5
Brandon Rohan leaned heavily on his cane as he moved down the narrow corridors of the caves riddling the countryside at Kerlsey Manor in Kent. He was dressed in a monk’s robe, though he found that particular conceit quite ridiculous. Everyone would know him by his limp, even if his head and face were covered with a cowl. But the Grand Master had decreed that they would no longer show their faces when they met, and he had no choice but to obey, and part of him approved. The meetings of the Heavenly Host were for darkness and privacy. He had no wish to face his fellow celebrants later at his mother’s house, and, given the people who had belonged to the Host’s notorious roster, it was always a distinct possibility.
No, discretion was wise. Nowadays he didn’t even know who led the Host, nor did anyone else he bothered to ask. It didn’t matter. The Grand Master was one of them, and that was what counted. He made the rules, set the dates and locations of the gatherings, and with his guidance their membership had swelled.
They’d been meeting in Kent ever since Brandon had first been able to get around by himself. Kersley Hall had been largely destroyed by a fire, and then abandoned by its indigent owner. Enough remained of the structure that they could meet, and the series of chalk caves beneath it proved most utile. There were an infinite number of rooms leading off those twisting caves, and one could do anything one pleased within those walls.
And the screams never carried to the surface.
He knew a moment’s doubt, but he quickly pushed it away. He wasn’t particularly interested in the unwilling partners some favored, the ones who were well paid for the honor. He preferred women who didn’t fight him. Witnessing it had been horrifying enough.
But he wasn’t going to think about that. If the others preferred their whores to simulate resistance, then who was he to judge? They were well paid, and if, by any chance, some of that resistance was real, it was hardly his concern. “Do what thou wilt” was their motto, and none of the members passed judgment upon each other.
He wondered what Benedick would think of it. Their own father had been involved in the Heavenly Host when he was young, and his father before him. Benedick would probably disapprove, but Brandon was only following in the family footsteps. If his dour older brother disliked it, he could go back to Somerset.
He could hear the low rumble of voices from a distance. They had already started, with their silly attempts to raise the devil. Brandon didn’t believe in the devil, believe in hell. He’d already looked into the face of it in the Afghan.
He needed to get off his bad leg. He needed someone to distract him from the pain. He needed opium to dull the worst of it. He would find those things at the end of the corridor.
He heard a woman scream, and for a moment he froze, as the sound was quickly cut off. They were well paid for it, he reminded himself coldly.
And he limped onward, toward the dimly lit cavern.
Benedick would have happily forgotten all about the annoying Lady Carstairs had he not run smack into her in St. James Park, shepherding her little flock of soiled doves. He might not have even noticed their presence had it not been for the sudden outraged expression on his future fiancée, the very proper Miss Pennington, and he turned to follow her gaze.
“It’s that woman,” his intended said in a tight voice. “How dare she parade those…those creatures here among the gentry? Has she no sense of decorum, no sense of what is right and proper? Someone needs to take her in hand and explain a few things.”
He looked over at the group lazily. Lady Carstairs was dressed in the same boring clothes she wore before, of cloth and execrable fashion, with that bonnet covering her hair and face. The women following her looked for all the world like overgrown schoolgirls rather than the poor unfortunate, and he gazed at them idly, wondering how many of them he’d bedded before Charity Carstairs had lured them into unfortunate rectitude.
La Violette wasn’t present, and he wondered whether she was being punished. Locked in a dungeon on bread and water, perhaps. It was no wonder she’d jumped at his offer.
“They’re simply enjoying a public park on a fine day,” he said mildly enough.
“If they’re so desirous of the salubrious effect of fresh air, they should take themselves to Hyde Park, rather than these more cultured confines.” Miss Pennington’s eyes narrowed. She had rather small eyes, he noticed for the first time. Hard and unforgiving. “I wish you might go and give the woman a hint.”
“That would hardly be appropriate, Miss Pennington. I believe Lady Carstairs’s home is nearby—it only makes sense that she bring the women here.”
“Sir Thomas must be rolling over in his grave. She’s turned that house into nothing more than a…a brothel.”
“Hardly. I believe the point of the matter is that the women have foresworn their previous…activities.”
“And you see, that’s what kind of trouble she brings among us,” Miss Pennington said, much incensed. “I shouldn’t be discussing this with a gentleman. I shouldn’t even know such women exist, and yet what choice have I, when she constantly thrusts them in our faces.”
He thought for a moment that he might like one of Lady Carstairs’s soiled doves to be thrust into his face. He looked down at Miss Pennington, mentally crossing her off his list of potential brides. Not only did he not want to wake up in the morning and meet those small, disapproving eyes, but he didn’t want his future children subjected to them. And suddenly he wanted to get away.
“If you wish, I could go speak with Lady Carstairs,” he said. “But I would be loath to leave you here without an escort.”
Miss Pennington’s trill of laughter was clearly supposed to remind him what a good sport she was. “Don’t be silly, Lord Rohan. I have my maid and a footman with me. I often have been bold enough to walk on my own with only their company. After all, I’m no longer a green girl. Go on and tell Lady Carstairs that she’s not wanted here. I’ll make my way back home on my own.”
No longer a green girl, he thought, but a bitter old woman, and only twenty-three to boot. He gave her an angelic smile, brought her gloved hand to his mouth and then realized his unruly passion would offend her. “As you wish, Miss Pennington,” he said, bowing as she walked away, and he mentally consigned her to the devil.
He turned, and looked at Lady Carstairs. She was a bit above average height, and he liked that in a woman. It made her a worthy opponent. She was quite deliciously rounded, and for a brief moment he wished his first supposition had been right. He would have enjoyed venting some of his suppressed sexual energy on that soft, sweet body, having those long legs wrapped around his hips as he moved deep within her.
He cursed softly at the sweet picture he’d conjured up and his predictable physical reaction. As an antidote he thought of Miss Pennington’s mean little eyes, and with relief he felt his arousal subsiding.
He considered strolling back home. He had no intention of warning “Charity” Carstairs off—Miss Pennington’s demands notwithstanding. If a gaggle of soiled doves were going to parade around St. James Park he was going to enjoy it.
But at that moment he also had the perfect opportunity to confront Lady Carstairs, and with a grim smile on his face he started toward her.
Melisande was doing an admirable job keeping her girls from flirting with all and sundry as they walked down the length of the ornamental canal. She was a firm believer in the efficacy of fresh air and exercise, though Miss Mackenzie, her former governess and now head of the teaching staff at Carstairs House was usually the one responsible for their exercise. But apparently the girls had been causing too much of a stir, and Melisande knew that there were a great deal too many men with too much time on their hands lounging around Green Park, and she’d decided St. James might be the wiser direction.
She’d been wrong. The young women were somehow managing to make their sober clothes seem like the frivolous wardrobes of the demimondaines they had once been, further convincing Melisande of the truth that seductiveness was a matter of attitude, not dress or even natural beauty. Fortunately she was as devoid of seductiveness as she was of everything else, so she’d never had the chance to test her theory.
But the girls were sashaying along, swinging their hips, and while they loved Melisande, obeying her was the least of their worries. And to top it off, Viscount Rohan had chosen today of all days to take a stroll in the park.
Emma had spent the last few days passing on much too much gossip about the man, and all Melisande’s protests couldn’t seem to silence her. She’d learned about his two dead wives, the fiancée who’d shot herself, and his current quest for a conformable wife, with the Honorable Dorothea Pennington in the lead for the position. She’d learned about his decadent family, a dynasty of rakes and libertines, his estate in Somerset and a bit too much about his purported prowess in bed. Not that Emma had ever sampled him, she assured Melisande. But the girls under her care had talked, and it was seldom that the gentlemen came in for praise. Benedick Rohan was held in awe.
Which was none of her business. She didn’t want to listen to Emma’s disclosures, she didn’t want to think about the man and his dark eyes looking at her with such cool contempt. Indeed, for the last two days Emma seemed to have forgotten all about him, and Melisande had been happy to dismiss him, as well. It was with deep regret that she recognized the tall, lean figure bent assiduously over Dorothea Pennington’s skinny body.
She had hoped he’d be so busy with his flirtation that he wouldn’t notice her presence. The girls had seen him immediately, with those instincts that could find a wealthy, attractive man in a crowd in under a minute, but Melisande had simply hurried them on, her face averted, praying he would leave the park before they were back from their forced march along the canal.
“Lady Carstairs,” one of the girls said in a cross between a whine and a wheeze. “Could you go a little slower, if you please? I’m fair winded.”
“Nonsense,” she said, and quickened her pace. “We’re here for exercise and fresh air, not for social purposes.”
“Couldn’t we do both?” asked Raffaela, and Melisande knew a moment’s guilt. Raffaela was the daughter of an Italian sailor and an Irish doxy, and she walked with a limp, thanks to the badly broken leg that had never set right, due to a backhanded slap from her pimp that had sent her tumbling in front of Melisande’s carriage. However, she had seen Raffaela race up the long flights of stairs at Carstairs House without a moment’s hesitation when there was something she wanted, and she only slowed her pace marginally.
“We have no need of male companionship.” Melisande’s announcement held a practiced cheerful tone.
“Speak for yourself,” one girl muttered from the back of the line, but Melisande ignored her.
“We’ll have tea and cakes when we get back,” she said, hoping to bribe them into behaving.
“Now there’s a bit of crumpet I wouldn’t mind ’aving,” another girl said, looking past her, and Melisande knew a sudden, lowering presentiment. Please let him have taken off with the saintly Dorothea, she thought desperately. Don’t let him be waiting here.
But she knew exactly who had come up behind her, his shadow on the pavement looming over hers. With a quick intake of breath she turned, plastering her most disarming smile on her face.
“Lord Rohan,” she said cheerfully.
“Lady Carstairs.” Yes, his voice was as deep as she remembered it. Really, if all men had voices like Rohan did then her job would be a great deal more difficult, she reflected. She could practically hear the sighs from her bevy of charges, but she stiffened her spine. After all, these women had already shown themselves to be susceptible to male lures, and he had what some women would doubtless consider a seductive voice to go along with his austere, handsome face and tall, elegant body.
It was a good thing she was immune, and always had been. The women behind her were no better than moonstruck girls—she could practically hear their gusty sighs. The sooner she got them safely back to the confines of Carstairs House the better. They had been doing an admirable job of adjusting to their new lives, but Viscount Rohan could tempt a saint.
However, he was the one who’d approached her, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of prolonging the conversation. He knew who she was, which was interesting. He must have asked about her.
She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that, but she knew better than to be flattered. He’d assuredly wanted to know who that annoying woman was, who’d spoiled his afternoon debauch.
Finally he spoke, and his voice sent silver shivers down her spine. “I believe I owe you an abject apology, Lady Carstairs. I was under a misapprehension about your identity and treated you…impolitely. I crave pardon.”
“You treated me abominably. However, since I’ve never been mistaken for an abbess before, the novelty of it almost made up for the insult. I presume the gossiping tongues have filled you in on my mission.”
His smile was faintly mocking. “Your mission? Indeed. You wish to deprive the men of London of their most cherished pastime.”
This time she did hear an actual sigh from one of the girls. She ignored it. “I thought you all preferred horses and gaming to sexual congress?” Most men were shocked by her plain speech, but his cool, handsome face was still composed of polite lines.
“It depends on the girl.”
“And the horse,” she shot back.
An expression flickered in his eyes for a moment, one of surprise and something else. Respect? Amusement? She was looking for things that were not there. “And the horse,” he agreed. “As for mistaking you for an abbess, I do believe I mentioned that you were an extremely unlikely one.” His dark eyes slid down her deliberately dowdy dress.
Ungallant bastard, she thought calmly, wishing she dared say it out loud. But there was a limit as to how far she would go, and she had no wish to tweak the tiger’s tail. She had the suspicion that Benedick Rohan would be most unsettling if roused. “Indeed,” she said briefly. “Was there anything else? Because if not, I accept your apology and bid you good-day.”
“So quickly, Lady Carstairs? I thought I might take the air with you. At least see you safely out of the park.”
“Aha!”
“‘Aha’?”
“I can see Miss Pennington has been busy. You’re her errand boy, are you not? She sent you to warn us out of the sacred confines of St. James Park so we won’t sully her so very proper eyes with our presence.”
Really, the woman was the most tiresome prude. If a noted rake like Viscount Rohan thought he’d be happy married to such a dried-up stick, then he deserved the wretched woman.
“I don’t believe it’s you she objects to. And I’m hardly her errand boy. I find the presence of your…charges to be quite delightfully distracting.” He glanced back at them, and was rewarded with smothered giggles. “They’re like a gaggle of lovely geese.”
“They’re equally silly!” Melisande said in disgust. “Wave a handsome man in front of them and they turn into blithering idiots.”
“Merci du compliment, Lady Carstairs,” he said, and she could have kicked herself. “Perhaps they’ve regretted their choice in leaving the perfumed confines of Mrs. Cadbury’s establishment.”
“Shall we ask them?” she said coolly, and before he could demur she whirled around, focusing on the dozen or so women in her company. “Ladies?” She raised her voice. “The Viscount Rohan is interested in our social experiment. He believes you regret the choice you made and would prefer your previous employment, be it in Emma Cadbury’s house or elsewhere. What say you? Would you rather be back where I found you? Raffaella?”
“No, your ladyship,” Raffaella said promptly.
The rest of them answered, as well, and she turned back to Rohan, cool and cheerful. “Of course, they may be lying because they’re so terrified by my brutish nature, but I expect they mean it. The life of a prostitute isn’t a kind one, my lord. It’s a world of disease and despair, being forced to lie supine beneath men they don’t know and allow them their brutish lusts. They age quickly and end up on the streets, and most of them are dead by forty, of disease or accident or murder.”
There was a glint in his eye. “In fact, Lady Carstairs, in most brothels the women are rarely on the bottom.”
She eyed him steadily. “No, I imagine not. My assistant and friend has been very thorough in detailing the lives of these poor women, and I doubt being astride has much to recommend it.”
“I gathered you’ve been married. Don’t you know?”
“I hardly think that’s your business.”
“I’m merely curious that a widow who enjoyed the marriage bed is unaware of all the infinite varieties of making love. Or didn’t Sir Thomas manage to perform his husbandly duty? I collect the match was uneven—your youth for his fortune. In fact, that would put you on the same par with some of your charming gaggle. Sexual congress in return for financial remuneration.”
He was trying to goad her, and managing to succeed, when she considered herself relatively even tempered. She repressed a well-deserved growl. “Are you asking me if all women are whores due to the strictures of society? I won’t disagree with you. And while it is none of your business, Sir Thomas certainly fulfilled his marital obligations, but only in the most proper and respectful fashion. Which would hardly include…variations.” Why in the world was she discussing such intimacies with him, she wondered.
“Pity.”
He was trying to annoy her. Or at least provoke an unmannerly reaction from her, and succeeding to an alarming degree. “I beg pardon,” she said, aiming for sweetness and falling short of the mark. “This is hardly an appropriate topic of conversation. At times my passion for my project can cause me to speak intemperately. Perhaps we should leave. You may assure your betrothed that we will do our best not to sully her eyes with our presence. We will walk in the mornings rather than the afternoons.”
Oh, holy hell, she thought at the gleam in his eye. Now he knew she’d been asking about him, as well. She braced herself for his mockery, but he let the opportunity go, deliberately, she suspected. And not permanently.
“Miss Pennington is not my betrothed,” he said mildly enough. “And I would prefer you walk in the afternoon. Depending on my…debauches of the night before I may be abed until late morning, and I would hate to miss such a decorative addition to the park.”
He was talking about the girls, of course, but he was looking at her, and for the first time in her life Melisande understood why a woman might take off her clothes and lie down for someone. With his deep, caressing voice, intense eyes and handsome face he was a prime example of a rake, the scion of a family of hellions. She was playing with fire. He could talk a nun into an orgy.
She mentally slapped herself. She wasn’t a nun, and he wasn’t referring to her. “The answer to that, my lord, is to avoid debauchery in the first place. Rising early is good for both the body and the soul.”
There was a very definite stir behind her, one of profound disagreement, and she expected Rohan to remark on that. Instead he stayed focused on her, and she felt like a butterfly pinned to a wall with that gaze. No, a moth, she reminded herself, brutally honest.
“Staying in bed can be very good for the body and quite possibly the soul, as well,” he said, his voice low and almost irresistible. “You should try it.”
“I may remind you I’m a widow, Lord Rohan.”
“So you are, my lady. A very wealthy one, I gather. You should beware of men who seek to marry you for that wealth.”
“You’re in no need of a fortune.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Did you think I was referring to myself? I don’t believe I’ve shown any particular partiality toward you, have I? At least, not yet.”
At that point she wanted nothing more than a huge hole to appear in the manicured lawns of St. James Park and swallow either her or, even better, the Viscount Rohan.
Did he know about Wilfred? God, she hoped not. That brief time of idiocy had been kept secret, thank heavens. Her one stupid fall from grace had only solidified her determination. But no, there was no reason to think he might know anything about it.
“Though Wilfred Hunnicut is, of course, another matter.” And with that bland statement he drove a stake through her fond assumption. “It is a great deal too bad no one warned you about him.”
Before she could gather her wits to respond he bowed. “Since you have no need of my accompanying you, I will bid you farewell, Lady Carstairs. I’m certain we shall meet again, and soon.”
“Not if you stay away from my girls,” she said, completely truthful.
His smile curved his mouth. “But what, dear lady, if I can’t stay away from you?”