The Escape
A Hellfire Club Erotique
Kristabel Reed
An Isabel Roman, LLC® Original Publication www.isabelroman.com
Copyright © 2012 by Kristabel Reed
ISBN 13: 9781452452340
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Formatted by: CyberWitch Press
Chapter One
Paris, France
September 1793
The Reign of Terror
Gabrielle Bertrand rushed down the stairs. Her heart raced as she hurried across the foyer, but she didn’t look back. Time was not on her side, and if she wanted to make it out of the house, she needed to move faster than the servant’s gossip. Slowing for too long before the mirror, she yanked on her gloves and affixed her hat as best she could, given her haste.
All the while she kept a sharp ear out for her brother. Theodore demanded to know her whereabouts every moment of every day. No matter how she tried to slip past him, how she plotted to escape this stifling house, the servants remained loyal to the master of the household.
She needed to move faster if she wanted to leave before he—
A noise sounded down the hallway, close to Theodore’s study. Heart racing, Gabrielle jabbed the hatpin haphazardly in and whirled for the door. Propriety be damned, she’d run out of time. Hand on the handle, she felt the rough grasp of her brother’s grip. He wrenched her around to face him, and Gabrielle’s heart dropped. There was no escape.
“Theodore,” she said, forcing a calm smile through her distress. “What is it? I’m going to be late.”
Her brother didn’t answer. Theodore scowled down at her, face foreboding as he dragged her down the hallway. Gabrielle held her fear and frustration at bay as she stumbled on the polished marble, slipping as she struggled to keep up with Theodore’s long stride.
At his study, he all but threw her inside. She struggled to keep her footing, and caught herself on the back of one of the leather chairs. The door slammed behind him, the sharp sound of it a final echo through the small study.
She steadied her breathing and raised her chin. She’d done nothing wrong and refused to cower before him. He’d like that, her begging and crying, but Gabrielle’s pride refused to give him even that small bit of herself.
“I know you’re lying to me,” he spat. He stood with his back to the door, arms folded over his chest, hands curled into angry fists. “You’re not meeting the general’s daughters until later this afternoon.”
“There are several errands I wish to accomplish before I see them,” Gabrielle replied nonchalantly, keeping her blue gaze steady on his. Her heart beat heavily in her chest, but she maintained her composure. Cowering now would offer him a victory she refused to ever cede.
Theodore stalked forward, and before she realized what he intended, before she managed to brace herself, his hand shot out. Her cheek stung with the force of his slap, and tears sprang involuntarily to her eyes. She closed them, refusing to let the tears fall. He’d been the cause of far too many tears, and Gabrielle would never show him more.
Breathing slowly through the pain, she surreptitiously wiped her eyes. Raising her head, she met his gaze, the blue of his own eyes blazing with wild fury.
“I know,” he began in a low, menacing voice. Theodore towered over her, and used his height in an attempt to intimidate her. “I know you’ve been looking for an opportunity to visit the Club. Don’t think that because time has passed that I’ve forgotten your,” he paused and sneered as if the word tasted of poison on his tongue, “proclivities. Nor have I forgotten your desire to know what happened to your fellow members.”
Tossing her head defiantly, Gabrielle stood her ground. She’d never made it back to the Club the few times she had managed to slip away. He always knew her destination, and no matter how she ran, what route she took, Theodore had found her before she could seek refuge in the Club’s hidden walls.
But now, Theodore couldn’t hurt her any more than he already had. And once she’d befriended the general’s daughters, any physical mark he inflicted would be much more obvious. He couldn’t afford that knowledge spreading outside this household.
“Not just any members, Theodore,” she snapped back, uncaring how she stoked his temper. In fact, she wanted to. “I want to know where the men I love are buried.”
He glared silently at her, hands fisted at his sides. A vein pounded in his temple, red and angry, and his jaw clenched. Rather than striking her again, he turned away and stalked the few steps to his desk. Not as large or ornate as they once possessed, but Theodore didn’t seem to care so long as he retained a measure of his former power.
“If our uncle were still living,” he said over his shoulder, loathing in every word, “I’d see him guillotined for allowing you to sully yourself at the Hellfire Club.”
“As I recall,” she snarled, adjusting her hat, “you also took your pleasures at the Club.”
“It’s different for me than you,” he snapped, turning back to face her. He seemed to truly believe that, and Gabrielle hated him for it.
“Why?” she demanded. “Because you’ve sold me to the general as a virgin?”
“I’ve made an alliance to keep us both alive,” he retorted. “Not begging and scrounging on the streets as so many we know are forced to do.”
What he didn’t say was that most of their acquaintances had been beheaded, rounded up by Robespierre’s fanatics. She believed that those who still lived either hid in the catacombs of Paris, where the Hellfire Club had a long established presence, or died, nameless, on the streets. They’d likely not survived with the revolution’s mobs combing every Parisian avenue for Royalists.
Gabrielle sighed heavily and turned from him. She didn’t make the mistake of trying for the door. When Theodore was in this mood, he’d likely beat her no matter who called on her this afternoon. And Gabrielle knew the servants lurked directly outside the study door, straining for every shred of gossip they could hear.
She’d never make it to the foyer.
“Why do you not want me to know where they’re buried?” she asked softly. Her hand brushed the base of her throat, where she once wore a locket. It had been a gift from them, painted with their likeness. One of many personal treasures lost to the revolution’s prisons. “They’re dead,” she said, trying not to choke on the word. Trying not to cry at the knowledge her lovers would never again hold her. “What harm could there be in visiting their grave?”
“Gabrielle,” he said, and she heard him move to stand behind her. Her shoulder’s straightened but he didn’t attempt to touch her. “You don’t understand. There is harm in even inquiring about them or attempting to visit the Club. We don’t know if Robespierre and his men have found it and guillotined the members already.”
His hands rested on her shoulders, then, and Gabrielle stiffened beneath his touch. It wasn’t always so, once upon a time they’d been close, had laughed together, enjoyed the privileges of Parisian society as members of the ruling class. Things had changed when she’d come of age to join the Hellfire Club. Theodore had changed.
“We don’t know,” he continued in that same soft tone, dropping his hands from her shoulders, “if the catacombs are being watched. If you went there, you’d expose yourself and me. Let them go. Resign yourself to the life I’ve made for you. General Fortier is a good man and his daughters have been kind to you. You’re a lucky woman to have them.”
Only her brother managed to insult her and
make her feel guilty in one breath. Gabrielle truly did adore the Fortier sisters, but this was not the life she wanted for herself, not the one she envisioned. Swallowing, she steeled herself and turned to face him. “Yes, they’re kind, but they’re near ten years my senior. What am I to do with a man of the general’s age?”
“Marry him,” Theodore said shortly as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Be a good French wife and Citizen.”
Gabrielle moved forward, wanting to argue with him, but he stopped her with a sharp gesture. Keeping out of arm’s reach, her cheek still stung from his early fury, she stopped. Any argument she mustered had been tried. They’d all failed. Whatever happened to Theodore before the Revolution had irrevocably changed him. Nothing she said ever got through to him.
“I don’t want to hear another word from you, Gabrielle,” he instructed. “Wait here and I’ll send word to Fortier’s daughters that they’re to come here to fetch you. Do not,” he hissed, “defy me again.”
Before she had a chance to even draw breath for an argument, Theodore turned and stalked form the room. The lock clicked behind him.
Resigned, Gabrielle sank into one of the study’s leather chairs. This was an old argument, rehashed too many times and always with the same ending. They fought every few weeks by her count, and her damn brother refused to let her out of the house without a chaperoned, let alone back to the Hellfire Club. He rarely lost focus, and had only missed very few of her movements.
Only twice had she managed to slip away and make discrete inquires with former neighbors or one at of the increasingly common Parisian graveyards. After every escape, she’d always returned to this townhouse. And her brother’s wrath.
Two years. It had been nearly two years since she’d last seen Eric and André. During the beginning of La Révolution, Gabrielle had managed to stay with them, safely ensconced in the Club’s catacombs. Out of harm’s way, away from the masses bent on seeing every noble guillotined. But then even that had worsened after the king had been killed under the National Razor. No one was safe from Robespierre’s reach.
Theodore had forcibly taken her from the Club one night and hid her with one set of friends after another, but it did them little good. They’d been arrested, thrown in the prisons to await their shame trial and turn before the guillotine. Somehow, he never said how and Gabrielle never asked, six months passed before Theodore managed to buy their freedom. With the promise of the virginity she no longer possessed.
After General Fortier arranged their release, Theodore never allowed her to send word to the Club. She had no idea who among her friends lived or died, who awaited death, who had escaped.
Gabrielle stood and crossed the room, restlessly pacing the confined space. She didn’t bother with the door; she knew from long experience its lock would never budge. She was as much a prisoner here as she’d ever been while being held by the Revolutionaries.
No matter what Theodore did or said to her, what ways he’d managed to manipulate Fortier’s daughters, Gabrielle would find a way to her old Hellfire Club haunts. Maybe not the Club itself, that was too far off the main streets of Paris, and Theodore would go there to wait her should she slip past him. But she knew people; the Club had a variety of storefronts, and though her search had thus far proved fruitless, it didn’t matter.
It had been so long since she’d last seen her lovers, but she would never give up until she found their graves. The Hellfire Club was a place of pure debauchery and political machinations; but it had given her Eric and André. And one day she’d find them no matter where they lay.
Even now her blood heated, and Gabrielle remembered the pleasure they’d shared. The long days spent in bed, the three of them talking, laughing, planning their future. And enjoying each other.
Closing her eyes, Gabrielle’s fingers traced the décolletage of her gown. Her nipples hardened and her core moistened with the memory of taking Eric deep into her body, of André behind her, his large hands holding her still so she couldn’t escape the relentless pleasure until she passed out from it.
Her eyes snapped opened, and she shook off the memory.
Theodore had only told her they’d died, caught by the National Police. He’d never said how or where their bodies now rested. All Gabrielle knew was that they died without her. By Madame Guillotine’s sharp edge? In prison or by a mob? All Theodore ever said with certainty was that Eric and André had died.
Standing before the window, she looked out at the neglected gardens. She struggled to keep her breathing even, to hold her tears at bay. She’d cried over her lovers’ deaths every night since being told. Never when Theodore could see her, never when one of his servants could hear her. She would not start now.
Surely, even though Robespierre’s people seemed to have gone insane, ravenous for noble blood, surely with the general’s betrothal as protection she’d be able to see André and Eric’s graves. Was that truly so much to ask Theodore? To say one last goodbye?
Gabrielle shook herself. With a deep breath, she stepped from the window and walked to the small mirror she hid in between two of Theodore’s books. She’d been locked in this room too often not to secret several things here, and she found that checking her appearance before one of the servants found her stopped their malicious gossiping in its tracks.
Brushing her fingers beneath her eyes, Gabrielle straightened her hat and pulled her gloves back on. Once Theodore sent word to Annette and Margaux Fortier, they’d be here hours earlier than planned.
Sure enough, she didn’t have to wait long before she heard their boisterous voices echoing down the hallway. Despite her surety, Gabrielle breathed a sigh of relief at their arrival.
Theodore’s sour frown greeted her as he opened the door, but she said nothing to acknowledge him. Keeping her eyes lowered, Gabrielle slipped past him and hurried down the hall. Embracing her fiancé’s daughters in quick affectionate hugs, she all but ushered them out of the townhouse. She didn’t want to spend another moment in so oppressive a structure.
She climbed into the Fortier carriage and settled in. She genuinely liked Annette and Margaux; they were bright stars in a bleak future. From the corner of her eye, Gabrielle saw Annette elbow her sister and wondered what they were about. Her thoughts still circled to André and Eric, but she forced herself to pay closer attention to her friends.
“Gabrielle,” Annette said brightly, “we’ve news from Father.”
Gabrielle’s heart sank. Forcing a smile, she nodded intently even as her stomach tied itself in knots. “Oh? What did he have to say?”
“He’s to come home,” Margaux put in, her light brown eyes lighting with pleasure. “He’ll leave the front for Paris, and should arrive back here in five weeks!”
Nausea roiled her stomach; she wasn’t ready for his return. She still had much to do, so many old acquaintances to contact for word on Eric and André. While leaving Theodore’s house was preferable to living another moment under her brother’s iron fist, she knew once she married the general she’d be just as much a prisoner of that household. Albeit a prisoner of the Fortier sisters’ care and affection, but still very much a prisoner.
With as much enthusiasm as she could muster, Gabrielle joined in Annette and Margaux’s happiness over the general’s impending return. The ride to the bistro Annette was so eager to share with her felt an eternity as Margaux went on about the now-impending wedding. By the time they arrived at the bistro, Gabrielle had managed to turn the conversation from her wedding and trousseau to news of the Austrian front and the latest rumors circling Paris.
After a quick luncheon, where Margaux continued to talk of the wedding, the three of them walked down the rue, browsing various windows. Gabrielle allowed them to pick whatever items for her trousseau they desired, and tried not to cringe as they spoke of bassinets and baby toys.
No, she was utterly unprepared for the general’s return.
“I’m in need of some air.” Gabrielle stated as she stood by
the door. “Would you mind finishing with the shop girl, Margaux?”
“Are you not well, Gabrielle?” Margaux stared at her with very real concern, a frown creasing her unlined brow.
“I’m fine.” Gabrielle smiled reassuringly. “But I don’t think the soup agreed with me. I shall wait just outside.”
“Very well,” Annette responded, one hand on her arm. Gabrielle thought the other woman looked as if she wanted to bundle her back into the carriage and return her to the house, just in case something truly serious ailed her. “If you’re sure, we’ll join you shortly.”
Gabrielle offered another smile and nod, and exited the shop. Before the door closed behind her, she heard their hushed whispers about how delicate she’d be when with child. The thought made her cold, and nausea roiled her stomach again. A child.
She didn’t want to think of this future, wife to a general old enough to be her father. Annette and Margaux honored her wishes and stayed in the store, finishing their transactions. With them in there, she could slip away, and the need to place distance between herself and her soon-to-be stepdaughters spurred her on. Walking briskly down the rue, as fast and far from the shop as she could manage, Gabrielle didn’t look back.
If they found her, she’d say she went to see about a merchant and lost her way. At the corner, she stopped and regained her bearings. Taking a deep breath, she looked around again as an idea came to her.
Or perhaps she’d just keep walking and finally return to the Club. If it lay empty and hollow, scoured clean of the life she’d once loved, perhaps she’d bury herself in its remnants.
Still hovering on the corner, Gabrielle looked back. The Fortier’s had offered her nothing but affection and kindness since being introduced to them. Never once had they scorned her, accused her of buying her way into their family. Their affection was genuine and Gabrielle shared it. And yet here she was, ungrateful in these uncertain times.
Death lay in one direction, and life, a new life, in another. Standing here, Gabrielle didn’t want either.
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