by Suzi Love
“You seem to be speaking from experience. Do you speak of someone you know?”
Justin grimaced. “My father. He was a bastard. He treated my mother in a sickening manner.” He shook his head. “But we’re not here to speak of the past. Come, we shall move on to another view.”
Chrissie put aside her questions and moved behind him down the corridor to collect her two friends. She noticed, to her surprise, another man standing behind Gillian instead of Bartholomew. A man who wore a mask, as they did. From her view of his back, she failed to recognize him, yet something about the man, the way he held himself, reminded her of someone she knew.
Hawkesbury accept his presence without comment, as if he’d had a hand in arranging the man’s presence here amongst them, yet she had no idea of his purpose in doing so.
Unable to resist her gnawing curiosity, she sidled forward to try to glimpse the man’s face. Thomas stepped in front of her, blocked her view, and she was unsure whether the move had been deliberate or not. Poor Thomas’s cherubic face wasn’t made for keeping secrets, and she shifted closer to ascertain the truth from reading his rosy cheeks and blinking eyes.
Justin, however, interrupted her scrutiny. With a subtle touch on her arm, he drew her away, ushered them along the winding corridors to another part of the enormous old building.
“Ladies, I wanted to introduce you slowly to the wonders of the house, in the faint hope that you wouldn’t find the scenes to be too shocking. In the dancing room, gentlemen merely gather to enjoy the benefits of an hour spent with one of our very supple and nimble girls. Girls who are practiced in the Eastern arts of sensuality.”
“Which Eastern arts?” Gillian asked.
The masked man, who again stood close behind Gillian, gasped, dropped his head, shuffled his feet. Chrissie turned to see him better in the half-light, but he moved to stand directly behind Thomas.
“Justin, I don’t think we’ve been introduced to one of your friends.” She peered around Thomas’s large body at the other man, then glanced between the others. “And where did Bartholomew disappear to?”
“Bart has … ah … gone ahead. To arrange for your participation in the tableau in the next room.”
Chrissie gasped. “No, no, not participation. Remember—observation. No more.”
Thomas patted Anna’s hand. “Never fear, I shall remain at your side, Miss Anna. If you feel the slightest distress at what you see, I shall remove you at once. I would also be most happy to escort you home.”
The group walked a few steps further along to where the corridor narrowed even more and the light dimmed. They ascended four wooden steps and crowded closer together until Chrissie became aware of Justin’s body pressing against the length of her back. She knew by instinct that it was his hard body, his lean length molded against her, his lemon cologne tickling her nose. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as his mouth shifted closer to base of her ear, a hair’s breadth away from nuzzling.
The man in the large black mask and covering cloak moved behind Gillian once again, stood familiarly close to her. Botheration—should she be worried or not? By contrast, Gillian stood relaxed, serene, perfectly at ease, as if a stranger didn’t stand an indecent distance from her spine. She frowned. A strange situation.
Chrissie glanced at Anna, quiet and retiring Anna who’d been shielded from the harsh realities of life for several years. Anna, the young lady who now smiled freely at Thomas, who in turn beamed back at her. The entire evening proved to be a giant puzzle.
Justin reached past them, slid a velvet curtain along a rod to reveal an oblong cut out section at eye- level in the wall. From their slightly elevated position, they looked down into a long room, wherein roughly two dozen figures could be seen scattered around the room. Some lounged against walls, some bent and stretched, some talked in small groups.
She leaned forward, putting her face closer to the viewing hole. Roughly half of the people below looked to be women, dressed in the same eastern manner as those downstairs, except this group had arrived bare chested. Each of the women displayed their bosoms by strutting as proudly as peacocks, their breasts swinging in free abandon above their bared midriffs. All carried the same exotic look—the dark swinging hair and painted eyes the women parading in Justin’s library had worn.
Hmm! The meaning of these similarities became clearer. When she’d interrupted Justin and his friends last evening, they’d been auditioning women for employment here at the Sultan’s Palace.
The Virile Viscount may tell people he no longer needed the money from the Pleasure House at his estate, but she felt certain he still gained money from his involvement with this establishment, this very high-class brothel in London that catered to the elite of society. She smiled, knowing she now had another way to blackmail the viscount into reopening the Bath House for their use. When she turned back to the window, she caught Justin’s gaze fixed upon her, studying her, his expression intent and shrewd.
“What does that self-satisfied smile mean?” His voice was a murmur close to her ear, so close she jumped a little. “Ah, do I detect a guilty conscience behind the smile? Should I be worried?”
She thanked heaven for the dark depths of the corridor and prayed he’d be unable to detect her embarrassed flush in this dim light.
“I’m smiling in anticipation of the event about to take place.”
She felt, rather than heard, his laugh as he shifted to stand behind her back, he pressed himself toward her, their bodies close, disconcertingly close. The muscles of his lean body shuddered, jerked, caused her own body to shiver, tremble, shimmy. Through the multiple layers of clothing separating them, intense heat radiated from his body and warmed hers, heating her inside and out. Something at her core, frozen for so many years, thawed a little. Moisture collected between her thighs, bewildering her.
Justin’s rich male scent, his skin’s unique aroma, permeated the air, made it hard to breathe without inhaling his essence into her body. Damn! She didn’t need any more distractions.
Having someone so proudly male standing so close to her after all this time of physical drought sent her sensually starved body into an immediate tailspin. If her mind joined in the attention in the same way as her body had done, she’d be ready for Bedlam before they even reached his estate.
And a week of exposure to all manner of enticements would be an even worse form of torture. She’d long ago convinced herself she didn’t need physical intimacy in her life after it proved to be a messy and unsatisfactory business in the past, one that didn’t improve her existence in the least. Therefore, she’d embarked on this experiment merely to assist her friends. Plus, if she acknowledged the voice of her inner conscience, to perhaps understand completely what she was giving up, what she hadn’t known. And that she hadn’t been short-changed all her life.
“I hope you’re still smiling in ten minutes.”
Drat! She had a terrible feeling she’d made a fool of herself somehow, but before she could reflect upon it, the shocked gasps of her two friends reached her and she instinctively stepped toward the wall, eager to see whatever they’d seen.
“Good heavens,” Anna said, sinking limply backwards into Thomas’s arms. Once again, Thomas slipped his hands around Anna’s waist, a gesture of support, of protection. Anna turned away from the spectacle in front of them and buried her face in Thomas’s coat.
Chrissie peered further along to where Gillian stood. Unlike Anna, Gillian leaned forward, her nose pressed against the glass and her hands flattened on the wall. Whereas Anna had been shocked by the entertainment, her other friend viewed the tableau in the other room with open-mouthed enthrallment.
Although Gillian’s mask disguised her features and her emotions, her awe-struck attitude showed intrigue and enjoyment rather than discomfort. The man in the mask, whose identity still teased at the outside of Chrissie’s consciousness, appeared to be scowling. His face was contorted into a deep grimace, as if he suffered extreme pain.
His attitude contrasted violently with Gillian’s blatant rapture.
Chrissie touched the viscount’s arm. “Who is that gentleman standing behind Gillian? He seems so familiar.” The irritating man didn’t glance down the passageway, yet the corners of his mouth turned up slightly at the edges, teasing a smile.
“Does he?”
Chrissie forgot her question as her attention snagged on the action unfolding in the room before them. She’d schooled herself not to show any shock before Justin, certain his intention was to frighten them into a hasty withdrawal. Retreating to the country would free the viscount of his commitment to them. But Chrissie held a slight advantage over her friends as she’d survived years of marriage to a man who’d made no effort to shield her womanly sensibilities. Not the way Gillian’s Edward did.
“Edward.”
The viscount leaned closer. “Pardon? What did you say?”
“You knew, you conniving man.” She gave his arm a small punch. “You arranged it, didn’t you?”
He leaned in, raised that damned arrogant brow again, and gave an excellent demonstration of feigned innocence. “What exactly is it that you think I’ve arranged?”
She scowled at him, pushed him aside, and peered at the masked man, the man she now recognized. “So why did you do it?”
“I ask again, what it is you think I’ve done?”
“Don’t play games. You brought Gillian’s husband here. In a mask.”
He grinned, shrugged. “Despite the mask, I’ve a feeling your friends have recognized each other.”
“But they haven’t said anything.”
He chuckled, a low rumble that rippled through her senses.
“No. I think they are both content to let the evening play out as I intended.”
“You mean they want to view the entertainment together.”
“I think Gillian wants to more than Edward, but he is prepared to for her,” he said, and turned her gently back to the window. “Now, watch. And learn. There’ll be a test later.”
She shook her head but said nothing.
Twelve women wove backwards and forwards across the room, arms raised above their heads, in a rhythmic dance similar to the one they’d viewed being performed below. But here, the movements performed were more sensuous, as pairs of bared breasts swayed to the throb of strange music, its high notes piercing the silence and setting her nerves tingling.
Only now did Chrissie realize the other twelve in the room with them were men, who were seated in a row on straight-backed chairs. Candlelight picked up and highlighted the rainbow of colors glowing from satin cushions strewn across the floor in front of the chairs.
As she watched, nose pressed to the glass as Gillian’s was, the women wiggled their naked bellies closer to the men and halted a step away from them. She’d expected this to be the famed Dance of the Seven Veils she’d read about in tales from Arabian travelers, yet these women had entered partially unclothed, as if not wanting to waste time with clothing removal.
The gentlemen had already thrown off their civilized skins and were yelling comments to each other, and to the women, urging them to hurry. Their impatience obvious, the tension in the room grew rapidly, so quickly in fact that for their audience, it was almost palpable.
Chrissie swallowed, her own senses stirred to life by the sensual display and by the rising looks of excitement and lust on the men’s faces. Their eyes followed the sway of unbound breasts before them with hypnotized eyes, mesmerized by temptation dangled only inches from their faces. A few of the more daring reached out a hand, but the large men, garbed as palace guards, growled from their corners in warning. Obviously this part of the act didn’t include participation by the paying guests.
“Anticipation increases the men’s enjoyment,” Justin said, reading another of her unspoken questions. “So we have a no hands rule.” He slid his palms around her waist, his fingers sliding through the red folds of her gown, rubbing down along the dip toward her hips, and stilling her slender body when she gave a small jump. “Any man who breaks the rule will have his hands bound behind his back.”
“It sounds a little extreme.”
He laughed. “On the contrary, some gentlemen touch because they wish to be bound and gagged. Hands, feet, mouths. Having roles reversed arouses them. Slaves take control and subjugate the masters. Most patrons who role play as submissive to dominators do so in private rooms.” He shrugged, pointed. “But some prefer the theatrics, and an audience.”
One harem girl at a time dropped to her knees before one of the men, and then each in turn bent her head to wait until the others in the row followed, copying her movements, a performance of dance and ritual executed with the same finesse as Chrissie used to step and twirl up and down the length of ballrooms when she’d visited London before she married.
The women below moved as if they’d practiced this dance hundreds of times, and performed the ritual as one body. When she finally lowered her gaze to the row of waiting men, Chrissie realized every one of them had unfastened their breeches. Their trouser flaps lay open upon their thighs, though they’d made no move to expose themselves. They, too, had slowed every action to prolong the anticipation of what was about to happen.
They glanced up and down the line between each other, as each man had a woman drop to her knees in worshipful fashion before him. A ripple of laughter started at one end and rumbled down the line until the last man to be chosen for adoration threw back his head and bellowed. His roar sounded a cross between laughter and exultation.
“Oh, my good Lord.” One man’s comment drifted up to them. “This is even better than you told me it would be, Worthington. Why have I never been here before?”
“Because this place has just reopened all its Arabian rooms. While the Virile Viscount was running the Pleasure House outside of London, we had no need to risk venturing into this sort of establishment so often in London.”
They raised glasses of wine in a toast to each other, one turning his face toward the light as he spoke to his seated friends. “I’m taking a great risk being here, you know. My wife will commit murder if she ever finds out.”
At the mention of the gentleman’s wife, Chrissie looked again, stared harder. She knew him, knew the voice that sounded like chips struck from a gravel pit, recognized him as one of their neighbors from their area.
“Oh, good heavens above,” Anna said, her voice high-pitched and tremulous. She stood before the opening again, pointing down.
“That’s Lord Mitchell!”
“Oh, my goodness.” Gillian’s voice came from further down, echoing Anna’s shocked sentiments. “Bloody hell,” Edward said, leaning forward and clutching the wall either side of the opening for support. “Gillian, turn away. You mustn’t look at him. Not him.”
Justin laughed. “Let me guess. You all recognize the gentleman, the one sitting the third from the left.”
Chrissie’s couldn’t drag her gaze from the sight below her, not wanting to look at their neighbor displayed in this setting, yet unable to force herself to look away and miss something. Like her friends, she felt shocked into silence. She met Justin’s gaze.
“He’s a neighbor, in our county.” She put her hands to her mouth but couldn’t contain her giggle. “Our very devout, very conservative neighbor.”
“One overly fond of criticism,” Gillian said. “He and his interfering wife arrive at our house far too often to deliver a scold to me on what I’m doing wrong. Especially with regard to my marriage.”
A shocked gasp came from Edward and he turned Gillian to face him, ripping off his mask with one hand. “My love, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize. Is it because of me? Because I was pushing my attentions upon you?”
“Heavens, no,” Gillian said, all pretense of not recognizing the man standing behind her as her husband finished. “Quite the opposite, in fact. Lady Mitchell took me to task numerous times for failing to keep you by my side in our marriage bed.”
“Wh
at?” Edward grasped Gillian’s hands.
“She informed me it’s my duty to lie back and think of England. And to let you do whatever you must upon my body to keep you happy. She said that’s how she keeps her own husband so happily attached to her that he never wanders. Not the way so many other men do.”
As one, the group turned their eyes back to the scene slowly unfolding in the exotic setting before them. The men slid to the carpeted floor and reclined on plump tasseled cushions, while the girls stretched their bodies fully over them.
The movements to the dance commenced again to the beat of a musician in the corner, as the girls performed an intricate pattern of weaving and wiggling movements, in sequence, up and down the men’s bodies. The men, of course, thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Heads were thrown back in ecstasy, loud groans emitted.
“Gillian,” Edward said, his voice pleading, “you shouldn’t watch this. Especially not Mitchell. It’s disgusting.”
Chrissie could no longer contain her mirth. It bubbled up, and over, and she started to giggle. Her giggle became a laugh, then erupted into full-blown mirth, until she doubled over, clutched her stomach. Along the passageway, similar sounds emitted as both Anna and Gillian suffered identical reactions. The incongruity of the situation struck them so hard they were helpless to do anything but laugh. Chrissie knew by the tortured look on poor Edward’s face that he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Thomas’s mouth dropped open in a soundless protest at Anna’s reaction
Justin’s reaction was a little more subdued, as, after all, his title of the notorious viscount meant he’d seen it all before, many times. Yet still he laughed, as amused by the entire episode as he would be by a Drury Lane drama. He took hold of Chrissie’s arm for support, as she bent double again, her entire body wracked by violent shudders of amusement. Without speaking, he waited until she gained control of herself.
