"You must advise nothing. I am Lucien Virellion, youngest son of House Virellion, and I have been spending enough gold in this establishment to purchase a small country. I should like the girl, the room, and the wine, and I should like them now, and if you advise me one more time, I shall advise you to find alternative employment."
The footman bowed. Disappeared. Returned thirty seconds later with a key and a bottle and the particular expression of a man who had just decided that whatever happened next was not his problem.
They took Clara upstairs. Lucien followed. The handlers led her down a corridor lined with closed doors — behind each one, the muffled sounds of commerce, the particular, devastating soundscape of a place where pleasure was manufactured and sold by the hour — and stopped at a room at the end. Small. Clean. A bed, a chair, a table, a window that was barred with decorative iron.
