There was no time to dwell on ghost stories. Before the final peal had ceased to ring, a door burst open in a flare of light. Through the incandescent gap processed a shadowy line of dark-robed men.
For an insane moment, Charlotte wondered if she had stumbled through a gap in time, falling backwards into a London of long ago, well before King Henry’s Reformation, when skirted friars held their ceremonies in chapels lit by sputtering candlelight. But there were no vespers being sung by this congregation, no holy chants. Instead, Charlotte could hear the low mutter of decidedly modern conversation, scented by a strong tang of spirituous liquor below the pervasive reek of scented smoke. There was nothing insubstantial about these phantoms. Their feet shuffled and their robes scratched and their breath misted in the air.
Charlotte pressed as close as she could to the nearest pillar, moulding herself to it as though she could become a part of it. Thank goodness her evening cloak was a dark colour! Hopefully, if anyone looked her way, they would just think it was a particularly lumpy pillar. Charlotte drew as much comfort as she could from that thought.
Along the length of the nave, the friars had drawn themselves into double ranks. Even in the poor light, Charlotte could see that their costume was careless at best. Polished black boots protruded beneath some robes and bare feet from others. Only one or two had elected the roped sandals of their pretended order. Now, as one, they turned their hooded heads towards the glowing door.
The light lurched forward like a living pillar of flame. Charlotte ducked behind her pillar. Not a living flame, Charlotte realised, carefully peering from behind her pillar, but a living man carrying a torch nearly as tall as he was, with a centre twice as wide as the head of a man. It made him look as though he were wearing a fiery headdress rather than the same monastic attire as all the others.
Striding to the centre of the long line of friars, he thumped the base of his torch twice against the flagged floor, sending the flames waving through the air like pagan dancers.
Holding the torch in two hands, he raised it high above his head, his long sleeves falling back from a pair of elegant wrists, circled in barbaric gold bracelets that appeared to twist up and up and up, ending near the elbow in stylised elephant heads.
‘Welcome, my brimstone brethren!’ he roared, and the congregation roared back, an earthy sound that resounded through the arched ceiling and made Charlotte’s cold limbs tremble. ‘Well met by moonlight!’
Charlotte’s fingers tightened on the fluted stone of the pillar. She knew that voice. Charlotte had an excellent memory for voices. She had always thought it must be nature’s way of compensating for making her so very bad at recognising faces. It was a voice more suited to Almack’s than to pagan ceremony. And it had been whispering innuendos into her ear only hours before.
‘I don’t see a moon, do you?’ someone called out. Lord Henry Innes! That was quite definitely Lord Henry.
‘You want a moon, I’ll show you a moon!’ someone else rejoined, in slurred tones that suggested he had supped on more than moonlight. Bending over, he mimed what was obviously meant to be a vulgar gesture.
‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen!’ the master of ceremonies admonished, and this time there was absolutely no doubt as to who it was. ‘Would you defile the court of the elephant god?’
Elephant god? Charlotte felt as though she’d taken that tumble Robert had prophesied, right off her horse onto the hard winter ground in Hyde Park. Her chest felt very tight, as though all the breath had been knocked out of her, and her lungs refused to function properly. Nothing made the least bit of sense.
That was Sir Francis Medmenham. Sir Francis Medmenham and Lord Henry and the false doctor and goodness only knew who else. Charlotte froze behind her pillar, as still as a stone saint. They mustn’t find her here. The scandal surrounding Penelope’s betrothal would be as nothing to this. Whatever her defiant words to Robert, Charlotte had no desire to find herself the brimstone bride of Sir Francis Medmenham. With the torch in front of him, his face seemed made of flame, more demon than man.
Feeling her way back towards the wall, moving as softly as she could, Charlotte began inching towards the door. If she could just keep her back to the wall and silently slip out while they were all occupied with Sir Francis …
Charlotte bumped backwards into the wall, giving silent thanks for the shadows cast by the pillars and the general dark decrepitude of her surroundings. Just a few yards to the left and she would be safe. All she had to do was find the doorknob, turn it, and dart into the night. And then she was never going to do anything like this ever, ever, ever again. No matter what Henrietta or anyone else said. Adventure was for heroines, and Robert had proved quite conclusively that she wasn’t one.
In the centre of the room, Sir Francis raised his torch high again, sending the light scorching across the upturned faces of his comrades, across the blunt features of Lord Henry and the cleancut good looks of Lord Freddy Staines. Heavens, thought Charlotte, what would Penelope have to say about that? Did she know? Would she even care?
With profound relief, Charlotte felt the change that signalled the shift from plaster to wood, from wall to door. Her hand jammed into something hard and rounded. The knob! It was all she could do not to sob in gratitude. She didn’t even begrudge the broken fingernail.
Her arm fully extended at an awkward angle, Charlotte folded her fingers carefully around the heavy bulk of the knob. One twist, that was all that was needed, one twist and then a mad dash to freedom.
Halfway down the nave, Sir Francis was entertaining his congregation, keeping their attention focused mercifully on him rather than her. ‘Gentlemen! I give you … the sacred flame!’
It was the perfect time to flee. With her breath burning in her lungs, she sprang for the door, giving the knob a brutal twist just as light exploded through the room.
Fireworks cartwheeled through the air, streaking it with ribbons of flame, catching Charlotte in their glare as sure as a fox in a snare.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bacchanalian orgies had never been intended for a cold climate.
Outside, the snow still fell. Instead of casting a purifying veil over the scene, it turned to slush as it touched the tainted ground. Robert considered it an appropriate indictment on their activities, yet more proof that one couldn’t touch pitch without being defiled.
Inside, the illustrious members of the Order of the Lotus were stripping off in preparation for their latest orgy. It was not an inspiring sight. From the variety of physiques revealed, not everyone spent his days boxing with Gentleman Jackson. While more than adequate for one vicar, the former vestry of the Church of St Ethelred the Unsteady was decidedly inadequate for twenty grown men, most of whom were incapable of finding the fastenings of their own trousers without the aid of a valet. There was much hopping on one foot, flailing of arms, and airing of language that turned the consecrated air blue.
Unfortunately, the close quarters worked against him rather than for him. It was nearly impossible to pick out one voice in the cacophony of the whole and even harder to identify a set of familiar features beneath the close-draped hoods. A dozen colognes clashed for precedence, along with the ghost of ancient incense, masking any one scent. If Wrothan was there, he hadn’t yet done anything to betray his presence. He might, Robert concluded, be the elephant god, which would explain why he hadn’t yet put in an appearance. Or he might simply have had the good sense to keep his mouth closed and his head down. It was impossible to tell.
A particularly hearty elbow whapped into Robert’s ribs. This elbow, however, had been an intentional elbow.
‘Looking forward to the evening, eh?’ beamed Lord Henry Innes.
Robert managed to duck out of the way just in time to avoid a brotherly whack on the back. For whatever reason, Lord Henry still appeared to consider himself a sort of de facto godfather to the group’s newest member. A devil father? Robert was unclear on the appropriate nomenclature. The society seemed to veer b
etween Satanism and paganism with no clear creed from either.
Despite the pretence of anonymity, Lord Henry’s hood was thrown carelessly back. Like Lord Henry, many of the members appeared to have no qualms about their identity being known; they called one another frankly by name and chatted openly about this ball or that rout and whether the next satanic celebration could be scheduled so as not to conflict with someone’s sister’s come out. ‘I expect you all to dance with her!’ bleated the fond brother. ‘Or m’mother will have my head!’
There were, however, a handful of members who hung back from the general conviviality, staying close to the corners of the room, their dark robes like blots against the rough whitewash of the walls.
Robert poked Lord Henry in the arm and nodded towards the wall. ‘I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to that lot.’
Lord Henry shrugged with every appearance of unconcern. ‘Introductions ain’t quite the thing here, you know. Air of mystery and whatnot.’
‘But what if’ – Robert lowered his voice conspiratorially – ‘an intruder were to slip into our midst and spy on our revels? It would be deuced hard to tell in these robes, now, wouldn’t it?’
Lord Henry’s brow wrinkled. ‘Intruder? Can’t say the problem’s ever occurred, has it, Medmenham?’
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. The last thing Robert wanted was Medmenham involved in the discussion. It was too late now, though.
Medmenham smiled lazily. His teeth looked unnaturally white against the dark frame of his hood. Although he had kept his hood up, there was no mistaking who he was. The barbaric bracelets affixed to his arms proclaimed his identity as surely as any sigil. ‘Afraid of exposure, Dovedale?’
‘If I were, would I be wearing this?’ Robert gestured irritably to his robe. No need for them to know that he was still wearing his evening kit beneath it. Given the temperature of the stone floor, he wasn’t the only one to have kept his shoes on. Those brave few who had gone barefoot looked decidedly uncomfortable. ‘I am, however, still a stranger to society. I wasn’t sure …’
‘How our activities would be received?’ The concept appeared to amuse Medmenham mightily. ‘My dear fellow, the days when one might be banished from court for one’s naughty behaviour is long since past. These days, there’s scarce a court to be banished from.’
‘Deuced dull at court,’ Lord Henry agreed. ‘No scandal, no intrigue, and not a woman worth seducing.’
‘Not one?’ Medmenham raised a brow at Robert.
Robert clamped down on his temper. ‘Don’t tell me you mean to promote the charms of Lady Pembroke,’ he drawled. ‘You may have to fight the king for her, though.’
The mention of the queen’s ageing lady-in-waiting had the desired effect. The king’s recurrent sexual fantasies about the determinedly virtuous sixty-seven-year-old had everyone deeply baffled.
Medmenham laughed with genuine humour. ‘She certainly appears to have an aphrodisiac effect on His Majesty. I, however, fail to see the appeal. We shall find far better entertainment here tonight, I promise you.’
Robert craned his neck in a pretence of eagerness. ‘Where is this, er, entertainment?’
Medmenham’s lips curved in a slow, satisfied smile. This was his drug, the ability to manipulate his peers with the promise of pleasure, rewarding with access, punishing by withholding. ‘Not so hasty, Dovedale. As anyone will tell you, entertainment is best savoured slowly.’
‘It’s hard to savour what isn’t here,’ riposted Robert. If Medmenham had his dancing girls stashed away elsewhere, what else did he have hidden?
‘All in good time.’
‘Is it time to start yet?’ Innes bounced on his heels like a dog waiting for his master to throw a stick.
Medmenham cast a practised eye around the room. The majority of the members had managed to make their way into their robes and were beginning to make inroads on the flasks concealed on their persons.
Cassocks, Robert had learnt, afforded excellent hiding places for a multiplicity of items, including pistols and knives or, in Medmenham’s case, a small silver bell of the sort one might use to summon a servant. Raising it, Medmenham jingled it in a prearranged signal.
Far above them, in the bell tower, a deep tolling answered the soprano call of Medmenham’s bell.
In the Robing Room, the members, like greyhounds at the slip, began jostling into place, attempting to form the two straight lines in which they would process into the chapel. Even the antisocial souls propped against the wall abandoned their secluded havens to join in the general throng.
Robert focused his gaze on the men who had kept to themselves during the robing. If he hadn’t, he would never have seen the signal, the barely perceptible tilt of the head that summoned one of the hooded figures to meet another at the very end of the line. In that brief moment, as the man’s hood slipped ever so slightly, Robert saw all he needed to see. That was Wrothan on the left side of the room, perched by a pile of mouldering Books of Common Prayer. Robert recognised the bump on the nose, a bump that Wrothan had always claimed was the result of ambush by the Mahratta but that Robert was more inclined to ascribe to a barroom brawl in the days before Wrothan had developed his pretensions to gentility and his following among the younger and more corruptible members of the aristocracy.
Wrothan’s contact was more adept. He moved smoothly into line with no betraying movement of any kind, his face perfectly hidden by the fall of his hood.
Robert wriggled himself into the line directly in front of them. Sound, after all, travelled forwards, and there was nothing to be gained by a view of the backs of their hoods. He exchanged terse nods with his partner in the line, whom he recognised as Miss Penelope Deveraux’s affianced. Lord Frederick Staines’s upcoming nuptials appeared to have had no visible effect on his extracurricular activities. Robert just hoped Tommy hadn’t spotted him.
With an unhurried movement, Lord Freddy adjusted his hood over his gleaming hair, easing his features into shadow. Robert twitched his own hood back the other way. Not enough to attract notice, but just enough to free his ears from the heavy fabric.
Between one stroke of the bell and the next, he heard one of the men behind him murmur, ‘I have your price.’
Between the reverberation of the bell and clomp and shuffle of two dozen variously shod male feet, the words were all but indistinguishable. The conspirators had chosen their moment well.
‘Oh, no,’ countered Wrothan, a little too loudly. Robert recognised the tone of his voice. He had heard it before, in the officers’ mess, when Wrothan knew himself to hold a winning hand. Wrothan’s whisper was shrill with repressed excitement. ‘I don’t believe you do.’
The Frenchman spoke sternly. He was, it was clear, not accustomed to being disobeyed. Unlike Wrothan, his pitch was perfect; although Robert stood directly ahead of him, he had to strain to hear. ‘The price will be what we agreed.’
Ahead of them, the door to the nave had been thrown open. The first row of false monks processed in two by two. ‘I don’t think so. Not if the prize is no longer in the palace. The game has changed, monsieur. I hold all the cards. Or, should I say, the card?’
‘Very amusing, sir.’ The Frenchman sounded anything but amused.
Wrothan, on the other hand, was enjoying himself immensely. ‘I couldn’t be more serious.’
The Frenchman’s voice was sharp as a well-honed blade. ‘You mean to say that you have—’
‘Yes.’
Have what? Robert wanted to shout. What had Wrothan filched from the palace? State papers seemed the most obvious answer. Secrets of the sort that could be sold for a high price. Unless, of course, the Frenchman was not working for his government at all. In that case, the prize could be nearly anything. The queen’s diamonds alone could keep a man in frog legs for quite some time.
‘How do I know that this card is not a mere jack?’
‘Would I bluff?’
‘If you thought you could – yes.’
&
nbsp; ‘Well, I’m not.’ Robert, for one, was inclined to believe him. Wrothan positively buzzed with self-satisfaction. ‘This time, I have the king in my hand.’
Behind them, the bell tolled for a tenth time. On cue, Robert and his partner stepped through the arched door into the church, nearly missing the Frenchman’s terse whisper. ‘Where?’
The bell tolled again. Eleven.
‘That,’ said Wrothan smugly, ‘would be telling. You pay, I tell.’
The twelfth peal rang. ‘I see.’
There was something in the Frenchman’s voice that suggested he saw altogether more than Wrothan might like, but Wrothan, flying high on his moment of triumph, was immune to nuance. ‘I thought you would see it my way.’
‘How much?’
‘What is a king’s ransom these days?’
The thirteenth peal shuddered through the chamber. They had nearly reached the point where the pairs divided, filing down opposite sides of the nave to form an honour guard for the high priest of the elephant god. ‘Shall we discuss this – outside?’
Wrothan must have made some gesture of assent. ‘During the fireworks. There’s a side door in the nave, on the left.’
The Frenchman’s voice was heavy with irony. ‘I see you have left no detail to chance.’
‘I pride myself on my planning.’
‘You must indeed be … very proud.’
The Frenchman wheeled to one side, Wrothan to the other. Robert followed along behind the Frenchman, to the right side of the chapel. If he were Wrothan, he would be more worried than proud. The Frenchman’s initial alarm had quickly faded to something else.
He had been, at the end, nearly as smug as Wrothan. The Frenchman clearly had another card up his sleeve. Robert was exceedingly glad that Tommy and their War Office agent were standing guard outside.
Impatiently, he waited behind the Frenchman as Medmenham strode to the centre of the room, torch held high. He was eager to have it all done with already. In a matter of minutes, Wrothan and his accomplice would be caught red-handed, dealing in whatever they were dealing in in plain sight of an agent of the War Office. With three against two, there shouldn’t be any difficulty subduing them and hauling them back to Crown Street for questioning.