Vixen (32 page)

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 girls. 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.

“I
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 ye’ll 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 Carrington 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.”

“Yes, 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.

Samuel subjected his friend to a close covert scrutiny. Hugo, for all his vociferous dislike of Society’s round, looked younger and fitter than at any time since he came ashore at the end of the war.

But Samuel suspected that trouble lurked around the next corner. Hugo was happy. Whatever feelings he held for his youthful ward, they gave him deep pleasure. But beneath it lay the knowledge, the certainty, that it could only be temporary. Once Chloe had gone from his life, would he go back to the wasteland?

Samuel knew that Hugo’s strength grew with each successive day that he triumphed over his addiction. Sometimes the old sailor prayed that the relationship would continue for as long as possible, and then he thought that the sooner the end came, the better. The longer it lasted, the harder it would be to break the chains that bound him to the girl.

Hugo put down his cup and yawned. “I’m for bed.” He picked up the kitten, holding it aloft in one hand. “No,” he said, squinting, “definitely not Ariadne. You must be Aeneas.” He set the creature on the floor. “Go
back to mama.” The kitten merely set to grooming itself with leisurely grace.

Hugo laughed and stood up. “Good night, Samuel.”

“ ’Night, Sir ’Ugo.”

Half an hour later, Hugo was in bed, when his door opened stealthily and a bright head popped itself around the corner, a pair of cornflower-blue eyes twinkling mischievously. “Oh, good, you’re not asleep.”

Hugo put down his book. “No, having become accustomed to your habits, I was waiting for you. Are you going to bring the rest of you in here?”

Chloe slid into the room, closing the door behind her with exaggerated care, one finger to her lips. “Mustn’t wake Milady Smallwood from her dreams of syllabub.”

“You are a disrespectful wretch! Have you no respect for your elders and betters?”

“I do if they
are
my betters,” she responded. “But I fail to see why simple age should qualify for uncritical submission.”

She pulled her nightgown over her head, tossing it over a footstool, then walked over to the cheval glass and stood in front of it, examining her image with a tiny frown.

She was completely without inhibition, Hugo thought, not for the first time, as he enjoyed vicariously her own examination of her body. She lifted her breasts, touched her nipples, turned sideways, running a hand over her flat stomach, scrutinized her back view over her shoulder.

“What are you looking at, lass? Or is it for?” he asked, a quiver of desirous amusement in his voice.

“Well, I’ve never looked at myself before,” she said seriously. “I think I have quite an elegant figure, don’t you?”

“You’ll pass.”

“Is that all?” She extended one leg, flexing her ankle.
“All those men tonight seemed to think it was more than that.”

“Samuel’s right—you are going to get a swollen head.”

Chloe ignored this. “And they only saw my face,” she mused, peering closely at her features in the mirror.

“Only half the story,” Hugo agreed, wondering where this was leading. “But in my character as strict guardian, I have to tell you, lass, that it’s most improper to speculate on the effect your naked body might have on prospective suitors.”

Chloe ignored this too. She turned back to him. “Do you find me attractive?”

“I’d have thought I’d made that clear by now.”

“Yes, but I was the only woman around,” she pointed out. “You didn’t have anyone to compare me with in Lancashire.”

“What the hell are you getting at, Chloe?” It occurred to him that amusement was not going to be the appropriate response to whatever this was.

“Nothing really.” She stood, frowning down at the threadbare carpet. Hugo’s renovations had been strictly limited to the public rooms of his house, and his household staff was at the barest socially acceptable minimum.

“Out with it, lass.”

“You find Lady Carrington attractive, don’t you?”

Hugo leaned back against the carved headboard, a slight frown in his eyes now. “What makes you say that?”

“I can tell from the way you look at her when you’re talking to her,” she replied. “She is very beautiful and very witty. And you seem to like talking to her.”

“I do enjoy talking to her.”

“And she flirts,” Chloe said, raising her eyes from the carpet. “Doesn’t she?”

Hugo smiled. “Yes, she does. Women in her position often do. It’s a game.”

“A game you like to play.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “A game I enjoy playing with Lady Carrington.”

“Mmmm. Would you like to make love to her?”

Hugo pulled at his chin, trying to work out what was going on. “Judith Devlin is a married woman, lass. And from what I can see, a very happily married woman.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s so. But it doesn’t answer my question. Would you like to make love to her?” She was standing at the end of his bed, holding on to one of the posts, now completely oblivious of her nakedness.

He debated and decided on an honest response. “Yes,” he said evenly. “I could imagine making love to Lady Carrington with a great deal of pleasure.”

“I thought so. I expect she would know much more about it than I do.”

“You learn very fast, lass,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Come here.” He stretched out a hand in invitation.

Chloe remained where she was. “But I’m not worldly or … or up to snuff, like Lady Carrington.”

“Come here.” Hugo leaned forward, caught her around the waist, and toppled her onto the bed beside him. “No, you are not worldly, and it would be quite wrong for you to be so. Why on earth are you comparing yourself with a woman some ten years older than you? If you must make comparisons, then do so with other debutantes.”

“But you’re not interested in debutantes,” she said, lying rather stiffly against him. “And I’m comparing myself with women you are interested in.”

“Ahhh.” He sat up. It seemed a moment for plain speaking. “I think we’d better clarify a few things, Chloe. This London scheme was of your devising, as I
recall. You wish to acquire an accommodating husband so that you may have control of your fortune and thus the ordering of your own life. Isn’t that so?”

He looked down at her as she lay still on the bed. Her eyes were tightly closed. “Chloe, open your eyes and sit up.”

When she didn’t immediately comply, he pulled her into a sitting position. She opened her eyes, since keeping them shut while sitting up seemed absurd.

“Isn’t that so?” he repeated.

“It was,” she said. “But why can’t you marry me and then—”

“Of all the absurdities!” Hugo interrupted. “I’ve never heard such moon-mad nonsense. I am thirty-four, my dear child, and thirty-four makes a poor husband for seventeen—even if I wanted such a thing.”

“You wouldn’t want to marry me?” It was a soft question, but her eyes had darkened with the expectation of hurt.

“I have no intention of marrying
anyone,”
he stated. “As I’ve told you before. We are here because you wished it—and because it keeps you out of your brother’s orbit. You will enjoy your come-out like any other seventeen-year-old in her first Season, and if your reception tonight was anything to go by, you will have more offers of marriage than you can handle. We’ll both have our work cut out making the right choice for you.”