Private Research: An Erotic Novella (16 page)

His gaze met mine. He dropped the underwear he had plucked up, sat down on the edge of the bed, and reached for the outline of my leg under the covers.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good,” I said firmly, and it was true. I’d told him everything. I had no secrets and no deception.

He nodded, his hand moving slightly down my calf but then stopping. “Will you stay?”

“I think so. Yes.”

He nodded again. “I should get dressed. Get to work.”

I glanced at the clock. Nearly eight. Later than his usual routine.

But he didn’t move. His jaw worked as if he wanted to say something. I waited. I could make it easier on him, but I wanted to know what went on in that brain of his.

“We should talk more, but I have to go. Tonight?” His forehead was lined with concern. Worried about me or worried about how crazy I was? About the fact that I’d blamed him.

I sat up, climbed over the covers, and crawled over to him. Encircled him with my arms even as my mouth found the tip of his earlobe.

“We can talk, Seb, but we don’t need to. You were right yesterday. I need to grow up. So if the offer still stands—”

“You don’t need to—”

“—then the answer is yes to Harridan House,” I continued, cutting him off. Yes to Sebastian. Yes to my sexual desires. Yes to embracing all of me, even the darkest parts that scared me most.

Yes was my new mantra.

Chapter Fourteen

H
ARRIDAN
H
OUSE BECAME
our evening amusement. One week after our medical exams, a package was hand-delivered to Sebastian’s flat: a velvet box with two masks, an old-fashioned brass key, and the name of a twenty-four-hour liquor store, which we discovered was a front for one of the entrances to the club.

More than one night each week we strolled through its room, indulging our voyeuristic tendencies, and in my case at least, expanding my understanding of the diverse expressions of human sexuality. We wandered in a state of constant arousal, punctuated by release, by Sebastian pulling me into a vacant room, or touching me intimately in an empty corridor. Mostly the club was foreplay, and it charged all the rest of our sexual encounters.

One night, I sat in the lounge, sipping on my champagne with muddled raspberries, waiting for Sebastian to return with another round. There were maybe a half dozen other people in here, drinking, chatting. But the room was well designed, and sound was muted, conversation impossible to overhear. A gleam of light on red hair caught my attention.

Unlike myself, she was wearing a stunning evening gown of black sequins. She could have been walking the red carpet in that outfit while the majority of the rest of us sat here nude or draped in black cloth.

I hadn’t seen Madame Rouge since that first night, and I was curious what her role in the club was. According to Sebastian’s grandfather, the Madame Rouge of his day had been the owner of the club, as far as he knew, and there had been one memorable entry in which he’d slept with her.

According to Penny Partridge’s memoirs, the Madame Rouge before Jenny Smollett took her place was mysterious and only infrequently took men of the club to her bed. Just often enough to make all the men think they had a chance. Smollett, in comparison, was a regular participant in the daily revels.

Likely the change in behaviors affected the tone of Harridan House. Certainly, this current incarnation had a very secretive, darkly seductive feel. The people who frequented the club took their pleasure seriously.

Rouge crossed the room . . . toward me. Slipped into the chair that Sebastian had vacated only moments ago.

“Enjoying yourself?” she asked. The bartender placed a drink in front of her in a well-practiced manner. Clearly, he knew her preferences.

Was I enjoying myself? Somewhat. In a purely participant-observer sort of way. Not even so much a participant. This wasn’t my preference, but as Sebastian had paid my exorbitant membership fee and fairly dared me to cross the Styx with him, here I was. Determined to embrace my sexual desires and refuse guilt. The champagne, too, was delicious.

“It’s fascinating,” I said. “But what would interest me more is to know what happened between WWII and today.”

Rouge laughed. “Such an academic.”

I leaned forward slightly. “Yes, I am.”

“Am I interrupting?” We both looked up at Sebastian. I’d grown used to him in the mask and cloak and now even found the look a bit dashing, in a masquerade sort of way.

“We were just discussing the history of Harridan House,” Rouge said, surprising me. She gestured to a nearby chair, and Sebastian pulled it over, reclaiming his scotch.

“Excellent.”

She looked at him, her interest obvious in her gaze. Jealousy seared through me. “You asked how I became Rouge. I’m interested to know how you knew there were many Rouges.”

“That was one of the few things we did know,” Sebastian said, the slight crease in his forehead making it apparent to me that he thought the question not particularly astute. “My grandfather’s journals described Madame Rouge as a woman of some thirty years and . . .” His gaze raked over her boldly. “Unless you’ve joined the ranks of the undead, I don’t believe you to be over a hundred years of age.”

I laughed. She didn’t.

“I became Rouge seven years ago. I’d been a member for twelve years before that.” If she’d been eighteen when she joined, that would make her thirty-seven now. I knew Sebastian was making the same calculations. Likely, Rouge knew that too. “Before me . . . it was more complicated.” Her gaze swung back to me. “I learned about the club’s history from some of its older members. One gentleman had been coming since puberty. He was quite advanced in years when I met him, the last of the old aristocratic guard. Rouge was quite elderly as well, although she wasn’t the Rouge who circulated the club. That was a much younger woman who’d been hired to keep the mystery. For over two hundred years, Harridan House has been owned by women, passed down to women, and now it’s mine.”

“And why you? How did it become yours?”

The story was vague, but my mind filled in pieces like it was a novel. The man who’d first brought her there was exceedingly wealthy, much older. When their affair had stopped, she’d already met another man at Harridan House, who continued to fund her membership.

She smiled at me as if to say, see, your situation is not so unusual. I flushed because, if our lives were parallel, that made me Sebastian’s mistress. I stole a look over at him, discomfort and denial warring with a strange acceptance in my gut.

Maybe I was, living in his home, sleeping in his bed, coming to this club.

“Rouge liked me,” she was saying. “She knew everything about everyone who was a member or a guest, and she knew . . . I was the right person to take over when she retired.”

“What happened to the other Rouge?” I asked. “The younger one?” It was a bit disorienting, calling all of them by Rouge.

“She was a puppet. That was all she was good for. When Rouge passed away, she left this place to me. I sent the other woman away.”

There was something sinister about the matter-of-fact tone in which she said that, and I wondered what “away” meant. Not that I couldn’t guess. Her threat to our lives if we did not maintain the club’s secrecy had been barely veiled.

“What about before the war?” I asked, shifting the topic slightly to something more comfortable. “I know about the early days.” My research into Harridan House’s past had slowed since we’d learned of its continued existence. Sebastian’s curiosity had seemed mostly satisfied, and we had never discussed the limits of the project. But I was still curious; there was so much history between Jenny Smollett’s ascent to the role of Madame Rouge and WWII.

“There is a particular firm that has represented Harridan House for the last 220 years. I never asked about the specifics of this club’s origins, but I suspect it is in their records. You have piqued my interest, Miss Cavallari. I assure you that soon I
will
know.”

My
interest was piqued. I studied literature, not history, but that distinction hardly mattered to my curiosity. I wanted to know the entire biography of this place.

“I . . . We” I amended with a glance at Sebastian, “would be fascinated to know as well.”

Rouge’s laugh settled into a confident smirk. “Perhaps. But for now, my dear academics, I shall leave you to your pleasure.” She leaned forward, reaching out, her fingers stroking the line of my jaw. I flinched in surprise, and she laughed again.

“Such soft skin.”

She left silence in her wake. Sebastian lifted his glass and drained the rest, while her touch lingered on my skin. It hadn’t been sexual. Rather . . . proprietary. Territorial. As if . . . she
owned
us.

I
T WAS STRANGE
to spend the days in the normal world and nights in the underground realm of Harridan House. I was intensely aware that I could run into another member of Harridan House and not recognize him or her in street attire. Nude, in a mask, however, I was starting to remember a dozen or so of the club’s denizens. Not that the wealthy members likely frequented any of the places I visited, from archives to coffee shops.

It was even more disconcerting to be unable to talk about the experience. For me, everyone but Sebastian became the other. Even Sophie.

Those weekly conversations with Sophie grounded me. She was ambitious and focused on the future, and she wasn’t too secretive about her hope that I ended up with a position in New York so that we could finally live in the same city after all these years. She was realistic too. Mentioned all the other careers where my degree and skill set would be useful. Some of which were considerably more lucrative than an academic career.

I appreciated the advice, to a degree. Giving up on academia at this point was tantamount to giving up on finding the link between Anne Gracechurch and James Mead, although, thankfully, the reverse was not true.

But it was difficult to focus on the realities of the future and the job search on which I’d have to embark starting this fall, when the present was so intense and all-consuming.

Toward the latter half of July, we had dinner with Nigel and his fiancée. There were paparazzi outside the restaurant. One of them greeted Sebastian by name but didn’t make any attempt to photograph him, reminding me just how much a part of this other world he was even if I had first met him on a university campus. I wondered if the photographers were all for Kate or if there were other celebrities inside. She certainly could easily command this type of attention. I’d seen speculation about her relationship with Nigel in the tabloids. Kate Grinnell, despite not admitting to a thing, was on bump watch. I was anxious about the entire encounter.

Sebastian thought my nervousness hilarious, considering I’d spent the last weeks in the company of ridiculously wealthy and often famous people who were completely nude. But I didn’t know or recognize most of the members of Harridan House. For the most part, they weren’t famous in a cover of any magazine but
Forbes
sort of a way.

Anyway, this was different. Especially since the last time I’d met Nigel had been that night at his club, when he hadn’t been particularly friendly or respectful to me. And this time, there’d be Kate.

They were waiting for us at the bar. Nigel clasped my hands as Kate gave Sebastian an enthusiastic hug. Then Kate and I were introduced. If she was wearing makeup, it was makeup designed to look as if she was wearing none. No image-manipulation magic was necessary to make her look beautiful.

“Such a pleasure to meet you, Mina,” she said warmly, even as the hostess appeared to show us to our table. I followed a step behind Kate, who was wearing a flowing silk dress that clung to her body when she moved and if, at nearly five months pregnant, she was showing at all, I couldn’t see it.

After we’d all taken our seats, we chatted about the upcoming August wedding, which I’d miss since I would have to return to the States a week earlier. Then conversation flitted from topic to topic, interspersed by the placing our orders and then by the appetizers arriving.

It was shortly after we’d all polished off the calamari and plate of deep fried shishito peppers that Nigel and Sebastian delved into a discussion of one of Nigel’s newest ventures, and Kate and I were left with a brief, awkward silence.

“How did you meet Nigel?” I said into the void. It seemed like a safe enough question. Avoided any crazy embarrassment involved in talking with a movie star, someone whose face was so familiar to me and yet who was herself a stranger.

“I’ve known Nigel for years. He’s thirteen years older than me, you know.” Which meant she was a year younger than me “I was eighteen, and he just gave me this absolutely smoldering look that is actually how he looks at every new woman he meets.” I thought about the way he’d studied me at the club when we’d first met. Not smoldering, but he definitely had laid on the sexual charm instantly. “I had a terrible crush on him, but he practically ignored me. Which was just as well since everyone but me knew he wasn’t the sort of man a girl brings home. I figured out fairly quickly that he had cut a swath through half my acquaintances.”

“Sounds like Seb,” I said.

She laughed and gave me a conspiratorial look. “Admittedly, the stories about those two, not to mention Lydia, Nigel’s sister, are rather colorful, but Nigel’s changed.” She sounded as if she believed that, and I wondered which perspective, Seb’s doubts or her faith, would prove to be accurate. “And if
he
can change,” Kate continued, “then surely there’s hope for Seb yet.”

“Oh, I don’t need him to change,” I denied quickly. “This is sort of a summer fling. Convenient, you could say.”

“Hmm.” She studied me over her wineglass, the one she’d been sipping from very slowly—lips barely touching the liquid—while the rest of us finished the bottle and started on the second one. It was possible she’d ordered her own glass simply to confuse any of the waitstaff who might have become an “anonymous source” for the paparazzi. I was about to ask her, when she grinned. “As adventurous as he is then. Good for you. Me, I’m a bit more traditional.”

I thought of the last film I’d seen her in and the risqué photo spread to promote it. Maybe her idea of traditional and mine were not exactly the same. I shrugged.

“So my life’s an open book,” she said. “Utterly boring. I want to know all about you. Nigel says you’re an academic.”

“Yes. ABD, all but dissertation. Which is actually why I’m in England at all. Research.”

“Oooh. I’ll have to introduce you to Clare. She’s one of my bridesmaids. Makes documentaries, and they always need good researchers.” I filed the name away in my mind. It could easily be one of those throwaway offers of which nothing would ever come, but it could also be a lead to a job. Not that it was the career I wanted, but there was something reassuring about knowing my skills might be in demand outside the world of academia.

As Kate and I chatted, I was distracted by snippets of Nigel and Sebastian’s conversation.

“Saw your mum, by the way,” Nigel said. “Up at Stanton Hall.”

Sebastian shrugged.

“Family is family.”

“Have you met Seb’s family yet?”

I blinked. And then realized Kate had changed the subject, had clearly realized I was struggling to listen to the men’s conversation.

“Just Nigel and his parents.”

“Ah.”

I wanted to press. She couldn’t just leave it at that. Someone had to talk, and if it wasn’t going to be Sebastian, then Kate would do just as well. But our entrees were being placed in front of us, and our little side conversation disappeared into the ether.