“My lord,” Caroline said, “I . . . I can't go with you. I don't even know you.”
“David Childe, Viscount Rexton, at your service.”He lifted his hat and executed a bow that had a slightly mocking edge to it.
“Where do you mean to take me?” she asked. For all she knew, he might intend to sell her to an Ottoman sheik, having first assured himself that she had no family, at least none that would miss her.
“We are going to my home,” he said.
“Your home? I . . . I can't . . .”
“It is that or the madhouse, Miss Keating. The choice is entirely yours.”
Three
GROSVENOR SQUARE,” REXTON told the coachman as he handed Caroline into the hackney they'd found waiting in front of the Somerset House.“You're shaking like a rabbit,Miss Keating.”
“I'm cold,” she said as she sat on the front-facing seat, wrapping her arms around herself. “My clothes are soaked through.”
“It has naught to do with me, then?”He settled in opposite her, setting his hat on the seat next to him as the shabby old carriage rattled away from the curb.
“You seem disappointed,my lord.”
“Just skeptical,” he said, looking both surprised and amused at the cheekiness of her response. He shucked off his coat, beneath which he wore an ivory waistcoat over a shirt with billowing sleeves. “Lean forward.”
When she hesitated, he pulled her toward him and draped the coat over her shoulders. It felt huge and heavy and smelled of clean, damp wool and tobacco. Thunder grumbled in the distance.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Merely trying to prevent you catching a chill, Miss Keating. Wouldn't want you falling ill before we've gotten the chance to know each other.” He propped one long leg on the seat next to her, assessing her with insolent directness.
Lightning fluttered across his face, casting his eyes into deep shadow.
Pulling the coat around her, Caroline turned to look out the window, spattered with the first few droplets of what promised to be a violent summer storm.
“Tonight only,” she said without looking at him. “You've saved me from Bethnal Green, and I've nowhere else to go, but I am no whore, desperate though I may be. One night, no more.”
He gave her an indolent smile. “If it is ravishment you expect, Miss Keating, I'm afraid I shall have to disappoint you. Given how much brandy I've swilled tonight, I fear such an attempt would prove rather uninspired. Instead I shall hand you over to my housekeeper, Mrs. Allwright, who will provide you with a warm bath, dry clothes, and a bedchamber that locks from within. In the morning, you will be free, should you choose it, to go on your way and never lay eyes on me again.”
“Should I choose it? Why would I not?”
She recoiled with a gasp as Rexton leaned over to slide a hand beneath the coat wrapped around her. He withdrew his silver flask from a pocket in the garment's satin lining and uncapped it. Sitting back, he tilted it to his mouth and took a long swallow.
He said, “Are you with child, Miss Keating? Is that why you attempted suicide?”
“No, my lord.”
“Why did you, then?”
“I don't really see that it is any of your—”
“Since I'm not making you fuck me, Miss Keating, I should think the least you could do is to humor me with a bit of conversation.”
Caroline was astounded. Although she'd grown used to coarse language from living in St. Giles, she'd never thought to hear it from the mouth of an aristocrat. Too late, she realized how gratifying her expression of shock must be to Lord Rexton, who had undoubtedly used that word in the hope of eliciting such a reaction.
“Was it because you'd been disowned?” he asked.
She looked away, gritting her teeth. “No.”
“Then it doubtless has to do with the transgression that prompted your reverend father to repudiate you. You've been ruined, I take it.”
“Yes.”
“Seduced and abandoned?”
“No, it wasn't . . . We were in love. We were betrothed, but secretly.”
“Your father didn't approve?”
“Aubrey was Catholic.”
“Was?”
“He was a captain in the Royal Horse Guards. They were sent to Waterloo, and he died there.”
Some of Rexton's cockiness seemed to dissipate. He looked away and took another swig of brandy. “Two years ago today. I must say, you chose to mark the anniversary in rather lurid fashion.”
She ignored that.
“Papa wouldn't accept you back into the bosom of the family?” he asked.
“He'd made it quite clear when Aubrey took me to London that I was dead to him. He poisoned my uncle and aunt against me as well.”
“Your mother went along with this?”
“She died of childbed fever after I was born.”
“You've no other family?”
“I have two older brothers, but they both joined the East India Company as soon as they came of age. They're halfway around the world. I haven't seen them in years, and I doubt they'll ever come back to England. Not to live. It would mean dealing with my father.”
“So you've been living on your own in London since then? How have you supported yourself?”
“I get a little piecework now and again—embroidery and the like. But it's not steady. I've never been gifted at needlework, so I'm only called upon as a last resort, and it pays pittance even when I do get it. I've always been interested in educating young girls, so in the beginning I tried to obtain work as a governess or tutoress, but no one would have me. People actually slammed doors in my face. It was mortifying—and utterly confounding. I found out later that my father had told everyone he knew in London that I'd turned to a life of sin. Those people told other people. They probably thought I'd been. . . selling my favors.”
“You never considered it?”
“Is that supposed to be a jest, Lord Rexton?”
“Not walking the streets, I mean, but getting a place in one of the better houses? Or perhaps securing yourself a gentleman friend?”
“Never. I'd rather die.”
“Yes, well, it would appear that you've already explored that option, with limited success,” Rexton drawled.
“It was the last option at my disposal,” she said. “It would have solved all of my problems for good, but I failed even at that. Which leaves me at something of a loss, as I've exhausted every means to repair the fix I'm in.”
“Well.” The viscount smiled slowly. “Not quite.”
The next morning, Caroline stood outside Mrs. Milledge's lodging house in the teeming squalor of the St. Giles Rookery, trying to work up the stomach to walk in and ask for her old bed back. Getting inside the ramshackle building would involve stepping over or hauling aside Reenie Fowls, who lay in a tattered heap on the front stoop with an empty gin bottle next to her. Her skirt, painted with mud from last night's rainstorm, was shoved up around her thighs, and her legs were spread wide. Caroline wondered how many men had eased their lust in her during the night without her knowing it.
“A sex slave?” Caroline had exclaimed in response to Lord Rexton's appalling proposal. “Are you mad? Do you think I'm mad?”
“In truth,” he'd replied, “you strike me as refreshingly sane and logical—and with a degree of pluck one wouldn't normally expect from a ruined rector's daughter who's just been dredged up out of the Thames. You are, of course, far too bound by convention to greet my proposal with anything but righteous outrage, yet too savvy and spirited not to mull it over in that little corner of your mind that realizes this may very well be your last chance at a decent life.”
“Decent? I'm surprised you even know that word.”
“It would only be a week, after all—seven days that could change your life—that undoubtedly will change your life, forever.”
“It's—it's sickening,” she'd sputtered. “Utterly degrading.”
“More so than the alternative?” h
e'd asked.
At least that alternative—half of a flea-infested bed—was affordable now. That morning, when she'd awakened in a guest chamber of Lord Rexton's majestic Grosvenor Square town house, she'd found a periwinkle silk frock laid out for her, along with underpinnings, bonnet, gloves, shoes, and a dainty mesh reticule containing a double guinea and a calling card for Sir Charles Upcott of Burnham, Childe & Upcott, with an address on Regent Street. On the back of the card was scrawled: See Sir Charles about the matter we discussed last night. Rexton. Quite a presumptuous note, considering she'd rejected his proposal out of hand, and in no uncertain terms.
Caroline had asked Mrs. Allwright to return her old frock to her, only to be told that it had been burned per the instructions of Lord Rexton, who was still abed. The genial old housekeeper had likewise refused to take the money back, saying she'd have the devil to pay from her employer if she allowed Caroline to leave empty-handed.
It had been a pleasant shock to wake up in that big feather bed with lavender-scented sheets and a silken coverlet. Not for a very long time had Caroline had a bed all to herself, and never in her life had she slept in such luxurious surroundings. She had breakfasted like a queen on ham, scones, and eggs en coquette. It was the first time in two years she'd eaten her fill.
“Carrie? That you?”
She turned to see Bram Hugget lumbering toward her with his broom on his shoulder, his boots coated with mud and horse droppings.
“Lookit you, all flashed up like that. I hear you told Mrs. Milledge you'd not be back. Yet here you are. Did your new sweetman toss you out after just one night?”
“I don't have a sweetman. You know that.”
“Only two ways for a penniless wench like you to get fancy toggery like this,” he said, stroking a hand over the lace fichu pinned around her shoulders. “On your back or on your knees.” He grabbed her breast with a big dirt-caked hand and squeezed.
She pushed him away. “Get your filthy hands off me.”
“Too good for me now, are you?” He wrestled her onehanded against the wall of the lodging house, slammed the broom handle across her throat to hold her in place, and groped her roughly between her legs. “You wasn't too good last night,” he sneered as Caroline choked and flailed.
A pair of young ruffians sauntering down the street glanced in her direction, smirked, and continued on.
“I should of kept me ha'penny,” he said as he ground his erection against her. “I should of shoved you down on your hands and knees and fucked you like the little bitch you are.”
She struck out with her fists, battering his head, his face. Bram ignored the punches until one connected with the bridge of the nose. “Fucking little trull!” He pressed the broom hard against her throat. “Hussy. Whore. This is the way you like it, ain't it?” Gathering up her skirts, he said,“I bet you're dripping for it. Let's get a couple fingers up there and see.”
Fingers, Caroline thought as his big crusty hand crawled up her inner thigh. “Two fingers, one in each eye,” Aubrey had taught her. “As hard as you can. There's no room for delicacy if some blackguard has designs on you.”
Summoning all her strength, she raised her hand, locked two fingers, and drove them straight into Bram Hugget's eyes.
He roared and stumbled back, dropping the broom handle as he pressed his hands to his eyes. “Fuck! Shit!”
She lifted her skirts and fled north on Charing Cross Road as he bellowed and raged.
“Fucking bitch! You blinded me, you fucking strum. I'll kill you if I ever see you again!”
Then here's hoping I really have blinded you, thought Caroline as she waved down a hackney coach rattling toward her. She leaned on a lamppost to catch her breath as the coachman climbed down to open the passenger door.
“Where to, miss?” he asked as he held out his hand.
“Regent Street,” she said breathlessly.
Four
TWO MINUTES TILL Inspection. Queue up, girls.” Pointing with his coach whip, Mr. Llewellyn said, “Violet first, then Angelique, then Laurel, then . . . oh, blast.” He pulled the Compendium from his coat pocket and flipped through the pages to confirm the slaves' proper order. “After Laurel comes Narcissa, then Jessamine, Jonquil, Elle, Aster, Iris, Columbine, Poppy, Holly, Tulip, Rose, Lili, and Saffron. Lick your lips and rub your nips!”
Caroline felt starved for breath as she took her prescribed place. What am I doing? What in God's name am I doing?
“Each slave is to take the loop at the end of her leash and attach it to the collar of the slave in front of her, taking care to keep her wrists above the leash,” the little dandiprat continued. “Use that hook hanging off the nape. Except, of course, for you,Violet. I'll be taking your leash to guide the procession into the hall. Once Inspection is over, we shall leave through the other end of the hall and wait in the courtyard while each of you takes her turn on the auction dais.”
“Oh, God,” Caroline murmured as she struggled with her shackled hands to hook her leash to the back of Tulip's collar. “This is insane. I can't do this.”
A hand, cool and soothing, stroked Caroline's shoulder from behind. “Don't be afraid,” Lili whispered in her throaty, lightly accented voice. “It is not so bad. You'll see. Who knows? You might even enjoy it.”
Enjoy it? Turning to look at Lili over her shoulder, Caroline said, “Do you enjoy it?”
“Of course. Why else would I be doing it?”
“For the money.”
“I've no need of money. What I need is . . . stimulation.”
This came as a surprise to Caroline, who hadn't thought of Lili as that type.
“You needn't stay, if you don't want to,” Lili said. “You can leave right now and go home. Where is your home? London?”
“Yes. No. I . . . I have no home, no family. That's why I'm here. I'm in desperate straits. You've no idea how desperate.” She shook her head helplessly. “I can't leave. I've got to stay and do this, but it's . . . I can't imagine how I'll get through it. I'm not the kind of woman who can just . . . do these things. I'm a rector's daughter, for pity's sake.”
“Place your clasped hands behind your head,” Mr. Llewellyn continued. “Your wrist cuffs are to be clipped to the back of your collar by the slave behind you. Angelique, you'll do Violet. Then Laurel, you'll do Angelique, and so forth. Saffron, I shall do you since you are last in line.”
“Be someone else, then,” Lili whispered. “Don't be Caroline. Be Rose. Rose wouldn't be afraid. She would view this as a grand adventure. And then, in a week, it will all be over and you'll have the money.”
“Aster! Iris!” Llewellyn tapped each of the girls on the shoulder with his whip. “Cease that bloody giggling. Meekness and humility, remember? You're slaves, for pity's sake.”
From the other side of the curtain came the voice of Mr. Hamilton Archer, the English administrateur to Théophile Morel, the shadowy Seigneur de Ombres who was the lord of Grotte Cachée. Caroline liked Mr. Archer, who had greeted the slaves warmly and respectfully upon their arrival at the château. Mr. Archer welcomed the gentlemen with a brief speech before introducing Mr. Oliver Riddell of Riddell's Auction House, who announced in his distinctively resonant, stiffjawed voice that the slaves would be making their entrance shortly.
“Chins up, eyes forward,” Llewellyn ordered as he took hold of Violet's leash. “Posture upright, tits out. Keep your walk graceful and maintain a full leash length from the slave in front of you.”
“Without further preliminaries, then,” Mr. Riddell announced, “I present to you . . . the Inspection of the Slaves.”
Llewellyn pushed the curtain aside with his whip and strode through, holding Violet's leash as if leading a pony by its reins. She straightened her back and followed him. Angelique whispered something that sounded like a prayer, and then she, too, entered the great hall, trailed by Laurel,Narcissa, Jessamine . . .
From her place toward the end of the line, Caroline could see very little of the hall, but sh
e could hear the audience applauding the slaves as they made their appearance for the first time. It must have been quite a spectacle, a parade of lovely, wellborn young women in transparent gowns and slave collars, leashed together like animals. The tethering of their hands to the back of their collars had the effect of thrusting their breasts up and out. Through their filmy gowns could be seen their nipples and the dark shadows between their thighs.
“Be Rose,” Lili whispered as Caroline, her heart pounding, followed Tulip into the cavernous, high-ceilinged hall. The long wall to the right was lined with tall leaded-glass windows open to let in the warm night air. On the left-hand wall were two doors opening onto the castle's central courtyard, the ornate main entrance and a service door near the velvet-draped dais at the far end of the hall that would serve as the auction block later that evening.
The elegantly attired men were all on their feet, save for Lord Rexton on his velvet settee. He glanced at the slaves one by one as they took their places along the window-lined wall, guided by short little taps of Mr. Llewellyn's coach whip as he patrolled the lineup.
Caroline looked straight ahead, as required, but her field of vision encompassed most of the room. She could see the viscount, his brow slightly creased, scanning the slaves a second time. His gaze bypassed Caroline, and then returned. He studied her for a moment, no doubt reflecting upon the change in her appearance. His gaze lit on her breasts and then he looked away, lifting his snifter to his mouth.
As the applause died down, the prospective buyers began conferring among themselves, pointing to this slave and that as they consulted their compendia. Most looked to be British, American, or northern European, but there were a few swarthy Mediterranean types, and one who appeared to be a mulatto. There was even a Chinaman, rather tall for his race and exotically dashing in his European-style full-dress.
“Gentlemen, if I may have your attention for a few moments . . .” Mr. Riddell, standing at his podium on the dais, gave his gavel several quick raps. “I will endeavor to be as brief as possible, however it is incumbent upon me to ensure before Inspection begins that you all understand certain fundamental requirements of slave ownership. Should you take issue with any aspect of this regime, now would be the time to exempt yourself from further proceedings.
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