Page 4 of Taming of the Rake
When he straightened, Celeste was at his side, offering a handkerchief and a mournful expression. He avoided her gaze while wiping at his mouth and drawing in deep breaths. He trembled as some darkened corner of his mind unlocked and began spilling memories out into the light. That scent, that voice … he was beginning to suspect he knew very well how he recalled them.
He had to be sure. Without having seen her full face he had only his faulty recollections to fall back on. They came from a time in his life he had actively worked to forget, a period too intimately tangled with his past. If she was who he suspected, Benedict could hardly fathom why he would be the object of her vendetta. She’d do better to turn her anger on his father, who had been the force driving them into each other’s lives.
You don’t even know if it’s really her. You have managed to anger and annoy half thetonin the last few years. It could be any number of women.
In order to be certain, he was going to have to call on another of his friends. He hated to involve anyone else he cared about in this mess, but found he now had no choice. He could not fight his enemy blind.
“Are you certain it was wise to provoke her?” Celeste asked as he tucked her soiled handkerchief into his pocket. “And what are you going to do now?”
“First, I’m going to go home and scrub my teeth,” he said with a cringe. “And then I need to visit a friend. I think I know who the Gossip is, but I want to be sure.”
“Really? Who is she?”
He shook his head, refusing to draw Celeste any deeper into this web. Bringing her here had been a mistake, no matter how much better it made him feel to not have to face this alone.
“It doesn’t matter yet … not until I can prove it. Come, I need to send word if I want to meet her tonight.”
Celeste took his arm again. “Who?”
“Lady Millicent Dane.”
They calledher The Ravishing Widow, and it was never difficult to see why. Lady Millicent Dane was known for her beauty and a scandalous reputation. Being widowed at a young age had freed her from the control of any man, and she’d cast off the expectations and strictures of society to live as she pleased. Like Benedict, she was amused by the hypocrisy of thetonand delighted in giving them something to talk about.
However, some things were better kept secret; which was why tonight he chose to meet her in the one place the London Gossip wouldn’t follow him. His obsessive reading of her columns had revealed something very telling about the woman. Self-righteousness and piety were her weapons, and she used them against the people she maligned in her writing. She would never risk following him into the White House in Soho Square, a brothel catering to a wide array of tastes with its themed rooms and variety of available whores. Her own reputation could be ruined by such an act, and Ben had a feeling she wasn’t willing to go quite that far to bring him down.
So, as he entered The White House to find himself overwhelmed by whores offering to guide him into the room of his choice, Benedict waved them off. He inquired after Millicent’s location, and was promptly led into a room known only as ‘the dungeon.’
He found his old friend within the dark interior, which was illuminated by only a few tapers. The effect heightened the menacing look of the various implements arranged along one wall—things made of leather and metal and wood that promised pleasure or pain depending on the mood of the person wielding them. An array of tables and benches with buckles and straps filled the space, while a St. Andrew’s cross acted as a proud centerpiece.
Benedict raised his eyebrows when he noticed the nude woman strapped to the cross, spread wide and tethered to its beams. Her pale skin glowed in the meager candlelight, her back, buttocks, and legs left on full display. On either side of the cross stood Millicent and the man who was presented to the world as one of her footmen, but whose role in her household was of a more intimate nature. Peter was a large man, broad through the shoulders and chest—which were proudly exhibited by the absence of a shirt. Arms crossed, he watched Benedict in silence as Millicent came forward to greet him.
She was the only one fully clothed, in a pair of black breeches, shirt and waistcoat, a pair of boots clicking against the rough floor. Tumbles of white-gold hair fell loose down her back, and her lovely face was fixed in an expression of amusement at Benedict’s reaction to the scene.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, lips quivering with coming laughter.
Millicent waved one hand, displaying a riding crop held in a small fist. “No apologies necessary, darling, we simply grew bored waiting for you. But Peter and I have only just begun, and I think it will heighten Lily’s anticipation to be made to wait. What say you, Peter?”
The manservant gave the whore a lascivious glance, running his fingertip down her spine. The woman whimpered, but remained still.
“Whatever pleases you, Mistress.”
She thrust the crop toward Peter without a glance in his direction. “Hold this until I return, pet.”
Peter reacted to the command in her tone and hurried across the room to do her bidding. Instead of taking the crop in hand, he bent down to clutch it between his teeth.
Millicent grinned and reached back to pat his bare chest. “Good boy. Come, Ben, we’ll speak elsewhere.”
Benedict followed her from the room, where Peter took up a silent vigil beside the cross, eyes fixed on the opposite wall as he remained docile with the crop in his mouth.
“As always, you manage to both impress and astonish me,” he quipped.
Millicent’s deep, throaty laughter floated back toward Benedict as she guided him down the corridor as if she lived in The White House and knew its every square inch. Throwing open a door, she guided him into an innocuous sitting room that had a fire going in the hearth.
“You know how easily I grow bored,” she said, dropping into an armchair and crossing her legs. “Peter is always finding such inventive ways to keep me happy and I adore him for it. Now … your note seemed rather urgent. I take it you are here about today’s copy ofThe London Gossip.”
Sitting across from her, Benedict stared into the fireplace. He described his meeting with the Gossip in a monotone voice, relating the details as if he had observed it all from a distance.
Millie’s back snapped straight, and her fingers dug into the arms of her chair as she stared at him open-mouthed. “Dear God.”
