I slept dreamlessly and felt marvellous when I awoke. Richard was still asleep but he woke when he felt me move and drew close. “Last night wasn’t such an ordeal, was it?”
“No, except for the part with Eustacia. People were kind.”
“They like you,” he answered, still sleepy.
“Are you sure it’s not because I’m married to you and you’re related to half of them?”
He laughed. “Cynic. No, it would work the other way. Most of them thought I brought the family into disrepute in my previous life, before you.”
“Redeemed by the love of a good woman? Like Mr. B?” I was referring to the male protagonist in Pamela.
He made a disparaging sound. “Not at all like Mr. B. Pamela sold her virtue to him for the highest price. I hate to prick your self-esteem but if you remember, I’d given up my philandering some time before.”
I turned my head to him. “Did you give it all up? When we made love for the first time, I thought you must have been celibate for that six months but knowing you as I do, I don’t think you’d be able to do that, not completely.”
“Why not?” He reached up his hand and caressed my breast where it touched his chest. “Because I’m so uncontrolled with you doesn’t mean I can’t control the physical side of my nature.”
I tried to explain. “But that’s it. It’s because you are so controlled. You were using it as a release, weren’t you, so you had control of all the other aspects of your life?”
“You, my love, are far too perceptive for comfort.” He brought me closer for a kiss. He refused to answer any questions, deciding instead to demonstrate the physical side of his nature.
He rolled me on to my back, kissed and caressed me, made sure I was ready for him. He knew by the sounds I made and my movements against him exactly when I wanted him and he lifted his body over mine, pushing his way inside.
He moved gently but slowly and exquisitely built up to an insistence with which I was wholly in accord. I helped him at first, then became helpless beneath him, arching my body and wrapping my legs around him to achieve ultimate fulfilment. The harmony between us sweetened the encounter rather than dulling it with familiarity, the awareness of each other’s needs and desires gave us the knowledge to heighten each other’s pleasure. We gave and took in turn and achieved the apogée of desire together, crying out in joy.
It was always good but this time was better than ever. I rested against him, recovering my breath. His quickened heartbeats settled down again. I slid my arm around his waist and felt him kiss my hair, heard him murmur, “My sweet life, my only love. Nothing else matters but you.”
“Do you need me to love you?” I lifted my head to look at him, last night’s conversation with Eustacia in my mind.
He smiled. “Most definitely. To achieve this level of happiness, it’s essential.”
“What’s it like without love?”
“Pleasurable. Friendly at its best, an amusement, a game. Nothing like this, my love, nothing like this.” He bent his head to kiss me, his mouth sweetly persuasive. “Why do you ask?”
“Because of what I learned last night.”
His look became sharper. “You’d better tell me.”
I hated to do it, but he had to know. “Steven has started a club, to which he hoped to recruit you. They specialise in public acts with virgins.”
He thought it over for some time, pursing his lips. “I’ve never been interested in that kind of thing but there’s no particular harm in it. You can buy what passes for a virgin at any whorehouse in Covent Garden. Contemptible but not usually a problem. A club means they want to engage in private, so it’s up to the members.” He smoothed his hand over my shoulder. “Thompson’s should exert itself to get a list of the members, though. It could come in useful.”
I added the part that made the scenario unacceptable. “Unwilling victims. Unwilling virgins. He wanted to recruit Eustacia Terry as a virgin, to act the part of unwilling. She wouldn’t tell him if she had succeeded with you or not. He told her she could wear a mask if she wanted to.”
He made a sound of disgust. “She may be irritatingly flirtatious but whatever made him think she would agree to with anything like that?”
“He said they were looking for society maidens to lay themselves down on the altar of virginity.” I said it in such a matter-of-fact way that I didn’t think he’d understood until the distaste on his face demonstrated that he did.
“That is not tolerable. The other things are, I suppose, acceptable if all parties consent but to try to involve young girls is not, especially when they are unwilling. We should arrange a meeting at Thompson’s and see what can be done.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“But you have an equal share in the office, you can call a meeting if you choose.” It had been his bride gift to me, worth so much more because he had built the agency into what it was himself, with no help or influence from his family.
I kissed him, needing the reassurance of his love. “I know. But I wasn’t sure if I was overreacting.”
He smiled and caught my chin in one hand, looking at me lovingly. “No, my sweet life, you were right to be concerned. No one should condone that.”
“It doesn’t seem to bear any relation to what we’ve just done.”
“It doesn’t. But not everyone is as fortunate as we are, not everyone finds the one they were meant for.” He kissed me again, just to prove his point.
“He implied Julia was involved.”
He still smiled but the tenderness changed to amusement. “From my experience of Julia, her husband has probably never seen her naked, much less stretched out on an altar of virginity for his friends’ amusement.”
I doubted that but I didn’t think he would be easy to persuade. “There’s something else that concerns me, as well as the way they are using Susan.”
His smile vanished. “What, my love? Is it all too much for you? Shall I handle it on my own?” His concern was touching but not necessary.
“No. Why should it worry me? I want to see this attempt at corruption fail. What worries me is that Steven is still a man of the cloth. He’s taken holy orders and that can’t be right.”
His expression grew serious. “If we attempted to have him defrocked, it would cause a scandal. I can try to prevent him taking it up again as a profession, though. One of my many relatives is a bishop. I’ll go to see him, explain the situation privately and leave the decision for him to make. That would effectively bar Drury from an active rôle in the church again. Would that do?”
“Oh yes. I want justice, not revenge. He mustn’t be allowed to bring his perversions into the church. He spoke about altars as though they were a casual alternative to a table.”
“I’ll make arrangements to see the bishop as soon as I can,” he promised. “I’ll do it myself, not through Brangwyn. By the way, what do we do about him? I’m tired of having a spy in my house.”
“Better we know who the spy is. Let’s finish this thing and get rid of him before Christmas.”
He smiled his agreement, holding me to him for one last kiss, then throwing back the covers and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “If I don’t get up now,” he said, looking back at me, “we may not have a day at all.”
“I thought I would visit Julia.” I watched him carefully for his reaction, not always expressed in words but in subtle movements of his graceful body. “I might goad her into telling me what she knows.”
“Maybe.” He picked up his robe from the chair by the fire and threw it across his shoulders. “It can’t do any harm, if you take Nichols with you and a likely footman. But I don’t want this to go on for much longer. I hate that you should see such ugliness, but we need to stop this, as quickly as possible. I’ll talk to Carier, get him to arrange a meeting at Thompson’s.” He blew me a kiss and left the room, going through to his own room to dress.
I CALLED ON JULIA THAT day, just after noon. It was a ble
ak day and I wore the furs that were a recent and welcome addition to my wardrobe. I waited in the carriage after I had sent up my card, my feet on the hot brick, but I didn’t have to wait long.
The house the Drurys lived in was much like ours from the outside, neat and part of a fashionable, recently built terrace. Stairs led up to the front door and brackets, now empty, stood on either side to hold the flambeaux that lit the façade at night. A crisply dressed butler came out to ask me inside. Nichols and I went up the steps, like Daniel going into the lions’ den.
All was orderly and pleasant inside, the black-and-white tiled floor reminiscent of ours but the stairs were in a different place. A superior footman took me to the drawing room. I left Nichols sitting on one of the hard chairs in the hall, wishing I could change places with her.
I would rather have had Richard or Lizzie with me when I went into the drawing room to confront a mildly surprised Julia Drury.
She stood and greeted me, then offered some tea, which I accepted gladly. Her drawing room was decorated well in pale blue, a colour I was sure she knew enhanced her colouring: golden blonde with pale blue eyes, set in a pointed, cat-like face that seemed always alert. She wore blue as well, in a darker shade, the hue de jour, it appeared. Except that I wore peach, a shocking contrast to all that blue. This was an impersonal room, nothing in it proclaimed the owners’ taste or style. All was fashion.
The pictures were insipid, as detached from their owners as Julia’s cool stare. She hid her feelings almost as well as Richard but I knew there must be something else there. Richard had never found it but he’d never looked properly. He regarded Julia as a doll, an impersonal thing who would bear his children but not impinge on his life. He also thought she was stupid. I was sure that she was not.
I tried to be affable and pleasant. I asked her how she did, noting from her answer and corresponding enquiry after my health that she didn’t seem aware that I was in the family way. Maybe so self-centred she never listened to any gossip that didn’t concern her. All to the good. I wasn’t about to tell her. Her expression was bland, as though I were any visitor, although the tension between us stood out for me like a bristling cat. She knew I was here for a particular reason and I was wondering how to broach the subject with her. I didn’t know how long I would have before another guest arrived, so I decided to take the plunge.
“I was present when your husband upset Miss Terry last night. I know you’ve struck up a friendship with her so she may be more reticent in coming to see you.”
Her world-weary sigh could have graced a leopard facing the fawn she had caught when she’d hoped for a full-grown deer. “What did he say?”
“He asked her to join his little club. Before I go on, Mrs. Drury, do you know what he’s been doing?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Some of it.”
I didn’t find that at all helpful but I had no choice other than to accept the answers I was given. “He says he’s started a club.”
“He and some of his like-minded friends. It’s not the only one of its kind in London.”
“Steven is trying to make it different.” I was still not sure how much she knew. I waited, took a sip of tea. I didn’t really want anything to drink but it provided a useful pause. Steven’s wife didn’t speak, so eventually I put down my tea-dish. “What do you know about it?”
She shrugged. “I helped set it up. He takes great pleasure from carnal delights. I thought this club might amuse him.” She watched for my reaction.
It was just as well I’d put down my dish, or I would have choked on the tea. I never expected her to be so frank. For the first time I saw an emotion in her, something akin to triumph. My poorly concealed astonishment seemed to encourage her. “Until I met Steven, I never believed I would get any pleasure from the essential acts of intimacy. You remember, when you were busy sleeping with my fiancé?”
I nodded; I’d never denied it to anyone who asked. “Well,” she went on, her eyes gleaming coldly, “I secured your Steven. I found him exciting where Richard was dull, eager where he was apathetic.” I couldn’t believe she was talking about my husband but I kept my counsel and let her talk.
Julia wanted to brag, to vaunt her triumph and she expected me to let her, to be the admiring acolyte. If she had lost Eustacia, perhaps I would do. I knew Julia’s arrogance of old, I knew it would blind her to what she didn’t want to see, so I tried to look suitably admiring. The Rose of the year before rather than the Rose I was becoming.
“I saw your foolish weakness when Steven wanted you,” she continued, her voice filled with scorn. “I didn’t mind. I wasn’t jealous you understand—the contrary. I was sure of him by then and I wanted as many people as possible to see how good he was, what a prize I’d secured.”
I couldn’t imagine feeling that way about Richard, to want to share him like that. I let Julia continue. “But you weren’t the woman for Steven, so I took him from you. Richard seemed to be besotted.” Here her voice took on a disparaging tone and she lifted her chin, smiling. “I always planned to come back for Richard. I take it that’s one of the reasons you’re here?”
I shrugged. “Why should you think that? I might be interested on my own account.” I felt cold in this blue room, despite the fire blazing in the white fireplace. I wanted my furs back.
“Everybody’s welcome in our little group. In fact, you might say the more the merrier.”
“How does one join?”
“A woman has to lay herself down on the altar of virginity—my husband’s idea, titillating, no? Then as many as want her, have her, in full view. After that, there’s a celebration, rather like a kind of mass, which Steven leads, then a free for all. But our special desires are catered for here. Have you found any lovers of your own?”
I supposed she was entitled to ask but I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. She was so ethereally pretty, so sweet, that I couldn’t believe she would do this, would need it. I shook my head, too unnerved to speak. But she didn’t know of the other matter, surely? I had to know.
Julia leaned forward and I automatically passed my tea-dish to her to be refilled, although I didn’t want to take anything from her now. I had to find out as much as I could, because I wouldn’t be able to come back.
“It’s one of the things we pride ourselves on, finding out people’s preferences.” It was just as though she were discussing an ordinary society, like the ones devoted to good literature or music. “We thought Miss Terry might benefit from our attentions.” She looked at me, a question in her eyes.
“Miss Terry seemed upset. Steven wanted to take her forcibly.”
She frowned, her mouth tightened. “I told him not to be so hasty. He would rush ahead. I was going to ask them for Christmas, and have her then. It’s the wish of one of our members to deflower a respectable virgin on the altar. One who is well known to the other members. I believe he has bet on the outcome in the coffee houses at St. James’.” That was worth knowing. “I thought Eustacia Terry would be perfect but she’ll take a great deal of persuading.”
“Would she be willing?”
Julia shrugged. “Unwilling adds a touch of spice—don’t you think?” She gave a sly smile. “Did Richard take you forcibly?”
I wouldn’t tell her that I took him, and not at all forcibly. He hadn’t wanted me to give up my virginity, when he could promise me nothing, but I wanted him to have it. At least once, I wanted to know what it would be like to make love with the man I was meant for.
Julia Drury seemed to live in a world of her own, where she could buy whatever she wanted and take by force what people didn’t want to give her. She was an heiress, greatly indulged by her father and now she had bought herself a husband. I didn’t know anyone could be this far removed from reality this side of Bedlam. I couldn’t believe that she didn’t see through my motives. Could she believe, for one moment, that I might want to go along with her sordid schemes? Then I remembered what Richard had been like before I knew him and I und
erstood some of it. His cold, calculating attitude to life had been chilling. “Was that what Lucy Forder was doing?”
She looked at me sharply and I feared I had shown my hand too soon but I met her gaze with a forced blandness and she smiled. “She wasn’t precisely a prostitute and I was good to her. She liked me and told me all manner of things. Do you know who the father of her children was?”
I hoped I wasn’t showing my apprehension but it seemed not. She was so sure of herself that she assumed everybody would come under her spell.
I shook my head. “Does it matter?”
“Oh, it does.” Malice was present, like another being in the room. Julia was opening up with a vengeance, letting her inner thoughts show and I wished Richard were here to see the proof of my suspicions about her. “But never mind.” Oh yes, she knew. She thought I didn’t and she wanted to keep it like that for now. “Susan is a delectable little piece and she’ll be worth seeing when I decide she’s ready.”
“Is she a virgin?” It suddenly seemed important to know.
“Intacta. She has been subjected to certain…things she wasn’t averse to but I’m saving her. If anything can draw Richard in, she can.”
I tried not to look appalled. “Why do you want to draw him in? You wanted to kill us earlier this year.”
She looked at me, so innocent appearing that I could almost doubt what she had been telling me. “That was a mistake. I was so angry that he had thrown me over, I didn’t want him to live to enjoy it. Now I know I can share and not mind—” She gazed at me curiously. “Can you?”
I managed to meet her harebell stare and to shrug. “Things change but not as much as you want them to.” The wooden arms of the chair felt cold under my hands.
“Has he taken any more mistresses since you married?” She stared at me, curling her lip. “I always thought you were a provincial, insisting on fidelity but I knew you wouldn’t hold him for long. No woman can.”
“You could be right.”
She seemed satisfied with that and she proceeded to give me an account of the last meeting of the club, to which I listened with mounting disgust. This was outside my experience; I couldn’t imagine how people could get any pleasure from debasing themselves so much and forcing innocents to submit.
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