Silence.
“Good. Then let us go take up our positions.”
“Damnation,” growled Saybrook. “You are sure that he called her Lady Arianna?”
“Aye, sor,” answered the leader of Henning’s sailors. “And he said the spot where they were going wasn’t far away.”
“Did you see which way the carriage was headed?”
The man flashed a gap-toothed grin. “Better ’n that, sor. I sent Davy te grab on to the back struts. He’s a former maintops’I man, well used to hanging on te a shroud in gale-force winds. A few bumps won’t shake ’im loose.”
Saybrook glanced up at the sliver of moon. The crescent curve of light was almost imperceptible through the heavy scrim of clouds. “I’m not sure how that will help me find them in this ocean of darkness,” he muttered. “Unless he has a lodestone in his pocket—one with a magnetic force powerful enough to guide me to their presence.”
“No lodestone, sor,” piped up one of the men, “but a naval signal lantern, with a powerful beam that can be seen fer miles on a foggy night.”
“Aye,” added the leader. “And it’s shuttered te make a pinpoint o’ light, so the driver of the vehicle won’t notice it.”
“Well done,” said Saybrook. “I’ve a good idea of where they are headed, but I can’t afford to make a mistake. God knows, I’ve made enough already.” A last lingering look at the manor house, whose rear façade rose like a spectral shadow from the deserted gardens, seemed to spur him to action. “One of you wait here for Henning to tell him of the change in plans. The rest of you row on to High Wycombe—is anyone familiar with Medmenham Abbey?”
“I am,” volunteered one of the sailors. “I was raised in this area and know it well.”
“Then you’ll know about the entrance to Dashwood’s caves.”
The sailor nodded. “Devilish doing down there in years past, or so local rumor had it.”
“I fear that the embers of evil may well have been stirred to fire again,” replied the earl in a tight voice. “Flex your muscles, men, and make your boat fly.” He turned to make his way to where his horse was tethered. “We haven’t a moment to lose.”
Arianna stumbled, her bare feet scraping over the rocky path. Pain lanced through her limbs as Gavin jerked her upright.
Oh, but pain is good, she thought, biting her lip to keep from crying out. It was helping to clear the last noxious vapors of the drug from her brain.
“Clumsy cow,” snarled Gavin as she slipped again. His hold tightened on her arm as he shoved her forward. “Be careful. We can’t have you breaking your lovely neck just yet.”
“Why?” she rasped, tasting a trickle of blood.
Why hadn’t he killed her along with Concord?
“You’ll learn that soon enough.”
They were halfway down a steep slope. Through the drifting mist, Arianna could just make out a faint rippling of moonlight on water. The sound of the current lapping over the rocks stirred a sudden swirl of memories from her island childhood. Sun, surf, her father’s warm laughter.
Gavin yanked her back from her momentary reveries. “This way.”
The path led to a courtyard framed by a high crumbling stone archway. Up ahead, the light of a single lantern pierced the gloom.
“You’re late.” The voice, a nasal drawl made shriller by a pinch of nervousness, was not one she recognized. “Was there any . . . complication?”
“None,” replied Gavin with savage satisfaction. “The problem has been eliminated. What about you?”
“The samples have been moved, exactly as planned.” As the man raised the light, an oily glow spilled over his features. His face was long and thin, with an air of aristocratic arrogance chiseled into the angled cheekbones and hawklike nose. A shock of silvery hair was swept straight back, accentuating a high forehead and bushy brows.
The picture of patrician refinement was ruined by a high-pitched cackle.
That laugh. All of a sudden, it came back to her in a gold-flecked flash. A long-ago memory of sitting curled in her father’s lap, mesmerized by the gleam of shiny buttons as he and his friend “Cocky” talked late into the night.
“That’s why our partnership works so well,” went on Cockburn—for she was sure it must be him. “We both are extremely good at what we do.” His laughter stilled. “So, this is Dickie’s daughter?”
Arianna squinted against the glare of the beam. But before she could reply, Gavin pressed the pistol to the back of her neck. “Move inside, Lady Arianna.”
It was then that she noticed a low, vaulted entrance cut into the hillside beneath the flinty Gothic archway.
A shove forced her inside.
Damp, dank air kissed her cheeks. She staggered and was suddenly, violently sick.
Cockburn jerked his perfectly polished Hessian boot away with fastidious quickness. “I told you that the combination of poppies and coca leaves was a dangerous mix.”
“It was the only way to ensure that both of them would be sluggish enough not to raise any alarm,” said Gavin. “A calculated risk, but not a great one. After all, it hardly mattered whether it would kill Concord. As for Lady Arianna . . .”
Wrinkling his nose, Cockburn thrust a handkerchief into her hand. “Here, clean your face.”
Arianna was under no illusion that the gesture was an act of kindness. No doubt he didn’t wish the sour smell of bile to follow them into the depths. She wiped her mouth with the soft linen, suddenly aware of a small patch of raised threads against her lips. Embroidery?
She offered the soiled square back to him, taking care to angle it into the lantern light. If there was any doubt as to his identity, the design did away with it. Though the stitching was cream on cream, she could just make out the image of a strutting cock.
He made a moue of disgust and waved it away. “Drop the damned thing and come along.”
They walked on for what felt like an age—Arianna counted two hundred steps—before the tunnel narrowed and turned down to the left. The native chalk gave the walls an eerie, ghostly white glow. Roman numerals were carved into the stone at odd intervals, along with a series of grotesque heads.
“Dashwood called this the Robing Room,” said Gavin. His voice was calm and complacent, as if he were giving a tour of Westminster Cathedral. “He had an Italian artist, Giuseppe Borgnis, help with the design.”
So, she was at Medmenham, and the ruins aboveground were the old Cistercian abbey. She had guessed as much.
“The original club members would don their costumes here,” he continued.
“Do you and your depraved friends follow suit?” asked Arianna, not bothering to disguise the contempt in her voice.
“Oh, we are not nearly as primitive these days,” replied Gavin. “As you saw, we prefer a more comfortable setting for our debaucheries.”
“May you all rot in hell,” she whispered.
“Tut, tut, Lady Arianna,” chided Cockburn. He turned, and a glint of gold shone from his waistcoat. “No need to be nasty. I am hoping we can all behave like civilized individuals.”
Her impulse was to spit in his face. However, Arianna held herself in check. “Civilized?” she repeated. “Pray, how do you define the word, Lord Cockburn?”
He smiled. “Ah, so you remember me.”
“We shall explain everything shortly,” said Gavin curtly, before she could answer. “Come, let us keep moving.”
They rounded a huge pillar, and after a short way emerged into a soaring circular chamber with several alcoves cut into the rock.
“This is the Banqueting Hall.” Gavin smoothly resumed his explanations, and for the first time released his grip on her arm to point up at the ceiling. “See that hook? It is said that the Rosicrucian lamp from the first Hellfire Club meeting in the George and Vulture once hung there.”
As if I give a fig for the sordid history of your satanic brethren.