What Happens in Hedone (Ladies Least Likely #11)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Knocking on the door of this club was the most shocking thing Jay Burnham had ever done in his life.

He’d engaged in his share of pranks and unwise choices, he would admit.

Hanging the master’s suspenders from a gargoyle at Ely Cathedral during his time at The King’s School.

The Henley cousin that summer he stayed with his school chum at Sandringham.

All the women he’d courted thereafter, who liked Jay more for being in line for a barony than for any attractions of his person.

His family name raised enough stares and whispers without his adding to the scandal.

Tradesmen sprouting up to become peers of the realm, brickmakers taking seats in the House of Lords.

A mother who’d once been locked away for suspicion of murder.

His several eccentric siblings, including two sisters who didn’t share his blood.

That old sobriquet, the Mad Baron, that floated about whenever Jay’s father, the Baron Brancaster, did something outrageously against the established traditions of his class.

But Jay, as an adult, had never done anything that would merit worse than a stern glare from his father. Or his lovely mother pressing hands to her cheeks with a half-giggled, half-moaned “Oh, Jay Jay!”

Yet here he stood on the doorstep of a place called Hedone—and what in Hades was this meant to be anyway?

A club? A theatre? An indoor spectacle of some kind?

The building was Bath stone, three stories, scarcely a decade old.

The curved bay with its sashed windows looked like any of the new boarding houses and hotels sprouting like teeth across Brighton, pleasure grounds offering delight and ease for the wealthy and genteel.

Yet no lights from within shone through the several panes of glass, not on this floor nor the one above, where a small balcony fronted another curved bay and large window, all heavily draped. The only light came from the small flame in the gas lamp behind him, lighting Norfolk Square.

Farren had described a secret club where men and women could act out their wildest fantasies without censure. Without consequences that might follow a man home.

Jay knew from experience that could not be true. There were always consequences to pleasure. Always a price.

He had gathered his good sense to leave when the door swung open.

A woman draped in black velvet stared out.

Her gown had the wide neckline and tiny waist of current fashion, while her skirts filled the doorway and her sleeves hung like deflated balloons as she lifted a candle toward his face.

Hers was covered by a delicate black veil, held in place by a high bronze comb but stopping short of the enormous brooch pinned to her bosom, an ornate design Jay chose not to examine.

“Member?”

He cleared his throat, bridling at that old resentment that arose whenever he was being judged worthy to enter the domains of the great. “Guest.”

“Referred by?”

“Lord Far—Triton.” Farren had emphasized the insistence on aliases.

“Your name?”

“Poseidon.”

She scarcely paused. “Taken.”

“Jupiter?”

She shook her head.

He groped for a name he’d remember, one he had some small association with. He was a brickmaker, wasn’t he? “Hephaestus.”

“Very good.”

She allowed him into the foyer, dimly lit and painted on one side a dark reddish umber lined with gold, rich and sensuous.

The other side, at first glance, opened into an enormous hall lined with statuary in the classical style, graceful and well-shaped men and women clad in scanty garments dotting a gallery draped with trailing vines and flowers.

He sensed his hostess smiling behind the veil as he studied the scene. “What is your desired entertainment? We offer cards, music, conversation—”

“The tableaux,” Jay blurted. It was all Farren would talk about.

“Greece, the Ottoman Empire, or the Far Orient?”

They all sounded intriguing, but the name of the club, and the painted wallpaper, pointed to his choice. “Greece.”

She smiled. “Half sovereign.”

Jay produced the coin, and she slipped it into a small pouch strung from her waist by a golden chain. “This way.”

She turned into the nearest reception room, and Jay regretted not seeing the rest of the house. The scent in the air teased the appetite, a blend of floral and aromatics with a hint of spice. The décor breathed careless luxury, riches won without sweated brow or bruised knuckles.

Jay had grown up the son of a baron and his lady, but he always sensed the comforts they had were hard won.

His father’s skill with bricks had secured the family’s fortune and kept their home from crumbling down the cliffs into the sea.

And while he was born in line for the title, as his father had not been, Jay worked in his father’s trade and so must relentlessly prove his worth to both commoner and aristocrat, one who doubted his taste and the other who doubted his work ethic.

He was forced to justify himself over and again, doing twice the work to prove he belonged in both worlds.

It wearied a man. The thought of pleasure for its own sake held a strong appeal.

Another man and woman were already seated in the room, occupying their upholstered chairs like separate islands.

Jay seated himself where his hostess indicated and she withdrew without a word, leaving him at leisure to regard his surroundings.

The small gallery of chairs stood before a deep hearth with a tall marble mantelpiece and faced a large, cleared area laid with a rug patterned with an elaborate swirl of vines.

Oil lamps, not gas, flickered from the wall sconces and chandelier.

On the opposite side of the room, the furniture was only vaguely Grecian: plaster pedestals holding classical busts, a vase sprouting a potted palm, a chaise longue trailing a discarded shawl.

A tall heavy curtain, out of place, covered the bay and its windows, allowing no peek at the activities from the street outside.

This room continued the burnt umber and gold color pattern along walls hung with heavy mirrors and quiet landscapes.

It took Jay a moment to decipher the design running along the wall beneath the cornice: peacocks in strut, their teal feathers embedded with bright blue eyes.

Each cock smiled on a peahen twined adoringly about him.

It was so unlike him to do anything like this.

He was discreet about his affairs and not excessive in his indulgences.

He had to be extra careful to retain respect, given his ramshackle family.

One sister had married the illegitimate son of a duke, and he himself had chosen to take up a trade rather than respected profession like the law.

The other spectators wore masks, the gentleman a bauta mask that the Venetians wore for Carnival, a secret political conclave, or forbidden romantic assignation.

The lady held a half-mask up to her face with a delicate stick.

Dammit, why hadn’t Farren advised Jay to come masked? Someone could recognize him and the word would get out. He would lose his commission here and any future work he might have won from the King. A night indulging his curiosity wasn’t worth his career.

Jay couldn’t bear whiling his time in idleness waiting for the title and all the responsibilities of the Brancaster barony to pass to him. He needed his work, his hands in the earth, to steady himself now and in the future. He couldn’t risk losing it all.

He was rising from his seat when the curtain fell back.

Three women of various ages sat on small folding stools, their attitude one of restful attention.

They wore attire like one saw on vases and statuary of ancient Greece, long plain white robes belted at the waist. Their shawls glowed in the low light with muted colors of blue, yellow, and green.

The heat in the room, thrown by the multitude of lamps lining the hearth, now made sense.

Their arms were almost entirely bare, as were their feet, and, in one lady’s case, her bosom.

Jay sat. He was glad he had when the fourth woman stepped from the curtained alcove.

Her robe was white muslin, so sheer he could see the shadow of her limbs beneath.

She had the nymph-like form that made the fabric fall in graceful pleats and folds, clinging as she moved to the chaise and sat.

The crests of her bosom, shaped by the thin cloth, told him she wore none of the usual bindings beneath.

Jay’s mouth went dry. She wore a long violet shawl edged with a geometric design, and that item, too, served to accentuate rather than disguise her shape.

Like the others, her hair was pulled back into a high knot, caught with a bandeau over which curls tumbled to frame her face.

Jay wished he could see it, but she, like the others, wore a mask that covered half her face, with intricate designs arching over the smooth curve of forehead, the strong slope of her nose, a creamy expanse of cheek.

All he could see of her features was the jaw that curved sweetly to a delicate ear, and her lips, coral red, curved in a slight smile.

A devastating smile. Half taunt, half invitation, that smile could summon a man from across the room.

Or across the sea. She was pure, raw woman, sylph and softness.

And yet, as she sat and pulled a lyre into her lap, he sensed strength and steel in the slope of her spine, the determined slant of her neck.

She was young, not yet Jay’s age, but a woman in full possession of herself.

She had the same curve to her mouth as the nymph Jay had encountered on the beach that afternoon.

The young woman from the beach had haunted his mind all day, intruding on his work, his dinner.

Here Jay had the opportunity to gaze upon nearly unclad women, something he’d not done much of lately, and that strange girl would not leave his mind.