Taming the Rake Read online

  “I hope this is the right place,” Cecelia said. “It seems so quiet. Too quiet. And where are all the coaches?”

  “I don’t know about the coaches, but this has to be it,” Gina stated adamantly, refusing to acknowledge the possibility that they might be in the wrong place—even though she’d been having much the same thought. The eerie quiet of the night seemed strangely at odds with the bastion of depravity that hovered so close.

  Dark rumors of pagan rituals and even devilry had shrouded the place for years. Sir John Dashwood, or Dashwood, as he was still called despite inheriting the baronetcy, had followed in the steps of his illustrious uncle, Sir Francis Dashwood, by reviving the Hellfire Club originally formed more than fifty years ago. A distinctly unfortunate decision in her opinion. “The caves are reputed to lie under the church.”

  “But isn’t that a church there?”

  Gina squinted into the darkness. “I don’t think so. I think that it’s only meant to look like one.” Her heart fluttered in her chest. “It must be the entrance.”

  They walked about another hundred feet and reached what appeared to be ruins, but which was actually just the façade of a Gothic church built into the side of the hill surrounded by yew trees.

  “It’s quite beautiful,” Cecelia noted.

  “On the outside, at least,” Gina murmured dryly.

  They stopped before the arched stone entrance and looked up. Etched in a plaque were the words, Fay ce que voudras. Middle French for “Do what you will.”

  How fitting. Gina snorted and turned to her friend. “I think we’ve found it.”

  She listened, half-expecting to hear something inside, but all she could hear was the gentle hum of the night that surrounded them.

  Cecelia leaned forward and cautiously peered into the darkness. “Are you sure about this, Gina? It’s not too late to turn around.” She shivered. “I feel as though I’m in a graveyard.”

  Gina wanted to. Something wasn’t quite right about this place. But the need to see Coventry was stronger than her fear. Taking a deep breath, Gina gazed into the beautiful, but anxious, blue eyes of her friend. “I don’t like it either, but I must speak to him. It won’t take long. Stay in the shadows and shield your eyes as best you can.”

  Cecelia’s eyes danced with mischief. “I don’t know, Gina, if I’m going to be disgraced, I might as well learn something along the way.”

  Despite her growing trepidation, Gina grinned and walked through the archway into the darkness. Cold air and the musky smell of damp assailed her. As there was only one way to go, they crept forward straight ahead. She could just make out the flicker of a torch in the distance. Slowly, they wound their way down the tunnel deeper into the labyrinth of caves.

  “The walls are so white,” Cecelia whispered. “Almost ghostly.”

  Gina nodded, having noticed the unmistakable white walls as well. “It looks as though it may have been an old chalk quarry.”

  “Did you notice the drawings?”

  “Yes.” They were rather hard to miss. The naïve style carvings of demonic faces abounded along the dusky walls.

  “Perhaps the rumors are true,” Cecelia said with a slight tremor in her voice.

  Gina shivered. The bone-chilling effects of the tunnels had not been lost on her either. “I hope not,” she said, unconvincingly. There was something very unsettling about this place.

  The torches became more frequently interspersed, and soon the raucous sounds of celebration could be heard leading their way like a beacon. They saw no one. As if alerting them to what lay ahead, they occasionally passed a statue—man or woman, it seemed not to matter as long as it was nude.

  They must have walked at least a quarter mile through narrow, winding passageways, passing a number of small cell-like rooms before making a sharp right turn and reaching an enormous round grotto decorated to resemble a banqueting hall. A Byzantine banqueting hall. There was no mistaking the eastern influence of the decor with its bold, colorful festoons of silk draped from the remarkably high ceilings.

  As the room slowly came into focus, Gina heard Cecelia gasp.

  Gina, too, felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. She blinked. Not quite believing what she was seeing.

  Scandalous was an understatement. What appeared before her was a hedonistic display of unfathomable dimensions, certainly far beyond the realms of her sheltered imagination. It was a pagan celebration in the midst of a Sultan’s lair.

  Despite the dank chill of the tunnels, the room radiated a heat that seemed almost unnatural. Gina knew she shouldn’t look, but she couldn’t turn away, mesmerized by the sight before her. Perhaps fifty people crowded the room in various stages of undress. There were men dressed as satyrs and women as nymphs. Others wore long robes—men in white druid’s robes and women in black robes that resembled a nun’s habit. The latter was a stroke of good fortune; at least they wouldn’t be completely out of place in their long, black dominoes.

  But not all of the occupants wore clothing.

  Men lounged on enormous pillows with naked women strewn over them; in many cases two or three women entertained one man. Some were kissing, all were drinking heavily from great casks of wine, and quite a few smoked from long, thin pipes. She held her breath, not daring to breathe. Opium.

  In one corner she noticed a half-naked nymph arching her back as she bounced up and down on the lap of a man with a painted face and horns. Gina’s cheeks flooded with heat when she realized what they were doing in full view of whoever cared to watch.

  She turned her head. It was hard to know where to look. Nowhere was safe from depravity. Lewd paintings covered the walls. A large table laden with a veritable feast of roasted fowl, breads, and fruit dominated the center of the room—but even that was not immune. A naked woman lying flat on her back and covered with fruit was the centerpiece. A group of men dressed in robes were picking pieces off of her with their fingers and mouths. Her breasts were nearly uncovered except for one grape perched on each nipple. Gina watched in mortified horror as one “monk” picked the grapes off with his teeth, squeezing it until droplets of juice trickled over her nipples, which he then proceeded to suck until she writhed in orgasmic pleasure.

  Gina’s initial shock and embarrassment had worn off to be replaced by revulsion and disgust. The longer she looked, the more her stomach turned. An orgy was not at all what she would have imagined. And nothing like what she’d shared with Coventry. It was sex at its most dispassionate. There was nothing intimate about the scene before her. It was animalistic and base. Lust without any pretense of emotion.

  This wasn’t a simple drawing-room game. The Hellfire Rakes were nothing like the Rake Slayers.

  What existed in this room was a world that she couldn’t have imagined. The veil of civilization had dissolved into dissolute, erotic chaos. A free-for-all of sin and vice.

  They’d fallen into a den of sin. She felt like Persephone in Hades, anxious to leave before she was trapped in the underworld forever. Simply being here, seeing this, felt somehow defiling. Finding Coventry had become secondary to leaving. She and Cecelia were in far over their heads.

  “Come on.” She grabbed Cecelia’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  Mute, Cecelia could only nod.

  They turned to leave, only to find the tunnel behind them blocked by a man—a very large man—in a red druid’s robe. His face was hidden in the shadows of his hood.

  “Where are you two going?” he slurred. “The party isn’t over, it’s just begun.”

  There was something hauntingly familiar in the deep voice.

  Cecelia paled.

  Before Gina could protest or make an excuse, he’d wrapped his arm around Cecelia’s waist and dragged her into the room. Left with no other choice but to go after her friend, Gina followed.

  It was a mistake. As soon as she entered the hall, bodies surrounded her and hands groped her as she tried to keep close to Cecelia. Somehow she found her hands clasped by two o