“If you have pistol and sword, I should be safe enough. Let us go, Clifton. If the danger is great, we have no time to quarrel.”
Penelope thought he would refuse once more, but seeing her determination, he checked his opposition.
“I will hate myself for the rest of my life for this,” he muttered, sweeping up the cloak he had thrown over a chair back. “But mercifully, my life will most likely be a short one. Let us find your pelisse.”
Penelope did not tell him she had worn only a shawl. True, the cashmere probably had more yards of material in it than any cloak or pelisse, but she sensed it was not the ideal covering for a sojourn into the depths of iniquity. She hurried after his long strides.
Chadwell scowled as the shawl was produced, but it was already too late. Penelope hurried down the marble steps. A whistle produced a hired hack, and Chadwell lifted her into the dim interior.
Then he argued with the driver and succeeded in talking the coat off the driver’s back. He threw the rumpled redingote onto the seat and swung up to join her as the coach jolted to a start.
“You don’t mean me to wear that horrible thing?” she demanded. The poor springs gave way beneath the combination of Chadwell’s weight and the coach’s motion, and she ended up in his arms before the horses reached the street.
“You may have mine,” he offered. “It’s a trifle cleaner.” He swung off his cloak, and set it about Penelope’s shoulders. “I’ll not risk having to fight you out of the place, too.”
Penelope clutched the heavy material and tried to read his face in the darkness. The thin scar on his cheek seemed to stand out against the darkness. “Will you tell me what we are to do?”
Chadwell’s arm lingered about her shoulder. “I had not thought the risk so great until now. Penelope, this is foolish. Let me take you home. I will find some other means of helping Nell.”
The other woman’s name made her wince. “Let me hear what you mean to do, and I will decide if it is too risky.”
He hugged her hard, then removed his arm before she could reprimand him. “Even when I explain, you will not understand the danger. It is not just poverty that rules the place where we are going, but evil. How much do you know of evil, Penelope?”
She considered the question. She knew of men in the village who beat their wives, and worse. She knew of women who beat their children until they could not stand. She knew behind closed doors much worse might be done, but she could not honestly say she knew of evil. She knew only poverty and wretchedness and cruelty, and that not firsthand. She had led a protected and comfortable life in comparison.
“Very little, I’m afraid; only that it exists.” She pulled the cloak tighter and stared out at the empty streets. It was past midnight, and all sane people stayed behind locked doors. Only occasionally did another carriage clip-clop past, or a lone figure dart across the street and into the shadows again. They were passing the smaller shops on the outskirts of the business district. No theaters or brightly lighted mansions added gaiety to this night scene.
“Perhaps it is better if you remain innocent,” Chadwell replied. “I do not think I wish to be the one to enlighten you. I’ll simply explain what I mean to do, and if you agree, you must promise to do exactly as I say, without question. Agreed?”
Penelope nodded, afraid her tongue would reveal her nervousness.
Chadwell continued, “I have succeeded in making a very dangerous man furious with me. It’s my own fault for dealing with the b—, the wretch, but you don’t need to know the details. He thinks to get information from me by holding Nell in a place that caters to the needs of men. I wish you did not need to understand me in this, but you must understand Nell’s danger. She is not a lady, but she does not belong in a place like that, or deserve the treatment she will receive there.”
He hesitated, taking Penelope’s gloved hand and trying to read her expression in the dim light of the lamp. She averted her face but nodded in understanding.
“Fortunately for me, this place has also become—I hesitate to say fashionable, but people of society are known to come there for various,” he sought polite words, “assignations. When we enter, they will simply think us a clandestine couple seeking a room for a few hours’ privacy.”
Penelope shivered. “How will this help Nell?”
“Once inside, I can look for the room they keep her in. You should be safe enough behind barred doors while I look. We will have to disguise Nell and send her out first, then follow shortly after. It’s a ramshackle plan, I realize, but it is the best I can do in haste. I do not wish to imagine what would become of her if I left her in that man’s hands. If evil exists, he invented it.”
Clifton’s harsh tone jerked Penelope back to the real world. It was very well to set out on a romantic rescue mission, but he was talking of a man who would torture helpless women to get his way. What else would he be capable of?
“If he took Nell because of something you did, won’t he be waiting for you to show up to rescue her? Shouldn’t someone else go in your place?”
“My informants were blessedly swift to find me. He thinks to hold her ransom for the information he wants from me. He does not expect me to know where she is, not yet. That is another reason I have not a moment to lose.”
Chadwell had said she could refuse this role if she wished, but he spoke now as if it had been decided. Even as they talked, the carriage turned down unlit narrow streets. She was aware of furtive shadows darting from door to door, leaning from windows, weaving drunkenly near the carriage wheels.
Shuddering, she turned her attention back to Chadwell. “How will you find her? Surely you cannot go about knocking on doors?”
The carriage halted in a narrow lane lined by tall, blank-looking edifices that once might have housed clean, respectable shops. Candlelight flickered from the depths of the nearest building, but otherwise it appeared uninhabited.
Chadwell donned his beaver hat and picked up the driver’s redingote and threw it around his shoulders. “Let me tell the driver to take you home. I will find some other way of getting Nell out.”
Penelope yanked the hood of his cloak over her hair and took his arm. “It would be sinful to let another human being suffer for none of her own fault. Let us be quick about it.” She did not question again how he intended to make this work. She feared she did not want to know.
Chadwell glanced at her uncertainly, looked back to the dark house with its hidden evils, and throwing caution to the winds, climbed out and lifted Penelope to the ground. The hack rattled away as they turned toward the once brightly painted doors of the bordello.
Chapter 14
Once beyond the peeling paint of the front door, they entered a narrow wooden lobby with rooms to either side. Penelope avoided looking at the smoky interiors of the salons but focused on the hard arm beneath her fingers and the splintered wood of the floor she must cross before reaching the darkened stairs in the rear. She did not look up even to observe the voluptuous figure leaning against the newel post. She just knew the woman was there.
Chadwell showed no such hesitation. He blatantly admired the dark-haired beauty’s full-blown charms while sliding his arm around Penelope’s waist and drawing her closer.
“What can I do for you, sweetheart?” the woman murmured huskily.
Penelope jumped at a manic cackle from one of the salons. Low moans emanated from above, and deep male voices resounded from upstairs and down. Pinpricks of fear rose along her arms.
“A room, madam, if you have one to spare. My lady and I have need of a few hours’ respite.” Chadwell winked knowingly at the blowsy creature and drew his “paramour” for the evening closer, until Penelope was practically wrapped in his arms.
The woman looked doubtfully at Penelope and back to the gentleman. “She don’t look too willing, if you ask me. The likes of you will crush her like a sparrow, no doubt. Why don’t you find a real woman?”
The whore thrust herself forward. Garbed in a t
inselly red dress that wrinkled at the waist and sagged too low at the top, she was a spectacle of female pulchritude. Penelope could not help but stare. She had never seen another woman quite so naked before. She wanted to kick Cliff’s shins as he admired the majestic peaks on display.
With a wicked leer, he tipped Penelope’s chin up with his finger so he could look beneath her hood without the other woman seeing her face. “The lady has little choice in the matter, does she now? That’s what adds spice to life.”
Penelope read the devilment in his eyes and had the sense to keep her lips closed. She would hate to truly be forced into his service. His arm felt like an iron band wrapped around her middle. If he were anyone but Graham’s cousin, she’d run screaming into the streets.
The woman shrugged and held out her hand for the toll. “Just don’t leave her remains behind unless they’re in working condition. We can always use a new girl, particularly the quality kind.”
Chadwell handed over the required coins. Penelope felt the woman’s gaze follow them up the narrow back stairs.
She scarcely had time to recover from that encounter before an African in purple silk and billowing pantaloons loomed into view. Penelope gasped and tried not to stare. His silk shirt appeared to have no fastenings and lay open to his waist. She had never seen skin so black, and her fascination almost overcame her fear.
Sounding irked, Chadwell spoke sharply to the servant. “We’ve paid for a room. Show us a clean one.”
The man bowed and led them down a hall past doors once decorated in an array of colors. Several panels seemed to have exotic scenes painted upon them, but Chadwell jerked Penelope past these before she could interpret the peeling blur of fleshy pinks and browns.
She could not avoid the scene painted upon the door the servant led them to, however. Even though the colors had faded and cracked, she could discern the image of a woman in a full ball gown of the prior century, except the gown appeared to have no bodice. The topless gown did not cause her to blush so much as what the woman was doing and who she was doing it with. The paintings Penelope had seen in the museum had never shown completely naked males, and her eyes widened.
Chadwell bit back a curse, shoved the door open, and handed the servant a coin before pushing Penelope inside and closing the door behind them.
“I warned you,” he observed harshly. “It’s too late to cry off now.”
Penelope nodded her understanding, unable to move her thickened tongue. She could not see the contents of the room beyond the circle of candlelight in Clifton’s hand—except that circle illuminated her worst fears. The man standing there in elegant velvet and white linen did not look like the painting, yet she was aware of his overt masculinity.
Chadwell raised the candle to reveal the room’s contents: a sagging bed, a washstand with a chipped porcelain bowl and pot, and a threadbare armchair with straight wooden legs. He found another candlestick and lit the short stub.
Penelope rolled up her nose in disgust at the untidy covers and blackened pillow casing. “Surely people do not really sleep here. I have seen cleaner inns.”
Chadwell chuckled. “Few people come here to sleep, my darling. The air of sordidness adds a certain excitement, don’t you agree?”
She gave him an incredulous look that should have frozen the hair off his eyebrows. He visibly bit back a laugh.
“I’m sorry, Penny. I will try not to leave you here too long. Do you think you can manage until I return?”
She frowned. “I do not see what you can do with that. . . that creature sitting right down the hall. He won’t let you search the place. And if this Nell is being held prisoner, surely she will be locked in. It is impossible.”
“Only to the uninformed, my dear. The ‘creature’ at the end of the hall is paid to keep quiet. I can bribe him to hold you here while I go out and dally with the other ladies, and he will not find it at all shocking should I return with one or two more. I expect Nell is being offered for sale upstairs. Coins open every door in this place.”
That unexpected crudity shocked Penelope into silence. The hardness in his eyes frightened her. She had placed herself very much at his mercy if what he said was true. She could only rely on Chadwell’s inherent gentlemanliness to come out of this without harm, and she suspected he was a gentleman only when he felt like it.
Seeing her fear, Chadwell flattened his lips grimly. “Good. You are beginning to understand how dangerous your innocence is. If you are to live in this city, you had better learn to be a little more aware of what can happen to attractive women on their own. It was foolish of you to accompany me.”
“I cannot go about distrusting everyone,” she whispered hoarsely, praying her instincts were right.
“But you need not be quite so trusting, either.” Chadwell pulled his cloak from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor while he boldly admired the expanse of skin framed by the shawl and diaphanous gown.
He pulled her into his embrace and bent to mold her lips to his.
Penelope suffered a riot of emotions as she fought his grasp and succumbed to his heated kiss at the same time. Her body wanted what he was doing, longed to be held close against his long, powerful frame, needed the passion of his lips plying hers into surrender. She devoured the taste of wine on his tongue, drank in the musky scent of his skin, marveled at the rough scratch of his beard as he clung to her lips and sought succor there. Her fingers slid over the velvet of his coat, aware of the tension in the straining muscles beneath the material.
Yet she knew it was wrong, knew it with every fiber of her being, and her heart and soul clamored to be heard. She was a married woman, and a rake like this had no place in her life. It had been pure madness to allow him to bring her here. She had practically assisted in her own seduction. The thought repulsed her until she gained the strength to push away.
Breathless, she backed off, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she stared at Chadwell. She had no escape, but she still could not believe he would force her.
As if reading her thoughts, Chadwell shrugged. “I would be inclined to try, my lady, had we been anywhere else or under any other circumstances. You are a beautiful temptation. As it is, your virtue is safe with me. I will make haste to find Nell, then we’ll depart promptly.”
He swung around and walked out the door.
Penelope stared at the closed wooden panel in terror, then rushed to throw the bar. She had no desire to discover what other perversions haunted the halls of this wicked house.
With Chadwell gone, her senses became attuned to the night around her. She jerked nervously at the scampering of mice between the walls. She touched her fingers to the chafed skin around her lips where Chadwell’s beard had scraped. She could still taste the sweet wine of his kiss, and her legs nearly crumpled in a flood of desire.
Lowering herself to the torn cushion of the chair, she strained to see in the light of the candle stub. On the other side of the wall a woman moaned and a man cursed. She heard the distinct sound of a slap, but could not quite imagine the source of the fierce thumping noises that followed.
Other cries penetrated the walls, weird wails, throaty masculine growls that coiled her insides. After a while, she felt as if she had entered one of the first circles of hell, and she clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.
She desperately needed Graham’s strong arms around her, holding her, hiding her from these indecent noises, protecting her illusions.
Exclaiming over her foolishness, Penelope rose to pace the room. The room was warm and she did not need both cloak and shawl, but she wrapped them around her, anyway. Chadwell’s masculine scent drifted from the encompassing cloak. She clung to it, enjoying the spicy aroma of his shaving soap. The tight ball in her center opened, leaving a hunger she could not ignore.
She paced faster, starting at the sound of Chadwell’s voice overhead. He did not seem troubled, and she had to assume he was safe. She just wished he would hurry.
&
nbsp; A man like that would probably think nothing of making love to his mistress and several of the prostitutes before deciding to call it a night, she thought bitterly. Those passionate moans overhead could be the lovely, misguided Nell. The man’s low murmurs could be Chadwell’s loving phrases. He was generous with his pretty compliments and sweet endearments. He had probably turned many a poor maid’s head. How many innocents had his charming good looks brought to ruin? The hapless Nell was no doubt one of many.
Penelope had worked herself into such a state by the time the knock rapped at the door that she almost refused to answer it. Recovering herself, she threw back the bolt before remembering to ask who was there. Luckily, she heard Chadwell’s murmured voice before the door swung open.
He caught her by the waist as soon as the door opened, and Penelope gave a startled cry. With a look of satisfaction, he stepped aside to allow another figure to slip through. He threw the bolt and bent a fierce kiss to Penelope’s lips before straightening and releasing her.
“Very good, my love. Now let us have a scream of outrage. You will have to take off that pretty gown and slippers, too.” Without waiting for Penelope’s protest, he gestured to the scantily garbed woman hiding in the shadows. “Off with yours, too, Nellie. We must make this convincing. You are much of a size, I think. The cloaks will keep anyone from noticing the differences.”
Penelope stared at him, wondering if he had gone mad. Impatiently he located the ties of her bodice. “Quickly, Penny. Scream. Give us an argument.”
“You are mad! You are quite insane! Let me go!” Penelope attempted to jerk from his hands, but his grasp was unbreakable. The folds of her bodice began to separate, and she squirmed helplessly to avoid his nimble fingers.
“Very good. A little louder, please,” he murmured irrepressibly. In a rough voice he yelled, “Stop it, you silly chit! What do you think we came here for?”
Love Forever After Page 13
