Elizabeth Thornton - [Special Branch 02] (5 page)

“What about the female servants?” asked the gentleman on the other side of Brandon.

Brandon turned his head slowly. “This is a private conversation,” he said.

“Yes, yes, but what about them?”

Brandon heaved a sigh. “There aren’t any. This is an all-male household.”

Sackville continued, “And all the main rooms on the ground floor are out of bounds as well. In fact, the doors will be locked.”

The eavesdropper elbowed Brandon in the ribs. “Why is that?”

“Housebreakers,” replied Brandon coolly. He edged
closer to Jason. “I understand that at one of Bertie’s parties, housebreakers broke in and made off with all the silver.”

The avid eavesdropper howled with laughter.

“So let the performance begin!” cried Sackville.

With that, the salon doors were flung open and a collective sigh went up as the performers approached the platform.

It was a simple tale of pirates and captive virgins. The scantily-clad women were perfectly formed: high, thrusting breasts and tiny waists flaring to rounded hips. The young men who partnered them were built like randy stallions. What was lacking was finesse. The first “virgin” was deflowered almost at once, and within minutes, they were all going at it, some on tables, some on the floor, in every lewd way imaginable, heaving, thrusting, groaning, moaning.

Though it was real enough, the actors and actresses were all prostitutes from the local bawdy houses, and everyone there knew it. Even so, it worked powerfully on the audience. The heavy breathing and moaning didn’t all come from the actors on stage. Excitement began to mount as the pirates invited gentlemen from the audience to join in the fun.

My God
, thought Jason,
what’s wrong with me? I should be at boiling point. I should want to grab the nearest woman and carry her off
.

But the only woman he really wanted was Gwyn, and that made him grit his teeth. Jaw clenched, he waved a footman over, reached for a glass of brandy, and put it to his lips.

Gwyn paid off her hackney and turned to look at the house. There were no lights shining from the downstairs windows, but the driver had assured her
that it
was
Mr. Sackville’s residence. The door opened before she had a chance to use the knocker.

“I’m Mrs. Barrie,” she told the footman who opened the door to her. “Mr. Sackville’s guest.” Sackville was the uncle and guardian of one of her music students, Sally Sackville.

The footman looked her up and down, then looked at her invitation card. “I think there must be some mistake,” he said.

She squared her shoulders and tried not to look insulted. Of course, he could see at once that she wasn’t a real guest. Her clothes weren’t fashionable, but she was presentable. There was a dash of lemon in her voice. “I’m here to play the piano for Mr. Sackville’s guests after dinner,” she said.

The footman had a list of guests, which he now scanned. “You’re on the list.” He sounded surprised. “Please, come this way.”

He locked the door behind her and led the way upstairs.

A sudden burst of masculine laugher followed by applause from one of the downstairs rooms made Gwyn pause and look down. “Is this party for men only?” she asked the footman. Not that it made any difference to her, but she’d been told that after dinner she was to play for Mr. Sackville’s friends from the House and their wives. Either way, she would be paid well for her services, and that’s what mattered.

“Oh no,” said the footman, sounding oddly amused to Gwyn’s ears. “There are more females than gentlemen. My master wouldn’t have it any other way.”

When Gwyn entered the music room, she gave a little cry of delight. A candelabra had been placed on the grand piano, and it was a beautiful piano. She crossed to it and reverently touched the keys without
depressing them. It was just as Mr. Sackville had told her. The piano was made by John Broadwood and Sons of Great Pulteney Street, the finest piano makers in England. It was the chance of playing such a fine instrument that had tipped the scales in favor of her coming here tonight. She liked Mr. Sackville well enough, but he was forgetful. She was always having to remind him to pay Sally’s fees. She hoped he remembered to pay her after the performance, but she wasn’t counting on it.

The footman said, “Shall I bring you refreshments, ma’am?”

Now this was more like it. “Thank you,” she said sweetly.

The footman had forgotten to take her coat. After a moment’s thought, she slipped it off and draped it over a chair. Underneath, she was wearing her best party dress, the one she’d worn to dances when Nigel was stationed in Portugal. It was a red silk, and though it was five or six years old, she’d altered it to fit the current fashion: high waist and low bodice with puffed sleeves. She’d even raised the hem by a good two inches.

Only a month ago, she was still in mourning clothes, and what a hypocrite she’d felt. Maybe the red silk was too daring, but it was the only party dress she had. As for her blacks—she suppressed a shudder—she’d loaned them to a neighbor’s sister, and she didn’t care if she never saw them again.

She’d expected other performers and wondered what could be keeping them. It seemed strange, too, that none of the candles in the chandelier were lit, only the candles at the piano and in each candelabra at either end of the mantelpiece. A fire burned brightly in the grate.

The footman returned with the refreshments, and
after setting the tray down, bowed himself out of the room.

With nothing better to do, she wandered over to the small table where the refreshments were laid out, an opened bottle of red wine and a plate of macaroons. After a moment, she poured herself a glass of wine and swallowed a mouthful, then another, but her eyes kept straying to the piano. Surely no one would mind if she practiced a little? At least until the other performers arrived? Another burst of laughter and prolonged applause from downstairs settled it. No one would hear her anyway.

She’d memorized the pieces, and without more ado, she seated herself at the piano, flexed her fingers, and began to play.

The orgy was called “hide and seek.”

“Our cue to leave,” said Jason.

Most of the masked ladies had already made their way out of the house. They weren’t all laughing. Some of them looked sickly! Evidently, this graphic display of male lust had been more real than they’d bargained for. Upstairs, someone was playing the piano.

“Leave? What,
now?”
Brandon was aghast. “You’re joking, of course.”

“Suit yourself.”

“I can’t believe you’re unaffected by the performance we just watched.”

He was deeply affected, thought Jason. Shaken wasn’t too strong a word. But the performance he had watched was mostly in his own head. He thought he was over her. Damn Gwyn for coming back into his life, and damn the donor of the legacy who had brought them together again.

“Wait for me!” Brandon hastened to catch up with Jason.

“Why? I thought you wanted to stay.”

“What I wanted,” said Brandon crossly, “was to cheer you up. Where you go, I go.”

“I do not need cheering up.”

“Fine. Then you can cheer me up.”

They were in the vestibule, the last to leave as they waited for the footmen to bring their cloaks. Suddenly, the salon doors flew open and a horde of squealing nymphs came bounding out and made for the stairs. Their host, Bertie Sackville, was hard on their heels. Then the salon doors were closed from the inside.

Sackville waved to Jason and Brandon. “Since I’m the host,” he said, “I’m allowed to be first out of the gate.” He saw them putting on their cloaks and frowned. “Aren’t you going to join in the fun?”

“We have a previous appointment,” said Brandon. He scowled at Jason.

Sackville began to climb the stairs. Brandon muttered something under his breath and made for the front door. Jason stood transfixed, staring up at the first-floor landing where a group of giggling females had suddenly appeared, flapping around like a flight of intoxicated butterflies. One of those butterflies was someone he knew.

Gwyn.

She was watching Sackville as he climbed the stairs, and she held out her hand to him. Then her eyes moved to Jason and her hand dropped away.

She blinked rapidly. He drew in several breaths in quick succession. When he started forward, the salon doors opened and he was joined by a horde of whooping men. Gwyn gasped, elbowed her way clear of the crush, and went tearing up the next flight of stairs.

I
t wasn’t the sight of Jason that panicked Gwyn. In fact, though she had looked at him, she hadn’t really seen him. It was too dark at the foot of the stairs. She’d turned and run because she’d seen the appalled look on her host’s face when he’d caught sight of her, and though she couldn’t hear his words, she’d read his lips.
Mrs. Barrie! What in God’s name are you doing here?
Then the salon doors had opened and she’d seen the horde of men.

Enlightenment dawned as though a blindfold had been torn from her eyes. This wasn’t a respectable party. It was one of those debauches her good friend, Judith, had warned her about, one of those wild parties that bored men of rank and fashion attended to slake their insatiable carnal appetites.

She went through the first door she came to, the door to the servants’ staircase, and quickly shut it. She would have locked it, too, if there had been a key in the lock. Since there wasn’t, she pulled on the handle with both hands and prayed that if anyone tried to open it, they would think it was bolted from the inside. She listened as feminine shrieks gradually grew fainter, then she went rigid as men’s voices passed by the door.

She wasn’t shaking in fear, she was shaking in anger. This wasn’t a careless mix-up in dates; this was a never-ending mix-up in Sackville’s woolly brain. She should have expected it. He could never get anything right, could never remember which day Sally’s lesson was on or even read a simple bill. She was always explaining things to him. How he ever came to be a member of parliament was beyond her.

Next week. That’s when he was expecting her. That’s what he’d originally told her before he’d changed his mind. Well, next week, he would wait in vain.

From the moment she’d entered the house, she’d sensed that something odd was going on: the way the footman had looked at her, the scarcity of candles, the bursts of laughter, the squeals. She supposed that the sound of the piano had drowned out most of it until it was so raucous, she couldn’t ignore it.

Then she’d gone in search of her host to demand what was going on. A closer look at the “ladies” she met on the stairs made her feel very uneasy, but she decided she was just being prudish. Until she’d seen her host’s face and read his lips.

At that moment, she would gladly have brained him with a poker. If it ever got out that she’d attended a party like this, she would lose all her pupils. A lady who taught other people’s children had to be highly respectable.

She had to get out of here before anyone recognized her.

She was descending the stairs when she heard the stealthy sound of a door opening and closing far below her. Every muscle in her body tensed. She stopped breathing. Someone else had entered the servants’ staircase. She waited, trembling, listening. There was no sound of footsteps. When the door opened and closed again, and the silence lengthened,
she let out a pent-up breath. Whoever it was had decided to try his luck elsewhere.

Moving as soundlessly as she could manage, she descended to the next landing. Here, she hesitated. The trouble was, she couldn’t remember which floor she was on. She hoped it was the ground floor. Then she would be out on the street in a matter of minutes.

She looked over the stairwell. There was no candle on that part of the staircase, and she couldn’t make out how far the stairs descended. But something down there moved. When she heard grunting and moaning, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or disgusted. They were doing it right there on the stairs!

She turned the handle of the door on the landing and cautiously pushed into a small room. The embers of the fire in the grate gave enough light to show her that it was empty and that she’d entered a small, sparsely-furnished parlor. The housekeeper’s parlor, she deduced. Comfortable, but nothing too fancy. Then she detected the faint smell of tobacco smoke. Not the housekeeper’s parlor, but the butler’s. Then where was the butler and where were the servants?