearly a child, it turned out, but a handsome one, and not that bright. She knew she’d been his first. And his second, and his third, during the four hours she’d spent in his bed. He’d seemed mindblown by the pleasure she’d introduced to him. She couldn’t help the sense of fondness that crept into her thoughts when she remembered. But a week had gone by and nothing. Did he think any wren would wring such ecstasy from him? No, she’d always had a talent for men and their pleasures, discovered at age fourteen when a farmer in the croft east of her parents had shoved her hands down his trousers and forced her to touch him intimately.

  He’d been the aggressor the first time, but after that he’d been little more than a beggar for her favors. In the
end he’d paid for the cloth in the dress she’d worn to meet the prince. She wondered how she’d held onto her virginity for so long, but it had been for this, to give it to the prince and make her way in the world. Her parents had been wrong to object to her coming here, since they had had little else to suggest.

  She’d thought she’d known what to expect in the prince’s bed. But truth be told, she’d still been more innocent than she’d realized, more surprised by the sensation of intercourse, than she’d expected. The excitement of bedding the prince had made it painless enough, though. His own meager talents would not have been up to the task of making it pleasurable. He hadn’t even quite known where to put it in.

  His bottom sheet had come untucked during their tussling and she’d managed to kick it to the floor and then hide it under her skirt when she left. Is that why she hadn’t been invited back? Because she’d taken it? Only to hide the evidence of her shame, though she had to admit that once she’d washed the stains out in the creek it made a fine bed for her in Moira’s nest.

  But that was a week ago. Nellie kicked the dust from her shoes as she ducked out of the nest and set off for the pub where the officers spent time. Not just any wren was allowed inside, just the freshest, prettiest ones. As she walked down the lane, careful not to dislodge any pebbles that might stir up dirt, she debated how long she should wait before offering her favors to another man. She must be practical, despite her daydreams. Her sister’s future depended on her choices now. Her instincts told her to wait until she had her next courses. That way, if she found out she were pregnant, she’d know it was by the prince and that would change her life.

  Not that this was her goal—anything but. No, she wanted out of Ireland. The prince wouldn’t stay here long. That suited her fine and she wanted him to take her with him. A mistress en titre would have a fine life. Surely the queen, in her forties and worn out from childbearing, would be dead within five years. Then Nellie’s life would truly begin, even though Bertie would, of course, marry another royal. But Nellie would be the fun one, feted at balls and other entertainment. The prince would confide in her. She might even be able to influence policies toward Ireland. The queen hated the Irish, but her son did not.