House of Dark Delights (23 page)

In the picture to which she kept returning, a bearded man knelt with his lover's legs thrown over his shoulders, pressing his erection into her. Catherine had known, of course, that sexual intercourse involved the insertion of the male member into the female, but knowing about it and actually seeing it were two very different things. The sight of a distended penis half-buried in a woman's body was oddly exciting in a way that Catherine wouldn't have predicted. Her face and throat grew warm as she imagined the pushing and straining that must accompany the act; her breathing quickened.

How must it feel, she wondered, to be penetrated like that by a man, to be
taken
in an act of animal passion? She'd always assumed it must be rather distasteful, but the more she looked at the picture, the more she doubted that assumption.

Catherine closed her eyes and lay on her back, envisioning the couple in the picture, not as a black-and-white engraving, but as real, flesh-and-blood lovers sharing their bodies in the ultimate act of intimacy. The image was startlingly real, as if she were watching a stage play, albeit an extremely bawdy one, from the front row. She imagined how it would feel to open herself up like that, physically, to a man, to be made love to, to experience that kind of pleasure.

Extraordinary pleasure.

Catherine felt the most curious sensation of heat and swelling between her legs, and dampness, too, although she wasn't perspiring elsewhere. She hesitated, then pressed a hand to the juncture of her thighs, through her skirt and underpinnings. She rubbed her fingers back and forth slightly, which both relieved and exacerbated the feeling, as when one scratched an itch, only to find that the scratching itself heightened the irritation. She'd never touched herself like this, though she suspected men did occasionally, or at least some men. Abbie had once whispered of walking in on her brother when he was fondling himself “there.”

A hand stroked her breast.

She jolted upright, every nerve on end. For a split second, she thought she saw a shadowy form looming over her in the semidarkness, but the illusion evaporated as she looked around, heart drumming.

No one was there. Of course no one was there. She was alone here. What she'd felt, or thought she'd felt, was a delusion, like the others she'd been experiencing these past few hours.

She lay back down again, an arm thrown over her face.
It isn't real,
she told herself.
It's a figment of my imagination.
From her reading, she knew that hallucinations could be brought on by many factors other than those, such as intoxication or lunacy, which she could discount out of hand in her particular case. Fatigue, dehydration, and stress, all of which she'd been suffering from this afternoon, could make one experience things that weren't really happening.

And then there was the magnetic vortex that had, at the very least, disabled her compass and watch. If it could affect inanimate objects that way, perhaps it could also affect the human mind.

She felt a kind of ticklish heat on both breasts through her shirtwaist and camisole, as of fingertips trailing over them very, very softly. Her heart raced; her lungs pumped. Then came a breathless warmth as the hands caressed her more firmly, but still with a mesmerizing gentleness.

It isn't real,
she told herself, even as she luxuriated in the soft friction, her breasts seeming almost to swell, her nipples tightening into stiff little nubs. None of this was real. It was her mind playing tricks on her, giving her that which she most desired—the pleasure she must deny herself in reality, but about which she was wildly curious.

The hands moved downward to her skirt, gathering up the heavy brown wool and the linen petticoat beneath. She felt them on her stockinged legs, and then her bare thighs, which they parted. Feeling starved for breath, Catherine folded both arms over her face, her eyes tightly shut, whispering, “This isn't real. It isn't happening.”

There came a little creak of bedropes as the mattress dipped between her outspread legs, almost as if someone had lowered himself there. She felt the brushing of fingers through her linen underdrawers and a little plucking sensation as one of the buttons securing the slit in the drawers popped from its buttonhole. Or seemed to.

A second button slid free, and a third, and a forth, with maddening slowness, the fingertips grazing her very lightly along her most sensitive flesh. When at last the slit was unbuttoned, she felt the fabric being spread open, exposing that part of her that even she had never really seen, never touched except to bathe. The cool air was a shock on her hotly aroused sex, magnifying her sense of exposure.

She should have been appalled. She should have bolted off this bed and fled from this strange place, this dark and delicious phantasm. Instead, she lay still and trembling as the unseen hands parted, caressed…A soft moan escaped her as the touch turned rhythmic, but still teasingly light, compelling her to lift her hips to meet it.

Her lungs stilled when she felt hot gusts of breath on her inflamed sex, and the tickle of what could only be hair brushing her legs.
No, surely not,
she thought as something soft and wet glided between her labia, sending shivers of arousal throughout her body. She clutched the quilt in her fists, thinking,
He can't be…He wouldn't…

The tongue—for that was what it was, or what she imagined it to be—lapped and flicked and explored until she was writhing and moaning as if maddened by fever. She felt a prickly scraping on her inner thighs, as of several days' growth of beard. The contrast of the sharp bristles with the hot, wet, wonderfully curious tongue only served to stoke her escalating arousal.

She caught her breath as a finger slid into her, moving slowly, thoughtfully, as if investigating the snug, ultrasensitive passage. It could enter only to the first knuckle and no farther. Still, the sensation of being caressed from within was so gratifying that she strained her hips upward, wanting more, wanting
him.

The finger withdrew. He shifted position, settling his naked hips between her thighs. His hand moved between them, and then came a different kind of pressure as something much more broad and rigid pressed into her. She realized what it was and whispered, “Yes. Yes…”

But then the pressure became a burning ache as he pushed against her hymen. Alarmed, for it hurt, hallucination or no, she opened her eyes and tried to sit up.

A hand took hers; she felt warm lips against her palm. “Shh, it's all right,” whispered her imaginary lover in a deep, vaguely accented voice. He eased her back down and lowered himself onto her, scooping both hands beneath her hips to lift her. When she closed her eyes again, he seemed as real as if he were actually there, warm and weighty and masculine. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling the hard-packed, straining muscles of his back and shoulders.

“It's all right,” he repeated as he pushed, just slightly, and again, and again. She felt impossibly stretched, but that sensation was overwhelmed by the primal thrill of being penetrated, possessed. He inched into her gradually, breaching her maidenhead by increments until he was completely inside her, a thick, solid presence that seemed to fill her up so completely, she could scarcely breathe.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her, and then he began moving again, slowly and shallowly at first, then more deeply and with mounting urgency. His breathing grew harsh; every muscle in his body was as taut as a bowstring.

The lingering pain of defloration dissipated, replaced by the same pleasure she'd felt when he'd been stroking and licking her, only more intense because he was inside her. She met his thrusts with increasing fervor, driven by a wild and primitive hunger she'd never felt before. The pleasure seemed to expand inside her until it felt, suddenly, as if she were teetering on the edge of some heart-pounding abyss over which she had no control. Bewildered and apprehensive, she tried to hold still in the hope of staving off whatever was about to happen.

“Don't be afraid,” he whispered. “Let it happen. Give yourself over to it.”

“I can't. I just—”

“You can.” He reached between them to touch her where they were joined.

It was like firing a bullet into a stick of dynamite. Her body erupted in convulsive ecstasy, tearing a raw cry from her throat as she tumbled over the edge.

Three

B
Y THE
time Catherine returned to the chateau that night, having made her way back down the mountain in the dark, she found the dining room empty but for a few maidservants clearing away the remains of an elaborate dinner. They directed her to a nearby sitting room, in the doorway of which she paused, hesitating to enter dressed in her grimy day clothes, her hair springing from her chignon in sweat-dampened tendrils.

Six people—her father, Thomas, Archer, Inigo, Lili, and Elic—were relaxing over coffee and brandy in the sumptuously appointed room, the men in dinner suits, Lili in an off-the-shoulder gown of shimmering aubergine silk. Her lush mane of black hair was piled atop her head in a luxuriant mass; diamonds dangled from her ears and encircled her throat. She was perched on the arm of the velvet-upholstered club chair in which Thomas sat with a book open on his lap—of course—her arm brushing his as she leaned over to turn the page.

It looked like a painting by Sargent—the rich interior gilded by candlelight, the careless grace of the subjects. Lili and Thomas looked as if they belonged together, with their dark, gleaming hair and elegant attire. White tie was flattering on most men, and Thomas was no exception. It made him look older, more sophisticated, especially since he seemed so comfortable in it. Catherine had seen him in dinner attire many times but the sight had never struck her quite the same way before. Perhaps, she thought, it was because she was seeing Thomas through Lili's eyes, without so many of her own preconceptions.

Lili pointed to the page and said something too softly for Catherine to hear.

It must have been some witty comment, because Thomas chuckled as he turned toward her, his gaze lighting for a fleeting moment on her bosom before he looked up and met her eyes. He looked at her the way a man looked at a sexually desirable woman, not leeringly, of course, but with an unmistakable glint of admiration. That look shouldn't have surprised Catherine—Lili was magnificent, after all—but for some reason she'd never thought of Thomas as susceptible to feminine allure in the same way that other men were. Absurd, of course. An ivory-tower academician he might be, but he was still a man.

Catherine's father was the first one to notice her standing there in the doorway. “There you are, my dear. Back from your adventures at last.” Elijah set aside his own book and rose to his feet, as did the other gentlemen. “We went ahead and ate without you.”

“Are you all right, Catherine?” asked Thomas as he took off his reading spectacles.

“I'm fine. I hope I didn't worry you.”

Flipping up his coattails as he lowered himself back onto a couch strewn with books, her father said, “Kit and Thomas wanted to send out a search party, thinking you'd wandered too deeply into the cave and gotten yourself in a pickle. I assured them you were an old hand at such adventures, you and your trusty compass, and that you wouldn't dream of venturing beyond
Cella.
”

“I lost track of time,” Catherine said.

“That's easy to do, in certain areas of the cave.” Mr. Archer, seated across a backgammon board from Elic, was studying Catherine a bit too fixedly for her comfort. “People have reported all sorts of strange incidents.”

He knows,
Catherine thought—or he suspected. Had other people really experienced the same types of phenomena that she had? If so, that would make the vortex theory likelier than the thirst-fatigue-stress theory. The notion, however, that terrestrial magnetism could produce not just compass anomalies but full-blown delusions would no doubt be greeted with hilarity by the scientific community.

Steadfastly avoiding Archer's gaze, Catherine said, “Actually, I fell asleep,” which was true, if a bit disingenuous. She
had
dozed off after that remarkable fantasy of lovemaking, but not for long, she was fairly sure. When she awoke, it took her a moment to recall where she was and what had happened—or what she'd imagined had happened. The delusion had extended to a feeling of actual soreness between her legs, which had diminished only slightly in the interim. What she wanted to believe, what she
had
to believe for the sake of her sanity, was that it was just a residual imprint of an exceptionally powerful hallucination.

“Are you sure you're all right?” asked Thomas, eyeing her with concern. “You look a bit worse for wear.”

“I've no doubt of that,” she said. “All I really need is a nice warm bath and a good night's sleep.”

“And some food, I'll wager,” Thomas said. “You missed a splendid dinner. A leg of lamb with onions and potatoes in white wine.”

“Gigot Brayaude,”
Elic said. “One of our cook's specialties.”

“I'll have someone in the kitchen bring you a plate,” said Archer as he heaved himself out of his chair and reached for the bellpull.

“No, please don't,” Catherine said. “I can't stay. I'm not…” She gestured toward her grubby clothing.

“Nonsense.” Lili came over and put an arm around Catherine, drawing her into the room. “We don't stand on ceremony here. Please join us. Have a brandy while you're waiting for your supper. You look as if you could use it.”

“Or something a little stronger, perhaps?” Inigo lifted the stemmed glass in his hand, which held a milky, pale green liquid with an almost phosphorescent quality. On a cut-crystal tray next to him were a pitcher of water, a slotted spoon, a bowl of sugar cubes, and a bottle of Pernod.

“Inigo, if you turn my daughter into an absinthe fiend,” drawled Elijah without raising his gaze from his book, “I shall be forced to reconsider my high opinion of you.”

“A brandy would be lovely,” said Catherine as she took a seat on the couch next to her father, shoving some of his books aside and piling others onto the floor. “Thank you.”

A maid entered in response to Archer's summons. “A supper plate for Miss Wheeler,” he said, “and have one of the chambermaids draw her a bath.”

The lamb
was
splendid, and Catherine was famished. She had to struggle to keep from wolfing it down as Elijah delivered a lecture on the history of Auvergne, working backward in time from Frankish rule to Visigothic to Roman.

“The Romans occupied this area for just over five hundred years,” her father said, “beginning in 52
B.C.
, when the armies of Julius Caesar defeated the legendary Gallic warlord Vercingetorix at the Battle of Alésia. The battle and the fighting that led up to it are described in excellent detail within these pages.” Lifting a very old-looking book from the stack on the floor, he opened it to its title page.

C. JULII

CÆSARIS

COMMENTARII

DE BELLO GALLICO

ET CIVILI

TOMUS VII.

Lili came to look over Elijah's shoulder, leaning down so that her hair brushed his. A warm, floral scent wafted about her, as if she were a rare and exotic flower. “Julius Caesar himself wrote this?” she asked.

“He, er, he did,” said Elijah, seeming a little rattled by the feminine attention. “And it's the most authoritative account available, not only of the Gallic Wars, but of the Gauls themselves—or, what he called the Galli. They called themselves the Celtæ. The Romans had been colonizing Gaul for some time before they invaded, so there'd been a great deal of trade and communication between the two civilizations.”

Mr. Archer said, “I actually have a little collection of Roman coins that have turned up here over the years, along with various other Roman and Gaulish
objets.
”

“Thomas sniffed out a Gaulish glossary in the appendix of a book in the library this afternoon,” Elijah said. “It's not much of a glossary, because the Gauls weren't much for writing, but he looked up
væsus,
and there was a definition. It means great, or worthy, so it would stand to reason that ‘Dusivæsus' translates as ‘Great and worthy dusios.'”

“What of the second inscription?” Lili turned toward Elijah, their faces so close one would have thought they were about to kiss. “The one that's sort of hacked out roughly over the first? Did you manage to translate that?” She met Elic's gaze across the room in a very brief, unspoken communion of some sort. He paused in the act of moving some backgammon checkers to give her the kind of smile you gave someone for whom words are never necessary.

They had a bond, Elic and Lili; it was clear from the way they looked at each other, the way they acted, the little touches and smiles. Unless Catherine was very much mistaken, they were lovers. Yet, both last night and tonight, she'd flirted shamelessly with both Elijah and Thomas, and Elic hadn't so much as raised an eyebrow.

Perhaps, Catherine thought, they were free lovers. Given the sexual liberality that appeared to be the norm at Grotte Cachée, it seemed possible, perhaps even probable. The only real question in Catherine's mind was what a woman like Lili saw in scholarly types like Elijah and Thomas, especially since she'd evidently already captured the heart of Elic, who was almost preternaturally handsome, seemingly intelligent, and with a most amiable disposition. Her father, though fit and good-looking for his age, had to be a good twenty years older than Lili. As for Thomas…

She stole a glance at him. He was looking at her with an expression that was contemplative and vaguely sad, his snifter of brandy cupped loosely in his hand, seemingly forgotten. She looked away, confounded by his melancholic beauty, then back again. Clearly sensing her discomfiture, he gave her a reassuring little smile that, in light of all that had transpired between them of late, wasn't hard to interpret.

It's all right,
that smile seemed to say.
You don't want me, so I shall trouble you no more with my attentions. We can carry on as friends.

“We, er, we did translate that second inscription,” said Elijah as Lili leaned in even closer, one hand resting nonchalantly on his shoulder. “It was written in the oldest runic alphabet we know of, which is called Elder Futhark, and it's actually two linked words in Old Norse—
kjønn,
meaning…well, ‘sex,' and
præll,
meaning ‘thrall,' or ‘slave.'”

“So it means sex slave,” said Inigo. “Funny, I can't recall having posed for it. Must have been in my cups at the time.”

He shot a grin, for some reason, at Elic, who rolled his eyes in response.

Elijah said, “Kit was kind enough to point me to a handwritten
Histoire de Grotte Cachée
as recounted by Seigneur des Ombres's…grandfather, was it?”

“Great-grandfather,” said Kit.

“Of course,” Elijah said, “it's a bit cursory regarding the pre-Roman history of this valley, which is understandable, given the Gauls' disdain for the written word. There were exactly one and a half pages in the
Histoire
devoted to the Gallic settlement in this valley, which was called Vernem. The Vernae, or most of them, fled the village for parts unknown, one step ahead of Caesar's army. The Romans, you see, had a habit of enslaving conquered tribespeople, and to a Gaul, there was no worse fate than enslavement.”

“If that's so,” Catherine asked, “why didn't they all leave? You said
most
of them fled. What of the rest?”

“They stayed behind and were turned into slaves. They did have a sort of leader, apparently, someone referred to in the
Histoire
as Anextlomarus, which translates as Protector. He's credited with having ensured that the Vernan slaves were treated well and permitted to remain in the valley. Kit, you probably know more about the Vernae than any man alive. Any idea why that group stayed here?”

Mr. Archer frowned into his brandy as if considering the question. “Couldn't really say, old man.” His gaze shifted briefly, but never met Elijah's.

He's lying,
Catherine thought.
But why?

“I'd love to know the answer to that,” Elijah said. “And, of course, I'm desperate to sort out the mystery behind those damned—” He glanced at Catherine. “Excuse me, ladies. The mystery behind those satyrs at the bathhouse. They're just so un-Roman. It simply makes no sense. It's maddening, utterly maddening.” With a self-deprecatory little chuckle, he said, “Julia—my late wife…”

“Yes, you've mentioned her,” said Lili as she crossed the room to sit next to Inigo. In fact, he'd mentioned her at least a dozen times since they'd been there.

Elijah said, “Once, when I was obsessed with unraveling a particularly thorny historical enigma, Julia told me I would never be satisfied unless I could travel back in time and witness the event for myself. She was right about that,” he said soberly, “as she was about so many things.”

Lili smiled as Inigo whispered something into her ear. “What a splendid idea. Dr. Wheeler, why don't you join us tomorrow, Inigo and me, for a little picnic in the woods. You shouldn't waste this beautiful weather cooped up in that dusty old library. There's a little clearing in a thicket of oaks that you might find—”

“The nemeton?” Archer sat up, scowling. “Do you really think—?”

“He's a mythologist,” Lili said. “If anyone could appreciate the nemeton, it would be Dr. Wheeler.”

“A nemeton?” Elijah said excitedly. “A druidic sacred grove?”

“Well,” Archer said, “it hasn't been used for ceremonial purposes in some nineteen hundred—”

“Of course I'd like to see it,” said Elijah. “I'd
love
to see it. Thank you for asking.”

As her father launched into yet another lesson, this one on the subject of druidic rituals, Catherine excused herself and went upstairs to the bathroom. The wood-paneled tub was filled and steaming, her blue-checked wrapper draped over the back of a chair. She undressed, nonplussed to find the inner skin of her thighs pink and raw from having been rubbed by a beard-roughened jaw.