They all looked surprised. "Obviously likes a woman's touch," Charles said.
"Well, I know what I like," Althea said in a sensual purr. "So I just give it to her. I can teach you if you wish. I mean, I'm sure you're all excellent lovers, but practice makes perfect, and I do so love a willing pupil."
"And where have you been to boarding school?" Mr. Simpson laughed, using the slang term for a bawdy house.
"There are some real benefits to being married to a rake, albeit a reformed one."
She tried to choke down the bile as Simpson stepped nearer to her to caress one of her breasts, tugging on the front of her chemise to drag the fabric down off her shoulder and tease her nipple.
She was saved from further attentions by the arrival of three more men, local landholders, Simms, Brown and Davis, and finally the last two, Petrie and Stoke, who were men she recognised as living in Bartlet. She had guessed aright. All of them single, no children, all bored rakes...
"Our leader will be down this evening, and is apparently going to be bringing five or six guests with him," Charles said. "You know the rules. He paid for her maidenhead, so he gets her first. But in the meantime, you can do anything else you like.
"And we have the added delight of welcoming back Althea, who is so proficient at the housewifely arts now, that she's had me simmering and boiling all day. So let's get started. I claim Althea first as mine."
She fluttered her lashes coyly. "Shouldn't the lady get the choice? After all, Mr. Simpson seems so glad to see me."
His massive erection sickened her, but there was only one way to control him, and that was to use his lust against him. She sensed he was the biggest threat, more dangerously fanatical than the others, and obviously loyal to their erstwhile leader.
All of this had been instigated by him, of that she was sure now. No one else would have ever thought to use the old crypt for such debauchery save for the vicar himself. He had come into the district at precisely the same time as Charles had moved into her home with his mother and the girls had one by one started to vanish.
The vicar had also successfully debauched several of his neighbours, if all the gossip was to be believed, but then what girl in the area had not tried for him, he was so manly. Only Althea had been immune to his charms, in love as she was with Matthew. Plus, there had been just something about him....
The gleam in his eyes told her he was not averse to using violence, though her recollections were in the main that her step-brother had beaten her as a prelude to the other vile things he had done to her body.
He had wanted to hurt and degrade, but he'd also treated her thus as a means to get her to sign away yet another field to him, or make another so-called loan when she had been left on her own after her father had died. A signature had bought her a temporary reprieve from the molestation, she recalled with a shudder as her dammed memories burst forth and began to flow fully at last.
Until finally she had signed it all away, and then found herself locked up in this crypt....
At the recollection of all she had suffered, all Patrice would go through if she failed, she steeled herself. She cupped and pressed Simpson as fast as lightning. She stepped away and averted her head as he lost control.
Her step-mother's eyes narrowed. "Damn, you've ruined the fun! I fancied the ride even if you didn't."
"I can get him back any time I like," she said, licking her lips. She turned away from the man still wracked in the throes of the most tempestuous orgasm. "But I think it really is Charles's turn now."
Althea had waited until all of the other men were naked. Once they were, she recognised them all as she had not before. They had all debauched her at various times during her incarceration. She choked down the bile in her throat once more as Charles came forward to claim his prize eagerly.
She bent as if she were about to lift the hem of her chemise to take off her boot. Instead she reached under the table and grabbed both pistols. She rammed one against her step-brother's temple, and aimed the other at Simpson.
As she had guessed, they all fell back and waited for orders. Simpson, still unmanned after what she had done to him, glared in fury, while Charles began to curse and tremble.
"Patrice, put on my coak and get out of here, now."
Althea's step-mother moved to stop her, but the lithe young girl, unbound thanks to Althea, shoved her hard, grabbed the garment, and fled up the stairs screaming.
"So it was all an act," Charles hissed.
"Yes, an act from beginning to end. I can't take pride in all of my accomplishments, however. I did have a very good set of teachers."
"I must say, you missed your vocation. As both an actress and a courtesan. We can still strike a bargain you and I-"
"No, thank you, Mr Simpson. I hope you burn in Hell for what you did to me. And the rest of the women, however many there may have been. All those girls who supposedly eloped. Supposedly confided to you that they had a beau. I should have suspected when Philip Marshall reported back to me what he'd found."
"Damn. I knew we shouldn't have taken his cousin," Charles rasped.
Simpson shot him a withering glance. "Say nothing. It will be their word against ours. No will ever believe an hysterical fourteen-year-old who tried to elope and was jilted. As for Althea, she'll never get out of here alive, will she."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The last of Simpson's menacing words against Althea were drowned out by the clatter of booted feet on the stone steps.
Nearly every Rakehell came charging down, all except for Philip, Thomas Eltham, and her own husband. She'd never been so glad to see anyone in her life as the familiar faces which now surrounded her and apprehended the men.
"Alistair Grant, King's Bench. Oh, I think they'll be believed. Especially in conjunction with the testimony of your servants as to names, dates and places. Not only for Althea and Patrice, but two of your other last victims so far as we can ascertain. Months of entertainment, wasn't it? But Althea was special. You were saving her for a special coup de theatre, were you not?
"The brothel may have burnt to the ground, but the women didn't leave empty-handed. In your haste to dress, you left behind cufflinks, stockpins and of all things, a wedding dress and ring which some of the ladies just couldn't resist. Who were you going to marry her to? Several special licences were applied for in that period of time, but none had her name on it. Was it all a charade?"
"Yes, yes it was," Althea said with conviction. "I was going to be married to the Beast, was I not? The Devil himself and the virgin sacrifice. You stuck me in the room and tied me up whilst you made the preparations. You were going to bathe and dress me, and he would have me first, all the rest of you later. Then I would be brought down to the common room of the brothel and enjoyed by all. Then murdered. The blood sacrifice."
The surprised look on Charles's face told her she had guessed correctly. Or was it just another memory she had dredged up from the past?
Althea turned to Charles fully. "Why? Why did you do it? Was it my fault Father didn't leave aything to either of you?"
Her step-mother hissed, "I always hated you. So pure and good, always so much like your mother. It was my idea to sacrifice you. I saw Charles and Simpson lusting after you. I used it against you. We began a concerted campaign to ruin you one way or the other, either by word to your father or by actual deed, I didn't care which.
"But then it was time for your London Season, and you escaped us. You were so closely chaperoned by your friends' parents and Matthew, that there was no chance to cause any scandal that would stick. Once you came home after your father's death, well, it was the perfect opportunity to get all we'd ever wanted."
A cold prickle of fear pierced her heart. "Papa didn't have a heart attack, did he?" she asked through numb lips.
The older woman shook her head smugly. "No, it was arsenic. We all ingested it before, for months. We waited until you went back to London, and had the dinner party, which we all attended. If
anyone suspected poison, we could all say in truth that we ate exactly the same thing. We built up our tolerance until we could safely eat a dose large enough to kill him.
"He'd found out, you see. He'd been fond of the Randolph girl. She'd vanished on the way back home from our house, don't you know. As had the Canning lass. He had his suspicions, but no proof.
"Then he came home early one day from hunting and caught me in bed with Timothy and Edgar. That was the last straw, so we had to be rid of him before he told the authorities everything."
"But, Mother," Charles at last protested, "you're confessing to--"
She shrugged. "Don't you see, we're going to prison no matter what. I might as well co-operate. Can't be too proud heading off to Newgate. It'll be every man and woman for themselves once we get there. But if we stick together, son, we can do well. With my luck I might get transportation. I hear you can make a good start over in the Antipodes.
"Not to mention all the entertainment to be had on the ship down there for a year in close quarters, with some nice beefy men, and sailors willing to look the other way in exchange for some special favours. Make the best of what life throws your way, that's what I always say."
Alistair and Althea both stared at her in complete dismay. But there was something about her step-mother's cocksuredness that made her wonder.
"I've heard enough of this filth," Alistair barked. "Come, let's get them out of here. And don't even bother to let them stop to dress."
Clifford Stone and Malcolm Branson began to drag the shackled men up the steep stairs. Alistair took Althea's other pistol and trained it on Simpson as the crypt cleared.
Althea watched Charles and her step-mother cautiously. There it was again. Some sort of prearranged signal or nuance of meaning between mother and son.
They'd had an awfully long time to plot and prepare for the eventuality of discovery or capture. She felt sure she was missing something.
But soon they were the last four people in the space and all seemed well enough. Jonathan Deveril popped his head down and motioned for the vicar come up with him. Michael Avenel came to grab Charles by the scruff of the neck, and then Alistair was left alone with Althea.
"Are you not coming?" she asked in surprise.
"I'm going to start gathering evidence now, beginning with their clothes and the souvenirs they seem to have kept of all their victims."
Althea heaved a deep sigh. "We'll never know how many there were?"
"Only if they tell us."
"Are you sure this is all over?"
Alistair stared. "I think so. Why, what are you looking so worried about?"
She looked around the chamber of horrors, the whips, chains, and other implements hanging on the mouldering walls, and shook her head.
"I can't help wondering if my step-mother has something else up her sleeve. All of this was almost too easy in some senses. Oh, I know, they never imagined they would get captured, but there's still one man missing. The Beast. Their leader."
"He can't help them now. We are talking abour murder, rape, goodness knows what other charges."
"You're the barrister, you tell me."
He raised his hands in surrender. "Whatever I can find, I promise. Now go on up and see Philip. Tell him you're all right. With any luck your husband will be here soon. We wouldn't want him to see you in here looking like that, now would we? He's a sensitive soul, is our Matthew, for all he was once a rake."
She stared. "You're the second person who's told me that. Are you all banding together to convince me I have nothing to fear now that I'm married to him?"
Alistair shook his head. "His raking was all a facade. All a front, my dear. A hard outer shell to the world to stop himself from being hurt."
"I know. So is your facade."
"Mine?"
She nodded. "The perfect, incorruptible, untouchable barrister."
He smiled then. "Possibly. But the world is a very grim place. I think I lost my sensitivity a long time ago."
"Who knows. Perhaps the love of a good woman will help you find it. Or a bad woman," she said with a wink.
"Thank you, my dear. I shall clutch those words of comfort to me in my lonely bed at night. Now go on, up you get."
Blake and Philip fell in step beside her as soon as she emerged from the crypt.
"Are you all right?" Blake asked.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Alistair needs the rest of us to start cleaning up down there."
"Oh no, my dear, you're not going back in that miasmic place," Philip insisted. "I need your help with Patrice."
"Where is she?"
"In my coach."
"Very well, we'll go back to the inn and get her injuries tended to. I promise to keep an eye on her."
"Thank you."
"Any sign of Matthew?" she asked hopefully.
"Not yet," Philip informed her with a shake of his head.
She looked around for a moment longer, then nodded. "All right then. Tell him to meet me there if he does arrive."
"I shall."
Althea now noticed a tall, silver-haired, stick-thin man who had been waiting silently nearby witnessing the exchange between the friends.
Catching her eye, he stepped forward to introduce himself as Lord Witherspoon, a colleague of Alistair's, and his superior.
"I will need to take depositions from all of you. If you're going back to the inn at Bartlet, you can come in my carriage."
"We will be happy to wait for you, sir," Blake said.
"We can go now. I have done all I can here. The rest of the investigation I can leave in Alistair's capable hands. Please allow me to help you into the carriage, Mrs. Dane."
"Thank you. That is most kind. But let us help Patrice first. I'm sorry, what did you say your name was again?" she asked, staring at him for a moment.
"Witherspoon, Lord Witherspoon, Alistair's superior at the King's Bench court."
"Have we met?"
"No, I don't think so, formally at any rate. But come, the night is growing chill--"
He was already taking both the women's arms.
"Very well, if you don't mind taking us."
"No, not at all. My pleasure." He smiled thinly.
Althea and Blake got into the carriage with Patrice and Witherspoon, and it rolled off into the deepening twilight.
Althea gazed out the window as they went passed, and observed the Rakehells busily trussing the naked men like turkeys and loading them into the vehicles which would take them to jail.
Philip waved to her, and then Witherspoon instructed his driver to whip up the horses and head on.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The sound of a carriage drawing up nearby and a door being flung open broke the silence in the graveyard a short time later.
Philip saw Matthew and Thomas hurrying towards him, and gave them both a welcoming smile.
"Patrice is safe, and all save the ringleader have been captured."
"Where is she? Is she all right?" Matthew panted, looking livid.
Philip knew exactly which woman she was referring to, but his answer was suitable for both. "She's fine. It's all over now. They'll both be safe from now on."
"You bastard, how could you-"
"It was her choice, and thank God she did it," Philip said fervently.
"Is your cousin-"
"Aye, she's all right, yes, thanks to Althea. They're both as well as can be expected considering."
Matthew grabbed the lapels of his friend's coat. "Considering?"
"Althea is fine, I swear!"
"Where is that bastard Charles? When I get my hands on him, I'll bloody well--"
Philip began to remonstrate, "Now, Matthew, you know that's not going to-"
Charles squawked in terror as he saw the huge man bearing down upon him. He broke free of Michael and Jonathan and began thundering along the road. His mother took advantage of the diversion to ram her fist up into the groin of one of Alistair's unsuspecting constables, and then
she too fled.
"Thomas, a horse, quickly!" Philip shouted.
But Matthew was already on one gelding's back. The Duke was not far behind as they tore off in pursuit of Charles.
Clifford and Jonathan pursued Althea's step-mother. She was brought back kicking and screaming like a wild thing, and finally had to be bound and gagged.
Alistair stood alone in the crypt and shivered with dread. He had always imagined Hell to be a hot place, but this dank, miserable prison where the most unspeakable acts had been committed was bitingly cold.
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