She had no qualms. She knew exactly what she looked like. She was tall, a bit too thin thanks to the state of their larder, with plain brown hair and eyes, and that unfortunate nose. It wasn’t that bad, she mused, it was narrow and elegant, and when she was an old lady she would look quite striking. Still, that didn’t help when she was young and wanting to be pretty.
But she was past all that. If she ran into the wretched comte he’d take one look at her dowdy clothes and hair and never even see her. Thankfully that was the way with most men. She had no doubt she could find her mother in no time at all, spirit her away and the strange goings-on at the château would be a distant memory.
If she still believed in God she would pray, but she’d lost that particular comfort six years ago. Besides, Nanny and Lydia would be praying for them like mad—if there really was a god he’d certainly listen to the two of them. Lydia was too charming to ignore, and Nanny too fierce. Perhaps it was only Elinor he paid no attention to.
She closed her eyes. The day had been disastrous from beginning to end, with the unlikely hope of a small inheritance being a mere pinprick compared to the far greater disaster of their future prospects having vanished with the succession. For now she’d hold that knowledge to herself. Nanny Maude and Lydia didn’t need the worry.
The lawyer, Mr. Mitchum, had suggested she meet with the new heir, the stranger who’d have control over her inheritance, but she’d left the office in a fit of temper.
She’d have to meet with her distant cousin eventually, and she’d been a fool to storm off. If there was, in fact, even the most pitiful of bequests she couldn’t be proud enough to refuse it.
But first she had to find her mother.
2
Francis Alistair St. Claire Dominic Charles Edward Rohan, Comte de Giverney, Viscount Rohan, Baron of Glencoe, leaned back, letting his long pale fingers gently stroke the carved wooden claws that decorated the massive chair he sat in. He let his head rest against the velvet cushioning, surveyed his eager guests and allowed himself a faint smile. The vast supply of tapers lit even the dark corners of the salon, and he could see them all, his so-called friends and acquaintances, practically quivering in anticipation of the revels that stretched in front of them. Three days and nights of the most libertine indulgences—gaming and coupling with anyone agreeable, whore or lordling, male or female. Mock satanic rituals to make participants feel truly wicked, calling on a dark force that no more existed than did a loving god, but babbling Latin in front of an inverted cross gave them even more license to indulge themselves. There was opium and brandy and wine and even good Scots whiskey, and by the time the party was done he expected every drop to be gone, every body to be well pleasured, every soul drained of any illusion of morality.
And he would watch it all, indulging when the urge struck him, overseeing it all with veiled interest. He always wondered how far people would go in pursuit of pleasure. He knew his own appetites were extraordinary, and there were times when he needed more than his own pleasure to satisfy him. He needed the wicked delight of others, and his willing acolytes provided it.
There were women and men awaiting his word, some dressed in clerical garb, some wearing little at all. He could recognize Lady Adelia dressed in a diaphanous chemise better suited to a dancer half her weight, and her husband would be somewhere among the gentlemen dressed in feminine splendor, their carmined lips pursed in anticipation.
He let his gaze drift over them, his disciples in the art of sin, and he sat up, tossing back his long, unpowdered hair.
“My children,” he said in the French they all understood, English and French and German émigrés who’d come seeking pleasure. “Welcome to the revels of the Heavenly Host. You will partake of each other as you would partake of the holy wafer, you will drink the wine as if it were the blessed blood, and you will take your fill, with no one to judge. For the next three nights the paltry rules of society are forfeit. Our motto stands…‘Do what thou wilt.’”