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‘At least if I am ruined, no one will expect me to marry Sir Nash,’ George said, with renewed confidence. If worse came to worst, she would take the veil and spend her remaining days in repentance. A life of celibacy and prayer was not something she wished for, but it would be free of the interference from Marietta and her detestable cousin.
‘Come, Polly. We must write to your brother. And then you must help me to look like a fallen woman.’
Chapter Two (#u81d63a4e-33fc-5f2c-bc93-c9972d28686e)
Forty members in attendance. Five-and-twenty guests of members. Staff above stairs: fifteen. Staff below stairs: ten.
Frederick Challenger walked through the ballroom of Vitium et Virtus, oblivious to the tumult around him, his mind still focused on the headcount he had taken passing through the rooms.
He could no longer remember what private joke had inspired the name Vice and Virtue when he and his friends had formed the club back at Oxford. There had always been plenty of the former, but he could remember not a single instance of the latter. And that utter lack of morality had turned the place from a college prank into the most decadent and most popular club in London.
It was that same popularity that made organised debauchery into a chore, and Frederick into the saner head that must prevail over the anarchy. Thus far, the night had been uneventful. In the game room, Lord Pendleton had attempted to continue play with an IOU after running though the money in his purse. It had taken only a gentle reminder from Fred that such a thing would render the masks that they all wore a moot point. One could not remain anonymous while announcing one’s own identity with a signed marker. Of course, with his high voice and penchant for elaborate waistcoats, only an idiot would not know that Pendleton was there.
The real reason for cash play was much more simple. Watching a man continue to gamble until he had reduced himself to ruin spoiled the fun for everyone. And if someone blew his brains out at the table, it would make a hell of a mess. Fred had no desire to call upon Mrs Parker, the housekeeper, to arrange for the cleaning of the extremely expensive wallpaper, which was hand-painted silk that matched the Italian mural of a bacchanal on the ceiling.
In the main room, one of the club’s infamous masked balls was in full sway. At the very centre of the dancers was some damned fool, dressed as the devil. Rather than shrink from the appearance of Old Scratch, the masked dancers that thronged the dance floor raised their hands in salute.
Fred had donned a domino mask and cape for the sake of what passed as propriety. On such nights, appearing without a costume drew far more attention than red satin, horns and a tail. As he pushed past him on the way to the owners’ private quarters, Lucifer gave a menacing wave of the cat-o’-nine-tails he held, as if ready to strike.
Fred stared him down with a dark glance worthy of any of the fiends of hell and the man turned away and brought the silken cords of his flail down on the bare shoulders of the nearest dancing girl, instead.
She responded with a shudder of pleasure and turned to Fred with outstretched arms and mouth open for a kiss.
Fred obliged, but only briefly. Then he untangled himself from her grip and thrust her into the waiting embrace of a man on his left. She offered a pout as brief as his kiss had been before turning her attentions to her new partner.
‘Me, next.’ A buxom blonde dressed as a randy milkmaid reached for him, tipping her head up and offering her lips.
He hid a sigh of frustration, forced a laugh and offered another kiss before breaking away to push past towards the green baize door that hid the corridor to the office.
It did not do for an owner of the club to be so unenthusiastic when tempted with sins of the flesh. When he and his friends had founded the secret society at Oxford, they had meant to give in to every temptation and take no vice in moderation. But what had seemed daring ten years ago felt rather silly now that all of London wanted to join them in their debauchery.
His friend, Oliver Gregory, thought that Fred’s time in the army had sucked all the joy from his soul and rendered him the sort of authoritarian that they’d been rebelling against. That was hardly the case. He had his reasons to forgo the excesses here and had discovered he much preferred the military to hedonism. No matter how chaotic it had seemed, war had a brutal structure to it. Orders were given and received. Men knew their place and their reason for living and dying. On the battlefield, life had purpose. After Waterloo, Vitium et Virtus seemed the epitome of pointlessness.
The club’s third owner, Jacob Huntington, had insisted that Fred was merely jaded. That if he could find some fresh, untried iniquity it would whet his appetite for life.
What a disappointment it must be that neither women nor gaming, or any overindulgence Fred could imagine, was as satisfying as knowing that when he was there to watch over it, the club ran like a well-oiled machine. Jake saw to it that the membership was limited to only the most sought-after dilettantes. After they had joined, Oliver made sure that the entertainments were every bit as excessive as they could have hoped. The food and drink had no equal in London. The games had the highest stakes.
Once the stage had been set for debauchery, the owners’ jobs were almost ended. One did not need to order people to do that which they wanted in the first place. But Fred was the one to make sure everyone who passed the threshold stayed within the bounds of reasonable behaviour. When they left, he saw to it that they kept their mouths shut about what occurred and whom they had seen. There were no fist fights, no embarrassing scenes, and no females shrieking down the main stairs that they were being forced against their will. The women found at Vitium et Virtus, whether members or employees, were all ready and willing to sin.
If there was scandal, he dealt with it, quickly, quietly, and with as little drama as was possible. Before he had returned from Waterloo and taken over the day-to-day running of the place, they had given little thought to security. It had been naïve of them to believe that a den of libertines had no need of structure. That carelessness had reduced the initial number of owners from four to three. Friends were precious. He would not lose another.
Tonight, after his cursory examination of the revels, Fred meant to lock himself in the office with a glass of brandy and a good book. If they caught him at it, Oliver and Jake would be appalled and declare that some portion of him must have died on the battlefield to leave him so indifferent to the activities around him.
Perhaps they were right. He glanced at the laughing people surrounding him, utterly unmoved. Should a place of such unfettered pleasure be so bone-numbingly boring?
But as he passed by the last doorway before the office, the low rumble of the crowd piqued his deadened curiosity. This was the space set aside for the auctioning of favours. There, masked courtesans might throw over their usual protectors for an evening and go away with whatever gentleman had the most money to offer them. If they decided to drop their disguise and reveal their beautiful faces, it was only after the bedroom door was closed.
It was a titillating thrill for all involved. One might find oneself sampling the favourite of the most powerful men in England. Or discover that one’s own mistress, or worse yet, one’s own wife, had grown so bored she’d decided to offer herself to any man willing to indulge her vanity.
Tonight, there was something about the fevered sound of the bidding that seemed wrong. Once Fred pushed past the crowd by the door it took only a glance to see that this was no ordinary auction. In front of him, the auctioneer shouted, ‘How much, gentlemen, for a maidenhead? Turn out your pockets. Dig deep into your purses. Surely this beauty is worth more than the paltry bids I’ve heard.’
She stood on the small stage at the far end of the room as if floating on the cloud of tobacco smoke that hung over the men gathered at her feet. But the greasy light shining through the haze seemed to purify to an opalescent glow as it touched her skin.
And there was so much skin. Desire flooded him, sudden and unusual. She was beautiful and he wanted her. But another part of him wanted to rush forward and throw a coat over those bare shoulders to shield her from the roving eyes of the crowd. It was a sacrilege to look upon such untouched perfection. And she was an innocent. He was sure. Whores sometimes pretended to be virgins in these little games, hiding sponges of blood between their legs to fool their clients into believing they’d bought a deflowering. But they could not hide the look in the jaded eyes behind their masks, the knowing smile, or the lack of blush in their unrouged cheeks.
This girl was different. The downward cast of her masked head was not some ironic parody of shyness—it was genuine discomfort at being scrutinised. Her body was devoid of blemish except for the glow of embarrassment at her nakedness and the attention it had garnered.
Not quite naked, but near enough. She had not bothered with stays, chemise or stockings under the gown she wore, which was of a muslin so fine that it might as well have been a cloud of mist. When she moved, in the slow, awkward dance of one unaccustomed to seduction, the curtain of blonde hair that shielded her body parted revealing first a curve, then a dimple, and occasionally a glimpse of rose-tipped breasts, the hollow of her navel, or the delta of blonde curls between her legs.
As if that was not enough to make a man’s breeches tight, the gold cord that tied her garments into a semblance of a classic tunic had been braided into a chain. The end of it wound around her throat and loosely bound each wrist. It incited fantasies of a captive slave at auction, unable to refuse any depravity a man could imagine for her.
Like the other frenzied bidders in the room, some dark corner of his soul was stirring. Had he ever lain with a virgin? If so, she had not been as sweet and untried as this one. The girl before him could not possibly know the fate that awaited her or the depths that a man might sink to when given the chance to indulge his most forbidden whims. One had only to look at Nash Bowles’s reaction to see what was about to occur. That disgusting toad was every bit as recognisable as Pendleton had been, and the wad of banknotes he waved was easily the largest in the room. He was all but salivating as he shouted his bids.
Of course he would be here. Nash had often expressed his taste for untried blondes, the younger the better. Frederick had told him on more than one occasion that this was a club for mutual pleasure, not a dockside brothel. Then he’d made Snyder, the porter, escort him out the door. Tonight, Snyder stood behind the girl on stage, arms crossed on his chest, doing nothing to prevent what was going on.
It was all too much. The fact that Fred encouraged high stakes at the table and turned a blind eye to Dionysian revels did not mean that he had become a procurer for deviants. If he allowed this auction to continue, that would be exactly what he was. Without another thought, he grabbed for his purse and turned out the contents.
Not enough. So he stripped the gold ring from the finger on his hand and held it in the air. ‘Ten thousand pounds!’
At this, a hush fell over the crowd and the auctioneer turned to him.
Disgusted, he tossed the ring towards the stage where it landed at the man’s feet. ‘It is easily worth that. I have more. Should you refuse it, I will back it with a cheque for twice, or thrice that amount.’
‘No fair,’ cried someone from the crowd.
‘Foul,’ cried another, to an increase of grumbling. ‘You think that since you run this club you can do what you like in it?’
Frederick grabbed the cat-o’-nine-tails from the comic-opera Satan who had followed him into the room and waved it menacingly over his head. It was little more than a toy, but combined with the ferocity of his tone, it was enough to send the men around him scurrying for the corners. ‘Do I think I can do as I like? Since I am the one to set the rules, I think I can. I will have the lot of you chucked out into the street and banned if you doubt me.’
He smiled, relishing the same surge of power he got while frightening soldiers into obedience in Portugal. ‘But that will not be all, you sad bunch of reprobates. Do you wish your fathers, your wives, and your daughters to know what a pack of disgusting, drunken lechers you are? If this room is not empty by the time I count three, I will turn the club books over to the tattle sheets. If you force my hand, all of London will see how its finest sons behave when the sun is down and the curtains are drawn.’ He laughed, bitter at the ridiculousness of it, and pointed to the door.
It was not even necessary to begin the count. All it took was a threat of exposure to send the crowd scurrying like rats. The stampede flowed around him, out the door. At the rear of the throng was the scantily clad virgin.
His arm came down to prevent her egress. ‘And where do you think you are going?’
‘You said...’
‘I said they should leave. You have no permission to do so. You came here to sell yourself to the highest bidder. Now you are mine, bought and paid for. You will not leave from this place until I am done with you.’ He grabbed the swaying tail of gold cord that dangled between her perfect breasts and led her back into the room.
* * *
She had come searching for a demon. Instead, she had found the devil himself.
Someone in the crowd had called him an owner. It would explain why Ben had vanished along with the rest of the men. Clearly, he was more afraid of losing his position than what might happen to her if she was caught here.
‘No.’ She tugged back against the tightening cord, stripping it from her wrists and throat. This was not as it was to have gone at all. Her plan had been working. Though he had worn a cape and mask, it had been obvious that Sir Nash had been the high bidder. His lisping voice was unmistakable. And then, this stranger had appeared and ruined everything.
It had been foolish of her to assume that anyone would protect her, should the plan go awry. Despite his promises, her supposed protector had not prevented a sale to someone else. Instead, Ben had given her a helpless shrug, recorded the transaction, and allowed the devil his due.
‘No?’ Beneath the half mask he wore, the club owner gave her a smile that was more of a leer. ‘What makes you think you can refuse? Surely you knew what sort of club Vitium et Virtus was when you joined us.’
‘Is that where I am?’ There had been no name on the black-lacquered entrance door. Nor had she expected there to be rules in a place that was so clearly lawless.
‘You are not a member, then.’ He folded his arms across his impressively broad chest. Though there appeared to be a masquerade in progress, he was not wearing fancy dress. But neither had he bothered with formality. He wore no coat, waistcoat or cravat. His shirt was open, displaying fine muscles and a smattering of hair.
She snapped her eyes upwards, away from the bare skin directly in front of her. She had never seen so much of a man’s body before, but she did not want this stranger to take her interest as something more than academic curiosity. ‘If I am violating your by-laws by coming here, you had best turn me out immediately, as you threatened to do with the others.’
‘When I am ready, not before.’ There was something in his tone that implied her release would be a long time coming.
The prospect was terrifying. But something else as well. Perhaps it was the musk of sin in the air that was going to her head, but the fear she should be feeling was supplanted by an emotion that was unidentifiable and vaguely pleasant. He was tugging on her belt again, pulling her farther into the room. ‘Where are you taking me?’ She struggled for a moment, before realising that the flimsy belt was the only thing separating her from the loss of her gown.
‘Into the light, where I can get a decent look at you.’ Then he laughed. ‘Not that there is much I haven’t seen, pretty one. Your dress is all but transparent.’
She’d thought it scandalous when she’d admired herself in her bedroom mirror. But if the plan had worked, she’d have been wrapped in a cloak and on her way home by now and not under the prurient scrutiny of this stranger. ‘A gentleman would not have looked.’
He laughed again, his gaze travelling over her body like a lover’s caress. ‘When did I claim that I was a gentleman? And why do you object to my wanting a closer look at what I purchased? If you had been bought by any other man in this room, you would have more to fear than admiration. Did you think your ravisher would close his eyes as he took you? Or were you expecting a magical rescue from some man who paid good money to do whatever he liked with you?’
He said it with such obvious scorn that she did not want to admit her plan had been something very close to that. Although the man standing before her had made no move to assault her, she doubted she would escape the evening with her reputation intact. Even if he turned her out without further questioning, she might be forced to find her way home without help. The thought of knocking on her own front door in the flimsy costume she was wearing made her feel even more naked than she had before. She gave a hurried tug on the neckline of her gown, trying to regain some scrap of modesty, only to feel it rip in her hands to reveal even more of her body.
‘Hell’s teeth,’ he muttered. For a moment, the air of menace he’d been projecting failed him and he seemed almost as confused as she felt by their current circumstances. He pulled the mask from his face and patted at his chest as if searching for a handkerchief in the coat he was not wearing that might wipe the nervous sweat from his brow.
‘You!’ Who else could it have been? The man had an unerring ability to appear, as if by magic, any time she did something remotely improper. But at least Frederick Challenger had been willing to snub her when he’d seen her in public. Now that they were alone, he could not seem to take his eyes of her. She ripped the mask from her own face. ‘The least you could do is look me in the eyes, Mr Challenger.’
‘Miss... Knight?’ Did the hesitation in his words mean that he was shocked by her presence here? Or had he actually forgotten her name?
‘You admit you know me, then,’ she said, triumphant. ‘How unlike your behaviour at the ball the other night, where you looked right through me as though I did not exist.’
His leer had become a sarcastic smile. ‘Does it really bother you so much when someone does not acknowledge you? Are you one of those young ladies so taken with your own allure that you cannot imagine a man capable of resisting you? Did you come here tonight just to gain my attention?’
How quickly his tune had changed, now that he knew her identity. When the masks were on, he had shown no signs of resisting her. In fact, she had been worried that the handsome stranger would insist that she follow through on the terms of the auction and that she might have no choice but to submit to some notorious rake.
The truth was both disappointing and annoying. ‘I do not give a fig, Mr Challenger, whether men are caught by my allure, nor did I come here to teach you some sort of lesson. The fact that you would suggest such a thing tells me all I need to know about you. You are obsessed with your own importance.’
‘As are you by demanding my attention,’ he countered.
‘It is a different thing entirely,’ she argued. ‘A lack of interest in another person does not normally translate into public rudeness. You make time to speak to every other lady in the room. But when I sought to be introduced, you walked away without a word.’
‘Because I do not wish to encourage your behaviour, Miss Knight.’
‘My behaviour?’
‘Every time I see you, you are doing something outside the bounds of propriety. Dancing too close to your partners...’
‘Not by choice,’ she said, thinking of Sir Nash.
‘Arguing with your mother...’
‘She is my stepmother,’ George interjected.
‘It does not signify. Wearing indecent clothing...’
‘The hem was caught in a door,’ she finished for him.
He looked down at the dress she was wearing, as if to prove his point. But his eyes lingered too long on her exposed limbs, if he wished to be the arbiter of propriety.
She reached out and slapped his arm to draw his intention back to her face. ‘This is a costume. And as for the rest? You seem intent on blowing innocent mistakes into character defects.’
‘Innocent mistakes like selling your maidenhead to strangers?’
‘Surely that is no worse than buying someone’s virtue,’ she countered. ‘Or running the sort of club where such things go on. You are hardly a shining example of morality if you are here, encouraging others to bad behaviour.’
‘And you are too childish to be allowed out of the nursery if you cannot stop obsessing over a ballroom snub,’ he countered. ‘If it is not just to vex me, then I demand to know what you are doing here, practically naked, and offering your innocence to the highest bidder.’
For a moment, she was lost for an answer. If he was truly so concerned with virtue, he might be the sort of man who would help a lady in distress. Perhaps, if she told him the true reason for coming here, he might be an ally in explaining to her father how desperate she was to avoid this marriage.
Or, since he was here and in charge of the debauchery, he might be no better than Nash. ‘Perhaps it is as it appears,’ she said, abandoning hope. ‘I am here for the excitement, just as the rest of the guests are.’
‘Then I am happy to oblige,’ he said. ‘I will ravish you, right here, if that is what you wish.’ He pushed her up against the nearest wall, as if ready to carry out his threat. But the care he took not to touch her bare skin as he did it left her sure that it was nothing more than an attempt to scare her.
‘Once you have finished, will you speak to me if we meet on the street?’ she asked with a sigh. ‘Since you already treat me as if I have done something that renders me beneath contempt, I fail to see what difference it will make.’
He stepped away from her and threw up his hands in frustration. ‘That is not the correct response at all. When a man threatens your honour, you are supposed to beg for your freedom.’
She stared up at him. ‘If you are truly a threat, I doubt begging will do me any good.’
‘If?’
‘We have been alone for some minutes,’ she said. ‘I am as yet untouched.’
‘That could change at any moment,’ he reminded her.
‘Perhaps, if you were anyone else,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘But you are the most puffed-up and proper man in England and not at all the sort of fellow who would deflower a young lady of good birth in a public place.’
‘This club is private,’ he said.
‘But it would not be an easy secret to keep. Touch me and I will tell my father what you have done to me. He would have us up the aisle and married by week’s end. If you did not like me at Almack’s, think what a trial it would be to have a lifetime of my company.’
‘Or I could simply reveal your identity and ruin you before you do so yourself,’ he said, answering threat for threat. ‘Then your father would pack you off to the country to rusticate and I would not be bothered with you for the rest of the Season.’
It was a perfect solution! She could imagine nothing better than to be sent back to their country home in disgrace and forced to live away from the censuring eyes of the ton. If her stepmother stayed in London, there would be no one to scold her for getting mud on her hem, or insist that she conform to rules she’d had no part in making to please men she had no desire to attract.
But such a happy retreat offered no guarantee that Nash would not follow her. More likely, her unwanted suitor would use her total failure in town as an excuse to redouble his efforts to win her. And if she was alone, there would be no one to protect her from his advances. ‘I would prefer you didn’t,’ she said at last.
‘If your preferences mattered to me, I would take that under consideration,’ he said. ‘But it is my job to see that this establishment runs in a well-ordered manner. I cannot simply allow virgins to wander freely about in it, harassing the patrons and risking their reputations on a lark.’
‘I was not harassing anyone,’ she said. Even if she had been, she would not be returning here to do it. The trick she had just attempted would not work twice. She would have to find another way to rid herself of Sir Nash.
‘Then what was your intention?’ he repeated, still waiting for an explanation.
