The Devil in Her Bed (Devil You Know #3) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,54
canvas for her mask.
She’d felt rather silly drifting up the grand walkway in nothing but this gossamer robe and disguise. Had she still been a girl, she might have been enchanted. But as a woman possessed of almost thirty years, she couldn’t quite imagine what she’d get up to in a fox mask. Or perhaps she didn’t want to. She was just glad the only light to guide her glowed from the steps of the manor, and she’d followed it like the proverbial light at the end of a dark tunnel.
To a destination unknown. Feared. And perhaps hoped for.
“My lady,” the butler murmured unobtrusively. “You are welcome to go inside. Barclay and Smythe will provide you with refreshment, and whatever else you desire.”
Francesca swallowed around a dry tongue. Barclay and Smythe were two silent sentinels bracketing the entrance to the grand hall. They, too, wore nothing but blindfolds, though it was immediately apparent they had fewer years than the butler and decidedly more physical vocations.
Her neck was going to ache by the end of the night with the immense effort it took to not look down.
Beyond the guards, bodies clad in robes similar to hers mingled beneath chandeliers with only a few candles to illuminate them. The gas lamps remained unlit.
The revelers might have been ghosts. Specters of scarlet iridescence, their robes dragging behind them across the dark parquet floors like slicks of blood in the moonlight.
Objectively, the tableau was as beautiful as it was bizarre.
“Are you not going to announce me?” She turned to the butler, who shook his head.
“A woman of your eminence needs no introduction.” He bowed, a most supplicant motion, and again gestured toward the ballroom. “Do enjoy yourself, my lady, and may I be the first to say we are most pleased to reintroduce the Cavendish line into the council.”
Francesca’s blood cooled. Chilled. And her entire body bloomed with hair-raising gooseflesh.
Unable to thank him, she inclined her head and had to look away as he turned back toward the door, presenting her with a decidedly hairier back end than she’d been prepared for.
As she neared the arched entrance, it became apparent that Smythe and Barclay were not the only—footmen?—in service thus attired. Or rather, unattired.
Others stood at strategically placed intervals around the room. As still as statues, they were offering trays to the guests. Some laden with goblets of drink, others with succulents and hors d’oeuvres.
A few serving women hovered around the frozen footmen. They made certain silver trays were filled and artfully arranged, that the men were coiffed and their blindfolds secure. They silently took empty goblets from guests and offered linens or refills with gentle gestures and pleasant, questioning eyes.
These women were also brazenly naked but with one marked difference.
Rather than blindfolded, they were gagged.
In the flowing sleeves of her robe, Francesca’s fingers curled and tightened until her nails dug against her palms.
She’d wondered why such a concealing costume didn’t come with gloves. Now she knew. They wanted nothing to impede tactile sensation.
The council didn’t sample merely what was on the trays of the footmen, but anything else they wished to put their hands on. Every sort of body imaginable was on display. Pale, dusky, or dark. Slim, stocky, soft, or solid. Elegant or rough.
Francesca did more than stare. She gawked, feeling guilty as she did so. Were these people here of their own volition? Not only women scored the footmen’s backs with their nails or reached between their legs for a feel. For a stroke.
But men did as well.
Likewise, the serving girls were idly caressed and handled, and they bore it patiently. Gladly, it seemed, pausing their work to make themselves available.
The chamber quintet on the corner of a raised dais were likewise nude, in fact. Just about anyone who would have been considered service staff performed their duties without a uniform of any kind.
Many other guests turned when Francesca entered, and she immediately realized why. Beasts of every genus and species were represented in the room, but no two masks were alike. She spotted a bear and a bee, a stag and a snake, and just about everything in between. Each mask was a work of art, a white porcelain base with vibrant details done in monochromatic tones. Not all robes were crimson. A few were a ghostly shade, not white and not quite silver. Only a handful, though, were adorned with the same hood and stiff collar as hers.
A status symbol, it seemed, though one she didn’t understand.