Rain finally broke the dry spell of late August but had only made the heat worse. James walked through the streets of London, trying once again as he had every day this past fortnight to forget about her. His desperation to be back in the city had stopped making sense. The nights smelled like burning mitre and the days smelled like hundreds of moving sweating bodies. The waste water of the Thames cloyingly hung in the humid air.
His mind drifted back to Sophia and the countryside; of making love to her in the millpond and eating fresh picked berries off her naked body. He cursed himself again. He needed to forget her and leave her to her piece of land. Whitcomb had a courier deliver to him the final deed for the farm, but he didn't dare go back to tell her. Instead he'd impotently sent her money every week, putting off telling her the truth or facing her ever again.
He thought about the smell of the fresh earth on the road to the farm, the quiet rustle of the ash trees lining the pond, and the clover scent of her hair. He stopped in his tracks. He needed a woman to forget about her. This wasn't the first love affair that had ended in his life and each time he would return for a day or two to the Rose Tavern and all would be well.
His heels turned on their own and started walking toward Drury Lane, picking up pace until they reached the gate of the Rose. Already he could see plump prostitutes wandering in and out on the arms of men of every station. He walked up to the door when a frizzy haired brunette in a tattered red gown answered.
"Wha' you doin' 'round 'ere? Thought you couldn't ge' it up for a real woman no more," she said, chewing on the words and flashing a shoulder.
"Kindly shut your mouth, Evelyn," James said to her, "Your breath smells like other men's cocks."
Her mouth gaped wide open before she closed it again. A relatively prim woman with a streak of gray interrupting her auburn hair came up behind the insulted doxy, "Well, if it isn't James Gardiner. I didn't think you would come back to us."
"Madame Brown," James said, removing his hat, "It's been too long. Might I come in?"
She pushed Evelyn aside and opened the door. James stepped in to raucous noise at the bar and a blur of red velvet curtains and uplifted breasts, rouged cheeks and painted-on beauty patches. The entire place smelled like gin and sex covered up with the cloying scents of lavender, roses and vanilla. Normally this would have been enough to excite him but he felt nothing. Several drinks would cure that.
He grabbed a pint of ale and listened to Madame Brown titter away with London gossip before he started growing impatient. There was a time when James would to listen to the Madame through several rounds, the woman occasionally divulging something important about a potential business contact that James could use to his advantage. Now, he simply could care less. He set down the empty pint and ordered another.
"I want to see your very best girl. You know the one," he said, looking at her as she floundered for a moment, "Now!"
Madame Brown looked at him with a half smile, "You asked for this a month ago if I remember and then we didn't see you again. You're not going to waste my girl's time again, are you? Last time you took her out to buy a dress and—"
"No. This time it's straight to business," he said setting down the emptied second round, "Where is she?"
Madame Brown pulled aside a youthful, bare-chested young man with kohl lightly riming his eyes, "Charles, fetch Julia, would you?"
"Right away, mum."
Madame Brown turned back toward James who was drinking half way into round three, "Julia was none too happy about last time you saw her. Five guineas. In advance."
James clenched his teeth and fished around in his pocket for the coins before slamming them down on the table in front of her, "As I said; straight to business."
"No refunds," she said, biting down on the side of the first coin, "And if you've really gone sly on us as she suspected last time, Charles would be more than happy to—"
"No. Julia will do. Thank you," he set down the empty third pint and watched her appear at the top of the stairs, delicate dyed blonde curls framing a heart shaped face with an upturned nose. She wore a blue and turquoise silk robe. James looked up at her. Before Sophia, he had rutted on this woman many times. Now all he could do was compare her. Her smile was forced and imperious; not sweet and shy like Sophia's. Her hair was too well coifed; not wild bunches of curls he could get lost in, like Sophia's. Her eyes... James tried to snap himself out of it. This was purely business. He'd never be able to have his life back the way it was if he didn't put Sophia out of his head, and a quick round with Julia was the perfect solution. He ordered a shot of gin and tossed it back quickly.
James walked up the stairs, grabbing her roughly by the wrist, "Why it's Jamie, returned to us! My, and aren't you in a hurry for what will probably be a whole lot of nothing again..." she said as he led her down the hall to an empty room, not saying a word. He slammed the door behind them; drowning out most of the pub noise downstairs and the sound of muffled fornication in the rooms upstairs. It did nothing to drown out visions of Sophia dancing in their room to the sound of the violin.
"Quiet. Get on the bed."
Julia walked backward seductively and lay on the pillows, her knees spread out to reveal the cream white insides of her thighs ending in the shorn and naked pink lips of her sex, "So something quick then? Are you looking to burn down a guinea a minute?"
"Just be silent," he snapped, "Remove your clothes."
As Julia complied as the words triggered James's memory. Julia slipped off her robe, revealing her sumptuously curved naked body only interrupted by white heeled shoes and silk stockings climbing up to her thighs. James thought back to that first conversation past initial introduction he'd made with Sophia. Though he'd behaved like a beast toward her, the thought of being inside of her again powerfully hardened him momentarily. But with one look at Julia, he was slowly softening once more. He had to take drastic action. James quickly undid the placket of his breeches and lunged over her, hearing her breath catch as he lay astride of her suddenly.
He stared at her, inches from her face. She was open to him, waiting. James looked down at her once more and leapt away cursing himself, pacing the room and running his hands through his hair.
"God's wounds... twice, now?!"
James bellowed up at the ceiling above him, continuing to pace drunkenly as he fixed his pants shut once more.
"If I didn't know better Jamie, I'd say you're in love," Julia said calmly, "It's almost cute."
"Shut up, you silly strumpet. Yes, I'm in love! Desperately. Are you happy? I can't get her out of my mind," he paced again, looking up at the ceiling, "I need to be rid of her."
"Well... what does she need?" Julia said, standing up.
He froze. It was the one thing he'd been avoiding this entire time. He felt sick, and not just from a stomach full of ale and gin. Sophia most likely hated him now, if she ever cared about him to begin with. He wasn't sure which possibility he disliked more: that she was relieved to be rid of him or that he had broken her heart by leaving. James turned back to Julia, "Lie back down again."
Julia shrugged, "All right, but I don't think it will— Hey! What are you doing?"
James silently removed one of her shoes and held up her stocking-covered foot to the palm of his hand, carefully examining it against his hand.
