Vixen

Chapter 18

The girl's eyes were fixed on the shadowy vaulted ceiling. Vaguely she was aware of the warmth of candle flame on her bare breast as she lay on a bier in the center of the crypt, her body lit by altar candles ranged along the table.

A masked face hung over her, and she turned her head in weak protest as a goblet was presented to her lips.

"Don't be foolish," the man said harshly. He lifted her head with one hand and pressed the goblet against her mouth.

The girl opened her mouth and the aromatic contents were tipped down her throat. She fell back on the white pillow. The muzziness filled her head, and a great warm lethargy spread through her limbs. She had no idea how long she'd been lying naked in this shadowy cavern. She couldn't remember how many times the goblet had been pressed upon her. She had only vague memories of the pouch of gold that had changed hands in her uncle's cottage some time… a long long time… ago. Her uncle had pocketed the gold and the strange man with the black mask had taken her away.

She felt hands on her body, stroking, smoothing- pleasurable little touches that made her stir and moan. Far away in some recess of her brain she connected the drink with these strange feelings of excitement. When her thighs were drawn apart, she offered no resistance, floating now in a dream world of shadowy figures and shadowy sensations. The sharp pain that accompanied

the penetration of her body was a dream, and the swift rhythmic pounding deep within her seemed to have nothing to do with her and yet paradoxically to be intrinsic to her flesh.

Crispin closed his eyes on a surge of pleasure as he possessed the pale body, lying so still beneath him. The eyes of the others were on him, watching him in this rite of initiation under the flickering candles in the cold vault. Behind his closed eyes he saw Chloe lying beneath him, submitting, bound to his pleasure, her arrogant insolence forever subdued as he used her in front of the eager lusting eyes of the Congregation. Jasper had promised it would happen. And Jasper always kept his promises as he always made good his threats.

Jasper leaned back against a pillar, his arms folded, his eyes behind the loo mask skidding over the tableau vivant on the bier. Like his stepson, he was mentally substituting another body for the peasant girl's. Hugo Lattimer had deprived the Congregation of Elizabeth Gresham, but her daughter would make up the deficit. And there would be no interference this time. He would avenge every insult Lattimer had thrown at him by taking the girl and her fortune. Not only would Lattimer suffer the humiliation of failing to fulfill the dying wishes of the woman he had loved with such a besotted, infantile, sentimentalized love, but he would watch while the daughter took the place intended for her mother fourteen years before. And when it was over, Hugo Lattimer's blood would water the granite tombstone slabs of the crypt as Jasper avenged his father's death.

Stephen Gresham had known of Hugo's passion for his wife. He had been intending to give Elizabeth to Hugo in the crypt-a vicious gift, one that he would have found deeply satisfying. Hugo was bound by the oaths of the Congregation to absolute obedience to its

leader. He would have been forced to violate the object of his mawkish compassion and idealistic fantasies and thus would have relearned the most important lesson of the crypt: Nothing is sacred.

Instead, Hugo had broken his oath and killed the leader to whom he was bound in obedience. And the leader's son had devised the perfect punishment.

Jasper's eyes roamed around the faces surrounding the bier as they awaited their turn with the ravished virgin. His gaze lingered on the young, fresh face of Denis DeLacy. The youth's eyes were unfocused, his lips parted with eager lust. He was ready to do anything to earn his spurs in the Congregation and he had all the right qualifications for the task: youth, good looks, an accepted place in the Fashionable World, and a respectable fortune.

Jasper pushed himself away from the pillar and walked over to the young man. He tapped him on the shoulder. Denis turned immediately. His face fell as he understood that he was to be deprived of his turn on the bier. But he followed Jasper with the alacrity of an acolyte into one of the smaller chambers in the crypt.

"It was the most amazing success tonight, Samuel."

Chloe pranced into the hall as Samuel opened the door. "Lady Jersey has promised to send me a voucher for Almack's, and I didn't have to sit one dance out, and I had so many partners no one could dance more than once with me." She twirled, setting her cream silk skirts swirling.

"And it's a swelled 'ead yell be gettin' if you goes on in that fashion," Samuel remarked, closing the door.

"It is most unbecoming, dear," a very fat lady said, shivering in her cashmere shawl. "It's lovely that you

should have had so many partners, but you'll lose them all quickly if you don't behave with due modesty." "Oh, pah," muttered Chloe. "I'm most dreadfully fatigued," her chaperone said with a wheezing sigh. "Not that it wasn't a most elegant affair… most elegant, wasn't it, Hugo? Lady Car-rington certainly keeps a good table… such lobster patties, such scalloped oysters…" She passed a hand over her rotund stomach in an unconscious gesture of corporeal recollection. "Oh, and the trifles-did I mention the trifles-I had two dishes… or was it three?" She frowned with the utmost seriousness.

"Six," said Chloe, sotto voce.

"I beg your pardon, Chloe dear?"

"I said they were delicious," Chloe said with a sweet smile. "And the syllabubs also. You seemed to enjoy those equally, my dear ma'am."

"Oh, yes, indeed. I was forgetting the syllabubs." Lady Smallwood sighed with pleasure. "How could I have forgotten the syllabubs."

"Very easily, with everything else one was obliged to sample," Chloe said, still smiling sweetly.

"Oh, yes, there was so much to choose from. Some people consider such varied choice to be a little vulgar, but I'm not one of them."

"No," Chloe agreed.

"I do believe it shows respect for one's guests to set a good table for them."

'Tes, I'm sure you're right, Dolly." Hugo spoke up before Chloe could continue with her wicked asides. "I'm glad you were tolerably amused."

"Well, as you know, I'm not a great one for socializing… not since my dear Smallwood passed on," Lady Smallwood said with a sigh. "But I said I'd do my best for the child, and I will. You won't find me shirking my duties." She waddled toward the stairs. "Now, if you'll

excuse me, I'll retire. Come along, Chloe. You don't want to be fagged tomorrow. You'll lose your looks if you're peaky… and that would never do."

"But I'm not in the least fatigued, ma'am."

"Lady Smallwood knows best, lass," Hugo said earnestly. "Think how humiliating it would be to see your success slip away from you before you've had a chance to savor it."

Chloe put her tongue out at him but followed her chaperone's mountainous figure up the stairs.

Hugo grinned and shook his head. "What an evening! I foresee we're going to be inundated with bewitched young men in the next weeks, Samuel. You couldn't get near the lass from the minute she walked into the room."

"It's to be 'oped that duenna of 'er's doesn't cotton to the fun she makes of 'er," Samuel said. "I'm 'ard pressed to keep a straight face most o' the time. Right wicked, she is."

"I know, but it is irresistible." Hugo followed Samuel through the swinging door to the kitchen. "I'll put a curb on her if she gets too outrageous." He sat down beside the fire and stretched out his legs, examining his satin knee britches with a frown. "Lord, Samuel, I never expected to be dressing like this again, dancing attendance on vapid ladies at insipid gatherings."

"That Lady Carrington seems a fine woman," Samuel observed, setting a mug of tea beside Hugo.

"Oh, she is," Hugo agreed. "Actually, it wasn't that bad. It's just that I thought I was done with all that nonsense. Instead…" He sighed.

Samuel laced his own tea with rum and sat down opposite. "Get her married and off yer 'ands an' we can get back to Denholm."

"That's the object of this exercise," Hugo said dryly,

sipping his tea. A kitten jumped onto his lap, knocking his hand. Tea slurped over his white waistcoat.

"Damnation!" He glared at the kitten, who merely settled purring into his lap. "Which one is this?"

Samuel shrugged. "No idea. Couldn't pronounce it if n I did know."

Hugo laughed reluctantly. "I suspect it's Ariadne, but I wouldn't swear to it." He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes.

Samuel smiled to himself and sipped his tea. It was a nightly ritual, the time they had together in the kitchen, no longer the domain of the churlish Alphonse, whose running battles with Chloe over the animals' nutritional needs caused daily upheavals.

Samuel subjected his friend to a close covert scrutiny. Hugo, for all his vociferous dislike of Society's round, looked younger and fitter than at any time since he came ashore at the end of the war.

But Samuel suspected that trouble lurked around the next corner. Hugo was happy. Whatever feelings he held for his youthful ward, they gave him deep pleasure. But beneath it lay the knowledge, the certainty, that it could only be temporary. Once Chloe had gone from his life, would he go back to the wasteland?

Samuel knew that Hugo's strength grew with each successive day that he triumphed over his addiction. Sometimes the old sailor prayed that the relationship would continue for as long as possible, and then he thought that the sooner the end came, the better. The longer it lasted, the harder it would be to break the chains that bound him to the girl.

Hugo put down his cup and yawned. "I'm for bed." He picked up the kitten, holding it aloft in one hand. "No," he said, squinting, "definitely not Ariadne. You must be Aeneas." He set the creature on the floor. "Go

back to mama." The kitten merely set to grooming itself with leisurely grace.

Hugo laughed and stood up. "Good night, Samuel."

" 'Night, Sir "Ugo."

Half an hour later, Hugo was in bed, when his door opened stealthily and a bright head popped itself around the corner, a pair of cornflower-blue eyes twinkling mischievously. "Oh, good, you're not asleep."

Hugo put down his book. "No, having become accustomed to your habits, I was waiting for you. Are you going to bring the rest of you in here?"

Chloe slid into the room, closing the door behind her with exaggerated care, one finger to her lips. "Mustn't wake Milady Smallwood from her dreams of syllabub."

"You are a disrespectful wretch! Have you no respect for your elders and betters?"

"I do if they are my betters," she responded. "But I fail to see why simple age should qualify for uncritical submission."

She pulled her nightgown over her head, tossing it over a footstool, then walked over to the cheval glass and stood in front of it, examining her image with a tiny frown.

She was completely without inhibition, Hugo thought, not for the first time, as he enjoyed vicariously her own examination of her body. She lifted her breasts, touched her nipples, turned sideways, running a hand over her flat stomach, scrutinized her back view over her shoulder.

"What are you looking at, lass? Or is it for?" he asked, a quiver of desirous amusement in his voice.

"Well, I've never looked at myself before," she said seriously. "I think I have quite an elegant figure, don't you?"

"You'll pass."

"Is that all?" She extended one leg, flexing her ankle.

"All those men tonight seemed to think it was more than that."

"Samuel's right-you are going to get a swollen head."

Chloe ignored this. "And they only saw my face," she mused, peering closely at her features in the mirror.

"Only half the story," Hugo agreed, wondering where this was leading. "But in my character as strict guardian, I have to tell you, lass, that it's most improper to speculate on the effect your naked body might have on prospective suitors."

Chloe ignored this too. She turned back to him. "Do you find me attractive?"

"I'd have thought I'd made that clear by now."

"Yes, but I was the only woman around," she pointed out. "You didn't have anyone to compare me with in Lancashire."

"What the hell are you getting at, Chloe?" It occurred to him that amusement was not going to be the appropriate response to whatever this was.

"Nothing really." She stood, frowning down at the threadbare carpet. Hugo's renovations had been strictly limited to the public rooms of his house, and his household staff was at the barest socially acceptable minimum.

"Out with it, lass."

"You find Lady Carrington attractive, don't you?"

Hugo leaned back against the carved headboard, a slight frown in his eyes now. "What makes you say, that?"

"I can tell from the way you look at her when you're talking to her," she replied. "She is very beautiful and very witty. And you seem to like talking to her."

"I do enjoy talking to her."

"And she flirts," Chloe said, raising her eyes from the carpet. "Doesn't she?"

Hugo smiled. "Yes, she does. Women in her position often do. It's a game."

"A game you like to play."

"Yes," he agreed. "A game I enjoy playing with Lady Carrington."

"Mmmm. Would you like to make love to her?"

Hugo pulled at his chin, trying to work out what was going on. "Judith Devlin is a married woman, lass. And from what I can see, a very happily married woman."

"Yes, I'm sure that's so. But it doesn't answer my question. Would you like to make love to her?" She was standing at the end of his bed, holding on to one of the posts, now completely oblivious of her nakedness.

He debated and decided on an honest response. "Yes," he said evenly. "I could imagine making love to Lady Carrington with a great deal of pleasure."

"I thought so. I expect she would know much more about it than I do."

"You learn very fast, lass," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "Come here." He stretched out a hand in invitation.

Chloe remained where she was. "But I'm not worldly or… or up to snuff, like Lady Carrington."

"Come here." Hugo leaned forward, caught her around the waist, and toppled her onto the bed beside him. "No, you are not worldly, and it would be quite wrong for you to be so. Why on earth are you comparing yourself with a woman some ten years older than you? If you must make comparisons, then do so with other debutantes."

"But you're not interested in debutantes," she said, lying rather stiffly against him. "And I'm comparing myself with women you are interested in."

"Ahhh." He sat up. It seemed a moment for plain speaking. "I think we'd better clarify a few things, Chloe. This London scheme was of your devising, as I

recall. You wish to acquire an accommodating husband so that you may have control of your fortune and thus the ordering of your own life. Isn't that so?"

He looked down at her as she lay still on the bed. Her eyes were tightly closed. "Chloe, open your eyes and sit up."

When she didn't immediately comply, he pulled her into a sitting position. She opened her eyes, since keeping them shut while sitting up seemed absurd.

"Isn't that so?" he repeated.

"It was," she said. "But why can't you many me and then-"

"Of all the absurdities!" Hugo interrupted. "I've never heard such moon-mad nonsense. I am thirty-four, my dear child, and thirty-four makes a poor husband for seventeen-even if I wanted such a thing."

"You wouldn't want to marry me?" It was a soft question, but her eyes had darkened with the expectation of hurt.

"I have no intention of marrying anyone," he stated. "As I've told you before. We are here because you wished it-and because it keeps you out of your brother's orbit. You will enjoy your come-out like any other seventeen-year-old in her first Season, and if your reception tonight was anything to go by, you will have more offers of marriage than you can handle. We'll both have our work cut out making the right choice for you."

"But what about us?"

"What about us?" he demanded with sudden harshness, realizing the slipperiness of this slope. "I am breaking every honorable rule of conduct in the book, Chloe. I was weak enough to allow you to engineer this, but I have sworn you will not be harmed by it. You will many and put this behind you, hopefully as an interlude that brings you only pleasant memories. You will tell no one about it, ever."

"But I don't want it to stop." She looked at him with painful candor and put a hand on his thigh. "Please, Hugo, why must it ever stop? I'll try very hard to be a good wife, and I can learn how to be like Lady Car-rington-"

"For God's sake, Chloe, stop it11 don't want you to be like Lady Carrington. I do not want a wife, do you understand?" He put his hands on the slender shoulders and gave her a little shake. "I am not getting any deeper into this mess than I am already. The sooner you find yourself a husband and start leading an appropriate life, the happier I will be. Do you understand that?"

"You would be rid of me?"

"You are twisting my words."

"I don't think I am." She slid away from his hands and stood up. "You said it was a mess." She bent to pick up her nightgown.

Hugo sighed, passing a hand over his eyes. "And so it is. Can't you see, little simpleton, how grossly improper this is? There are those who would say I have debauched my ward, and many would agree with them."

"But you don't believe that''" Her head appeared from the folds of the nightgown and her eyes fixed on his face.

"It is the bald truth," he said flatly. "But bald truths are not always the whole story."

"Why don't you wish to marry anyone?"

"This catechism grows tedious." He sounded suddenly bored.

"But I want to know," she declared, coming over to the bed. "I think I'm entitled to know."

"Oh, do you now?" He was genuinely annoyed, as much by her truculence as by the unwelcome persistence in an area he preferred to keep dark even from himself. "And just where, my impertinent brat, does this entitlement lie? Are you assuming that your presence in

my bed gives you the right to poke and pry in whatever private thoughts and feelings I might have?"

Chloe flushed scarlet. "I didn't mean that."

"Then what did you mean?"

"I don't know," she said. She had meant exactly that, but it sounded dreadful when put in those bluntly contemptuous terms. Feeling like the brat he had called her, firmly put in her place, she turned to the door with a mumbled "Good night."

Hugo made no attempt to stop her. He swore under his breath, a short barnyard oath, wondering why he hadn't foreseen such a damnable complication in an already impossibly convoluted situation.

He had convinced himself she was simply trying her sexual wings and he was giving her the opportunity to do so safely. His own feelings were kept rigorously battened down. But if Chloe was beginning to envisage some kind of future to their liaison, then he'd have to take serious measures to disabuse her.

She had put the method into his hands, he realized. If she saw him engaging in light flirtation with the sophisticated worldly women who would seem so much more in his social sphere than herself, she might take the point more effectively than with simple words. It would lessen the intensity of their relationship and would certainly help him to conceal from his willful ward the passionate, tormenting, obsessive nature of his desire for her.

How could he tell her that the bars to their marriage were manifold? He was her father's killer, he had loved her mother, who had trusted him with her daughter's future, and anything but the destiny to which her beauty and fortune entitled her would be a gross betrayal of that trust; he was twice her age and a poor man; he was her guardian and by any ethical rule therefore banned

from taking advantage of that relationship to improve his own circumstances.

He had done many despicable things in his life, but tying an eager, passionate innocent to a man twice her age, a man who had played in the crypt and had killed her father, stuck even in bis craw.

He leaned over to blow out the candle and lay back in the dark, waiting to see if sleep would be kind to him. After a while he relit the candle, hitched himself up against the pillows, and resignedly picked up his discarded book. Within a few minutes, his door opened.

"Do you want to play backgammon?"

Chloe stood in the door, a diffident little smile on her lips that was impossible to resist. He'd employed enough severity for one night.

"Bad one," he scolded. "Why aren't you asleep?"

"I can't." Taking his tone as invitation, she closed the door and came farther into the room. "I was unhappy. I didn't mean to be impertinent and poke and pry."

He put his book aside. "Come here."

She sat on the bed beside him, still with that diffident air and an aching question in her eyes. "Are you still angry?"

"No, but I want you to listen to me very carefully. That kind of talk is utter foolishness. If you mention such a thing again, then the only contact you and I will ever have afterward will be purely as guardian and ward. Is that clear?"

Chloe nodded.

"From now on I want you to enjoy everything London and the Season have to offer," he continued, slipping an arm around her. Immediately she cuddled into his embrace with a little sigh of relief. "I want you to make lots of friends, to flirt, to dance, to go to picnics and parties; to surround yourself with admirers, to become surfeited

with all the amusements available. All right'" He flicked her cheek teasingly with a lock of guinea-gold hair.

"All right," she said, delicately brushing his nipples with a fingertip. "If I must."

Hugo laughed. "I have just given you permission for unbridled pleasure and that's all you can say: if I must."

She bent her head and touched her tongue to his nipples. "So long as I have permission to do this." She turned her head on his chest to look up at him, and he read only sensual mischief now in the eyes previously so full of hurt. "Or would you prefer to play backgammon?"

Vv hen she regained her own bed some considerable time later, Chloe lay sleepless, watching the dawn through her uncurtained window. She had decided that she was going to marry Hugo Lattimer. The only question was how to arrange it.

She had decided they would become lovers and had managed to arrange that in the teeth of his vigorous opposition, so she couldn't see any reason why this next step shouldn't be similarly accomplished.

But she would have to lull him into a false sense of security, as she had done over the other issue. She would obey his orders to the letter, fling herself into whatever pleasures and adventures might come her way, encourage suitors, and be as careless of convention as she chose. Hugo would soon relax again and forget she'd ever brought up the subject of marriage.

She would drive him to distraction with deviltry. He would never know what she was about to do next, and the last thing on his mind would be worrying about whether she still cherished the notion of their marriage. And then, at the right moment…

With a leisurely stretch Chloe yawned and snuggled down under the quilt. At the right moment she would spring it upon him and carry the day. Hugo didn't know what was best for both of them, so she'd just have to prove it to him.