a dull red curtain, as though an entire army caroused there. Her stomach cramped with fear.
They stopped before the doorway. The swordsman bent his head to whisper, “If you try to run, to take the mask off–anything at all–my sword will find its mark before the night is over.” Then he heaved her over the shoulder of a blond giant dressed in the purple and white robes of a Roman senator. A soft “ugh” escaped her along with her breath as she landed on his collarbone. She hung there, struggling to breathe, less afraid of suffocating than of what lay beyond the red curtain.
2
“My God, look at the crowd!” Duncan said as he and Tommy entered the main public room of the House of Pleasure. So many patrons were sandwiched together. The brothel could easily hold upward of five hundred patrons; tonight it burst at the seams, the crowd swollen by the novelty of the tableau auction. Notorious for its ability to instigate debauchery, the house’s atmosphere already approached that of a drunken orgy.
A former gambling club, the establishment boasted a style hovering barely one rung above the vulgar. Cut-crystal chandeliers illuminated walls painted with murals, reputedly by Boucher himself, depicting highly erotic mythological and pastoral scenes. Marble statuary throughout posed in lascivious and provocative positions. Exotic, Chippendale chinoiserie sofas–their woodwork carved to resemble delectable parts of the female anatomy–invited patrons to fondle and fantasize. The decor alone had been known to make men hard.
As he and Tommy joined the carousing horde, Duncan noticed several gentlemen in costumes more extreme than his own, and relaxed. No one would pay attention to him. They shoved their way toward the first scene, set up at the back of the room. An eight-by-eight foot square platform raised five feet in the air, draped in swaths of red velvet, provided an impromptu stage. Despite his resolve to not be impressed with the theatrical offering, blood quickened in his veins, heat rose up his neck and his groin throbbed insistently.
“There’s a new production of The Beggar’s Opera at Drury Lane.” Tommy gestured toward the platform. “Or maybe it’s The Beggar’s Wedding. Anyway, I think this is supposed to represent Dick Turpin, the highwayman.”
A man in a scarlet coat wearing a black mask and tricorn hat pressed a sword to the well-exposed breast of a fair maiden from whom he demanded jewelry, one piece at a time. When the jewelry was at an end, other things likely would be removed as well. The girl’s exaggerated gasps and protests as she stripped off her jewels caused whistles and cheers among the audience. Unexpectedly, the tableau appealed because he could imagine himself as the highwayman, with the power to demand anything of the girl in the privacy of a bedroom.
Duncan shoved his way closer to the stage. The woman removed her jacket to reveal rouged nipples through a sheer white chemise. One of Amorina’s regular girls, Jenny. A good sort, though he had never bedded her. That tantalizing look of mock terror would be for him if he won her. The vision of a timid, upturned face, entreating him to spare her, turned the dull pulse in his groin into an unrelenting ache. Acting such a part had never appealed to him before, except for one time when Amorina had dressed as a bawdy shepherdess for a masquerade. After the party, she’d played the part of the submissive maiden to his lord and master. He’d been sated for days afterward.
That memory made him turn away from the stage, scanning the room for his ex-mistress. Then he relaxed. He was disguised. Amorina could not possibly recognize him, nor could anyone else. The last thing he needed was for the scandals of the previous year to rear their ugly heads. If Aunt Phoebe found out he’d attended an auction instead of her ball...
Duncan returned to the tableau, only to have Tommy snare his arm and propel him past the second stage, still unlit, to the third. Reclining there in white robes, stark against the bold magenta, canary and cerulean satin pillows, lay a leering sultan. Before him danced a black-haired harem girl, attired in a vivid emerald bolero bodice and pantaloons of filmy multi-colored silk chiffon that blatantly displayed her legs and the dark triangle where they joined.
“’Struth, Tommy. She might as well have nothing on.” Amorina’s house had grown bolder in his absence.
“I believe you’ll find quite a few changes here since you went abroad.” Tommy raised his voice and leaned toward him to be heard above the din of the room. “I told you this was going to be special, didn’t I?” He chuckled, and nudged Duncan. “Which one are you going to bid on? I suppose your pockets are deep enough you can outbid almost anyone here for any of these morsels.”
“I’m not bidding.” He shook his head firmly. Why should Tommy be so sure this would appeal to him? It did, on a dark level that disturbed him. Perhaps his recently enforced celibacy factored into that. “Where’s number two, do you think?”
“Don’t know. But look at number four, would you? This gets better and better.”
Draped in black, the last stage sported a plank extended over a deep tub of water at the edge of the crowd. There a man dressed as a pirate waved a sword, making the lady walk the plank. The dainty miss, attired in a fashionable ensemble, pled theatrically as she tiptoed down the board. When she reached the end, the pirate prodded her one last time. With a final cry of “Oh, save me!” she jumped into the vat of water.
A cheer went up for her pluck, then when she emerged, dripping wet, an even bigger shout. Her sodden dress hugged every curve, revealing each charming feature of her shapely figure.
Duncan swallowed hard as audience members helped her back up onto the platform. He needed to leave now. The woman standing before him was as good as nude.
No support to be had from Tommy. His face mirrored the rest of the cheering men, their mouths leering at the woman, raucous calls and suggestions thick in the air. They radiated lust in a palpable wave which his aching flesh echoed as it strained against his tight breeches. Damn, it had been too long.
A nudge from Tommy distracted him long enough to take a deep breath, breaking the spell of the tableau. Taking charge of their direction, Duncan shouldered his way toward the first scene, where the bidding was about to commence.
“So what’s it to be?” Tommy shouted, struggling against the jostling crowd. “Do you fancy yourself a highwayman, a sultan, or a pirate?”
“Which one will you bid on, Tom?” He turned the tables. “Wouldn’t want to bid against my best friend, now would I?” He stopped before the unlit tableau, his back to the highwayman scene where bidding was escalating. Temptation pricked him like a knife. He really shouldn’t have come.
Tommy grinned, shaking his head. “Can’t bid on any of ’em, I’m afraid. Father put up a devilish fuss over the last scrape I got into. The upshot is, my funds have been cut off until I prove I can keep out of trouble.” The grin became wider. “Going to be harder to do now you’re back in London.”
“What scrape?”
“Later. The bidding’s almost done on the highwayman. Sure you won’t have a go?” A flicker in Tommy’s eye all but dared him. “I bet they let you wear the costume too.”
Enjoying one last wild night was tempting. God knew he needed a woman; the still-straining bulge beneath the domino attested to that. But the auction’s appeal began to wane, the amusement draining away without the camaraderie of his friend’s participation. Desperation rose from below and he opened his mouth to ask Tommy to let him stand him the money to bid. But the words died on his lips as a man dressed in a purple and white Roman toga mounted the stage at the second tableau with a motionless body draped over his shoulder.
The
