“I hope this is the right place,” Cecelia said. “It seems so quiet. Too quiet. And where are all the coaches?”
“I don’t know about the coaches, but this has to be it,” Gina stated adamantly, refusing to acknowledge the possibility that they might be in the wrong place—even though she’d been having much the same thought. The eerie quiet of the night seemed strangely at odds with the bastion of depravity that hovered so close.
Dark rumors of pagan rituals and even devilry had shrouded the place for years. Sir John Dashwood, or Dashwood, as he was still called despite inheriting the baronetcy, had followed in the steps of his illustrious uncle, Sir Francis Dashwood, by reviving the Hellfire Club originally formed more than fifty years ago. A distinctly unfortunate decision in her opinion. “The caves are reputed to lie under the church.”
“But isn’t that a church there?”
Gina squinted into the darkness. “I don’t think so. I think that it’s only meant to look like one.” Her heart fluttered in her chest. “It must be the entrance.”
They walked about another hundred feet and reached what appeared to be ruins, but which was actually just the façade of a Gothic church built into the side of the hill surrounded by yew trees.
“It’s quite beautiful,” Cecelia noted.
“On the outside, at least,” Gina murmured dryly.
They stopped before the arched stone entrance and looked up. Etched in a plaque were the words, Fay ce que voudras. Middle French for “Do what you will.”
How fitting. Gina snorted and turned to her friend. “I think we’ve found it.”
She listened, half-expecting to hear something inside, but all she could hear was the gentle hum of the night that surrounded them.
Cecelia leaned forward and cautiously peered into the darkness. “Are you sure about this, Gina? It’s not too late to turn around.” She shivered. “I feel as though I’m in a graveyard.”
Gina wanted to. Something wasn’t quite right about this place. But the need to see Coventry was stronger than her fear. Taking a deep breath, Gina gazed into the beautiful, but anxious, blue eyes of her friend. “I don’t like it either, but I must speak to him. It won’t take long. Stay in the shadows and shield your eyes as best you can.”
Cecelia’s eyes danced with mischief. “I don’t know, Gina, if I’m going to be disgraced, I might as well learn something along the way.”
Despite her growing trepidation, Gina grinned and walked through the archway into the darkness. Cold air and the musky smell of damp assailed her. As there was only one way to go, they crept forward straight ahead. She could just make out the flicker of a torch in the distance. Slowly, they wound their way down the tunnel deeper into the labyrinth of caves.
“The walls are so white,” Cecelia whispered. “Almost ghostly.”
Gina nodded, having noticed the unmistakable white walls as well. “It looks as though it may have been an old chalk quarry.”
“Did you notice the drawings?”
“Yes.” They were rather hard to miss. The naïve style carvings of demonic faces abounded along the dusky walls.
“Perhaps the rumors are true,” Cecelia said with a slight tremor in her voice.
Gina shivered. The bone-chilling effects of the tunnels had not been lost on her either. “I hope not,” she said, unconvincingly. There was something very unsettling about this place.
The torches became more frequently interspersed, and soon the raucous sounds of celebration could be heard leading their way like a beacon. They saw no one. As if alerting them to what lay ahead, they occasionally passed a statue—man or woman, it seemed not to matter as long as it was nude.
They must have walked at least a quarter mile through narrow, winding passageways, passing a number of small cell-like rooms before making a sharp right turn and reaching an enormous round grotto decorated to resemble a banqueting hall. A Byzantine banqueting hall. There was no mistaking the eastern influence of the decor with its bold, colorful festoons of silk draped from the remarkably high ceilings.
As the room slowly came into focus, Gina heard Cecelia gasp.
Gina, too, felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. She blinked. Not quite believing what she was seeing.
Scandalous was an understatement. What appeared before her was a hedonistic display of unfathomable dimensions, certainly far beyond the realms of her sheltered imagination. It was a pagan celebration in the midst of a Sultan’s lair.
Despite the dank chill of the tunnels, the room radiated a heat that seemed almost unnatural. Gina knew she shouldn’t look, but she couldn’t turn away, mesmerized by the sight before her. Perhaps fifty people crowded the room in various stages of undress. There were men dressed as satyrs and women as nymphs. Others wore long robes—men in white druid’s robes and women in black robes that resembled a nun’s habit. The latter was a stroke of good fortune; at least they wouldn’t be completely out of place in their long, black dominoes.
But not all of the occupants wore clothing.
Men lounged on enormous pillows with naked women strewn over them; in many cases two or three women entertained one man. Some were kissing, all were drinking heavily from great casks of wine, and quite a few smoked from long, thin pipes. She held her breath, not daring to breathe. Opium.
In one corner she noticed a half-naked nymph arching her back as she bounced up and down on the lap of a man with a painted face and horns. Gina’s cheeks flooded with heat when she realized what they were doing in full view of whoever cared to watch.
She turned her head. It was hard to know where to look. Nowhere was safe from depravity. Lewd paintings covered the walls. A large table laden with a veritable feast of roasted fowl, breads, and fruit dominated the center of the room—but even that was not immune. A naked woman lying flat on her back and covered with fruit was the centerpiece. A group of men dressed in robes were picking pieces off of her with their fingers and mouths. Her breasts were nearly uncovered except for one grape perched on each nipple. Gina watched in mortified horror as one “monk” picked the grapes off with his teeth, squeezing it until droplets of juice trickled over her nipples, which he then proceeded to suck until she writhed in orgasmic pleasure.
Gina’s initial shock and embarrassment had worn off to be replaced by revulsion and disgust. The longer she looked, the more her stomach turned. An orgy was not at all what she would have imagined. And nothing like what she’d shared with Coventry. It was sex at its most dispassionate. There was nothing intimate about the scene before her. It was animalistic and base. Lust without any pretense of emotion.
This wasn’t a simple drawing-room game. The Hellfire Rakes were nothing like the Rake Slayers.
What existed in this room was a world that she couldn’t have imagined. The veil of civilization had dissolved into dissolute, erotic chaos. A free-for-all of sin and vice.
They’d fallen into a den of sin. She felt like Persephone in Hades, anxious to leave before she was trapped in the underworld forever. Simply being here, seeing this, felt somehow defiling. Finding Coventry had become secondary to leaving. She and Cecelia were in far over their heads.
“Come on.” She grabbed Cecelia’s arm. “Let’s go.”
Mute, Cecelia could only nod.
They turned to leave, only to find the tunnel behind them blocked by a man—a very large man—in a red druid’s robe. His face was hidden in the shadows of his hood.
“Where are you two going?” he slurred. “The party isn’t over, it’s just begun.”
There was something hauntingly familiar in the deep voice.
Cecelia paled.
Before Gina could protest or make an excuse, he’d wrapped his arm around Cecelia’s waist and dragged her into the room. Left with no other choice but to go after her friend, Gina followed.
It was a mistake. As soon as she entered the hall, bodies surrounded her and hands groped her as she tried to keep close to Cecelia. Somehow she found her hands clasped by two o
ther women and pulled into a circle as they began to dance.
It was unlike any dance she’d ever partaken of.
The women slithered their hips in a provocative rhythm that Gina was forced to imitate. The crowd clapped and howled for more and the dance intensified. Gina couldn’t keep up. Finally, they released her hands and Gina allowed the momentum of the dance to carry her back, away from the circle of dancers. Relieved to have escaped from the center of attention, she stayed close to the perimeter of the room making her way to the nearest exit. She slipped into the shadows of the tunnel and watched in stunned disbelief as the two women she’d been dancing with entwined their limbs, pressed together and began to kiss as they fondled each other.
She’d seen too much. She desperately wanted to leave. To return to the sanctum of her home. Suddenly, the sheltered ignorance and the social strictures of a well-born lady didn’t quite seem so stifling. Tonight, she’d learned far more than she wanted to.
Everything had happened so fast, it took her a moment to realize that Cecelia was gone. From the safety of her new hiding place Gina scanned every inch of the room, but Cecelia was nowhere to be found. She’d seemingly vanished into the dark catacombs of Hades.
Her heart stopped cold. How could this have happened? Where could Cecelia have gone?
Quickly, in cold panic, she analyzed the possibilities. There were only two entrances to the hall. The one they’d come from and the one she was standing in right now. The man in the red robe had led Cecelia in this direction, so the most likely possibility was that they’d left through this tunnel. He could have circled the room completely, but Gina didn’t think she’d lost sight of them for that long.
She turned, peering into the semidarkness. Her mouth went dry. The prospect of going into those caves alone terrified her. Her heart thumped so hard against her chest, she thought her ribs might break. She hadn’t realized how much Cecelia’s presence had calmed her. What if someone found her? Alone. After what she’d witnessed tonight, she shuddered to think what might happen to her.
She couldn’t think of that now. Right now she had to focus on finding Cecelia.
Swallowing her fear, she started down the dark tunnel, methodically searching any room that she passed. The cell-like rooms were sparsely furnished, but each one had a bed. It didn’t take her long to realize what these small rooms were used for. Apparently not all of the Hellfire debauchery was conducted out in the open.
She drew the woolen folds of her domino closer around her. The chill and dampness seemed to be increasing the deeper she traversed into the bowels of Wycombe. The reason, however, was soon evident when she reached the banks of a small river. The River Styx, popped into mind. Where the souls of the dead were carried across into the underworld. The similarities to Hades kept growing. Perhaps the rumors were indeed true. Did these men conduct black magic in this wretched place? Or was there a less sinister explanation? Was it all simply an elaborate folly built purely for the amusement of its members?
Though she had thought the latter, after tonight, she was no longer so certain.
She wasn’t certain about anything. Least of all what to do from here. There was no way to cross the water. She could see a small boat moored on the opposite bank, so she knew the tunnels must continue, but without it, she was forced to turn around.
She wouldn’t despair… yet. There was still the other tunnel to search. If Cecelia wasn’t there, she’d return and find a way to cross, even if she had to jump in and swim.
She turned around and retraced her steps, again checking the rooms as she passed. Her heart leapt when she realized that one of the cells was now occupied. The pounding in her chest intensified as she carefully opened the wood and iron door.
A man in a druid’s robe sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her. A woman was straddled on his lap, her long, bare legs draped around his hips. She appeared to be nude, and if the breathy sounds she was making were any indication, she was a very willing participant in the erotic act taking place.
Gina immediately relaxed; it wasn’t Cecelia.
A fact that was confirmed when the woman spoke. She practically squealed with delight as she reached between their bodies. “I ’aven’t ’ad a cock ’is big in years. Ye’d make a stallion buck with envy, wouldn’t ye?”
The woman spoke with the unmistakable cockney of Cheapside. From the movement of her hand it was obvious what she was doing.
“Harder, damn it,” the man bit out impatiently.
Gina gasped with recognition as the woman followed his directions, the beat of her hand quickening. His voice was dark and slurred with drink, but it sank into her consciousness with the sharp edge of a dagger.
The man turned at the sound, and his hood slipped back. Gina’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her throat squeezed, constricting as if she was being strangled.
The man with the naked woman on his lap stroking him was Coventry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Coventry had returned to what he knew best. The bacchanalian pursuit of pleasure. He’d attempted to drown his anger in drink, but no matter how much port he consumed, the bliss of drunkenness eluded him.
So, naturally, he’d turned to a woman. The most beautiful, most sensual creature he could find. She’d stripped naked before him, revealing a body that should have made him instantly hard. Long, slim legs to wrap around him, a lush rounded bottom to grip on to, big, heavy breasts that he should want to squeeze, suck, and bury his face between. But his body didn’t react, the coldness inside him only grew icier, and the anger more intense. Not even her skilled hand could get a rise out of him.
What had Georgina done to him? The deceitful bitch had as good as gelded him. He was about to tell her to stop when he heard a sound. A soft gasp that sounded achingly familiar.
He looked over his shoulder and froze.
Even swathed in that ridiculous cloak, her face hidden by a mask, he’d have known her anywhere. The size and shape of her body was forever etched in his consciousness. A single lock of golden brown hair had escaped from beneath her hood, taunting him with its silky softness. She called to him with an unseverable awareness that transcended time and place or hideous costume.
Had there been any doubt as to her identity, the stricken look in her eyes gave her away.
For a split second shock turned to horror and shame. He felt the lash of betrayal in her gaze flay him as hard as any whip his father had ever wielded. The pain in his chest was nearly unbearable. He wanted to leap up, wrap her in his arms, and beg her forgiveness.
But he had nothing to forgive. She was the one who had betrayed him. So instead, just as he’d done as a boy, he took his flogging in pained silence. He retreated inside himself, giving no voice to the hurt twisting inside him.
You feel nothing. Don’t flinch. You aren’t weak, you are strong. She doesn’t love you. It was all a game.
To sit there and do nothing was the hardest thing he’d ever done when every instinct cried to push the woman off his lap and go to her.
It wasn’t only the crush of guilt that made him want to take her in his arms. There was also something else. Fear. She was wandering the tunnels of Wycombe… alone. His hands gripped the edge of the bed to prevent himself from throttling or kissing (he couldn’t decide which) her senseless—if she had any sense at all. Lord knew she hadn’t used any in coming here.
To follow him to Wycombe? Didn’t she realize the danger? Of course she did. But she had the tenacity of a charging bull. When she wanted something she went after it, to hell with the consequences. Wasn’t that the very triumph of her game?
Though the primal urge to comfort and protect her was strong, the rage was even stronger. The humiliation at what she’d done still burned hot. This was her fault, not his. She’d sunk her claws into him deep and wouldn’t let go. She’d made him care. Damn her.
His thoughts turned to vengeance. He wanted to hurt her as badly as she’d hurt him.
If ever th
ere was an opportunity to be rid of her for good, this was it. Maybe then he’d be free.
He steeled his heart from the force of the unconscionable betrayal. Instead of pushing the woman away, he took her hips and moved her against his leg. From where Gina stood, it would look like something else entirely.
Something that she would never be able to forgive.
Gina felt as if she was dying, piece by agonizing piece.
He knew it was her. Although he couldn’t possibly see who it was shrouded in the domino and hidden behind the mask, Gina had no doubt he’d recognized her. It was there in the tension that permeated the small room. In the weight of emotion that stretched between them.
In the flicker of his gaze.
Her heart leapt, thinking he meant to come to her and make the vicious, stabbing pain go away. Find the explanation for the inexplicable—the words that would forever wipe away the memory of his cruel betrayal.
But then the flicker was gone, and Gina knew she was wrong. There were no words to explain. Not when he put his hands on the woman’s hips and lifted her over him in a manner that left no doubt as to what they were doing.
No! Oh God, no. The shock—the pain—of seeing him intimate with another woman cut like a knife through her heart. But it wasn’t intimate at all. It was cold and calculated and cruel.
Stop! Please, stop! Her heart begged. But it was too late. He’d betrayed her in a manner that could not be undone.
Gina had no doubt that he knew this, and even intended it. He wanted to hurt her. To push her past the point of no return to a place where she would never forgive. He wanted to prove the irredeemable blackness of his soul.
Well, he’d succeeded. Admirably.
There was no going back. His soul was far beyond her powers of healing.