But, Christ, he’d rather have his eyeballs poked out than to watch another minute of the Reverend Mr. Henry Wright being flogged over a whipping block. As the mistress plied her leather whip on his backside, she scolded him for being a “naughty boy” while he writhed and moaned. When she donned a harness fitted with a giant ivory dildo, Wick couldn’t help but wince.
He slid a glance over at Beatrice. She was watching with wide eyes that could have indicated fascination or horror. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t the former.
“Don’t be getting any ideas,” he said in her ear. “Of the two of us, the only one bending over is you.”
“This is all rather eye-opening.” She let out a shocked giggle. “Do you think he enjoys being flogged?”
“That’s not as unusual as you may think. There are bawdy houses specializing in flagellation: for patrons who like to whip or be whipped.”
“Really?” Her lashes fluttered in the eyeholes of her mask. “Have you been to one before?”
“It’s not my particular cup of tea.” He curled a finger under her chin. “I don’t need a whip to be in control.”
Her response—swiping her plump lips with her little pink tongue—aroused him more than all the debauchery taking place before them.
“Save that thought,” he murmured. “Wright’s bound to finish soon, no pun intended, so we best get ready to corner him.”
“While his hypocrisy is beyond galling, do you think he’s the one behind the attacks?” she asked with a frown. “According to his calendar, he was in London when Fancy was kidnapped.”
“Calendars can lie. Either way, we’ll get our answers,” Wick said grimly.
The reverend’s crescendo of pleas continued until he reached his finale. Then his mistress released him from the whipping block, leashing him and leading him out of the ring to the applause of the crowd. Wick took Beatrice’s hand, the two of them following at a discreet distance.
The passageway from the arena had chambers sprouting off both sides. Wright entered a room two doors down while his mistress continued on to the end of the hall, disappearing up some stairs.
Wick led Beatrice to Wright’s door and knocked.
A few seconds later, the door opened. The reverend still wore his mask although, thankfully, he’d donned a robe. “The room is presently occupied—”
Whatever words he’d intended to say next vanished as Wick shoved him backward into the room, Beatrice closing the door behind them.
“What in God’s name?” Shocked recognition flashed in Wright’s gaze. “Miss Brown…is that you?”
“Indeed, Reverend Wright,” she said coolly.
His jaw slackened. “I d-don’t understand. How did you find me here…?”
“We have your pocket watch,” Wick growled. “The one you dropped when you set her barn on fire.”
“Wh-what? I didn’t start the fire,” Wright sputtered.
Either the man was an excellent actor, or his innocence was real.
“Why should I believe you? You’ve been sowing discord against me and my tenants since you arrived in the village.” Beatrice folded her arms beneath her bosom. “You’ve been working to get rid of me from the start.”
“No. That is, yes,” Wright said quickly when Wick gave him a menacing look. “I know that I’ve caused trouble for you. But it wasn’t my idea—it was Squire Crombie’s.”
“What is the nature of your association with Crombie?” Wick demanded.
“He’s been…paying me to spread rumors about Miss Brown and her tenants,” the reverend admitted. “To tarnish her reputation in the community. He wants her estate, you see, and he thought that making her feel, ahem, unwelcome might persuade her to sell. To pack up and leave.”
“Was it Crombie’s idea for you to persecute Mrs. Haller?” Beatrice said scathingly.
“No.” Wright drew himself up with a righteousness that Wick could only marvel at. “Sarah Haller was a prostitute and has a bastard to boot. For the sake of my congregation’s spiritual and moral well-being, I had to make an example of her—”
“While you, yourself, cavort in the most lascivious manner,” Beatrice said with disgust. “How dare you judge her? You, sir, are the worst sort of hypocrite.”
“You won’t tell anyone…about what you saw tonight?” Apparently, Wright finally registered that he was in a glass house and paused in his slinging of stones. “It would ruin my career, my standing in the community, devastate all who depend upon me.”
Wick’s fists curled. Christ, he wanted to plant a facer on the sniveling, duplicitous bastard. It was obvious that the reverend felt no remorse for the pain he’d caused Mrs. Haller or for accepting a bribe to defame Beatrice. Nor did he give a damn about his congregation.
He was only sorry for himself…that he got caught.
Yet punching Wright, while satisfying, wouldn’t advance the cause.
“Why was your watch at the barn then?” Wick demanded.
“It wasn’t. I can prove it to you.” Wright went to fumble through a pile of clothes on a nearby chair. He returned, holding out…a pocket watch.
“See?” he said eagerly. “I have mine here.”
Wick examined the watch. It was identical to the one that currently sat in his pocket.
Which posed the question: whose watch had he found in the barn?
Beatrice’s brow pleated. “The watch we have belongs to someone else?”
“We need a list of the club’s members,” Wick said.
“I don’t have it. No one does,” Wright said quickly. “The founders—whoever they are—have been very hush-hush about its membership. That is why I joined. A man of my standing couldn’t risk, ahem, indulging otherwise.”
Resisting the urge to plow his fist into the other’s smug face, Wick said tersely, “There’s a secretary. How does one contact him?”
“He has an office upstairs.” Wright licked his lips nervously. “Take the stairs at the end of the hallway to the uppermost floor. But he might not be here tonight.”
Even better. Wick would search that damned office until he found what he was looking for.
“I’ve told you everything I know,” Wright whined. “Do I have your word that my secret is safe with you?”
“We will keep no secrets for you,” Wick said with loathing. “In the future, if you don’t want to be caught, don’t bloody do the deed. Now begone.”
With a frightened look, Wright gathered his clothes and scurried out of the room.
“What a weasel,” Beatrice burst out.
“Undoubtedly. But I believe he’s telling the truth. And there’s no denying he had his watch.”
Chewing on her lip, she said, “Do you think Crombie is behind the fire and kidnapping?”
“There’s a way to find out. If Crombie’s on the membership list, we’ll have proof.”
“Let’s go search the secretary’s office,” Beatrice said.
“Will you consider waiting in the carriage?” He knew the answer, but he had to try.
“The searching will go faster with the two of us,” she said decisively.
For the sake of expediency, Wick refrained from arguing and led the way out. The hallway was empty, the boisterous roars of the crowd conveying that the current performance was a hit…and hence the perfect distraction. Now was the time to act.
He motioned for Beatrice to follow him to the stairs that Wright had said would lead them to the office. They ascended the carpeted steps, arriving on the next floor. Here a large chamber was decorated to resemble a sultan’s palace. Round mattresses covered in jewel-toned silks were tossed over the floor, men and women groaning as they fucked in various permutations upon them. Heavy velvet curtains covered the walls, presumably to muffle the noise.
“Next floor,” Wick muttered.
As they started up the next flight, their path was blocked by a pair of prostitutes wearing masks, feathers in their wigs, and nothing else.
“O’erdressed for the oc
casion, ain’t you?” The auburn harlot winked at him. “Do you need ’elp getting comfortable—or getting your tart in line? I’ve a steady ’and with a birch.”
Seeing Beatrice’s scowl, Wick said quickly, “No, thank you.”
“If you change your minds, come find us,” the other trollop cooed. “We’ll be in the sultan’s seraglio, where the show’s ’bout to begin.”
“I wonder which brave souls will be performing in the glass cage tonight?” her friend said with a giggle.
The tarts sauntered off, and Wick and Bea continued their trek to the uppermost floor. Seeing a guard posted outside a door at the end of the hallway, Wick pulled Beatrice against the wall, out of the guard’s field of vision.
“That must be the secretary’s office,” Beatrice whispered. “How will we get past the guard?”
Wick thought quickly. “I have a plan. Wait here.”
* * *
When Wick returned a few minutes later, he was accompanied by the two naked whores they’d encountered on the stairs. The redheaded harlot—who’d offered to birch Bea—flashed her a saucy smile before continuing down the hall with her blonde friend, arm in arm, their dimpled bottoms swaying.
“What are they doing?” Bea whispered to Wick.
“What they’re good at. Stay out of sight.”
Peering carefully around the wall, Bea saw the women flirting with the guard who was doing his best to resist. He soon gave in, and the pair dragged him into one of the other rooms off the corridor. The blonde poked her head out, sending a thumbs-up signal.
“They’ll keep him occupied for as long as they can,” Wick said. “But we’d better hurry.”
They rushed stealthily toward the office. Wick tried the knob—locked, of course.
“Hair pins,” he said in a low voice.
Plucking a pair from her wig, Bea handed them over, watching in fascination as he inserted the pins, working them adroitly in the lock. A slight click…and the knob turned.
“Is lock picking a required skill in the underworld?”
“No, but it is at Eton.” He scanned the environs with an alert gaze. “Let’s get inside.”
The fire in the hearth bathed the office in a shadowy, orange glow. A large desk and floor-to-ceiling cabinets dominated one end of the room, with a seating area and another door off to the right. They headed to the desk, where Wick again applied his boarding school tricks to unlock the drawers. In the top drawer, they found assorted writing implements, papers, and a ledger with the club’s accounts…but no list of members.
“Keep searching. I’ll check the cabinets,” Wick told her.
She rifled through the remaining compartments, grimacing at the pair of smelly stockings and a toupee that resembled a dead rodent. While Wick systematically opened and closed the doors of the cabinets, she stepped back, looking around the room.
If I wanted to hide something important, where would I put it?
She wandered over to the seating area, where a bookcase stood against the wall. The shelves were crammed with books. Even knowing where to begin the search was daunting, and they probably only had minutes left before the guard returned.
She chose a book at random from the middle shelf, opening it, rifling through, finding nothing.
Staring at the rows of volumes, she tried to think like a member of a secret society. She skimmed the spines. The secretary had an eclectic collection: treatises on property management, a handful of Shakespeare, some history books, and hold up…Dante’s Inferno?
A book about the journey through Hell.
With prickling intuition, she reached for the battered volume on the next-to-highest shelf. She had to stand on tiptoe, her gloved fingertips curling around the spine. As she pulled it down, she felt a slight shifting in the weight of the book, as if something had moved…inside? Examining the book, she saw that it wasn’t a book at all: it was a wooden box with a leather cover, the edges carved to resemble pages.
She shook it, heard a faint movement from within. But there was no way to open it.
“Wick,” she whispered excitedly. “I found something.”
He was over in an instant. “Inferno—ah, clever thinking. May I?” Taking the box, he set it on the desk and methodically ran his fingers over the seams. “The leather cover isn’t attached here by the spine. There’s probably a switch…”
Bea heard a faint click, and the cover popped open like a lid.
Inside, nestled in a piece of silk, was a black leather book.
Wick lifted the small volume, flipping through it.
Names. Pages of them. With the date of acceptance and membership status listed.
“The list,” Bea breathed. “We found it—”
She froze as footsteps and voices approached.
Wick moved quickly. Shoving the book into his jacket pocket, he replaced Inferno on the shelf, and pulled her to the door by the seating area. He made short work of the lock: on the other side was a set of stairs leading downward. He pushed her inside, shutting the door behind them just as the other door to the office opened. As they raced down the steps, Bea’s heartbeat thumped in her ears, mimicking the sounds of footsteps.
Had the guard realized that they’d been in the office? Was he giving chase?
The stairs led to a small corridor lined with more doors, all of them unmarked. No indication of which way was out. Wick grabbed the nearest door knob; when it turned, he went in first, his posture braced. Bea followed closely, the door swinging shut behind her.
It was another chamber, smaller than the office they’d vacated. A desk and chair were curiously placed in the center of the room. The walls were made up of large floor-to-ceiling windows…the curtains strangely positioned on the other side of the glass.
Bea’s nape tingled. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Wick said grimly.
He went to the door, tried to open it. “Bloody hell, someone’s locked it from the outside.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have performers in the glass cage tonight!” a voice boomed.
A cheer exploded from the other side of the glass, and the curtains began to part.
“What the devil?” Wick ground out.
He pushed her behind him, standing protectively between her and the exposed windows, but she peered over his shoulder in shock. The large panes of glass gave an unimpeded view into the sultan’s seraglio that they’d passed by earlier. Men and women lounged upon bright silk pillows, sipping flutes of champagne. Their masked faces were turned to Wick and Beatrice, as if they were expecting…a performance?
“Christ,” Wick said softly.
“Don’t just stand there,” someone yelled. “Get on with it and fuck!”
31
Damnation…they were trapped.
As the crowd began to chant “Fuck! Fuck!,” Wick’s mind worked furiously, trying to find a way out. He was acutely aware of the book in the inner pocket of his jacket—the key that would lead them to Beatrice’s enemy. They were this close to solving the mystery; all he had to do was get them out of there without revealing their purpose.
But how? The longer he and Beatrice remained paralyzed in the “glass cage,” the greater the chances were that someone would realize that they were not Hellfire Club members. Their charade would be exposed. Throughout the evening, he’d seen guards posted throughout the rooms and knew he couldn’t fight an army of burly brutes and protect Beatrice at the same time.
Think, man. Don’t fail now. Don’t fail Beatrice…
Beatrice moved from behind him, and he turned, intending to keep her back. To shield her from the leering crowd. Yet she evaded him, lowering herself gracefully to her knees in front of him. Startled, he stared at her upturned face, hidden by her white mask, which left only her shimmering eyes and lush mouth bared.
“Angel…?”
“Trust me,” she whispered.
While his brain couldn’t seem to keep up as she pla
ced a palm on the placket of his trousers, his body responded as ever to her touch. He grew hard in an instant. As she slipped her fingers into his waistband, working on the fasteners, a hush fell over the crowd, their chanting replaced by humming lust. Hot, pulsing energy swirled around and inside the glass room.
Wick couldn’t believe that Beatrice was doing this. Perhaps the anonymity offered by their disguises emboldened her. Whatever the cause, her brazen stratagem set fire to his blood and, rationally, he couldn’t deny that it might be the one way out of their predicament.
She managed to free him, his stiff cock falling into her gloved hands.
She gently caressed his rigid length, her silk-covered fingers stroking him as a roomful of strangers watched. The hunger in her eyes told him that she wanted to do this, that it aroused her to serve him in this public way…and, bloody hell, that made him turn to steel beneath her touch. He didn’t mind putting on a show as long as she remained dressed and protected from the rapacious gazes.
Having his lover kneeling so sweetly before him brought out his dominant instincts. Since their arrival in London, he’d sensed her building walls between them. She’d dug in her heels at the slightest provocation, sometimes for no reason at all. At times, it had felt like she was deliberately goading him and testing the limits of his patience. His annoyance had been tempered by his understanding of her and her need for independence.
In life, Beatrice was his equal. He respected that fact. He also had the desire to assert his own will. And what better way, he thought with dark hunger, than to push the boundaries of her sexual surrender? In bed, he enjoyed taking the reins as much as she enjoyed relinquishing them. She might have initiated this scene, but he knew how to draw the utmost pleasure from it for them both.
He curled a finger under her chin, deliberately deepening his voice to avoid recognition.
The Duke Redemption Page 24
