“There are several trunks of old clothes upstairs, and I daresay wigs and masks from previous occasions. Unlike your stickler of a father, my parents attended many wild parties in their younger days.”
“Is that where you get your wildness?” she asked. “From your parents?”
He didn’t answer, only flashed her one of his provoking, piratical grins.
Hunter knew it was a very bad thing he was doing. No matter how excited Aurelia was, no matter how much he’d lied and cajoled her into delighted expectation about this country masquerade, she would not look back on this night with anything other than sadness.
Still, she deserved to know the truth about her enduring object of adoration.
He had taken all necessary steps to protect her honor, of course. She not only wore a mask, but a blowsy dark-colored wig that would conceal her identity from any friends. He doubted even Severin could recognize her, not that her brother would be at a degenerate party like Wroxham’s. As for
his
identity, he was far less concerned. Even if someone recognized him, they would assume the woman on his arm was a courtesan or some cheap country trollop. In his wilder days he’d been known to consort with both, sometimes at the same time.
Everything would be fine, but some part of him quailed at the stratagem he’d undertaken. Part of him wished to rap on the roof of the carriage and tell the driver to turn for home, because it was likely he’d lose Warren’s friendship tonight, perhaps August and Arlington’s too. All because he wanted Aurelia to leave off worshipping her virtuous ideal of Lord Warren, who did not exist.
She looked across at him, and her lips turned down in concern. “Are you well, Hunter?”
“Very well,” he said.
“You look a bit grim. Do you want to sit over here beside me?”
She thought he was queasy from riding backwards. Dear, innocent Aurelia. Still, he accepted her offer and switched benches so they sat shoulder to shoulder as the carriage hurtled through the night.
“You remember that you are not to leave my side tonight,” he said in the darkness.
“I remember.”
“And that we are only to be voyeurs. If there is dancing or card games, you are not to participate.”
“Why not? It’s perfectly proper for a married lady to dance or play cards.”
“Not the way they’ll do it there.”
She gave him a harried look that transformed to a smile. “This will be a grand adventure, won’t it?” she said, clasping her hands to the front of her low-cut masquerade gown. “I daresay most husbands wouldn’t allow their wives such frolics.” She grasped his hand in an impulsive, gleeful manner.
He brought it to his lips, feeling like the world’s worst blackguard. “Pray don’t tell your father I allowed this,” he murmured against her palm. “He’ll take you away from me and marry you to someone of greater moral character, and all my lessons in licentiousness will have been a waste.”
“Oh, you’re silly.” She tugged at one of the great, outrageous curls crowning her head. “I daresay you’d enjoy starting over with some young virginal miss, perverting her with your debauched curriculum. You are very good at the teaching part, though it’s an iniquitous talent indeed.”
“You would pine for me, and all my iniquitous talents, as you languished in some decent and austere marriage bed. You would put on a wig and a mask and sneak into my bedroom. And I would spank you for it, you naughty vixen.”
She shrieked and burst into laughter as he hauled her over his lap. He spanked her a few times over her skirts, then flipped them up to squeeze her bottom. The steady rattle of the carriage slowed down, and the conveyance turned. He righted her with good-natured words of disappointment and promised to continue the spanking later.
But later, he feared, she wouldn’t be laughing and smiling as she was now.
They both looked out the window at Wroxham’s courtyard and the impressive manor flanking it on three sides. The entire main house appeared lit from within, and masked guests spilled from the entrance to cluster on the pillared portico. A few guests appeared to be splashing in Wroxham’s fountain.
“Are you ready, love?” Hunter asked, lowering his black demi-mask over his face. “Perhaps we shall frolic in the fountain later. For now, let’s head inside and congratulate Lord Wroxham on his new title—and his party.”
He helped his wife down and checked one last time to be sure no one could possibly guess her identity, then took her arm and led her toward the stately old house.
*** *** ***
Aurelia wasn’t sure if she ought to be feeling awe or shame. In truth, she felt a little of both. The house was so grand, but the activities inside rather...lowering in nature. Hunter had told her other men and women enjoyed the same acts they did, and this party offered plentiful proof.
At first she was horrified as he led her from room to room, but now she understood that he’d brought her here to show that what they did together wasn’t so grotesque in nature. It seemed in every room a masked gentleman had a lady on his lap, his hands at play beneath her skirts. The ladies seemed to enjoy it very much, judging from their moans and cries. Aurelia wondered which ones were in wigs like her, and which ones were daring enough to wear their natural hair. Some of the ladies wore elaborate masks which covered everything, while others wore the thinnest strip of sheer ribbon over their eyes, and the rest of their face fully shown.
“What sort of mask is that?” she asked her husband. “Don’t they care if people know who they are?”
“No, they don’t.” He spoke in her ear so she could hear him in the din of the revelry. “In general, the greater the mask, the greater the personage. The lighter the mask, the more the person wishes to be recognized. That woman”—he pointed to a gorgeous nymph of a lady—“is a famous lady of the night in London. She is here to work, and it behooves her to make her identity known.”
“Work at what?”
“Oh, my dear,” he sighed with a soft smile. At last Aurelia understood, and an embarrassed flush crept across her cheeks.
“She is here to find customers?”
“Last I heard she was on the hunt for a more permanent sort of protector, which explains her presence here among so many society gentlemen.”
“It is difficult to comprehend that these men are all proper aristocrats.” She shied away as one of them reached to touch her waist. He was drunk, but not too drunk to perceive her husband’s warning glare.
He turned back to their conversation. “Not all of them are proper aristocrats,” he said. “Although Wroxham would likely toss out someone of a very low class.” He made a face. “The men anyway. Women would doubtless be permitted to remain. Country girls can make enough for their families to live on for a year at a house party such as this one.”
“So all these ladies and gentlemen are paying one another?”
“Not all.” Hunter craned his head and pointed to a corner of the crowded ballroom. “Although I’m quite certain he is paying that lady.”
Aurelia turned and sucked in a breath in surprise. A man, fully and unabashedly naked, stood with his face to the wall while a short, stout woman striped his bottom with a cane. With each stroke, he howled and threw his head back.
“What on earth?” Aurelia cried. “Why is he paying her to hurt him like that?”
Her husband shrugged. “Because he likes it.”
“But why? Why does he like it?”
“Why does anyone like anything? The famous Madame Courvesier knows better than to ask. She lives as well as any titled peeress in London, although she’s not welcome in proper parlors...in case you are getting any ideas,” he said, squeezing her waist.
The dark-haired woman put aside the cane, sat in a chair, and ordered the naked gentleman over her lap. Aurelia could see his hard, red cock bobbing before him as he obeyed her and folded his tall frame across the woman’s thighs. Immediately, the woman set about attacking the man’s clenching buttocks with a series of sharp spanks. Aurelia watched with some sympathy. She’d been in his position more times that she could remember.
“I don’t think I could spank a gentleman for all the gold in Egypt,” she said, sidling closer to Hunter. “Look how violently he squirms. And he is so much larger than her.”
“And yet she holds him in complete control. It’s the reason she’s so much in demand at parties like this. Would you like to stay to watch the grand finale, or shall we voyeurs move on?”
“What will the grand finale be?”
His lips quirked at her question. “Never mind.” He led her to a quieter corner of the room. “How are you holding up, my dear?” He studied her from behind his dashing mask, stroking a hand down her cheek. “Is there too much wickedness here? Do you wish to go?”
“Only if you want to.”
His face seemed to grow harder for a moment, although it was difficult to tell in the light and with his face half-concealed. “I am not quite ready to leave yet. There’s still much to be seen.”
“Even wilder things than we’ve already seen?” She wasn’t sure she was prepared for that.
He led her from the ballroom down a hallway with door after door, some of them ajar. He stopped outside one, drawing Aurelia forward so she might watch. Five gentlemen stood in a row. All of them, shockingly, had their cocks out and their breeches about their knees. Before them, a woman with a tall, ostrich-plumed wig knelt, licking and sucking each of them in turn.
“Oh my goodness,” Aurelia breathed. “Should we be watching?”
“They would not have left the door open if they didn’t want an audience. If you like, you may applaud at the end, or even call for an encore.”
Aurelia thought she would do no such thing, but she did have some admiration for the woman. She was so graceful as she crawled to and fro, and so practiced in her...technique. The gentlemen groaned and grasped at her shoulders as they thrust into her mouth, although Aurelia noticed that none of them disturbed her fanciful wig. The gentlemen not presently receiving her favors stared at the one who was, pumping their great organs in their hands as they waited their turn. This was depravity, pure licentiousness. Indeed, her husband’s favored activities seemed almost innocent in comparison.
“I never imagined such a thing,” she said softly.
“I know,” her husband replied. “Nor will you ever do such a thing, my dear, although it is a fine amusement to watch.”
His teasing comment made Aurelia picture herself on her knees before all the gentlemen, a scandalous, frightening idea which she thrust from her mind right away.
“Shall we leave them to it and move along?” he asked. “I imagine nearly all these rooms are occupied.”
They went a bit farther down to another open room. From the door Aurelia saw two ladies kneeling upon a very fancy tufted couch. They were bent over at the waist, their bottoms almost obscenely thrust out. She heard the crack of a riding crop and saw the girls flinch, then heard them giggle.
I would not be giggling
, she thought.
Hunter guided her inside, so she saw the gentleman wielding the crop. He was tall and powerful in physique, and wore a half-mask which matched his dark green waistcoat and undone breeches. His hair was blond and mussed, and he wore a positively satanic grin. He turned to them, his thick, meaty erection grasped in his fist, then gave a bark of laughter.
“Ah, you’re here after all, Towns, and a gorgeous bit of muffin on your arm. I swear to you, neither Lansing nor Aurelia shall ever hear of it from my lips.”
“Enjoying yourself?” her husband asked him. “You look as if you are.”
The man turned back and flicked both the reddened female bottoms with his crop. “I’m trying to, believe me. These two beauties polished my cock to a pretty shine but now they say I can’t have their arseholes. None of these country whores are willing to take a man’s meat up their backside, and it damn well makes a fellow cross.” He cropped them again, one and then the other, with lazy, flicking strokes as the two women wagged their bottoms in a lewd display. Aurelia came to realize with slow clarity that this wickedly erect, half-dressed gentleman was Lord Warren. He pushed his mask up over his blond curls to take a closer look at her. “What about your little trollop there, my friend?” His gaze fastened on her breasts with lascivious intent. “Where did you find her? And more to the point, can I bugger the tasty little tart after you’re done running her through?”
She took a step back, closer to her husband. She felt horrified. Sickened.
This
was the man she had idolized as the very pinnacle of kindness and virtue? This man, who leered at her and cavorted in this dissolute state? She turned to her husband but his gaze was locked on the other man’s.
She turned back to Lord Warren. He had grown very still as he took a closer look at her, at her gown and her wig. He cursed under his breath, shoving his grotesquely large phallus back into his breeches and doing up the buttons. “Damn you, Hunter,” he hissed, putting space between him and his giggling wenches. “What are you about?” He turned to Aurelia with a look of dismay. “My lady, forgive me. I did not realize—” He turned back to Hunter, his hands in fists. “I should blacken both your eyes for this, you filthy bastard. I should bloody well drag you outside.”
Aurelia feared they would indeed come to fisticuffs, but she was too overwrought to care. How could she ever look at Lord Warren the same way again? Since entering this chamber, she had seen too much, heard too much, and seen far, far more of her former
tendre
than she could ever hope to forget. She lifted her skirts and turned blindly for the door, running down the stairs, pausing only to push away an inebriated gentleman who groped at her. She flew through the crowded great hall, past laughing, cavorting revelers and out of the house into the cool breezes of a dark autumn night.
*** *** ***
His wife stared out the window as the carriage barreled back toward Somerton. She’d torn off her wig as soon as they entered; it rested now in the corner of the bench, along with her mask and his. She hugged herself, blinking rather more than she usually did.