Chapter 13 – Unwanted Attention

*.*.*.

"Have you heard any more about Murdoch Foyle?"

Jack looked down at the woman in his arms in surprise. Any time he broke up her past she got defensive and changed the subject. It was extremely unlike her to bring it up unbidden. "No, why?"

"So he's not terrorising Janey and Arthur, then? Not stalking you?"

"Phryne?"

She sighed and nestled in tight against him. "He came looking for me at the club."

"Oh, for the love of–!" Jack exclaimed in annoyance. "You couldn't have opened with that when you arrived?"

"No, because you probably would have got all worried or professional and wouldn't have made love to me."

Of course he wouldn't have made love to her. Foyle was dangerous and if he was after her… "Why did you ask if he was stalking me?"

"Because he told me he had been. I think that's how he found me."

Jack nodded as it began to make sense. "Foyle gets out of prison, learns about your cousin's engagement from the paper, goes to your aunt's looking for you, finds out you're not there but sees your sister talking to the police about you, so follows the police in case they find you."

"Which you did," Phryne finished.

"What did he want?"

"I honestly don't know. He apologised for some reason, said I was destined for greatness. He was calm and well spoken, he was creepy."

"Was he apologising for trying to take you? Scaring you?"

"Scaring me, I think, but I don't know. It was odd. Madam Lyon thought he was my father and she wasn't wrong, he did have an air about him like a disappointed father who'd let his daughter down. Although I doubt my actual father would apologise to me like that."

"Strange for a child abductor," Jack mused, deciding not to push the idea that Baron Fisher might apologise if his runaway daughter reappeared after all this time.

"Maybe we got him wrong. Maybe he was trying to save children from abusive homes."

"Do you really believe that?"

"No," she admitted. "I had always assumed he wanted to…but I'm not so sure now. I offered him the company of our youngest hostesses and he grimaced. I don't think he likes little girls in that way. Mind you, I didn't seem him look at anyone in the club with lust and you know it's not just the girls that are attractive there."

"Enough, Phryne, please don't say things that will end in me having no choice but to raid the club."

She grinned at his discomfort. "If you insist. It's not on offer if that's what you want to hear but…"

"He didn't notice the men either. So what did he want from you?"

"I don't know." Phryne sat upright. "You said there was another girl, the one he went to prison for. What happened with her?"

"We don't know exactly. She was found at a church, drugged. She identified Foyle as the man who took and drugged her. He sweet talked her into going with him, forced her to drink something then she woke up at the church. We don't know why he took her or why he brought her back."

He watched her think. It was such a shame she hadn't had the opportunities in life she should have had, she was clearly very intelligent. She could have gone to university, become a doctor or a lawyer or anything really. "He won't be allowed at the club again at least. I should be safe."

"Except that if he wants you he knows you'll react to him targeting any of the women at the club, your sister…"

"Or you," Phryne finished gently.

Jack couldn't help but smile. It was unlike her to admit that she felt anything for him. "Do you like me that much?"

He felt a hand on his arm. "Well, I've got you well trained now. I'm not sure I'd want to start again with a new man just yet."

Her hand snaked down his arm until he felt her take his hand and wrap her fingers around his. Despite her insistence that it was just fun, Jack was beginning to suspect that she might care for him after all.

*.*.*.

A week passed and Foyle hadn't even tried to come back. Phryne hoped that was it now, whatever he had in mind for her she had to be too old. Maybe he'd just had to see for himself for some reason, as if he had no trust in the passage of time.

She was, however, grateful to be back in Madam Lyon's good graces, happy to be back in the middle of things at the club, no longer side-lined for misbehaviour.

"No!"

The scream came from one of the private booths. Phryne ran. This was exactly why she should never have been on the door; she was too far away in an emergency. She pulled open the curtain to reveal Lola pulling the strap of her dress back onto her shoulder.

The man sat on the chaise lounge turned and anxiety left his face when he saw Phryne stood there, clearly not seeing her as any form of threat.

"Er, sorry Miss, bit of a misunderstanding."

Phryne ignored him and her eyes went to Lola.

"I said no," she told him angrily, coming to stand beside Phryne for protection.

Phryne looked back down at the man. Although no fresh faced youth he was good looking enough despite the pitiful attempt at a moustache. His clothes indicated wealth and his whole posture screamed someone of a high enough class to have never been accountable for his actions in his life.

"Do you not understand what "no" means?" Phryne asked him condescendingly.

He stood, he towered over her. She didn't back down simply because he happened to be taller than her. "I'm a very important person in this town."

"So the word no doesn't apply to you is that it?"

"Not usually no," his smile was not pleasant. "Certainly not from a whore."

A glance at his fingers told Phryne this man was unmarried; he had no ring and no line where one had been removed. She guessed that some women had got away with saying no to him. "If you're uninterested in the words of whores, may I suggest this isn't the best place for you to be?"

"Trust me; no man is interested in words from you, dear. Any man who claims to be is just humouring you to get you into bed."

Phryne instantly thought of Jack. Yes, she supposed an argument could be made but then they usually talked after making love, when Phryne suspected this man would just go to sleep if he didn't kick his lover out of bed first. No, she firmly believed that Jack did like talking with her.

"This, sir, is a respectable place. If you just want a woman to open her legs for one minute while you take your pleasure then I assure you, at this time of night Melbourne is littered with them on every street corner. What we offer at the Imperial Club is fun and companionship."

"Fun was all I had in mind."

"But not Lola's fun by all accounts."

He laughed. "If you're trying to threaten me…"

Phryne joined in the laughter and then hitched up her skirt to reveal the knife in her garter. "I'm not trying to threaten you; I'm going to make you leave."

He stared at her leg and Phryne wasn't convinced the knife was the centre of his focus. He leaned closer to her. "I am not someone you want to make an enemy of, dear."

Phryne glanced at Lola, who understandably left. The trouble with men like this one was that it didn't matter that she was the person at the club they least wanted to fight, they would still rather be thrown out by a man. Lola was tough, Phryne knew she hadn't gone because she was scared; she'd gone to get backup. Phryne didn't need it.

"Neither am I," she assured him.

"All it takes is one little phone call to the police and I'll have this place shut down."

"And yourself arrested," she pointed out.

"No, not me. I have friends in the police."

Phryne smiled. "As do I."

That didn't frighten him. "I don't doubt it, but I happen to have the ear of the Deputy Commissioner. Who pays you for your pleasure? Some young constable, no doubt."

She wasn't going to fall for that. She looked him up and down, taking the sight of him in to make sure he wouldn't get back in. If he really was in league with someone that high, throwing Jack's name or rank around would get her nowhere. She simply smiled knowingly. "We don't hand out personal information about our clients."

"Lucky for me."

"Oh you're not a client, remember? You're leaving."

He reached a hand out towards her leg. She wasn't sure if he was planning on touching her or taking her knife but Phryne wasn't having either. She whipped out her knife and pointed it at his throat. Finally he got the picture and raised his hands. As he started backing out of the booth, Lola reappeared with two of their more muscular barmen.

Now he seemed a lot more nervous. He glared at Phryne. "You haven't won, you know."

He walked towards the exit. Phryne grinned. "Yet you appear to be leaving."

Which he was. With one last glare over his shoulder and flanked by the barmen, the man left.

Phryne went over to Lola, who seemed a little more shaken now that the threat had gone. "What happened?"

The girl shrugged. "He was too rough. It was beginning to hurt where he touched me."

Phryne scoffed. "That's the trouble with rich men. They think they can get away with anything because other rich men let them."

"He offered me so much money and jewellery that I nearly didn't call out," Lola admitted, "but in the end I couldn't stay quiet."

Lola showed Phryne her arm where the man had grabbed her. It was red and Phryne didn't doubt that she'd have a fine bruise tomorrow. "Put some balm on it," she instructed.

Lola nodded and went off to the back to follow her instructions. Phryne sighed. The poor woman was still struggling after the death of her fiancé, in the wake of which she'd learnt that he had been the one to kill Lavinia who had been her best friend in the club. If it wasn't for Jack, Phryne would assume there were no good men in the entire world.

*.*.*.

Rosie had turned out to be a great help and Janey felt that they were on track to becoming real friends. Being a lot more conservative than Janey, Rosie had managed to help make their proposal more appropriate for the board. Dot's Catholic leanings helped tone it right for the church and altogether Janey couldn't see how they could fail.

The cost of the education would be minimal, the hire of a small room once a week. The teachers would hopefully all be volunteers and Janey and Rosie would oversee everything. Any talk of family planning had been whittled down to simply promoting abstinence to appease the church, but Janey had managed to keep in information on there being such a thing as family planning, which was completely sinful and also something to speak to a nurse or doctor about.

They had presented their proposal to the board and then been shooed away. Janey had invited Rosie back home with her for tea while the board considered their proposal. She had been pleased with it when they'd handed it over but now she was anxious. What if they'd watered it down too much to please the nuns? What if her ideas were still far too radical?

Aunt Prudence had given away nothing prior to their pitch and Rosie indicated that Sidney had been just has tight lipped.

So the tea hadn't been a very jolly affair, each of the three women had been lost in their own thoughts. Rosie had tried to bring them out of it by speaking to Dot about her beau, asking simple questions like if he seemed likely to propose soon and trying to skirt around Dot asking any questions about what being married to a policeman had been like for Rosie. Janey hadn't known a divorced person before and didn't quite know what to make of the idea of loving someone enough to marry them and then falling out of love enough to formally end the marriage. Rosie clearly didn't want to talk about him and as Janey had found herself having to encourage Dot to step out with young Hugh, she also found herself not wanting to give Rosie any opportunity to talk Dot out of this relationship.

Their time together was eventually disrupted by the appearance of Aunt Prudence and Fletcher. Janey could tell by their faces that their proposal hadn't gone down well.

"It's just a bit modern for most of the board," had been Aunt Prudence's tactful way of putting it, if Janey ignored the way she spat the word 'modern' as if it had been blasphemous.

"Yes," Fletcher agreed, "a fine plan, ladies, just not what our board was set up for, I'm afraid."

Janey didn't want to be beaten yet. "Well, maybe we should start a new board, then. A whole new programme for the girls."

"You'd need to get the convent on board," warned Prudence, "so you'd have to cut any mention of family planning to even be heard."

"But that's the whole point," Janey argued, slumping in her seat.

"I dare say there's other things you ladies can do to help," Fletcher tried to jolly them up.

"Host soirees and tea parties?" Janey argued. She had got to know them well enough now to know that Fletcher was not very modern in his way of thinking about women.

"It would be something," Rosie encouraged her. "At least we could organise it together, we could still spend time together."

Janey glanced at Rosie. She supposed it wasn't easy for her. Whatever her marriage had been, she had gone from being a wife back to a single woman again. Fletcher wasn't even someone new she'd met and fallen for; he'd been someone she'd known from childhood. Janey suspected that she was the first friend Rosie had made for herself for some time and then wondered how many of her previous friends had dropped her when she'd divorced her first husband, considering her tainted and scandalous.

"Of course, Rosie. We'll still be friends, no matter what happens. And I haven't given up on this idea, you know. If we can't get them out of there, what about raising money for a nurse to visit them? You should have seen some of the wounds the girls had, Rosie, and still working in the laundry."

"There now," Aunt Prudence smiled, "that's a grand idea. Very Christian, nothing controversial in getting them a little bit of nursing."

Fletcher seemed less convinced. "They are meant to be working off their sins, remember. Of course, we don't want them in pain as such but it isn't meant to be an easy life."

"Have you ever even seen them, Mr Fletcher, seen the state of them?" Janey asked forcefully.

"Er, no, I admit I haven't. Well, now, that's another good idea of Miss Fisher's. I should have paid a visit to the convent a long time ago."

Rosie smiled fondly at him. "You might struggle to get in, Sidney. I suspect there's a strict no man policy in place."

He held out his hand to her. "Then perhaps you should go as my eyes and ears, my love."

Rosie stood and went easily to him. Janey tried not to let her emotions show on her face. She did like Rosie, and likewise she had made no other friends since returning to Melbourne, but she did have to question her taste in men. If Fletcher was an improvement on her previous husband what must he had been like?

Once on Fletcher's arm, Rosie turned back to Janey. "So will you come over for dinner tomorrow night, Janey? We can come up with a new plan together."

"I would like that," Janey agreed with a smile.

TBC...