“That strikes me as a rather . . . precocious observation from a child of that age,”Caroline said. Precocious and sickeningly cruel.
“I said David was six. I never mentioned how old I was, nor do I intend to.”
“Ah.”
“A few years later,” Narcissa said, “David's father sent him to Eton—Alex was already there. David followed Alex to Oxford, and then he was called to the bar and served his barrister's apprenticeship with Sir Charles Upcott. According to Clarissa, it was ‘delusions of altruism’ that had attracted David to the law, so he was quite put out to discover that Burnham and Upcott had no interest in scuttling 'round in the muck with draggle-tails from the Rookery or what have you who'd run afoul of the law. He bought a commission in the King's Dragoon Guards and talked his brother into doing the same. Clarissa used to say David couldn't make water without Alex there to hold his twanger for him.”
“Were you and David courting then, or did that come later?”
“Courting?” Narcissa said through a mocking little giggle. “Darling, David and I never courted, we just fucked—but not until last year. Augie was still alive—my late husband. I actually did try to interest David in a discreet little tryst a couple of years ago—he'd grown into quite the strapping specimen, as you know—but he was already betrothed to this absurd little Hungarian, with whom he was insanely besotted, so I couldn't sway him.”
Jessamine let out a series of ecstatic groans, ramming the phallus hard into Aster as her pleasure crested. Aster was traded in for Angelique at Jessamine's request, Brummel having allowed her to choose her next partner, and the harness was replaced with a curved ivory column carved to look like a male organ with two heads, one at each end. Producing a little vial of oil she'd apparently brought with her along with these curious devices, Jessamine slicked it over both of their bodies, as well as the double phallus. She instructed Angelique to lie back and open her legs, whereupon she pushed one end of the phallus into the slender little Frenchwoman and lowered herself onto the other. The two women rocked their slippery bodies together with sensual abandon as they kissed and caressed, Angelique demonstrating a surprising degree of zeal. “Oh, oui,baisez-moi! Baisez-moi!”
Laurel, standing next to Don Ortiz, looked away with her jaw set, eyes glimmering.
“Looks as if Jessamine is in for a tongue-lashing tomorrow,” said Narcissa, “and not the good kind.”
“What you said before, about David being engaged . . .” Caroline began. “Is he . . . he isn't married, is he?” The possibility had never occurred to her.
“Oh, good heavens, no. The engagement ended on a rather lurid note, but until it did, David mooned over her like a schoolboy. She was pretty enough—a tawny blonde with big gray eyes—and she knew how to dress and act, but she was nobody, a commoner, and a foreign one at that.”
“How did they meet?” Caroline asked.
“She was the daughter of his philosophy professor. He dropped dead one day of apoplexy, leaving Natalia with two shillings in her purse and no place to live. David prevailed upon Alex and his wife to take her in—they'd been making their home at Greyton Hall with Lord Rexton because of Alex's military obligations. David had always avoided Greyton Hall because of his father, but he started visiting more often now that Natalia was there, and finally he asked her to marry him. A few months later, he and Alex were sent to Waterloo, Alex took a bullet in the head, and David—”
“Alex died at Waterloo?” Caroline asked, sitting up.
“That is what customarily happens when a bullet enters one's head. David brought the body home. I went to the funeral. He was incredibly distraught, but in that eerie, contained way of his. Hardly spoke a word to anyone but Natalia all weekend. Clarissa overheard him telling her that she was all he had left in the world, and that Alex's death was on his head, because he never would have bought that commission if David hadn't talked him into it—which was entirely true, of course.”
Caroline bit her tongue to keep from telling Narcissa what she thought of her lest she stop talking. She was learning more about Lord Rexton than she'd ever thought to learn, certainly far more than he was ever likely to volunteer.
“David tried to talk Natalia into marrying him right away,” Narcissa said, “but she insisted on waiting. I knew why he was in such a hurry. Grief tends to make men rammish—women, too. I've seen it time and again. A loved one dies, and all one wants to do is fuck. David didn't want to compromise sweet, innocent Natalia before the wedding night, but he had his needs. I renewed my offer to give him a nice, discreet little tumble, but he told me he'd sworn fidelity to Natalia when they became engaged. So he returned to the Guards. A month later, he was called back to Greyton Hall. He arrived to discover that his father's heart had burst while he was taking a turn up the petticoats of some young doxy.”With a conspiratorial little smile, Narcissa added, “Imagine David's surprise when he found out that the doxy was none other than his beloved Natalia.”
The air drained from Caroline's lungs. She closed her eyes.
“She fell all over herself with apologies and tearful explanations,” Narcissa said, “but David would have none of it. Of all the men for her to betray him with. He was crushed, furious. He ordered her out of the house, of course. Greyton Hall was his now. With Alex dead, he inherited the viscountcy. Here's where the real melodrama starts.”
There was more?
“About two months later, Natalia came crawling back to David at his house in London, threw herself utterly on his mercy. Turned out the old fuckster had gotten her in the family way. She was ruined, or would be as soon as she started showing. She begged David to support her until the baby came, after which she would return to Hungary and he could raise the child as his ward, given that it would be his half sibling. He was sizzled at the time, probably, and in no humor to hear this. He told her that her problems were of her own making, and that she had a lot of cheek, coming to him for help after what she'd done to him.”
“He turned her away?”
“He did. The next morning, he was summoned to the Newcastle Street Watch House. They'd pulled a woman's body out of the Thames just downstream from Southwark Bridge. She'd left a note on the bridge that had his name on it, so they were hoping he could identify her.”
Caroline stared at Narcissa, thinking of the night she herself had been hauled out of the Thames. “She . . . she drowned herself?”
“Not the first ruined girl to do it. They throw themselves off those bridges in droves.”
“Oh, mon dieu!” Angelique exclaimed as she and Jessa-mine writhed together like one sleek, wild little creature. “Oh! Je jouis! Je jouis!” She came with a series of sharp, breathy cries that Jessamine echoed as she reached yet another shuddering climax. Sitting up, she turned Angelica over and shoved her into the “kneel down” pose without either of them disengaging from the phallus. She ground against the other woman's upraised bum while reaching around to stroke her sex and breasts, both of them moaning in sensual frenzy.
Every person sitting around the table, gentleman and slave alike, stared in rapt fascination at the two lithe little oil-sheened women—except for Rexton. He sat gazing off into space like an old man who'd forgotten where he was and wished there was someone who could show him the way home.
“Natalia?” Rexton said, his voice oddly slow and thick. Fucking gin.
It was dark as hell, and he was reeling drunk. He heard her sodden frock dragging on the ground, but all he could really see of her was that long, damply snarled mass of blonde hair—until she stepped into the amber nimbus of a street-lamp.
He cried out, stumbling back, at the sight of her bloated, darkly mottled face, her filmy eyes and gaping mouth. “Jesus! Oh, God. Natalia!”
“My lord,” she said.
“No. God, no.”He was shaking. “Natalia . . .”
“My lord, wake up.”
She was shaking him. She was pushing at his shoulder, saying, “My lord. David. You're having a—”
He was in a bed, but he had his clothes on, except for his shoes and coat.Where the hell was he?
“My lord, are you all right?”
A woman was sitting up next to him, a shadowy form in the darkness. She reached for him.
He scrambled away from her, falling off the bed and landing hard on the carpeted floor. Groaning, he struggled to his feet. Despite the darkness, for it was a nearly moonless night, he gradually recognized the slowly spinning room—la Chambre Romain.
Rexton's stomach pitched. He lurched into the bathroom and vomited into the Brahmah.
He leaned against the wall, gasping. And then he vomited some more. When he was finally done, he rinsed out his mouth and splashed water on his face, his hands shaking like those of an old man.
It wasn't quite so dark anymore. Caroline must have lit some candles in the bedroom.
It was she who had pulled off his shoes and wrestled him out of his coat, after he'd collapsed on the bed in a stupor, he suddenly recalled. He couldn't remember much of what had transpired earlier that evening, including having come back to the room.
No, he did remember something. He remembered taking a tumble on the stairs, and Caroline guiding him the rest of the way with an arm around him as he muttered and raved and careened into walls.
“Jesus Christ.” He clawed his hands through his sweat-dampened hair, recalling her cool fingers stroking his forehead as he sank into a deep, drunken slumber. He had wanted her to keep touching him like that forever, softly, tenderly, as if he were her lover.
God, you fool, Rexton. You fucking idiot. Will you never learn?
“My lord?” She was standing in the bathroom doorway in a sleeveless linen shift, looking at him with those big, all-seeing eyes. “Is there anything I can—”
“You can shut up and stop looking at me like that. Just stop. . . stop . . .” He growled in frustration and punched the wall, his fist connecting with the toilet glass over the sink, which shattered in a burst of mirrored shards.
“Oh, my lord—you're bleeding.” She reached for his hand, which was lacerated across three fingers.
“Just stop!” He hauled back with his fist. “Will you just leave me . . .”
She had backed away and was staring at him, eyes wide with alarm.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered. He'd never struck a female, never come close, yet here he was with his bloodied fist raised high, every nerve jumping with a crazy, gin-fueled fury.“Get the hell away from me,” he said. “Get out of here. Go.”
“You mean . . . ?” She looked toward the door to the hall.
“Go!” he roared, both fists clenched.
“I . . . I'll be sent home if I'm seen outside this room without you.”
“Oh, fuck.”He pushed past her and snatched the leash out of the black box, but he fumbled drunkenly when he attempted to clip it onto her collar. “You do it.”
When she had it fastened, he grabbed it and flung open the door.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked as he tugged her down the corridor.
“Did I say you could speak?”
“N-no, but—”
“Then keep your fucking mouth shut.”
Frederick Weatherall, Marquess of Dunhurst, having awakened to a crash of breaking glass next door, stood at the window of his bedchamber watching Rexton, lantern in one hand and leash in the other, half dragging that little bitch Rose across the stretch of lawn to the west of the castle. The viscount's gait was unusually heavy and awkward. Little wonder, given all the gin he'd swilled that evening.
They proceeded up the path to the north, disappearing into the darksome woods surrounding the stable and adjacent carriage house. Dunhurst poured himself a tall whiskey and drank it as he gazed into the night.
What he wouldn't give to get that little cunt alone and teach her a lesson—teach both of them a lesson, she and that meddling cur, Rexton. As if Rexton's treatment of him last year weren't outrageous enough—having his room searched, trying to get him banned from Slave Week—he had set out this year to deliberately show him up and make him a fool in front of the others. The only man here wealthy enough to outbid Dunhurst for the coveted Rose, he had done so for the sole purpose of keeping her out of Dunhurst's hands. Dunhurst had ended up with Lili, who had somehow—he still couldn't fathom it—turned the tables and humiliated him most extraordinarily.
In the letter Lili had left for him to find in the morning, she'd promised to tell no one of his debasement at her hands, provided he was “a good boy” for the remainder of Slave Week. If I even suspect that you've hurt one of the slaves, she'd written, every soul here will find out exactly what happened in your chamber that night. She had warned him, after that incident with Saffron losing the footrace, that she had come very close to following through on her threat, and that he'd better toe the line, or else.
The problem was, Lili wasn't the only one who knew what had happened that night. There had been a witness—Rose. Dunhurst had enough friends here to know that he would have more than likely been warned had she started telling people what she'd seen, but what would happen once they were both back in London? She would convey the juicy tidbit in a snickering whisper to some friend who would whisper it to three or four other people, and so would begin the inexorable decay of his reputation. Before long, they'd be calling him Bum Boy and Miss Freddie—behind his back, if not to his face.
A glimmer of light emerged from the woods. Dunhurst lowered his glass slowly when he saw that it was Rexton alone. The viscount started retracing his steps across the lawn, only to pause with an arm braced against a tree and his head down. He remained like that for about half a minute, then turned and headed back toward the path.
“No,”Dunhurst whispered.
As if Rexton had heard him, he paused again, raking his hands through his hair. He spun around and strode purposefully back to the castle.
Dunhurst smiled.
Eleven
ONE MORE DAY, Caroline thought as she sat in the pitch-black stable amid a pile of straw. Tomorrow would be the last day of Slave Week. If she could put up with all this—with him—for just another twenty-four hours, she would be able to start her life anew.
Rexton had tied her leash to the ladder leading to the hayloft at the rear of the cavernous horse barn. The leash wasn't locked onto her collar, just clipped, and he had left her hands unbound. If she wanted to, she could untether herself with ease, but what would be the point? Were she to be caught walking about alone and unrestrained, she would be sent home empty-handed. And it wasn't as if the leash were causing her any real discomfort. It was long; she had room to move about, and to lie down in the straw—assuming she would be able to get back to sleep.
The horses in the fourteen stalls lining the stone-paved central aisle had awakened, nickering and fidgeting, when Rexton brought her here. Some of them were still awake—she heard hay being munched, and the occasional equine grunt—but most of them seemed to have settled back down.
The earthy barn smell was an unpleasant reminder of what Rexton had done to her in the Nemeton. The clean, refreshing anger she had harbored toward him after that had retreated somewhat in light of Narcissa's revelations—only to be renewed in full force when he dragged her here and tied her up like a dog simply for having shown him a bit of kindness.
In truth, she was grateful to him for having left her here. It was an instructive reminder of the contempt in which he held her. She had begun to weaken toward him again, after having finally learned to feel as little for him as he felt for her. She would not make that mistake a second time.
Light wavered through the gaps in the main double door at the far end of the aisle. It would appear Lord Rexton had second thoughts about leaving her here.
It doesn't matter, she told herself. Don't soften toward him. He doesn't deserve it, and you'll only bring yourself pain.
The door creaked
open. Lord Dunhurst entered, holding a lantern in one hand and his walking stick in the other.
Caroline bolted to her feet.
The burly marquess, who was in his shirtsleeves, smiled coldly as he sauntered toward her. “You look different without the face paint,” he said. “Younger. One could almost believe you're the pure, sweet little maiden you pretend to be, and not the whore we both know you are.”
“You'd best leave before Lord Rexton returns,” she said in as even a voice as she could muster. “He just went to get some . . . some blankets. He'll be back any—”
“It doesn't surprise me that you are a liar.” Setting the lantern on the floor, he set about unscrewing the ivory handle of his walking stick. “I must say, however, that I would have expected someone like you to be a bit more skilled at it.”
“It . . . it's true,”she said as she strove, with jittery fingers, to unhook the leash from her collar.
“Liar!” He pulled from within the walking stick a straight black truncheon and swung it at her arms.
Pain cracked through her; a scream filled her ears. He swung again and again, as she collapsed into the straw, covering her head. Ribs crunched. Her shoulder bloomed with pain. The horses were all awake now, several neighing in alarm and one or two kicking at their stall doors.
She looked up and saw him untying her leash from the ladder, having set aside the truncheon, which she realized was made of India rubber. This, then, was the weapon he had used on Dahlia, the one they couldn't find in his room because it had been secreted in his walking stick all along.
“You can't do this,” she said as he yanked on the leash, pulling her to her feet. “I'm not wearing the Black Heart. When Rexton finds out what you've—”
“He won't.”Turning,Dunhurst reached for one of the tools hanging on the wall nearby—a hay knife over a foot long.
She grabbed the hand that was holding her leash and bit down to the bone.Bellowing in pain, he dropped the leash.
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