Sweet Revenge lahm-1

by Andrea Penrose

  “Actually, his intention was most likely just to rough you up a bit,” replied Gavin, touching a hand to his pocket. He had changed out of his snowy white garb and was now clad in a black coat and trousers. “Sex had an extra edge for him when the women were frightened.”

  Fear—a primal, primitive emotion. Drawing a steadying breath, Arianna looked up to thank him again.

  Only to find the snout of a pocket pistol hovering inches from her forehead.

  “It is I who you really need to fear,” he said conversationally. “Get up, Lady Wolcott—or rather, Lady Arianna Hadley.”

  A fresh wave of dizziness washed over her.

  “Get up!” The slap was a good deal harder than his first one.

  “How . . . why . . .” A myriad of questions tangled on her tongue.

  “You’ll learn all that later.” Gavin grasped her arm and hauled her to her feet. “Move.” Cold steel hit hard against her temple. “And quickly, or I’ll put a bullet through your brain.”

  What brain? thought Arianna groggily. Still half dazed by the drug, she stumbled along unresistingly. A slave to her own obsession, she had been too stupid to see the truth.

  “This way.” Gavin unlatched a set of glass-paned doors and shoved her outside. A damp breeze ruffled through the dark foliage of an overgrown garden.

  Gravel crunched underfoot as he hurried their steps away from the house.

  “Where are you taking me?” asked Arianna, the chill and the sharp stabs of the stones helping to restore her wits. Up ahead in the shadows, she saw a team of horses harnessed to a covered carriage.

  “To a cozy little spot where we won’t be disturbed.” His low laugh echoed the rumbled wash of the nearby river. “Don’t worry, Lady Arianna. It’s not far away.”

  Grentham let the draperies fall back in place and stepped away from the window. Half hidden by a grove of trees, the abandoned gamekeeper’s cottage overlooked the ghostly ruins of Medmenham Abbey. “Has Lord Cockburn arrived?”

  “Yes,” assured the man who had just come in from the darkness. “He is waiting at the entrance of the caves.”

  “Excellent, excellent.” The minister turned to the other two people in the room. “What of Lady Wolcott and Lord Saybrook?”

  “The lady left London just after dusk, milord, and arrived at the Wooburn Moor according to schedule,” replied the spy appointed to keeping her under surveillance.

  “The earl followed shortly afterward, alone and on horseback,” reported the other man. “His friend, the surgeon Henning, is coming by coach, along with four other former soldiers.” A pause. “All cripples.”

  “Saybrook has considerable hubris, to face off against the unknown with such a paltry force.” The spark of a flint scraping steel caught the slight upward curl of Grentham’s mouth. “But then, that doesn’t really surprise me.”

  He lit a single candle and set it by the map on the table. Motioning for the three men to come closer, he then indicated the paper. “Martin, you and your group will keep watch on the London road here, while Finley, you are to station your forces by the Abbey ruins, in this part of the gardens.”

  Tap, tap. The minister punctuated his orders with a well-tended finger. “Beckham, you will come with me. Your weapons are loaded?”

  One of the men nodded.

  “A reminder to you others—stay well hidden. No one—no one—is to move unless I give the signal.” Grentham drew on a pair of black gloves. “I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to set this trap. So need I say that there will be hell to pay for anyone who cocks it up?”

  Silence.

  “Good. Then let us go take up our positions.”

  “Damnation,” growled Saybrook. “You are sure that he called her Lady Arianna?”

  “Aye, sor,” answered the leader of Henning’s sailors. “And he said the spot where they were going wasn’t far away.”

  “Did you see which way the carriage was headed?”

  The man flashed a gap-toothed grin. “Better ’n that, sor. I sent Davy te grab on to the back struts. He’s a former maintops’I man, well used to hanging on te a shroud in gale-force winds. A few bumps won’t shake ’im loose.”

  Saybrook glanced up at the sliver of moon. The crescent curve of light was almost imperceptible through the heavy scrim of clouds. “I’m not sure how that will help me find them in this ocean of darkness,” he muttered. “Unless he has a lodestone in his pocket—one with a magnetic force powerful enough to guide me to their presence.”

  “No lodestone, sor,” piped up one of the men, “but a naval signal lantern, with a powerful beam that can be seen fer miles on a foggy night.”

  “Aye,” added the leader. “And it’s shuttered te make a pinpoint o’ light, so the driver of the vehicle won’t notice it.”

  “Well done,” said Saybrook. “I’ve a good idea of where they are headed, but I can’t afford to make a mistake. God knows, I’ve made enough already.” A last lingering look at the manor house, whose rear façade rose like a spectral shadow from the deserted gardens, seemed to spur him to action. “One of you wait here for Henning to tell him of the change in plans. The rest of you row on to High Wycombe—is anyone familiar with Medmenham Abbey?”

  “I am,” volunteered one of the sailors. “I was raised in this area and know it well.”

  “Then you’ll know about the entrance to Dashwood’s caves.”

  The sailor nodded. “Devilish doing down there in years past, or so local rumor had it.”

  “I fear that the embers of evil may well have been stirred to fire again,” replied the earl in a tight voice. “Flex your muscles, men, and make your boat fly.” He turned to make his way to where his horse was tethered. “We haven’t a moment to lose.”

  Arianna stumbled, her bare feet scraping over the rocky path. Pain lanced through her limbs as Gavin jerked her upright.

  Oh, but pain is good, she thought, biting her lip to keep from crying out. It was helping to clear the last noxious vapors of the drug from her brain.

  “Clumsy cow,” snarled Gavin as she slipped again. His hold tightened on her arm as he shoved her forward. “Be careful. We can’t have you breaking your lovely neck just yet.”

  “Why?” she rasped, tasting a trickle of blood.

  Why hadn’t he killed her along with Concord?

  “You’ll learn that soon enough.”

  They were halfway down a steep slope. Through the drifting mist, Arianna could just make out a faint rippling of moonlight on water. The sound of the current lapping over the rocks stirred a sudden swirl of memories from her island childhood. Sun, surf, her father’s warm laughter.

  Gavin yanked her back from her momentary reveries. “This way.”

  The path led to a courtyard framed by a high crumbling stone archway. Up ahead, the light of a single lantern pierced the gloom.

  “You’re late.” The voice, a nasal drawl made shriller by a pinch of nervousness, was not one she recognized. “Was there any . . . complication?”

  “None,” replied Gavin with savage satisfaction. “The problem has been eliminated. What about you?”

  “The samples have been moved, exactly as planned.” As the man raised the light, an oily glow spilled over his features. His face was long and thin, with an air of aristocratic arrogance chiseled into the angled cheekbones and hawklike nose. A shock of silvery hair was swept straight back, accentuating a high forehead and bushy brows.

  The picture of patrician refinement was ruined by a high-pitched cackle.

  That laugh. All of a sudden, it came back to her in a gold-flecked flash. A long-ago memory of sitting curled in her father’s lap, mesmerized by the gleam of shiny buttons as he and his friend “Cocky” talked late into the night.

  “That’s why our partnership works so well,” went on Cockburn—for she was sure it must be him. “We both are extremely good at what we do.” His laughter stilled. “So, this is Dickie’s daughter?”

  Arianna squinted against the gl
are of the beam. But before she could reply, Gavin pressed the pistol to the back of her neck. “Move inside, Lady Arianna.”

  It was then that she noticed a low, vaulted entrance cut into the hillside beneath the flinty Gothic archway.

  A shove forced her inside.

  Damp, dank air kissed her cheeks. She staggered and was suddenly, violently sick.

  Cockburn jerked his perfectly polished Hessian boot away with fastidious quickness. “I told you that the combination of poppies and coca leaves was a dangerous mix.”

  “It was the only way to ensure that both of them would be sluggish enough not to raise any alarm,” said Gavin. “A calculated risk, but not a great one. After all, it hardly mattered whether it would kill Concord. As for Lady Arianna . . .”

  Wrinkling his nose, Cockburn thrust a handkerchief into her hand. “Here, clean your face.”

  Arianna was under no illusion that the gesture was an act of kindness. No doubt he didn’t wish the sour smell of bile to follow them into the depths. She wiped her mouth with the soft linen, suddenly aware of a small patch of raised threads against her lips. Embroidery?

  She offered the soiled square back to him, taking care to angle it into the lantern light. If there was any doubt as to his identity, the design did away with it. Though the stitching was cream on cream, she could just make out the image of a strutting cock.

  He made a moue of disgust and waved it away. “Drop the damned thing and come along.”

  They walked on for what felt like an age—Arianna counted two hundred steps—before the tunnel narrowed and turned down to the left. The native chalk gave the walls an eerie, ghostly white glow. Roman numerals were carved into the stone at odd intervals, along with a series of grotesque heads.

  “Dashwood called this the Robing Room,” said Gavin. His voice was calm and complacent, as if he were giving a tour of Westminster Cathedral. “He had an Italian artist, Giuseppe Borgnis, help with the design.”

  So, she was at Medmenham, and the ruins aboveground were the old Cistercian abbey. She had guessed as much.

  “The original club members would don their costumes here,” he continued.

  “Do you and your depraved friends follow suit?” asked Arianna, not bothering to disguise the contempt in her voice.

  “Oh, we are not nearly as primitive these days,” replied Gavin. “As you saw, we prefer a more comfortable setting for our debaucheries.”

  “May you all rot in hell,” she whispered.

  “Tut, tut, Lady Arianna,” chided Cockburn. He turned, and a glint of gold shone from his waistcoat. “No need to be nasty. I am hoping we can all behave like civilized individuals.”

  Her impulse was to spit in his face. However, Arianna held herself in check. “Civilized?” she repeated. “Pray, how do you define the word, Lord Cockburn?”

  He smiled. “Ah, so you remember me.”

  “We shall explain everything shortly,” said Gavin curtly, before she could answer. “Come, let us keep moving.”

  They rounded a huge pillar, and after a short way emerged into a soaring circular chamber with several alcoves cut into the rock.

  “This is the Banqueting Hall.” Gavin smoothly resumed his explanations, and for the first time released his grip on her arm to point up at the ceiling. “See that hook? It is said that the Rosicrucian lamp from the first Hellfire Club meeting in the George and Vulture once hung there.”

  As if I give a fig for the sordid history of your satanic brethren.

  A glance showed that Cockburn was watching her intently. “I fear you are boring Lady Arianna,” he murmured.

  “Yes, you are,” she replied bluntly. “The Hellfire Club members seem to think their celebration of sexual perversion and mockery of morality is a mark of superior intellect.” It wasn’t very smart to bait one’s captors, but the truth was, she knew she was going to die, so what did it matter? Concord at least had paid for his sins. “I think it’s nothing more than infantile indulgence.”

  She heard Cockburn suck in his breath. And then let it out in a low laugh. “We think alike, Lady Arianna,” he said softly. “I am not a member.”

  “They indulge in naught but childish games,” agreed Gavin. He must have seen the skepticism on her face, for he went on to add, “It suited our purpose for me to join the Club, in order to keep a close eye on Concord, Kellton, and Lady Spencer. But while they played in the dark, so to speak, we turned their ignorance to our advantage.”

  For a brief moment, Arianna was overcome with confusion. Perhaps it was the residue of the narcotic, but she felt her dizziness return. The chalky walls seemed to press in and then recede.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked haltingly. It was only one of the many questions now whirling like dervishes inside her head.

  “Patience.” The marquess smiled. “You will soon be enlightened.”

  His easy assurance heightened her confusion. She considered herself skilled at judging people and their motivations. But nothing was making any sense.

  Gavin and Cockburn. She squeezed her eyes shut as their faces turned a bit fuzzy. Concord, Kellton, and Lady Spencer. The pieces of the puzzle no longer seemed to fit together as she and Saybrook had thought, yet try as she might, she could not discern a new pattern.

  “You seem a trifle faint, Lady Arianna. Would you care for a sip of brandy?”

  Her lids fluttered open in time for her to see Cockburn take a small silver flask from his pocket. “No,” she exclaimed, then hated herself for the half-hysterical squeak.

  “It’s untainted, I assure you.” He uncorked it and took a swallow.

  Arianna shook her head, unwilling to betray any further sign of weakness. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her fear.

  Fear. Yes, she was afraid. Not that she had much to live for. Except for the chocolate recipes, she thought wryly, and perhaps . . .

  Don’t be a fool—the earl would not mourn her passing.

  “This way.” Gavin appeared impatient to continue their journey into the depths of the caverns.

  The way sloped downward, and the rock beneath her bare toes turned damper. Shadows flickered wildly, and she was sure that she heard the echo of gurgling water somewhere deep in the darkness up ahead.

  It felt as if she were trapped in the belly of the Beast.

  “Watch your step—we are about to cross the Styx,” warned Gavin. Sure enough, the lantern beam swung down to illuminate a small subterranean stream, its eddying waters black as coal. “Do take care. The bridge is narrow.”

  They crossed in silence, the still air growing more oppressive with every passing moment. Arianna felt her breathing turn shallow, half expecting fumes of sulfur and brimstone to flare up and fill her lungs.

  “As you have seen, there are a number of catacombs down here,” remarked Gavin. “Where a number of wicked things have happened in the past. That is, if the rumors can be believed.”

  A blade of light cut through the gloom, showing the entrance to another chamber. “Please, no ghost stories, Philip. Lady Arianna will think we are trying to frighten her.” Cockburn came up beside her and took her hand. His touch was moist and cold, reminding her of a dead fish. “We are here, my dear. Let us sit down and make ourselves comfortable.”

  A wick flared to life, the fire-gold flame showing three straight-back chairs arranged around a small circular table in the center of the space. Several Turkey rugs lay scattered on the stone floor, but they did nothing to dispel the bone-deep chill.

  “Please, have a seat, Lady Arianna,” urged Cockburn with a courtly bow as Gavin circled the chamber, lighting the four oil lamps affixed to iron brackets on the wall.

  The scene had an air of utter unreality to it—like some demented, demonic dream run amuck. For an instant, Arianna was tempted to turn and run. But reason quickly reasserted control. The odds of escaping through the labyrinth of dark tunnels were too high to calculate.

  Might as well wait and see if Chance offered a b
etter deal. Besides, she was curious. About a number of things.

  “Cozy, isn’t it?” said Gavin from within the spill of shadows.

  The marquess shifted the lamp on the table and arranged the sheaf of papers into several neat piles. A plate of arrowroot biscuits and a pitcher filled with a clear liquid and lemon slices sat to one side. “You must be hungry and thirsty after your ordeal. Won’t you refresh yourself before we begin?”

  The absurdity of his pleasantries made her head start to ache again. “I would rather dispense with the charade of civilized behavior, Lord Cockburn. You must have a reason for bringing me here. What is it?”

  He released a heavy sigh as he brushed a speck of chalk from his elegant claret-colored coat. “This does not have to be unpleasant, Lady Arianna.”

  And the Devil does not have to shrivel a man’s soul. It all comes down to choices.

  She clenched her jaw, refusing to reply with aught but a stony stare.

  Gavin fished a rolled length of chamois from his coat pocket and dropped it on the table. The muffled chink of metal sounded as it thudded against the wood. “I told you that she would not—”

  A sharp look from Cockburn warned him to silence. With a shrug, he retreated a step and folded his arms across his chest.

  “Forgive my colleague.” Cockburn sat and carefully pinched the pleats of his trousers into place, the very picture of gentlemanly refinement. “He forgets his manners at times.”

  Arianna quelled the urge to laugh at the absurdity.

  “How to begin . . .,” he said, fingering his smoothly shaven chin. “I knew your father quite well. A delightful man, and quite brilliant.” A rustle of wool. “Though not without his faults.”

  “I’m aware of my father’s personality,” she replied. “Kindly get to the point.”

  “Very well.” A pause. “The point is you, Lady Arianna.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  The marquess folded his hands on the table. “We have a business proposition for you.”

  Business? The absurdity had now twisted into utter madness. “Wait—you still have not explained how you discovered my real identity.”