She felt hands on her body, stroking, smoothing- pleasurable little touches that made her stir and moan. Far away in some recess of her brain she connected the drink with these strange feelings of excitement. When her thighs were drawn apart, she offered no resistance, floating now in a dream world of shadowy figures and shadowy sensations. The sharp pain that accompanied
the penetration of her body was a dream, and the swift rhythmic pounding deep within her seemed to have nothing to do with her and yet paradoxically to be intrinsic to her flesh.
Crispin closed his eyes on a surge of pleasure as he possessed the pale body, lying so still beneath him. The eyes of the others were on him, watching him in this rite of initiation under the flickering candles in the cold vault. Behind his closed eyes he saw Chloe lying beneath him, submitting, bound to his pleasure, her arrogant insolence forever subdued as he used her in front of the eager lusting eyes of the Congregation. Jasper had promised it would happen. And Jasper always kept his promises as he always made good his threats.
Jasper leaned back against a pillar, his arms folded, his eyes behind the loo mask skidding over the tableau vivant on the bier. Like his stepson, he was mentally substituting another body for the peasant girl's. Hugo Lattimer had deprived the Congregation of Elizabeth Gresham, but her daughter would make up the deficit. And there would be no interference this time. He would avenge every insult Lattimer had thrown at him by taking the girl and her fortune. Not only would Lattimer suffer the humiliation of failing to fulfill the dying wishes of the woman he had loved with such a besotted, infantile, sentimentalized love, but he would watch while the daughter took the place intended for her mother fourteen years before. And when it was over, Hugo Lattimer's blood would water the granite tombstone slabs of the crypt as Jasper avenged his father's death.
Stephen Gresham had known of Hugo's passion for his wife. He had been intending to give Elizabeth to Hugo in the crypt-a vicious gift, one that he would have found deeply satisfying. Hugo was bound by the oaths of the Congregation to absolute obedience to its
leader. He would have been forced to violate the object of his mawkish compassion and idealistic fantasies and thus would have relearned the most important lesson of the crypt: Nothing is sacred.
Instead, Hugo had broken his oath and killed the leader to whom he was bound in obedience. And the leader's son had devised the perfect punishment.
Jasper's eyes roamed around the faces surrounding the bier as they awaited their turn with the ravished virgin. His gaze lingered on the young, fresh face of Denis DeLacy. The youth's eyes were unfocused, his lips parted with eager lust. He was ready to do anything to earn his spurs in the Congregation and he had all the right qualifications for the task: youth, good looks, an accepted place in the Fashionable World, and a respectable fortune.
Jasper pushed himself away from the pillar and walked over to the young man. He tapped him on the shoulder. Denis turned immediately. His face fell as he understood that he was to be deprived of his turn on the bier. But he followed Jasper with the alacrity of an acolyte into one of the smaller chambers in the crypt.
"It was the most amazing success tonight, Samuel."
Chloe pranced into the hall as Samuel opened the door. "Lady Jersey has promised to send me a voucher for Almack's, and I didn't have to sit one dance out, and I had so many partners no one could dance more than once with me." She twirled, setting her cream silk skirts swirling.
"And it's a swelled 'ead yell be gettin' if you goes on in that fashion," Samuel remarked, closing the door.
"It is most unbecoming, dear," a very fat lady said, shivering in her cashmere shawl. "It's lovely that you
should have had so many partners, but you'll lose them all quickly if you don't behave with due modesty." "Oh, pah," muttered Chloe. "I'm most dreadfully fatigued," her chaperone said with a wheezing sigh. "Not that it wasn't a most elegant affair… most elegant, wasn't it, Hugo? Lady Car-rington certainly keeps a good table… such lobster patties, such scalloped oysters…" She passed a hand over her rotund stomach in an unconscious gesture of corporeal recollection. "Oh, and the trifles-did I mention the trifles-I had two dishes… or was it three?" She frowned with the utmost seriousness.
"Six," said Chloe, sotto voce.
"I beg your pardon, Chloe dear?"
"I said they were delicious," Chloe said with a sweet smile. "And the syllabubs also. You seemed to enjoy those equally, my dear ma'am."
"Oh, yes, indeed. I was forgetting the syllabubs." Lady Smallwood sighed with pleasure. "How could I have forgotten the syllabubs."
"Very easily, with everything else one was obliged to sample," Chloe said, still smiling sweetly.
"Oh, yes, there was so much to choose from. Some people consider such varied choice to be a little vulgar, but I'm not one of them."
"No," Chloe agreed.
"I do believe it shows respect for one's guests to set a good table for them."
'Tes, I'm sure you're right, Dolly." Hugo spoke up before Chloe could continue with her wicked asides. "I'm glad you were tolerably amused."
"Well, as you know, I'm not a great one for socializing… not since my dear Smallwood passed on," Lady Smallwood said with a sigh. "But I said I'd do my best for the child, and I will. You won't find me shirking my duties." She waddled toward the stairs. "Now, if you'll
excuse me, I'll retire. Come along, Chloe. You don't want to be fagged tomorrow. You'll lose your looks if you're peaky… and that would never do."
"But I'm not in the least fatigued, ma'am."
"Lady Smallwood knows best, lass," Hugo said earnestly. "Think how humiliating it would be to see your success slip away from you before you've had a chance to savor it."
Chloe put her tongue out at him but followed her chaperone's mountainous figure up the stairs.
Hugo grinned and shook his head. "What an evening! I foresee we're going to be inundated with bewitched young men in the next weeks, Samuel. You couldn't get near the lass from the minute she walked into the room."
"It's to be 'oped that duenna of 'er's doesn't cotton to the fun she makes of 'er," Samuel said. "I'm 'ard pressed to keep a straight face most o' the time. Right wicked, she is."
"I know, but it is irresistible." Hugo followed Samuel through the swinging door to the kitchen. "I'll put a curb on her if she gets too outrageous." He sat down beside the fire and stretched out his legs, examining his satin knee britches with a frown. "Lord, Samuel, I never expected to be dressing like this again, dancing attendance on vapid ladies at insipid gatherings."
"That Lady Carrington seems a fine woman," Samuel observed, setting a mug of tea beside Hugo.
"Oh, she is," Hugo agreed. "Actually, it wasn't that bad. It's just that I thought I was done with all that nonsense. Instead…" He sighed.
Samuel laced his own tea with rum and sat down opposite. "Get her married and off yer 'ands an' we can get back to Denholm."
"That's the object of this exercise," Hugo said dryly,
sipping his tea. A kitten jumped onto his lap, knocking his hand. Tea slurped over his white waistcoat.
"Damnation!" He glared at the kitten, who merely settled purring into his lap. "Which one is this?"
Samuel shrugged. "No idea. Couldn't pronounce it if n I did know."
Hugo laughed reluctantly. "I suspect it's Ariadne, but I wouldn't swear to it." He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes.
Samuel smiled to himself and sipped his tea. It was a nightly ritual, the time they had together in the kitchen, no longer the domain of the churlish Alphonse, whose running battles with Chloe over the animals' nutritional needs caused daily upheavals.