Little did he know: she had him at an advantage.

Chris had recommended the Diamond Pony, back in the day. Told him to loosen up, find a nice boy. Zechariah had thought it was another speakeasy … but when he arrived, there was no bar. No pool table, not even a room out of sight yet reeking its seductive pull of opium in lieu of drink. Instead, a bored young man had led him to a bedroom and pulled his pants down as soon as it closed.

The result was as dignified as one might expect: Zechariah ran for his life, stopping only at the door before Sofia to stuff his flaccid cock back into his trousers and lace up with his back facing her while uttering a litany of curses, apologies, and a rushed prayer out the door.

He remembered the borders on the door far better than he remembered anyone (beyond the pantser) there.

That the formerly blushing barrister-in-training had had the chutzpah to make it through his first court case had been a tasty piece of gossip among some of the courtesans – especially after the picture their regular client painted of his “friend”.

He watched her approach from the corner of his eye. She was unaccompanied, by chaperone or friend. The woman walked like gentile upper class, and yet her approach felt like the roaring of a train down tracks he had been tied to.

Then, she spoke: a beautiful, enunciated accent that seemed to hit every consonant like an archer who only shot arrows in triplets. In other words: not English. She, too, was a stranger in a strange land. While he could appreciate that, he was eager for any excuse to turn a future wife down.

“Advertisement?” he asked instead of answering, his own accents somewhat faded from both conscious effort and the amount of time he spent in England.