not have heard it if she weren’t blindfolded. “And I do so desire to keep from offending you, mademoiselle. In fact, he’ll be driven off the place because he broke the rules. He’ll be beaten beforehand because he raised his hand to you. I’ll make arrangements for you to watch if you care to.”
“That’s horrifying! And no, I don’t want to sit and watch.”
“You’re very different from most of the women here, including your mother. They’d watch and probably lick the blood from his skin when I’m done.”
“Oh, that’s foul!” she whispered. And then the rest of his words sank in. “When you’re done? You’re going to administer the beating?”
She knew he smiled, even without seeing it. She knew his mouth already, the way it curved with just a touch of mockery. “Perhaps I need my exercise,” he murmured. “I doubt your mother is in this room, but I wouldn’t want to miss her due to a misguided sense of propriety.” He raised his voice. “Is the Lady Caroline Harriman here?”
No answer, just the strange, muffled sounds that she couldn’t quite identify. The rub of silk on silk, the whispered laugh, low and intimate, the curious mix of grunts and curses, and her curiosity got the better of her as she reached for the neck cloth.
His hands were ahead of hers, stopping her. “You really don’t want to look,” he said, and she believed him. They must have reached the level of lust, and clearly Francis Rohan’s guests had leeway to enjoy that particular sin.
“She’s not here,” Elinor said. In the last year, her mother had lost all her previous obsession with fornication, replacing that desire with a need to gamble. In truth, very few people would recognize the great beauty she had once been, and very few people would have been willing to risk their health for the sake of a cheap tup. In the darkness of these rooms they might not recognize her diseased skin and addled mind, but clearly there were better choices if they chose to take them. Her mother would be gaming, not…
She knew the word for it, the rough, rude, indelicate word for it. Fucking. Her father had used it, her mother had screamed it in her endless rages, the people on the street used it, and the lower they sank the more that despicable word abounded.
Indeed, it was probably as good a word as any for her mother. It had been lust that had driven her away from her husband, lust and greed and anger. It had been lust that had changed Elinor’s life forever, a strange, dark feeling that she couldn’t comprehend. Didn’t want to. There was an ugliness to it that spread through this room and indeed the entire château, and the longer she stayed the more unclean she felt as old memories fought to crowd their way back into her brain.
“Could we move on?” she said coolly.
In answer he propelled her forward. It was a strange sensation, moving across the floors in darkness, the man beside her closer than a man had been in many years. And not just any man—the King of Hell himself, or so he was called. In fact, she couldn’t really fault him. He’d done her no harm, and seemed intent on helping her. Which was unlike anything she’d heard about him. The Comte de Giverney, the Viscount Rohan, the leader of the Heavenly Host, did nothing that didn’t include self-interest. And despite his polite behavior so far, her undeniable nervousness moved up a notch.
She heard the sound of doors being opened, though the man beside her hadn’t moved. Servants, stationed throughout this orgiastic celebration—of course there would be. Not one of these pampered creatures had ever had to fend for themselves. They didn’t worry about finding enough money to eat, about protecting their beautiful younger sister, about keeping their mother from destroying what small safety they had left.
“You’re rumpling my shirt,” he whispered in her ear. “Relax your grip. I promise I won’t let anything harm you.”
If she were the emotional sort she would have wept at the words. She would have sold her soul to have someone simply take over the constant worry that beset her, but then she remembered where she was. Who accompanied her. Selling one’s soul was de rigueur in such circumstances.
“I’m in a hurry,” she said, trying to sound calm and practical.
“Why?”
“We need to get the carriage back…” The moment the words were out of her mouth she regretted them.