Chapter 9 #3
Berrisford and Gresham disappeared immediately into the throng. Heatherington smiled benignly on his revelers.
“Quite a party, eh? Your lad can go and join the festivities below.”
“No,” said Cyn. “I’d rather keep him with me.”
Heatherington gave them a distinctly strange look, but shrugged. “Come on, then. Come see our theater.”
Cyn held back. “You didn’t say this was an orgy, Heather.”
“What good party isn’t?” Their host frowned blearily at them. “Getting prissy in your old age, Cyn?”
“Merely giving thought to my uniform,” said Cyn. “It’s new. Have you a room where I can change?”
“Must have . . .” said Heatherington vaguely.
A voluptuous redhead had attached herself to his arm and was rubbing against him.
Her breasts were as good as naked, but her face was covered to just above the lush red lips by a silver mask.
Her attentions enthralled their host. “Big place, this . . .” he muttered. “Must have room . . .”
It was no wonder the man couldn’t string four words together in view of the way the redhead was distracting him.
Chastity swallowed a nervous giggle. If anyone groped her like that, she’d be in trouble!
Strangely, the woman was vaguely familiar.
Chastity looked around. About half the women were masked.
This suggested they might be ladies of Society out for amorous adventure, as was said to happen at the Hell-Fire Club.
“Whoa, puss,” said their host to his tormentor, slapping her invasive hand. “Steady on there a minute.” He turned to Cyn. “Just go upstairs and help yourself. Any room you fancy. Help yourself . . . Help yourself to anything . . .” He turned to his disobedient companion, and was lost to them.
Chastity edged closer, trying to identify the woman, but Cyn hauled her away. “Into voyeurism, are you? I’ve certainly brought you to the right place then, haven’t I?”
He steered a steady course through the shifting, drunken throng despite being propositioned three times before they reached the stairs. He paused to give each female mild, postponed encouragement.
“My, you are going to be busy,” said Chastity through her teeth.
His grip on her arm tightened to the bruising point. “All in a good cause. Don’t want anyone asking awkward questions, do we?”
They stepped over a couple who had passed out in one another’s arms, and climbed the stairs.
A young, unmasked woman was coming down.
Heavy paint and many patches couldn’t hide the pockmarks on her face, but her figure was admirably curvaceous.
She eased her bodice lower, which hardly seemed possible, and swayed her hips.
“My, what do we have here? Two handsome lovers for Sal. Lucky me . . .” She licked her lips and eyed them with professional expertise.
She sidled up to press against Chastity.
Sour sweat and heavy perfume washed out from her body.
“I love ’em young,” she whispered. “My specialty, young ones is. Let Sally show you how, sweet.” Her hand reached out.
Chastity twisted away and pressed against Cyn.
He put an arm around her.
The whore shook her head. “That way, is it? Bloody waste. Your sort are in the library, luvs.” She wandered down the stairs in search of other partners.
Cyn dragged Chastity up the stairs. “You do realize you’re ruining my reputation,” he snarled. “I’ll have to roll every woman in the house just to prove I’m not a flaming sodomite.”
Chastity glared at him. “It’s your fault we’re in this stew. You’re the one with the disreputable friends!”
He looked as if he wanted to murder her.
It was quieter above stairs, but no more decorous.
The noise from below faded and blended with bumps, groans, and shrieks from the nearby rooms. Perhaps some people hadn’t made it to the rooms, for items of clothing were scattered about.
Two odd shoes littered the floor; a pair of striped stockings festooned a picture frame; a lace-trimmed cravat hung from a sconce.
A goblet had been knocked over on an oak chest, and the pooled wine had dried to a sticky stain.
“How long has this been going on?” Chastity asked.
Cyn ran his hand through his hair and looked around distractedly.
“God knows, but they’re on their second wind .
. .” A noise and a blast of cold air made them both look down into the hall.
A new batch of people was pushing in. “Or they just keep getting new blood,” Cyn added.
“Word of this revel has probably traveled the Home Counties. One thing,” he said with a wry glance at Chastity.
“It’s doubtless crippling the search. Toby’s hardly keeping his mind on it . . .”
Chastity could not pay attention. She was frozen with horror. One of the new arrivals was her brother, Fortitude Harleigh Ware, Lord Thornhill. She had no doubt he would recognize her in a moment, even in her disguise. Her face after all was unchanged, and he’d seen her shorn.
“What is it?” asked Cyn sharply.
At that moment they had to press together to avoid being run down by a couple—a bedraggled, masked wench fleeing a red-faced man. The wench laughed as she screamed, and did not run very fast. She ducked into a room just opposite Chastity. Her pursuer lunged after.
“Got you, you saucy tease!”
The woman, who certainly had the required breasts like melons, and was showing the fact to the whole world, fluttered her hands and batted her darkened lashes. “Oh, sir, I fear you have . . .”
The man unfastened his breeches and leaped at her.
Cyn slammed the door, muttering, his question clearly driven from his mind.
Chastity was dazed by the scenes around her, but it was Fort’s arrival that had her sick with fear.
What in God’s name would her brother do if he found her here?
Beat her? He’d more likely murder her. He’d believed that she’d invited Vernham to her bed, and raged at her for not stopping the scandal by marrying the man.
If he found her in this place, and in men’s clothes . . .
And she had Cyn to worry about. It would come to a fight and Cyn could be no match for Fort, who was a huge, strong man, skilled with pistol and sword.
“Come on!” Cyn snapped. “Let’s find a room for you.”
Chastity didn’t need to be dragged, but he dragged her anyway.
Without a qualm, he opened every unlocked door.
Every room was occupied. In most she saw just a heaving quilt—though Chastity could swear there were more than four feet at the end of one bed—but in one room she glimpsed a pair of pale pumping buttocks.
She giggled. It looked so silly.
Cyn was back to muttering.
At last he opened a door on an unoccupied room. Cyn flung her into it and shut and locked the door. He leaned against it. “Plague take the lot of ’em,” he muttered.
Humor or hysteria bubbled up in Chastity and she collapsed, giggling, on the big, rumpled bed. When she gained control he was leaning on a corner-post smiling at her, but strangely.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but it’s all so ridiculous.”
“It is, isn’t it?” He turned away to look around.
“If I’m not mistaken, this is Heather’s own room.
He said we should suit ourselves, so we have.
” He flung down his portmanteau and pulled out his blue suit, brushing it off ruefully.
“Jerome would have a fit to see me in such a rag, but in this company no one will care.”
“No,” said Chastity, proud of her careless tone. “It’ll doubtless be ripped off you in minutes.”
He flashed her a look but merely said, “More than likely. The harpies will be after fresh blood. They’d just love to get at you. Are you sure you don’t want to take this occasion to expand your education, lad?”
Chastity put her hands behind her head. “Hardly. It’s fertile ground for the pox.”
“Not so naive, after all,” he remarked. “The whores will at least have been guaranteed clean before they came here, though whether they’ll be that way when they leave . . .”
He shrugged and stripped out of his uniform, down to shirt and drawers.
“And what about the ladies?” Chastity asked, determined not to let his body distract her from her resolve.
“What about them?”
“The masked women aren’t whores, are they?”
“Depends on your definition of a whore.” He fastened the velvet breeches and put on the brocade waistcoat, smoothing it down to his thighs.
Chastity found herself distracted after all by the lithe length of him. Tears pricked at her eyes; she couldn’t for the life of her think why she was so miserable. There was Fort, of course, a complication she’d not looked for. But he frightened her; he didn’t make her heart ache.
It was Cyn who was doing that. He slipped into his coat and checked himself in the long mirror to see whether he’d please one of those whores below.
Chastity supposed she could stand up and reveal that she was a woman too, but much good that would do her.
In this house there were beauties to suit any taste, highborn and low, all willing and available. Chastity Ware was nothing but a freak.
Cyn knotted a soft, lacy cravat around his neck and fixed it with his sapphire pin. He nodded at his reflection. “ ’Twill do, I think.”
He went to the dressing table and tidied his hair, borrowing a wide blue ribbon for his bow. He smoothed out the lace at wrists and throat, then inspected Heatherington’s pots and boxes.
He brushed on pale powder to give his face a fashionable pallor. He flicked open a patch-box and quirked a brow at Chastity. “Do you think?”
He was turning into a new creature—not hey-go-mad adventurer, not soldier, but Society creature.
“Not without powder in your hair,” said Chastity coldly.