Savannah 04

Her silk pantalets, which she had bought from a shop in Paris and had only received just before she left Selby, were lacier, thinner and shorter, than anything that was on sale in America. They hardly covered her knees and were probably as skimpy as any that Strand would have seen before. 'God, I really am assuming he's going to see them?' She mused.

After her single, waist-high, cotton petticoat, she reached for her chemise, which, along with many American women, she wore under her corset. Even as she did, she recalled the vogue that had been catching on in Europe just before she left.

It was the wearing habit she had experimented with Samuel just before they parted, had refined with her older lover Bernard before he sailed for India, had flaunted with Richard on the voyage and which had become common place with Fairfax. Not wearing a chemise under the corset, or a camisole over it, It was a quite risqué adventure in clothing, but then what Amanda was preparing to do this evening was quite a risqué adventure in social behaviour all round.

In her mind, the two gelled perfectly.

As the carriage took her towards her sexual destiny, her thoughts turned to Strand. She had gathered information on the man from various sources, enough to know he was a self-centered, egocentrical, selfish bastard, but she didn't require her New York investigators to tell her that. No doubt that was in part due to him having been born into immense wealth. His family owned a series of ranches and plantations in Georgia and Alabama as well as vast tracts of land in areas all the way from Florida to Maryland. They had a hugely impressive property portfolio that interestingly her sources advised was more above than below the Mason Dixon line. They also had massive investments in numerous industries including railroads, mining, shipping, manufacturing and banking a goodly proportion of which she found out had in the past few years been diverted overseas, largely to France, Great Britain and Prussia. His Southern and Confederacy allegiances she realised did not include risking his wealth.

Family connections helped him achieve success in business, where he had acquired a reputation for ruthlessness. Subsequently, he had used inheritances to invest in many industries, and had used those family and business contacts to enter politics in his late twenties. He was now rich, well-connected and immensely successful in both business and State and National politics.

As befitted his position, he had married well, having wedded a member of the le Grange family who were the nearest thing the South had to royalty. Not rich by Strand's standards, they were, nevertheless impeccably well connected. They listed ex-presidents, senior politicians, statesmen and many in the overseas diplomatic corps including several ambassadors amongst their closest friends and European royalty amongst their acquaintances. It was because of the le Grange family that Strand first entered politics and it was due to their patronage that his rise to the very highest echelons of Southern politics came about so quickly.

He had cheated on his wife from the day they met. Throughout their respectable two-year courtship, he'd had affairs and flings and, like most married contemporaries visited brothels continuously. It was only due to the fact that so many other influential married men were doing the same thing that he managed to avoid rumours. Even so, had his wife Mathilda learnt about his misdeeds, she would not have been surprised or that concerned. In the world she came from, wives were for breeding and men had mistresses for sex. Providing Strand did not cause scandals or bring home any diseases, as far as she was concerned he could fuck whomever he liked. And that is exactly what he tried to do.

Tonight, she realised with a resigned sigh when he had told her he would having a working dinner, he was about to add another woman to his conquests. Working dinners and a number of similar excuses she knew full well were euphemisms for him having liaisons with women, usually at his 'Foggy Bottom brothel' as she thought of it.

There was little point having the position and standing in society that she had without using her power to form allegiances, she thought. And Mathilda did that very well, particularly with such loyal people as Missus Calthorpe who owed everything she had to her: there was nothing that went on at Foggy Bottom, that Missus Calthorpe and then Missus Strand was not aware about. And both were very aware of who Strand was entertaining to dinner and presumably would fuck after it.