I had, in fact, been a bit light-headed since entering the bathhouse, as if I’d drunk too much wine at dinner, when I hadn’t. I had attributed the sensation to nerves, but perhaps it was, in fact, le magnétisme hallucinatoire.
An agitated chirping drew my attention to a small, bluish bird perched on the edge of the opening in the roof.
“Calm thyself, Darius,” Elic told it as he unbuttoned his doublet. “Thy territory is safe from encroachment. She’s not going in there tonight, and perhaps not at all.”
“Er… is that bird a pet of yours?” I asked.
The bird let out a furious squawk as it swooped down, darting into the cave.
“He doesn’t care to be thought of as a pet,” Elic said as he shrugged out of the doublet and tossed it onto a chair.
I turned to find everyone else nonchalantly disrobing, the novices chattering away as they helped each other with the hard-to-reach buttons, laces, and hooks of their jewel-toned evening frocks. The iron chairs lining the walls were soon heaped with clouds of petticoats; stockings, sashes, collars, and gloves dripped from their arms and backs. The footmen were retreating up the path to the castle, the light from their torches growing smaller and smaller.
Elic stripped down swiftly and jumped in the pool. He submerged himself completely, then rose to stand hip-deep in the water, which sluiced off him in sheets. His body was long and hard and packed with muscle, the organ hanging between his legs—I didn’t stare, of course, but I could see it out of the corner of my eye—somewhat larger than I would have expected.
“How’s the water?” Lucy asked him.
He shook his head as he skimmed his hair back from his face. “It’s perfect. It’s always perfect, warm when the air is cool and cool when it’s hot.”
I took my time tugging off my gloves as I contemplated the predicament I’d gotten myself into. The only way to gain access to the Duke of Buckingham had been to follow him to Grotte Cachée, and now the only way to remain here was to play the whore in training, to do things that would require hours—nay, days—in confession when I returned to London.
I’m doing this for Uncle Guy, I reminded myself as I untied my collar. He was doomed unless I could convince Buckingham of his innocence. I had come this far. I would do what had to be done, and simply not think about it.
Remove yourself from it.
When Lucy, half undressed now, offered to help me off with my sedate black gown and underpinnings, I let her, but I drew the line at complete nudity. Although Bianca and Sibylla were now frolicking in the pool alongside Elic without a stitch on, I insisted on retaining my shift.
Lucy said, “Don’t be a silly goose, Hannah. The rest of us are taking everything off.”
“He’s not.” I nodded toward Inigo, sitting on the pool’s marble lip with his feet on the submerged top step, drinking directly from a ewer of brandywine. He had stripped down to his breeches—of purple silk tonight, embroidered in gold—so he was still covered from waist to knees.
Having heard me, Inigo shrugged and said, “I only like getting my legs wet, and I hate the feel of cold marble on my bare arse. Lucy’s right, there’s no point in wearing that thing. This is hardly the place for modesty, and I’m sure you have a very beautiful—”
“Inigo.” Elic caught his friend’s eye. “She’s an innocent maiden, remember? Leave her be. These things take time.”
Inigo sighed grumpily. “Do as you will, Hannah,” he said, the courtesans having invited the professeurs to address them informally, “but you really ought to have a proper bath. This water is extraordinary. It tends to relax one’s inhibitions.”
I stepped down into the pool. The moment my feet touched the water I felt a surge of erotic excitement that sucked the breath from my lungs.
And by this cave, there is a pool of water that is magico. What others in this water are feeling, you will feel. The pool was fed by a stream from the adjacent cave; I could see it flowing in through one hole and out through another. If that cave was, indeed, imbued with a magnetic energy capable of producing delusions, perhaps that energy was absorbed by the water running through it. That might also explain the temperature of the water, which was as balmy as Elic had promised.
And then there was the cave-dwelling bird Elic had called “Darius,” which an overzealous imagination could interpret as a hermit with the power to shape-shift. Rational minds didn’t accept myths and legends wholesale, but rather searched for the grain of truth at their core, and I was nothing if not rational—especially back then.
The novices cavorted like schoolgirls, and much as I tried to dodge their splashing, my shift ended up getting soaked. To my consternation, the damp, filmy linen clung to every contour of my body, becoming all but transparent. I could tell from the way Elic and Inigo looked at me that my effort to preserve my modesty had had the opposite result, the sheer garment adding an aura of titillation I hadn’t counted on. At that point, I realized I would have been better off getting casually naked, like the others—if nothing else, it would have garnered less attention—but my pride wouldn’t allow me to admit this.
“Methinks you would benefit from this,” Inigo said as he offered me a beaker filled to the brim from the ewer in his hand. I took it and retreated to a corner of the pool, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. The brandywine was sweet and syrupy, and I gulped it gratefully.
Inigo was offering instruction to Lucy and Bianca as they reclined on the steps to either side of him, stroking their own sexes. “Slow down, ladies. Savor your pleasure. Let it show on your faces.”
Elic molded Sibylla’s hand to his member, murmuring “Softly at first, like this… Tease me a bit, make me ache for a firmer touch.”
To my surprise, Elic’s sex thickened and rose in response to Sibylla’s touch, like that of the satyr in the statues. It didn’t grow quite that large, but large enough to make me wonder how a woman’s body could accommodate such an organ. The sight of it straining upward, with its taut, polished skin and bloodred tip, incited in me a hot shiver of arousal.
Disconcerted by these lewd sights—and my reaction to them—I turned my back, only to find myself facing a ribald statue, the one with the satyr being ministered to in the French manner by the buxom female kneeling before him. He leaned back against the column with his hips cocked forward, clutching fistfuls of her long, wavy hair as she glided her tongue up his shaft. Her eyes were closed, and she was gripping the satyr’s buttocks with both hands. The muscles of his torso and flanks were rendered in exacting detail, right down to a vein snaking downward across his abdomen. His head was thrown back in a grimace of ecstasy, the cords in his neck standing out in sharp relief.
How would it feel, I wondered, to give a man that kind of pleasure, using just one’s tongue and lips? I tried to imagine being licked and kissed on my own sex, and it throbbed in response.
I guzzled the brandywine.
“Take my stones in your hand,” Elic told Sibylla, “and pull down a bit … gently. Nay, keep stroking my cock, as well. Aye, that’s the way.”
“Push a finger or two into those sweet little notches,” Inigo told Lucy and Sibylla, “keeping your legs spread wide so your benefactor can see—or you might ask him to frig you with a dildo.”
Frig? I thought. Dildo?
Inigo said, “Tell him you wish it was his cock instead, because it’s so much bigger and harder. There’s no man on earth who doesn’t love hearing that sort of thing.”
Keeping my back to the ribald antics on the other side of the pool, I drained my beaker, hoping that it would dampen my senses—only to realize I was still just as wildly aroused, and also quite tipsy. Whether because of the magnetic energy permeating the water, or what I was witnessing, or both, I was consumed by lust. My sex felt engorged, hungry… I couldn’t seem to draw in a full breath.
“When your gentleman is ready to take you,” Elic told Sibylla, “ask him how he wants you, unless you be well enough acquainted with him to know his mind.
”
“How do you want me, monsieur?” Sibylla asked in a softly provocative voice.
“Lying back, like this.” There came a splash, as of Sibylla being lifted from the water, she responding with something between a gasp and a giggle. “Open your legs as wide as you’re able, and lift up a bit. Use a pillow, like this, if you have one. ’Tis a sight no man can resist, that of a beautiful woman offering herself so boldly.”
She let out a tremulous little moan.
He said, “You’re very wet, Sibylla.” I knew he didn’t mean wet from the pool.
“You are an excellent professeur, monsieur.”
“Open your sex with one hand and put me inside you with the other,” he told her. She sucked in her breath, then let it out in a luxuriant sigh. He made a soft little sound of gratification.
“Hold still with your legs locked tightly around me,” he told her, “and squeeze me from within.”
“Within?”
“Using the muscles in here, as if you were trying to pull on me, but without moving your hips. Try it. Ah…And again.”
Inigo praised Lucy and Bianca for the “charming abandon” with which they gave themselves over to self-gratification. “Next,” he said, “we shall practice our French. Before long, ye shall swallow a cockstand deeper than ye would have thought possible.”
Lucy, her breath coming fast, said, “Shall we spend first, monsieur?”
“Certes,” he said, “and pray, do not hold yourselves in check. Remember that you do this to inflame the ardor of your benefactor. The greater your display of passion when you climax, the greater his excitement.”
I could hear the girls’ shuddering breaths, their airy little moans. Lucy fell silent for a moment, then let out a guttural cry that went on for some time. Bianca’s pleasure reached its zenith soon thereafter, accompanied by a stream of breathless Italian.
“Why do you look away, Mistress Leeds?”
I turned to find Domenico Vitturi, in his black overgown, standing in the doorway, his half-ravaged face eerily pale against the darkness of the night, making him look like an apparition.
“You are here to learn, are you not?” he asked as he crossed to one of the few chairs not heaped with clothing, his long-legged gait somewhat stiff because of his bad leg.
“Aye, Don Domenico. I just… I…”
“She just needs a bit of time, Domenico,” Elic said as he knelt on the top step of the pool, hunched over with his weight on his elbows. Sibylla lay with her legs wrapped around his back, her hips propped on a pillow. From where I stood, I could see their privy parts united in coitus, his distended organ almost fully sheathed within her.
“She’s wasting time, I say,” Inigo countered as he unbuttoned his bulging breeches. The cockstand that sprang forth was unbelievably massive, like that of the satyr in the statues. Even Lucy and Bianca, who had seen their share of male appendages, gaped in wonderment.
Placing herself between his legs, Lucy lapped eagerly at the rampant organ, which twitched in response. Bianca, on the steps next to him, leaned down and licked the tip, murmuring “Mm…”
“One at a time, ladies,” Inigo said, “so that I may give each of you adequate attention. Bianca, you first. Take it in your mouth and lower your head slowly until you’ve taken in as much as you think you can. Be careful to shield your teeth with your lips. That’s right…”
Realizing I was staring with rapt interest, I looked away quickly.
“Hannah,” Inigo said, gentling his voice, “I do realize this is all new to you, but you should at least watch. Sucking cock is a skill even a virgin can acquire, and one that will greatly enhance your desirability as a courtesan, especially if you learn to do it well.”
“He’s right,” Vitturi said. “You claim to have the spirit of a courtesan, Mistress Leeds, but I’ve yet to see evidence of it.”
He wore the same coolly impassive expression that he always wore on those rare occasions when he addressed me directly. No, not always. He’d slipped that evening at supper, where he’d sat next to me at a long, damask-draped table in the castle’s cavernous great hall. We enjoyed a sumptuous banquet with Serge Pépin, Elic, Inigo, my fellow novices, and the gentlemen who had accompanied us there—with the exception of the Duke of Buckingham, who had chosen to sup in his rooms with only Jonas Knowles for company.
I was dismayed by the absence of the duke, who seemed no more inclined toward conviviality now that we’d arrived at our destination than he had during the long journey there, during which time he’d never so much as glanced in my direction. He still seemed determined to keep himself secluded in the best of the available accommodations—he had an entire tower to himself—attended to by the dozen or so retainers he’d brought with him. How was I to pursue my objective if I couldn’t get anywhere near the man?
Also missing at supper was Elle, much to my disappointment, for I felt more at ease when she was around. She had become a valued friend and chatmate—not that I could confide to her my true purpose in apprenticing myself to Signor Vitturi, of course, for which I felt some measure of guilt. My hope was that, when all of this was over and I had, God willing, saved my uncle from the executioner, I could reveal everything to Elle and she would understand and forgive me my subterfuge.
During supper, Vitturi ignored me almost completely until the lull between the small entrées and the roasts, when he turned to me and asked if I’d brought my book of madrigals. I retrieved the little red notebook from the hidden pocket of my gown and handed it to him. While everyone else feasted upon pork with lentils, stuffed partridges, and glazed leg of lamb, Don Domenico turned the pages of my book with seemingly utter absorption. He did not look up even when the roast course was removed and replaced with entremets of fragrant sour cherry clafouti, prune tarts, and an assortment of Auvergnat cheeses and fruit pastes.
“You wrote all of these? By yourself?”
I turned to find him looking at me, the book open to the last of the two dozen or so madrigals written there. “Of course, signore.”
My voice must have betrayed a hint of umbrage, because he said, “I don’t doubt you, I just…” He closed the book and ran his thumb over the tooled design on the cover. “Your word choices are at times unorthodox, but so apt, and I find your restrained lyricism remarkably powerful. ’Tis quite accomplished work for a person of so few years.”
So unforeseen was this praise that it took me a moment to find my tongue, and when I did, all I could do was stammer something about how most of my work was a good deal less impressive than these handpicked examples.
With a look that was both baleful and amused, he said, “Your inclination toward false modesty is not as endearing as you seem to think it is, Mistress Leeds.”
I groaned in mock exasperation. “I was brought up never to brag.”
“If someone points out how exceptional you are, ’tisn’t bragging to simply thank him.”
With a startled little smile—exceptional?—I said, “Grazie, signore.”
“Prego.” He smiled into my eyes, the first time he had looked at me—really looked at me—since that all too fleeting moment of rapport on the day we’d met.
The moment seemed to stretch time itself. Once again, I felt a connection with him—with something inside him, something raw and needful that he kept locked in a box within himself.
And once again, his smile faded and he abruptly turned away.
“Um, which one shall it be?” I asked.
He scowled in puzzlement.
“Which madrigal would you like me to sing after supper?” I asked, indicating the book in his hand.
He thrust it at me, saying “You choose. One’s as good as the next.”
I sang my current favorite, to an enthusiastic reception from everyone save Domenico Vitturi. He clapped politely, but he didn’t smile, and when the others stood and cheered and demanded an encore, he turned and left the room.
His frosty demeanor hadn’t thawed between then and now
. “’Tis a skill you need to learn,” he said, pointing across the steamy pool.
Inigo sat with Bianca’s head in his hands, guiding her movements. Her sheaf of dark, wavy hair hid the sight of her mouth on his sex, but his directives left no doubt as to what she was doing. “Open your throat, Bianca. That’s right, just relax it. I know you can’t take it all, and I don’t want you to gag, but perhaps another inch…”
“Inigo,” Vitturi said as he lifted his bad leg over the good, “perhaps ’tis time for Mistress Leeds to try her hand at the French arts.”
I closed my eyes, summoning the backbone to get through this.
My reluctance wasn’t lost on the Venetian. “Pleasuring a man with one’s mouth is a fundamental erotic skill, Mistress Leeds. If you want to be one of my courtesans, you must learn to do it—and not just tolerate the act, but relish it.”
I looked toward Elic, who seemed to share his sister’s inclination to protect and defend me, but he was clearly unaware of anything at the moment save his tutelage of Sibylla. He and the darkly beautiful Florentine were moving together slowly, sensually, his buttocks clenching and releasing, the muscles of his back and shoulders flexing with every languid thrust. His head was lowered toward hers, his hair draping both their faces in damp tendrils.
I turned to look at Inigo, his gaze on me as Bianca’s head bobbed up and down, up and down. He said, “You needn’t take it in your mouth, Hannah, not this first time. I just want you to taste it, to know the feel of it on your tongue.”
“It taste delizioso,” Bianca said as she lifted her head from the organ in question and moved aside to make room for me between his legs. “Come, Hannah, you must try. Is not so bad—you see.”
I waded across the pool, thinking Remove yourself from it. Just do what has to be done.
OME,” INIGO SAID, gesturing me closer. “Get comfortable.”
I knelt on one of the steps with my face at the level of his glistening cockstand, which he held in his fist. It looked more than a little forbidding, with its twisting network of veins. There was a tiny slit on the purplish tip, from which oozed a bead of clear fluid.
In the Garden of Sin Page 5