House of Dark Delights (4 page)

“Sorry to have awakened you,” Elic said. “You really conked out there. I'm not surprised, given—”

“Get out!” Larsson yelled. “Get the fuck out of here!”

“Hey, what's gotten into—”

“Get out!”
He lunged across the bed, taking a wild swing that Elic easily ducked.

Elic drew back and landed a swift punch to Larsson's head, dropping him in a heap on the bed. Grimacing, he examined his injured finger, now throbbing from the blow. What would Larsson think, he wondered, when he came to? Would he rationalize it in his mind, convince himself he'd dreamed the whole thing, or perhaps hallucinated it? The chateau's guests tended to experience all kinds of unexplainable phenomena. There was the lube, but wishful thinking being what it was, he could conceivably decide he'd done that to himself while sleep-fucking or whatever.

Rising from the bed, Elic pulled on his jeans and black T-shirt. Larsson had razzed Elic about the shirt earlier that day, both because it bore the Adidas logo—he'd just signed an endorsement contract with Nike—and because it had faded in the wash. “Look at Elic's shirt, how worn and shabby it is,” he'd told Lili with an amused little shake of his head. “Even ball boys don't wear shirts like that.”

Elic whipped off the shirt and tossed it on the floor for Larsson to find in the morning.

                  

She's still watching.

Elic smelled it in the night air as he crossed from the chateau to the bathhouse, that heady fusion of jasmine and pheromones that told him Ilutu-Lili was still somewhere at the edge of the woods, keeping an eye on him—and an ear, as well. She would have heard Larsson pleading with Elle to fuck him, heard him roaring in relief when she finally did. She'd be disillusioned with her mighty
gabru,
and perhaps a bit miffed with Elic for putting Larsson through all that when he could have been tapped with a good deal less drama. She wouldn't stay cross at him long, though, she never did; nor he with her.

Lili…my beloved,
mins ástgurdís.
Would that it was you I was coming to now,
Elic thought as he approached the bathhouse.
Would that I could possess you as I possess all these others for whom I care nothing. Would that I could lie with you and love you and make you truly mine.

Elic's cock stretched the fly of his jeans as he stood in the arched doorway of the temple-like structure, watching Heather take her midnight soak. She reclined on the steps in a far corner of the pool, head back, eyes closed, the red swimsuit a little puddle on the marble floor behind her.

He entered the bathhouse and circled the pool, taking no care to be silent. The other spell he'd cast upon Heather this afternoon, when he'd put it in her mind to take this late-night bath, had ensured that she would be deaf to any sound produced by humanfolk or follets from the moment she lowered herself into the pool. So Larsson's groans and pleas and screams of lust, audible, Elic was quite sure, to the entire Grotte Cachée valley, had not been heard by his fiancée.

Moonlight streamed in through the skylight, infusing Heather's sleek, damp body with a silvery radiance. Her hair, even wet as it was, looked like spun gold, her nipples like little copper coins balanced just so on her petite breasts.

Arkhutus,
that was what Lili called the female guests in whom Elic, the incubus incarnate, chose to plant the seed he took such care to harvest. That Heather was engaged to Larsson was purely a fluke. The
arkhutu
needn't be involved with the
gabru
who'd produced the seed, nor even know him. All they need have in common was excellent genetic potential, as demonstrated by such factors as physical vitality, accomplishments, and intellect. Archer referred to them, in that aridly British way of his, as “prime breeding stock.”

Standing at the edge of the pool not far from Heather, Elic realized she wasn't dozing, as he'd thought. Her submerged right hand, which rested in her lap, was moving in a slow, sensual rhythm. Elic stripped off his jeans and stepped down into the pool—cautiously, so as not to betray his presence by disturbing the water. Lust quivered up his legs, settling hot and insistent in his loins; the water would have contained a lingering sensual charge from this afternoon even before Heather stepped into it, thus kindling her own sexual heat.

He grew fully erect within a matter of seconds, his cache of
zeru
only fueling his lust. Standing in the water about two yards from Heather, Elic stroked himself in time with her own caress, very lightly, just the fingertips playing up and down the shaft as he gritted his teeth to keep himself in check. It wouldn't do to go off in his hand, thus squandering all that precious seed, but he'd learned that it paid to be as primed as possible. The greater the discharge of seed, the more likely the
arkhutu
was to get pregnant. The position in which he took her was important, too, conception being likeliest if she was on her back, although he sometimes made them lie on their sides, or kneel facedown. And, too, it was imperative that he coax her into the most powerful orgasm possible, the contractions of which would force her cervix into contact with the ejaculate.

If Lili were with him now, she might milk Elic's seed, as he had milked Larsson's, while he pumped away with measured strokes inside this
arkhutu,
trying to make it last, to make the pleasure mount and mount until he was wild with it. Lili sometimes did that for him, amid soft kisses and intimate whispers, often with a little curved steel rod she'd had forged for that purpose by the royal swordsmith to Louis XVI.

Tonight, however, Lili was just a distant, if not quite disinterested, observer.

Elic grasped the head of his cock to squeeze out a few thick drops of pre-come, which he rubbed over the aching instrument to facilitate penetration.
Now.

He crossed to Heather in two strides; by the time she opened her eyes, he was upon her. She drew in a breath to scream. He clamped a hand over her mouth and willed her hearing to return.

“It's me—Elic,” he said, but she was already kicking and struggling. She rammed a fist into his nose, sparking a bolt of pain that had Elic swearing harshly even as he thought,
Good girl.

He tried to pin her into the corner of the pool, but she thrashed and fought like a wild thing, and she was surprisingly strong. She bit his hand to get it off her mouth, but as she was filling her lungs, he clamped a hand to her forehead and said, “
Láta…liggja…
Shh, Heather. Easy. Easy.”

She quieted, her breath coming rapidly as she stared at him. He felt the tension ease from her muscles as her mind and body surrendered to his desire, his aching need—always a heady moment, filled with the promise of exquisite pleasures to come. Her eyes glittered darkly as she held his gaze; her legs fell open. Elic knelt on the floor of the pool and slid his cock up and down the cleft of her sex, feeling the heat and dampness of her arousal even underwater.

Closing his hands over her breasts, he whispered against her lips, “You're about to have the most extraordinary dream.”

One

May 1749

D
ARIUS, CURLED
up in his little box of straw in the gatehouse, awoke to Frederic, the guard on duty, barking out,
“Halte! Qui va là?”

“It's Mrs. Hayes with the virgins,” responded a woman in English. “Sir Francis is expecting us.”

Darius rose, quivering as he stretched the kinks out of his back, and leapt from his box. A lady stood silhouetted against the setting sun on the other side of the portcullis barring the arched entryway. She was plump and matronly, her steely hair mostly hidden beneath the hood of a long red cloak.

“What is the watchword?” demanded Frederic, whose English, like his French, bore a pronounced Swiss-German accent. He was, like the two dozen other guards charged with maintaining the peace and privacy of Grotte Cachée, a Swiss mercenary, members of a breed prized throughout Europe for their discipline, skill, and prudence. So discreetly did Frederic and his brethren fulfill their responsibilities that the chateau's guests rarely noticed them, despite their rather garish red and blue striped uniforms.

“Do what thou wilt,” she said with a sigh of annoyance. “Now, will you kindly raise this bloody thing and let us pass? We're late as it is, and Sir Francis doesn't like to be kept waiting.”

“The cart, it must go 'round back to the stable,” said Frederic as he cranked the windlass that operated the portcullis's pulley system. There came a battery of creaks and groans, underscored by a high-pitched metallic grating that Darius could only hear in his present feline incarnation.

Slinking beneath the big iron grate as it rose, he crossed the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat. On the path out front stood a cart full of prettily attired young women, gazing up at Château de la Grotte Cachée as if awestruck.

“Leave your shawls and mantles in the cart, lasses, but don't forget those fans,” Mrs. Hayes ordered. “Necks high, shoulders down, arms curved lightly outward. Pinch your cheeks and plump up those bubbies.”

The cartman repeated the instructions in French as he handed the girls down from his vehicle. They were young and creamy skinned, fresh little peaches in dainty lace caps and frocks of dimity and flower-sprigged lawn. They giggled and whispered as Mrs. Hayes ushered them through the gatehouse and into the chateau's enclosed courtyard, their gaits naively rustic, their skirts swishing against Darius as he followed along. They all wore exactly the same scent, an all-too-common
eau de parfum
redolent of rosemary, bergamot, and orange blossom, no doubt supplied by Mrs. Hayes.

“They await you in the withdrawing room next to the chapel.” Frederic pointed toward an arched doorway in the castle's west range.

“What ho,” said Mrs. Hayes when she noticed Darius. “Seems a little gray ghost has thrown in with us.” She squatted down to pet him, but he dodged her before she could. He could mingle with the chateau's guests on those rare occasions when curiosity got the better of him, such as this evening, so long as he was careful to steer clear of actual physical contact. “Skittish, are you? Aye, but you'll fit right in with the rest of these coy little pusses.”

The girls fell silent as they neared the fountain in the center of the courtyard, a stone pool surmounted by a statue of a man and a woman joined in carnal union as water sluiced over them from a jug held aloft by a handmaid. It wasn't the sculpture, indelicate though it was, that had stunned the girls into silence, Darius knew. It was the gentleman kneeling over the edge of the pool with his gold-shot silk coat thrown up and his breeches around his knees, grunting in pain as a lady in an ornate silver half-mask whipped his buttocks with a length of rattan.

“God's balls!” he cried. “Have mercy, my lady.”

“Is that you, Your Grace?” asked the whoremistress. “Came all the way to France for a good caning, eh?”

The prostrate gentleman, a duke judging from the term of address, raised his head and grinned like a basket of chips. “Mrs. Hayes! I see you've brought the cherries for the banquet.”

“Did I say you could speak?” demanded the masked lady. “You shall take a dozen more strokes for that,” she said as she brought the cane down with whistling speed.

The duke emitted an ecstatic little moan even as he reached between his legs to frig himself.

“Fie!” His tormenter smacked the offending hand with her cane, saying, “You may spend when I say you may spend, and not a moment sooner.”

“As you please, my lady,” muttered the duke as he lowered his head and raised his rosy ass.

“Come, poppets,” said Mrs. Hayes as she led them, along with Darius, through the arched doorway and into a little vestibule.

A burly guard, one of the expansive retinue who'd accompanied the chateau's current guests from England, said, “'Tis high time, Mrs. Hayes. I was thinkin' you'd been set upon by bandits.”

“Sorry, Tommy. Two of the wenches tried to hold out for more money, so it took a bit of dickering to get them to come.”

“Aye, but they'll all come before the night's through,” Tommy snickered.

Extending her hand, Mrs. Hayes said, “Fifty quid apiece, as usual, plus my traveling expenses.”

Tommy made a quick count of the girls, then pulled a sack of coins from inside his coat and handed it to the procuress. “Come along, then.”

Unlocking the door behind him, he gestured the group into the chapel withdrawing room, a candlelit chamber furnished with silk settees and low marble tables. The centuries-old tapestries that normally graced these walls had been taken down and replaced with paintings depicting men in white monks' robes disporting themselves with nubile, half-naked nuns. Over the central dining table, where a crystal chandelier normally hung, dangled a lamp shaped like a batlike monster with an erection almost as big as itself. A carved wooden sign hanging over the doorway to the chapel read
Fay ce que voudras
:
“Do what thou wilt,” the motto of England's Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe, better known as the Hellfire Club.

About two dozen gentlemen and half as many ladies occupied the room, some standing and some reclining, all exquisitely attired. The ladies, he saw, all wore silver brooches inscribed
Love and Friendship
on the bosoms of their deeply décolleté gowns. Two of them had their gowns half-unlaced, exhibiting embroidered satin stays so low cut as to display their breasts in their entirety. One lady's gown had been fashioned with a skirt that opened to the waist in back; her petticoats and panniers had likewise been split to reveal tantalizing glimpses of flesh every time she moved.

The perfumes and scented accoutrements of the assembled company—handkerchiefs, sachets, and powders—merged in a flowery-sweet miasma. There were two maidservants, as well, serving wine and such aphrodisiacal delicacies as oysters, caviar, almonds, pine nuts, and figs. They all turned to watch as Mrs. Hayes ushered in the young women, but the only man who was mannerly enough to rise was Darius's fellow follet, Inigo.

“Bonsoir, mesdemoiselles,”
Inigo said with a bow. The charming young satyr was attired for the evening in a gold-embroidered satin coat of some dark hue which Darius's feline eyes couldn't quite place—something reddish or brownish, most likely. His unruly curls were caught in a ribbon at his nape, leaving just enough on the sides to cover those telltale ears. He captured Darius's gaze and winked.

Darius winked back.

The rest of the gentlemen appraised the procession with a frankness that would have seemed grossly rude under ordinary circumstances. Two ladies lounging side by side, one wearing a mask trimmed in peacock feathers, conferred behind their fans as they pointed to this girl and that. Darius swiveled his ears to home in on their whispered comments. “…in the yellow stripes, with those big blue eyes? Wouldn't you just love to bend her over your knee?”

Darius wove his way between the ladies' rustling silk skirts and the men's white-stockinged legs to the doorway that led to the chapel, where he was less likely to be noticed and pestered. If he'd thought about it, he would have made himself invisible before coming in here; it was the safest course of action in a room this crowded.

“Mrs. Hayes! You are late,” said a gentleman seated at a dining table in the center of the room as he snapped an enameled snuffbox shut. He was a gangly fellow of perhaps forty, with a long nose and a pale, oddly soft-featured visage. Like some of the other men, he wore a wig, but his was by far the most ornate and heavily powdered.

“My apologies, Lord Sandwich, and my compliments,” said Mrs. Hayes with a little curtsey. “Pray, where might Sir Francis be? I was to deliver these charming lambs to him personally.”

“The chief friar grew weary of waiting and retired to the chapel to make ready for the mass. These are the virgins, then?”

“Yes, and please you, m'lord.” Herding the girls into a semicircle, the better for viewing, Mrs. Hayes announced, “For your delight and diversion, gentlemen, eight unpolluted and intact maidenheads, fresh from the local villages. In the roseate bloom of youth, each and every one, virgin rosebuds as yet uncropped. I have tutored these innocents myself in the many and varied arts of love, the better to enhance their defloration during your rites of Venus.”

The whoremistress clapped her hands twice, a signal to the girls to execute awkward curtseys, glancing at one another as if to make sure they were doing it right. From the way they jostled each other, it was clear they were unused to the wide, hooped skirts in which they'd been outfitted for their presentation.

Scanning them with a critical expression, Sandwich said, “Intact, you say?”

“Pure and unsullied, one and all.”

“We shall see.” Lord Sandwich snapped his fingers at the girl closest to him, a buxom beauty with coppery hair, and signaled for her to approach. “Come, come,” he said, pushing his chair away from the table so that there was room for her to stand before him.

“Step lively, Nadine,” urged Mrs. Hayes as she prodded the girl.

He gestured her closer until she stood between his outstretched, cat-stick legs. “I shan't hurt you.”

“He'd rather she hurt
him
—eh, Sandwich?” some wag remarked.

“Lift your skirts, then,” Sandwich said.

Nadine greeted that command with a blink of bewilderment.

Mrs. Hayes said, “They only speak the parleyvoo, your lordship.”

“Soulevez votre robe.”
Indicating the girl's skirts, Sandwich flicked his hand, cloaked to the fingertips in frilly lace cuffs.

Nadine looked around at the raptly attentive audience, cheeks blossoming with color.

“I'll have that one,” someone remarked. “I do so love it when they squirm and blush.”

“I daresay they've been well trained to do so,” someone else observed. “Is that not right, Mrs. H?”

Ignoring the taunt, Mrs. Hayes stepped forward and started lifting the young woman's dress, but Sandwich slapped her hand away. “What's the chit being paid for, if not to do our bidding?
Soulevez-le, mademoiselle.
”

Closing her eyes, Nadine gathered her skirts and raised them to her knees.

“Oh, for pity's sake,” Sandwich growled. “
Plus haut.
Like this.” Leaning forward, he grabbed her hands and forced her to raise the mass of dimity, stiffened petticoats and panniers chest-high, leaving her naked from the waist down.

“By Jove, her cunny's as red as her face,” someone chuckled.

“A ripe little split apricot, just begging to be licked.”

“Be a sport, Sandwich,” said an Italian-accented fellow who was craning his neck to see. “Turn her 'round so the rest of us can have a peek.”

“Unlace her! Let's have a taste of those apple dumplings.”

“All in good time, gentlemen.” Nudging the girl's slippered feet apart with a high-heeled shoe, Sandwich parted her redtufted slit and pushed his middle finger in. She sucked in a breath, her eyes shut tight, as he probed that which had ostensibly never felt the touch of a male hand.

“Right. She'll do.” Pointing to a row of nuns'habits hanging by hooks in the robing alcove behind him, Sandwich told her, in French, to change into one of them, leaving herself completely unclothed beneath. He instructed one of the ladies, a Mademoiselle de Beaumont, to assist the virgins in their disrobing, which for reasons beyond Darius's ken prompted much appreciative laughter.

“So soon?” asked Mrs. Hayes. “It took me all day to get them properly flashed up, and now you want them to take it all off?”

“'Tis your fault for being late. They need to be ready for the banquet as soon as the mass has ended.” Sandwich beckoned to the next girl in line, who lifted her skirts without being asked and barely flinched during the examination. “You may take your leave, Mrs. Hayes. I'd say we have the matter well in hand here.”

He inspected the girls one by one, pronouncing them either intact or “close enough,” before sending them off to the alcove to disrobe in full view of the guests. The gentlemen—some of the ladies, too—opined liberally on their various charms as they unlaced their dresses and peeled off their underpinnings, assisted by the fair-haired, French-accented Mademoiselle de Beaumont. A few of the maidens struck Darius as remarkably blasé about the lewd exhibition, one or two genuinely embarrassed. Others appeared so overwrought despite their cooperation that he suspected they were acting the part they'd been taught to act.

In any event, their spectators seemed appreciative enough. Several of the men stroked themselves as they took in the little performance. Darius noticed Inigo ushering a pretty little thing from the room, his front trouser panel already half undone, one hand fisted around a wine bottle.

A strikingly handsome man lowered his raven-haired lady companion from his lap to the floor between his legs and unbuttoned his knee-breeches to free his erection. Those sitting nearby watched with undisguised interest as the lady licked and fondled the rigid organ. “Brava,” they praised when she swallowed it to the very root, causing the recipient of her ministrations to clutch her head, moaning, “Ah, Lili, but you are a talented wench.”