Chapter 6

 

The following evening, after he’d been forced to watch Charlotte dancing and laughing with her new admirer at a society ball, Val glumly reflected on the adage his father had repeated to him earlier in the day. “Sometimes you have to lose something before you appreciate its value.”

His father had checked the viscount’s credentials, and as far as his reports went, Kellett was a suitable potential husband for Charlotte. He was everything he had claimed. His wealth was solidly invested in land and a few judicious ventures, his reputation was almost staid, as if he’d set himself to create it.

Val recognized the markers, since he’d done much the same himself to an opposite effect. Although he enjoyed gaining the reputation he now held, he had reason for it, and he’d ensured the tales had spread. To the despair and reluctant admiration of his parents, it had to be said.

He’d dressed with his customary extravagance, in a symphony of greens and ivories, and fortunately his brother had not donned the salmon pink monstrosity. Otherwise, as he’d informed Darius earlier, he’d have planted him a facer at the very least. “At least the blood would have ruined it,” he’d commented dryly.

“Thanks to our excellent work, I could order another and not miss the guineas.” Darius flicked a piece of lint from his dark blue velvet coat and glanced up at his brother, smiling. Val had burst into laughter. His brother could always do that to him. That was why they had probably not got into fights more often.

“Then give me notice when you plan to wear it. I’ll come and watch but never acknowledge you as my brother.”

“You don’t think they will notice the resemblance?” Darius waved a hand between them.

They were not identical twins, but they appeared very closely alike. Val grinned.

“I can go in disguise.” Darius laughed.

Standing in the ballroom, the smell of burning beeswax from hundreds of candles stinging his nostrils, Val surveyed the scene with the world-weariness of a bored roué.

“Now I know why I don’t come to these things very often,” Darius murmured from behind him.

“That could be because you have no interest in what goes on here.” There would be no marriage for Darius, unless forced on him, but the mamas continued to push their daughters on him. Darius’s proclivities were known by many but it was old gossip, so it was possible the newcomers were not aware of it. However, since the Shaws held an exalted position in society, Val doubted that. They were just trying their luck. One mama had confessed that she knew all Darius needed was to meet the “right” woman.

Val had answered, “Only if she has a cock”—a comment so outrageous he’d changed it to something more innocuous when the woman had begged him to repeat what he said. But people standing around had heard, and the comment was repeated.

The marquess had compelled Val’s betrothal to Charlotte the next day. And now here he was watching that same woman, regretting what they were about to do. He’d willfully ignored her, and now it was too late. For all that he kept telling himself that she deserved better, he still wanted her. The desire that had sprung to life when he’d kissed her remained to torture him, and the personality under the rigidly preserved society mask intrigued him. That made for a heady combination.

Perhaps he would have another chance to get to know her better. He would await tonight’s events.

Charlotte had accepted his invitation to dance, but apart from that spent the evening with her family. Her Aunt Adelaide, a scatty but observant specimen of the older relative, exchanged a few words with Val. “You have made my niece very happy, sir.”

“What, by severing our agreement?”

“Hush!”

Val liked the extended final syllable. He wanted to hear it again, but not, he concluded regretfully, at Charlotte’s expense. “Indeed, ma’am. But it is by no means a settled matter. Negotiations lie ahead, I fear.” And he had no intention of adding his newfound skills to that. He would not help, but he would not stand in her way if Kellett was the man to make her happy.

Why had he not seen her gentle prettiness before? Or the liveliness, so cleverly masked when she realized she was displaying it? He should have seen them, encouraged her. Their recent visit to the mantua-maker’s had provided more questions than answers. When she spoke of her father, her whole figure stiffened, and her mood turned guarded. Talking about the duke was one sure way to make Charlotte close down.

That was how Val knew the Duke of Rochfort had arrived. Charlotte was dancing with Ivan. Val was sipping wine, talking to her aunt, watching the couples cavorting on the polished wood floor when Charlotte glanced at the entrance and visibly drooped. Her manner became stiff and wooden, and her shoulders drooped. The smile on her lips faded, before she straightened up as if someone had shoved a poker down her back. Ladies in tight-fitting stays had little choice but to keep their backs straight, but the way she jerked her head up was more like a puppet on a wire than a real person.

As Val watched, Charlotte became an automaton, one of those clockwork dolls brought to the dinner table during dessert for the amusement of the guests.

Charlotte’s antics did not amuse Val. What was charming and quaint in a piece of brass and wood didn’t sit so well on a flesh-and-blood person.

Now Val knew who was at the root of Charlotte’s disquiet. In all the time they were together, in the few private meetings he’d had with her and the public ones, she’d never intimated that her father was anything except a strict but loving parent.

Did she not trust Val, or were spies set around her all the time?

Val had no answer, but when Ivan restored her to her aunt and Darius came back to their small group, his mien was serious, devoid of the amusement he customarily wore. “We should go now,” he said. “Do you mind walking as far as the Garden?” His clipped tones expressed how Val felt.

As soon as they were out in the open air, Val demanded, “Did you see that?”

“I’m not blind,” Darius answered. “I was beginning to see why you were so reluctant to let her go, but after her father came into the room, I understood how you could have missed it for so long.”

Ivan, striding by their side, gave his morsel. “As a totally disinterested party, I’d say she is terrified of her father.”

“I can remember times when I was terrified of our father,” Darius observed, “but I would never allow him to control me to that extent.”

Val pushed aside the heavy skirts of his evening coat, feeling the reassuring hilt of his sword. They had given them up for the ball, but collected them on leaving the house. If he’d been in possession of it in that ballroom, Val might well have run the Duke of Rochfort through. “Charlotte has spirit. She has demonstrated it quite clearly, but never in the presence of her father. She has always retreated.”

They rounded a corner at speed and nearly collided with a footman in livery hurrying the other way. He muttered at them as Ivan stood aside, but the men took no notice. Another time they might have boxed him, trapped him into the upright box belonging to a night watchman and pushed it against the wall so he couldn’t escape, but Val felt ninety tonight, way beyond youthful folly.

“When we were first betrothed,” Val said, thinking aloud to two of the men he trusted as he trusted himself, “I resented Charlotte, I admit it. Papa imposed it as some kind of punishment. And I had the lovely La Venezia in keeping, but not for long. She was ruinously expensive and temperamental as…well, as an operatic soprano, so I rarely got what I was paying for.” He could hardly remember what the renowned beauty he’d hooked from the opera house looked like now. “She was all I could handle at the time. I used my betrothal as an excuse to rid myself of her a month or two later. She was cruel, of course.”

“You should have sent her to Rochfort,” Darius commented. “That would have served him right. Of all the birds of paradise you have shown generosity to, she was the worst.”

“Thank you for that.” Val shrugged. “Charlotte agreed with me when I said we could use each other. She was making me respectable, and I was giving her an excuse not to accept the hand of anyone else, which at the time she said she did not want.”

“Her father was talking to my father at the time,” Ivan said. “Pa is a decent enough man, but I wouldn’t have called him a suitable husband for Charlotte.”

Val shuddered. “No indeed!” They strode down the Strand toward the sins of Covent Garden, passing grand houses and tiny, thrown-up houses, existing side by side. Before the fashionable world had moved to Mayfair, this and Piccadilly were the residential areas of choice, and a few people still lived there, in the grand houses that spoke of a different time, before the neat terraces of their generation.

The light was variable. Torchères set outside the mansions vied with the inky blackness of shop doorways and tiny alleys leading who knew where. Actually Val did know where some of them led. Interesting places, those.

“The arrangement worked for both of us until recently.” He would not explain the rest, even to his brother and his friend.

Until recently, he hadn’t kissed her or felt the warmth of her body, the heat of her mouth. She had not allowed him past the battlements she kept around her. He had not known about the other Charlotte—the warmer, softer, more desirable Charlotte who lay waiting for him behind the fortifications.

Were they for him? Why did she keep herself protected from the world so carefully? Everyone had some kind of facade, but not as much as Lady Charlotte Engles, and not so perfect that even her betrothed failed to notice it.

Questions thronged his mind, and it angered Val that he had no answers. He wanted more of the woman he’d begun to uncover, too late it appeared. But he was ready to go on this wild-goose chase tonight and discover if there was any truth in what his brother suspected.

As they neared the Garden area, a gust from the river let the dank smell wash over them, but they were too used to it to let it bother them. Lights became more frequent, and so did people. Groups of men wandered the narrow threading streets leading to the great open area that, as well as a magnificent church and the Opera House, contained some of the seediest, most depraved houses in London. Val should know. He’d sampled most of them in his time.

A man grew tired of such pleasures, though if anyone had said that to him five years ago, Val would have laughed them to scorn. The sound of drunken revelry drifted out from open doors, and women stood outside, touting for business, bragging about the quality of the wares within.

One stood before them, blocking their path. “Clean girls and cleaner tables, my lords! How about it? Fancy a game of piquet with a pretty girl on your lap?”

“Not tonight, Mother,” Darius said.

She cocked her chin at him, artificial curls bouncing wildly. “Nor any night with you, my bully. Go on there. See if you can’t find somebody to suit you at Mother Riley’s.”

Darius did not seem surprised that the bawd knew his preferences. Perhaps she was guessing at the truth. Mother Riley only offered young gentlemen for the delectation of the customers. “We’re headed somewhere else tonight.”

The men elbowed their way past her, careful not to let her hands anywhere near them. A good pickpocket could get past buttoned pockets and slide inside a man’s coat, retrieving him of watch, purse and jewelry before he even noticed.

Val chuckled when he saw Ivan pat his pockets. “You weren’t foolish enough to leave your watch in your outside pocket,” he said.

“I’m afraid so.” Ivan plucked his gold hunter repeater out of his pocket and moved it to his breeches. “No harm done.” He clipped the chain to a waistcoat buttonhole.

“Humph,” Darius said, glancing back.

The woman was busy accosting another potential customer.

After a final bend, the street emerged on the main square that formed Covent Garden. That last bend was put there by the architect so the viewer would get the full effect of coming from a confined area to a much larger one.

The Piazza still had remnants of its elegance, with the porticoed theater opposite and the gracious height of the buildings, erected in good red brick, but the pointing had crumbled on many of them, and the frontages were blackened with soot. The cobblestones still had remnants of the fruit and vegetable market held there every morning, the produce brought in from the market gardens outside the city, the same places where the night soil men took their noxious cargoes every night.

Val pushed a cabbage leaf aside with his toe. “So where are we going? Across the piazza? To Mother Brown’s?” He wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Lord Kellett frequented that place. Many wealthy men did, needing some raucous entertainment after an evening of behaving themselves.

“No.” Darius had lost all semblance of humor. “Nowhere near as much fun, unless you are so inclined.”

A shock that felt like an arc of sizzling lightning shot through Val’s body. He knew exactly where they were going. He’d entered this establishment once and found it dreary to the edge of frightening. However, he understood why some people needed this release. Men and women came here, some heavily masked. Where they could survive most scandals, this particular choice could ruin them.

Val followed Darius into the House of Correction with a sense of dread chilling his bones, rather like entering his father’s study as a boy when he’d seriously transgressed. How people could enjoy this activity beat his understanding.

The madam stood inside, flanked by two enormous bullies. She wore red. They wore black, with crisp white neckcloths. The effect was instantly memorable. Val narrowed his eyes, wondering if the look would suit him.

His momentary distraction served to help him overcome his initial repulsion in entering the place. He could smell the blood. Either that or they sprayed the stuff around to create an atmosphere.

Darius paused and spoke to him so softly only he could hear. The twins had become adept at that skill over the years and still used it. “It’s not as bad as people imagine. There are variations in what they do here, and at the highest level can become an art form.”

Val wasn’t at all sure about that.

The madam dropped a stiff curtsy. “Welcome, my lords. How may we serve you?”

Darius stepped forward, an easy smile on his lips. “Thank you, madam. We are not interested in diversion at this time, but a little information.”

Her lips tightened into a thin line. “We never reveal who comes here or what they do. That is the reason we have the reputation for complete discretion. The people who come here have particular tastes, sir, and they may not wish their practices bruited abroad.”

“You are to be commended, madam. If only every house held your standards.” That was Ivan. No doubt he was remembering a time when his brother’s wife was severely compromised, although she had done nothing wrong. Only the combined efforts of the Emperors, together with a judicious retreat to the countryside had saved her. She made rare appearances in London these days, but by all accounts, the marriage was blissful.

The madam inclined her head graciously. She was not in the first flush of youth, but her figure was trim and her waist breathtakingly tiny. In fact, Val wondered how she managed to breathe at all. Her breasts moved enticingly under the low neckline, but Val felt no stirring of attraction.

Her skirts were shorter than the current mode and when she moved the shadows of her legs were visible beneath. The lady had a clever way of advertising the nature of her house without appearing extreme. She would draw people in with that.

And he did mean “people.” The anonymity of this establishment was well known, and where ladies would ordinarily fear to tread, in this place they could arrive masked and remain so throughout their time here.

What Val did not understand was how people were drawn to this practice. He wanted to know, but not enough to put himself through an experience he might not enjoy, one that could destroy his enjoyment in bed sport. For him, intimate relations included a rich sense of fun, sharing mutual pleasure and much laughter. That was why La Venezia had not lasted long in his bed.

He doubted this house rang to the sound of laughter very often.

“Madam, what do you do here?” His question was far too abrupt, but it was out now.

“We provide complex equipment and services to people who find they need them.” She spoke as if reciting a lecture, as if she weren’t engrossed with disturbing bodily desires but with more abstract concerns. “Our business is in power and control. Who has it, and who uses it.”

“An interesting philosophy.” Those few words explained much that had puzzled Val when he thought of this house. He had never entered before, held back by a kind of superstitious dread, but perhaps he had overreacted. “So for people of power this serves as a release?”

“Sometimes. At other times it serves as a way of expressing emotions that would not be welcome elsewhere. We have a choice of weapons, and we can manufacture them to the user’s specification.”

The notion intrigued him. Although he was not drawn to pain and restraint as a way of expressing desire, he wondered why people would wish it, what delights they experienced.

Val bit back his next question. What if something went wrong? If the flagellation was too severe, or the person left hanging in chains too long? He could not understand why anyone would volunteer for this, but tolerance had been bred into him. He shrugged. They were here for one reason.

A scream came from above. Gritting his teeth, Val stood his ground, aware the madam was watching them closely, probably looking for potential custom. Not from him, never from him. A series of smaller screams followed, and disturbingly, Val could not tell if they were from pleasure or pain.

His stomach tightened. He would be glad to get out of this place. He glanced at Ivan who was standing completely rigidly, a frown between his thick brows. Ivan was no happier with that place than he was.

Val opened his mouth to ask his question, but his brother forestalled him.

Darius bent over the lady’s hand. “I will convey our request, madam, and then leave you in peace.”

He produced a purse from his pocket, which Val knew contained twenty guineas, a veritable fortune to some and a year’s wages for a maidservant. They had calculated the amount to a nicety, knowing too much would evoke suspicion, scorn, and probably lies, and too little nothing at all.

He handed the purse to the woman who weighed it in her hand.

She nodded. “You may ask. Come this way. I don’t want my hall thronged with people who don’t intend to give their custom to me.” As she led the way to a room at the back of the hall she shot a sideways glance at Darius.

Assessing and cold, it chilled Val to see his brother summed up like that.

The room she took them to was normal in appearance, a round table in the center surrounded by chairs. Several prints lined the walls, of a vaguely titillating nature, but not blatantly explicit, as if the lady did not want to scare people away. Hints of nudity and raucous scenes of people enjoying themselves confronted him. They seemed out of place here.

Darius helped the madam so sit as if she was a great lady. Val and Ivan took their seats at a gracious wave of her hand and for the first time since they’d entered the house a curl of amusement softened the tension in his belly.

“I am specifically making enquiries about a certain person,” Darius began, “but I will not press you for a name. I am sure you would prefer I kept my questions hypothetical.”

The lady frowned. “Go on,” she said cautiously, hefting the purse.

“Let us say that a peer of the realm—a viscount, for example—availed himself of your services. How far would you go to indulge him, especially if he paid well?”

She bristled, folding her arms under her breasts, careless of the expensive triple lace ruffles at her elbow. “So far and no further. I don’t like the gentleman ruining my employees for other clients, for instance.”

“Striping?”

Darius asked the question so coolly Val took a moment to recognize what he meant. He had always considered himself suitably debauched, but because this perversion had never appealed to him, the cant was new to him.

“If the employee needs time to recover the client pays for the recovery time. My people are specialists in their field and not easily replaced.”

“Don’t they just want bodies to flog?” Val asked the question before he could bite it back.

She glared at him but gave him an answer. “Not at this level, sir. We do not encourage simple vices here.” Pointedly, she turned back to Darius. “We do not encourage brutality. For that, the client must go elsewhere.”

It did not surprise Val that there were places catering for the worst depravities. That was sad, that he knew it without anyone telling him. However, this house was reasonably spacious, and the rent would be high. The madam would have to provide more than average fare.

He had already presumed this was the place Darius thought he would find evidence of Lord Kellett. So far they were getting nowhere, and he was growing impatient. For two pins he’d name the man and probably be thrown out on his ear.

Forcing himself to remain quiet, he was startled when a shriek came from the upper landing, followed by thundering feet. A woman screamed as she clattered down the stairs, missing a couple on her way.

Val had never stood by when a woman was in distress. He sprang to his feet and barely beat Ivan to the door.

In the hall, a naked woman sagged in the arms of one of the bullies. Blood poured from her back and rear, the tops of her thighs cruelly striped. The demonstration of the term was vivid and cruel.

The sight gave him a vital second’s pause, allowing the madam a chance to elbow her way past him.

Arms came around him from behind, holding him back. “She’ll take care of it,” Darius murmured in his ear. He didn’t let him go until Val nodded. Then he extinguished the candles in the candelabrum that stood on the table, plunging the room into darkness.

Only just in time. Feet thundered down the stairs. Through the open door, the three men stepped back as Lord Kellett entered the scene. Val kept his hand on his sword.

“You gave me a weakling,” Kellett said. “A girl totally unsuited for this house. Find me another!” He was half naked, his torso sheened in sweat, his bottom half incongruously dressed in fine gold velvet breeches and elaborately clocked stockings. Blood spattered the breeches, and Val had some satisfaction from the knowledge that the stains would not come out of a fabric that fine.

“Sir, you have treated this girl cruelly,” the madam protested. “I do not allow this extent of damage.”

The girl currently sobbing in the bully’s arms raised her head. “Ma’am, he had me tied but I got away. He wanted to use a knife on me.” She went back to weeping, her sobs increasing in volume. The madam jerked her head, and the bully hoisted the girl into his arms and carried her back up the stairs. The marks opened as she sagged in his arms. The bastard had cut her to the bone with his whip.

The viscount continued to bluster. “I come here because you can provide me with the girls I need, but the last two have been insufficient.”

“No, sir, your behavior has worsened. I cannot and will not dispose of your mistakes.” She sounded like a great lady.

“Is there a way upstairs?” Val murmured to Darius, who shot Val a sharp glance and nodded to the corner of the room. Of course. These houses frequently had hidden stairways for servants. This was nowhere near as large as the house he lived in, but perhaps—yes, and the door didn’t even creak. Neither did the stairs when he ascended them.

He emerged onto a narrow corridor. Ignoring the sounds of pleasure mingled with the occasional slap of flesh against flesh, he headed toward the only door that lay open. This was the cause of the crash they’d heard before the girl had hurtled down the stairs. She had flung herself out of the room. Angry voices echoed up from the hallway as Val slipped inside.

The scent of blood forced him to swallow the bile that rose up his throat. Cords hung from the bedpost of the elaborate four-poster that appeared more suited to a medieval castle than a town house in London. On examination, he saw how the girl had escaped. The cords had a weak spot and the bedpost a sharp edge, probably—no, make that definitely—put there on purpose. So the madam here did have a consideration for the safety of her employees and she did not leave them completely helpless. Whether she did it for commercial reasons or for considerate ones, Val didn’t know, but the knowledge eased his mind somewhat.

If she did not, she wouldn’t get girls to work for her, but sometimes the wretches had no choice. They would be abducted off the streets or from coaches arriving in town from the country. Boys suffered a similar fate, only to have their lifeless bodies dumped in the Thames. The dark side of London remained secretive, although the magistrates were making some progress in preventing such atrocities.

The room contained several odd pieces of furniture to which Val paid only fleeting attention. Certainly the average normal bedroom would not contain a large wooden threaded device that opened like a pair of nutcrackers, or a piece that looked like a rack, but shorter. He left the mysteries to themselves and concentrated on what he searched for.

A blood-spattered shirt. That would do. He swept it up, and picked up the crumpled neckcloth that lay under it. The fabric was pristine, sheltered by the less fortunate shirt, but as he made to drop it, something glittering fell from it onto the floor.

He was in luck. He snatched up the item, discovering a long gold pin decorated with seed pearls and diamonds in the shape of the initials HS, with a K superimposed over them. Hervey Smithson, Viscount Kellett. For the first time since he’d entered this benighted house, Val grinned, but it was an expression of satisfaction. He shoved the pin in his pocket and bundled the shirt up into a small enough package to slip under his coat. It would have a laundry mark and embroidered initials so the maids could identify the owner. That was all he had wanted, a way of proving Kellett’s presence in the house tonight. He had a vague idea of having to persuade Charlotte, but he would only use them in extreme circumstances.

The noises from the floor below abated. When the front door closed with a resounding slam, Val knew his time was up. He made good his escape, slipping noiselessly along the corridor and down the stairs to the small room where Darius and Ivan waited for him. He nodded to the men, and Darius slid the door closed, plunging them into darkness.

But not for long. The lady bustled in, seemingly unperturbed by the blackness and walked to the cold fireplace, skirts rustling. In a moment sparks flew against tinder. She lit a taper, and relit the three candles in their holder. “Very good, gentlemen, I take it you wanted to see and not be seen? Have I answered all your questions?”

As soon as the lights flickered into life, Ivan stepped before Val, half covering him from the madam’s sight. “Indeed, ma’am.” Coins chinked. “Please consider this a bonus. We never came here, and you do not know who we are.”

She chortled. “You don’t need to tell me that. But thank you.” The money disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place. A flick of her wrist, and it had gone. “And you saw nothing, did you?”

“Nothing at all.”

“That gentleman won’t be coming back. He’s ruined two of my best girls. Striping is fine, but not that deep and not that many. He was warned, and I don’t care how high up he is or who he knows. Does he think I don’t know them too?”

“I would wager you know more, and you know them better,” Val commented.

“Nobody knows a gentleman like his whore.” She nodded sagely. “You remember that, sir.”

Val did. Because of that he took care to show his mistresses only what he wanted to. His wife now, she would know him much better.