The Demands of Mr. Darcy, page 19
Fitzwilliam glanced at her to be sure she didn’t need help with her mask. His beautiful eyes were framed by the black mask on his face, but she fought to steady her gaze.
She recognized the look, even under the mask. Fitzwilliam was worried.
The driver dismounted at the bottom of the stairs, opening the door for them to dismount. The stairs were clear of other patrons, but a soft hum of laughter and voices could be heard drifting from the palatial façade ahead.
Elizabeth wondered how much of what went on inside could be heard were someone to loiter just under a window. Much of the festivities took place deep inside the building or toward the back side of the house.
Still, she wondered.
Fitzwilliam offered his arm as the driver gave his reins a quick flick to move the carriage along the drive.
Elizabeth hooked her gloved hand in the crook of Fitzwilliam’s elbow and pulled herself as close to him as she could. She wanted the illusion of his protection, even if he couldn’t give it.
Though Fitzwilliam was strong, tall, and foreboding to any who drew his ire, there was one thing he couldn’t protect her from here, and that was herself.
She’d realized on the carriage ride from Pemberley, hearing Georgiana talk of her girlhood friends, that she would do whatever it might take to help Mary. She would go as far as was needed, and not even her beloved husband could slow her.
The foyer was the same as last she’d seen, and the man behind the counter flashed the same tolerant smile of greeting to them.
This time, there was an air of familiarity to the smile, but it was still delivered down the length of the man’s nose.
Though he was friendly enough, Elizabeth was certain that every time this man eyed her, he was appraising her.
If she’d been found wanting, she almost didn’t want to know.
“Ah, good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Cervus. Shall we take your coats?”
Another gentleman appeared from just beyond the counter, clad in a perfectly pressed tailcoat, his hair slicked back so smooth, Elizabeth thought she might see her reflection in its sheen.
She let Fitzwilliam take her stole, then he handed his hat and coat to the younger man.
Elizabeth watched the man behind the counter as he ran a finger over the page of a large register. He found an empty line, dipped his quill, then met Fitzwilliam’s gaze, waiting.
“The Dark-Haired One,” Fitzwilliam said.
The man smiled, turning his eyes down to the paper. “But of course.”
Elizabeth watched as he scribbled their pseudonyms in spectacularly practiced script.
She stared at the register, following the lines up the page until she spotted a date along the far edge.
“Do you keep a record of every visitor to the Roslindale, then?”
The man perked, an eyebrow cocked as he looked at her.
Fitzwilliam’s hand grazed her elbow, but she did not turn her attention away from the host.
“We keep very precise records, Mrs. Cervus. Why do you ask?”
Elizabeth’s heart shot into her throat.
Here was a clue. There might be a list of every single member of the club present the night Lady Carrington died. All the host need do was turn the page, and she would have a wealth of clues. “Would you still have a register of who was here the night -”
Fitzwilliam took her arm in his hand, a warning that stopped her words right in their tracks.
She glanced down at the page, again, catching sight of a familiar name just as the host gently closed the book.
“We keep precise records, but we are quite keen on privacy, as are our clientele. I am sure My Lady understands.”
Fitzwilliam pulled her gently away from the counter. “Of course, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Thank you, Tyrell.”
“Of course, Mr. Cervus. Enjoy your evening.”
She let Fitzwilliam lead her toward the massive black doors, clutching her fingers into his arm to let him know she wasn’t pleased with being carted around like a child.
“Damn it, what are you doing?” She whispered, her heart pounding in her ears. The answers were there. Somewhere in that book was the name – if not the pseudonym – of the real killer. It must be.
Yet, Fitzwilliam couldn’t get her away from it, fast enough. “I’m sparing you a world of frustration and embarrassment.” He said, rapping his knuckles against the black surface of the East Club door.
“Embarrassment?!” She said, her voice rising in volume.
The panel in the door slid to the side, and a hand inside appeared, holding an image of a masked man. “Who is it?”
Fitzwilliam leaned in. “The Marquis de Sade.”
The panel slid closed again, and before Elizabeth could press further, the doors opened.
All words ceased in her mind, instantly.
The scene was much as it had been the night of their last visit. Men and women clad in little more than gold paint moved through the hallways, some escorting patrons into side rooms, others touching one another as a show for the onlookers who’d yet to choose a pastime.
Elizabeth’s hold on Fitzwilliam’s arms tightened, but she kept pace, glancing into each room as they passed.
The first room had a massive round table at its center, and atop, three women were engaging each other in the most torrid of acts. Two of the women were painted gold, but the third was clearly a patron, her skin smudged with gold at her breasts and inner thighs. She was sprawled across the table with one gold woman lying between her legs, using her hands and mouth to pleasure the woman as a man in a black coat sat before the scene, smoking a pipe as he watched.
The next room contained a familiar face, the name she’d seen in the register. Monsieur Cochon stood at the center of the room, a gold-painted man on his knees beside him, a collar latched around his neck. Monsieur Cochon held the end of the leash, walking around the room as though shopping for China, the man on his knees crawling beside him wherever he went.
Elizabeth ducked forward, happy not be recognized.
Fitzwilliam slowed as they reached a familiar doorway.
The red room.
Elizabeth’s whole body tingled at the memory of their last visit to this place – and that room. She’d hoped they might return to it. Despite the foreign feel of the Roslindale, she longed for a semblance of familiarity.
She hoped it might settle her nerves.
Fitzwilliam glanced inside, and his expression fell.
Elizabeth stepped up to look inside just as another couple was inspired to do the same. Inside, an unfamiliar pair were engaged in something not unlike their own little spectacle a few nights before.
Clearly, Fitzwilliam had inspired more than just his wife that evening.
Elizabeth watched for a moment, imagining what it must’ve looked like to the onlookers when it was her impaled there on the two-headed snake.
The thought made her squeeze her knees together.
“Mr. and Mrs. Cervus?”
They turned, startled by the stoic voice.
A gold-painted gentleman stood before them, an expressionless look of authority on his face.
“The main chamber has opened. Tyrell has reserved it for yourself and your wife. If you’d come with me, please?”
With that, the gold man turned down the hallway, the muscles of his backside pinching and shifting with each step as he walked away.
She turned to face Fitzwilliam, her brow furrowed. “What does he mean? Did you request such a thing?”
Fitzwilliam sighed. “No, darling. I imagine this is our reward for your curiosity.”
He took her arm and began leading her down the hallway.
Though he was whispering, Elizabeth could still hear a tone – and she didn’t like it.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You had to ask questions.”
“Of course, I did!” She hissed. “Why are we here if not to ask questions.”
“We’re here to play the game, woman! Play the game first, then ask the bloody questions!”
Though they whispered to each other, the energy around them was shifting. Eyes were turning their way as they followed the gold man toward a brighter end of the corridor.
The other members of the Roslindale seemed to know something was happening – like some ritual sacrifice being led to the altar, and they were beginning to mill into the hallway to follow.
Elizabeth’s heart pounded in her throat.
The gold man’s naked form glowed for an instant as he stood framed in the doorway, then he disappeared within, followed instantly by her husband.
Elizabeth watched his silhouette as he stopped just inside, his eyes drifting upward as light cast across his face.
She swallowed and stepped into the main chamber.
The room was immense. Even grander than the throne room from their previous visit, its every surface was adorned with ornate tiling and obscene imagery. There wasn’t a straight line around the perimeter, like some theater in the round with fountains and sculptures framing the space, and each stretch of wall harbored sculptures. The figures were chiseled in a state of arousal, each of them in possession of a gleaming stone phallus that protruded from the wall at various heights. Above and below these phalluses, shackles were fixed along the floor and wall.
Elizabeth swallowed, imagining chained women impaled on them and shackled there, unable to pull away. She didn’t breathe.
She stepped into the room, watching as Fitzwilliam followed the gold man to the center of the space. The floor was tiled with a massive star shape of red and indigo, a sunburst of color on the smooth floor, and Fitzwilliam’s form reflected across its surface as though he stood on a mirror.
Yet, it was the same sight that drew her husband’s eyes up that stilled Elizabeth’s heart.
Around the perimeter of the room, several ropes and chains were latched and tied to anchors in the walls, and each length of chain or rope rose high up toward the glass ceiling overhead.
The array of tools that hung overhead turned her stomach, instantly. Despite the glorious space around them, the ceiling harbored a plethora of sights one would find in a dungeon – a cage of metal just high enough to hold a seated person, a rather large phallus protruding from the bottom of the cage. There were shackles and bars, as though intended to hang someone from the ceiling. Even a wooden rack hung there, waiting for someone to unlatch its chain and lower it to the center of the starburst floor where some unsuspecting victim could be strapped to it and tortured.
Yet, she knew the torture was voluntary. She knew these were the tools to excite many of the clientele of the Roslindale.
Still, the notion of any of these tools being used on her made her knees weak beneath her.
Elizabeth felt a murmuring at her back as people filtered in, an excited hush to their voices.
The gold man bowed to Fitzwilliam at the center of the room, then stood aside. “Please, allow me to fetch any tool you might require.”
Fitzwilliam stood in the center of the starburst, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment.
Elizabeth watched him shrug out of his jacket and roll up his shirt sleeves, just as he had the last time they visited the Roslindale.
The first time he’d done it, she found it endearing – almost exciting. Now, she was terrified.
Excited, but terrified.
An excited giggle informed her of one familiar guest standing at her back – Monsieur Cochon had come to take in the spectacle.
She listened to the murmurs, sure she could hear various patrons making bets on what he would choose or suggesting their own personal favorites.
Finally, Fitzwilliam turned to her, marching across the tiled floor with a sudden purpose.
She braced, herself, closing her eyes in wait of his touch.
Yet, he didn’t reach for her. Instead, she felt him walk right past her toward the wall of the room. She listened as the sound of a clanking chain echoed off the high ceiling.
Though, she couldn’t see him, she recognized the authority of the gold man’s voice. “Mm, good choice, sir.”
“Oh god,” she said, opening her eyes and looking up just in time to watch the massive rack slowly sink from its display above. “Please, darli -”
He raised a hand in her direction, a single finger pointing upward.
It silenced her, instantly.
The crowd murmured again with approval. The notion of onlookers enjoying the power he had over her – it almost infuriated her.
Almost. Not enough to still the intensity of her trepidation.
The gold man stepped forward to help guide the massive wooden table as it reached the tile floor. An instant later, Elizabeth watched as metal rails at its feet slipped into hidden crevices in the floor, locking it into place.
Dear god, what had she gotten herself into?
Fitzwilliam turned to her, and without word, tore the mask off his face and tossed it onto the tile floor. The expression beneath was as familiar to her as her own name. He’d changed. The way he always did when he was about to have his way with her; that intensity and focus – the passion.
It unnerved her.
“Take off your clothes,” he said, then he turned away again, moving along the outer wall.
She opened her mouth to protest, but the sound of yet another chain being unlatched from the wall stilled any words she might’ve found. She turned her eyes up to see what was coming.
A long metal bar with two shackles on each end was slowly teetering downward.
She swallowed, and despite the tension in her chest, reached back for the buttons of her dress.
Before she could unhook a single one, a woman painted in gold appeared at her shoulder.
“Let me help with that, darling,” she said, and Elizabeth felt the woman’s hands making quick work of her buttons. The dress came loose, and the woman helped her out of it, handing the garment to a second gold woman. Then, her helper rose to start the work of untying the stays of her corset, leaning into Elizabeth’s shoulder to whisper. “You’re one lucky girl.”
Elizabeth couldn’t respond. She was instead transfixed on the various contraptions that her husband chose to lower from their perch high atop the room – a rack, a shackled bar, a net of silk ropes hanging like some strange hammock.
She felt the cool air on her back and flinched, realizing she was almost completely naked there in the crowded space. It felt like some cathedral of stone, or a mosque in some exotic corner of the world. And she was bared to the space, and to every prying eye that waited with that same bated breath.
They too wanted to know what Fitzwilliam intended to do to her, but unlike Elizabeth, they might well know what each of these tools was for.
"Come, darling," he said.
She didn't move.
Elizabeth's limbs nearly atrophied there as she watched her husband prepare an implement of torture one only reads about in the darkest corners of history books. Yet, here he was standing beside it like some proud hunter with a prize catch. He stood silent, not looking in her direction despite her inability to follow his commands. Were they alone, he'd have glared at her, threatened her - anything. Yet here, he didn't say a word.
His silence was all the more frightening.
"You're keeping him waiting? Oh, you are a brave girl," said the gold painted slave woman that still stood at her shoulder. The woman's energy was almost frenetic in her excitement, and it seemed as though she only barely contained a wave of giggles.
Yet, Elizabeth wasn't being brave. She was surrounded by watchful eyes. The crowd had gathered to well over twenty people, she was sure, though she didn't dare look toward her audience. They'd settled into chairs and settees, some of them obediently knelt on the floor in wait of the show. How many of them were eyeing her know? How many were judging her every movement, with relish or disappointment?
The silence seemed to grow louder, the sound of someone coughing echoing off the high marble ceilings.
The slave woman pressed a hand to her bare back, but Elizabeth didn't move, keeping her arms across her chest as she stood there.
Finally, Fitzwilliam turned and met her gaze. He didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
Elizabeth swallowed, pressing her hand over her sex as the slave woman giddily tore down the last of her petticoats, as though ordered to by telepathy.
She stared at her husband for a long moment, feeling his eyes bore into her with impatience.
"I'm scared," she said, finally. It was meant just for him, but a whisper carried in the massive space, and several of her onlookers hummed their approval.
Apparently, they liked the notion of her being afraid.
Fitzwilliam held his hand out to her and waited.
It took every ounce of courage she had to step forward, and the crowd murmured in excitement to see her do so.
Elizabeth made her way across the room in slow progress, moving around the massive rack to meet her husband.
He held his hand out to her even as she arrived by his side. He was waiting for her to take it, and in doing so, bare some intimate part of her body to the room. It took a moment to choose, finally revealing her breasts to the watching crowd.
His hand felt cool to the touch, and he gestured for her to climb up a small stepping stool that was set alongside the rack.
She held his fingers tight in hers and climbed up, hissing softly as the bare skin of her backside made contact with the cold surface of the rack. It was solid and unforgiving beneath her, barely shifting as she settled atop it.
"Now, lie back," Fitzwilliam said.
Her heart leapt, but she did as she was told, leaning back slowly to adjust to the cold wood underneath her. She rolled her back and shoulders down flat, centering herself on the thing as though climbing into bed.
Fitzwilliam took her feet in his hands and gently lifted them up onto the rack. His thumb pressed into the ball of her foot, something she'd respond to with panic and playful frustration when they were alone.
It seemed trepidation cured her ticklishness.
She let her head rest on the hardwood just as Fitzwilliam placed her foot into an open shackle. She jerked, almost pulling her foot from his grasp, but he'd anticipated this, and he held strong. Soon, something soft pressed into her ankle, and she squirmed to look down at him.
