If you are a world
Away from me, do you gaze
Upon the same moon?
“You don’t really mean our games are over, do you? It was only a bit of fun. Nothing Callum would worry about greatly, even if he knew.”
Christian looked so hurt, I almost regretted my decision. Then I thought of his use of the word “greatly” and knew I was right.
“I’m sorry, Christian. It has been fun. But no more. That last time was too close for comfort.”
He pouted and dug his toe in the rug, ruffling it up. “Callum not here, then?” He glanced around the drawing room as if Callum might suddenly appear out of thin air.
“No. He’s gone to see the lawyer again. It looks as if things are beginning to move on his land dispute, finally.”
“Oh. I wanted a word with him. With both of you, actually. But you can tell him for me.” I looked at him suspiciously. Christian’s face was the picture of innocence, but—perhaps because of that—I didn’t trust him.
“Tell him what?”
“I’m leaving.” He spoke so casually, it took a moment for his words to sink in. “That’s what I came to tell you both. I’ve had enough of London. I’m thinking of going to Vienna, try my luck there.”
“Why?” I spoke from the heart. “Christian, you’re not in trouble, are you?”
“Who, me?” Again, that too-good-to-believe innocence. I looked at him suspiciously.
“Money? Or somebody’s wife?” I asked bluntly.
“Neither.” Christian laughed. “I would say I have enough money, but that wouldn’t be true. It’s downright impossible to have enough. And nobody is searching the streets of London with a pistol in his hand out to avenge his honor. I promise!”
“Why are you going, then?”
His expression clouded for a second and then he shrugged and smiled. “Oh, you know me. I get bored staying in the same place. But never mind that. Are you sure you won’t reconsider? I had something planned, a little outing for both of us. You might call it a going away present.”
I would miss him. I thought Callum would too.
“Oh. Well, if you put it like that. One last time, and then I give my male togs to the rag and bone man.”
“Wonderful!” Christian sounded genuinely pleased, and I was touched. We both looked up as the door opened. “Ah, Callum. Just the man I was looking for.”
Callum’s face fell when he heard Christian’s news.
“You’re sure, Mountjoy? If it’s a question of money, you know I would be happy to lend you some.”
“You might as well say ‘give,’ old man, and have done with it. You know damn well I would never pay you back. But it’s not money. I’ve already told Tara that. I’m just a gypsy by nature, and I feel it’s time I moved on.”
We were all silent for a moment. Before things could become uncomfortable, Callum spoke cheerfully.
“Well, I have some good news. It appears that our legal problem has been resolved.”
“Wonderful!” I spoke from the heart. “Did your da’s letter do the trick?”
Callum was grinning widely. He shook his head.
“Not at all. It appears that Smythe has taken on a trainee attorney. To give him a taste of what he could expect, he gave him all the documentation on our case and told him to read it through. The new man did that, and then pointed out the one thing we had all missed. No money had ever changed hands. Uncle, bless him, never thought to ask for a deposit on the deal. And even though he thought it was a lease agreement, no payments were ever made.”
I looked at Christian in confusion. He shrugged and we both stared at Callum enquiringly.
“So?” I asked finally. “What difference does that make?”
“I had no idea either,” Callum admitted. “But Smythe explained to me that under English law, there has to be something called ‘consideration’ for a contract to be valid. In this case, as no money had been paid at all, there was no consideration. And that means the contract isn’t valid. Literally not worth the paper it’s written on.”
I stared at him in disbelief. After all this time, the answer had been there all along!
“You’re sure?” I asked.
Callum nodded. “Quite sure. Smythe has a written agreement from the other side. It’s settled. We can go home, Tara. At last.”
Home! The word sang in my ears like the sound of hope. I glanced at the window. In spite of the fact that the calendar said it was June, there was no sunlight outside. A dense, stinking, yellow fog pressed against the panes. The “London Peculiar” I had begun to almost take for granted. Suddenly, I longed for the clean air and sweet scents of Kyle. To have grass and heather beneath my feet. Room to walk without being jostled and pushed from all sides.
“At last,” I repeated softly.
“See? You’re not even going to be here to miss me!” Christian said cheerfully, breaking the enchantment abruptly. “Well, I’m on my way. See you at Seagram’s soiree tomorrow?”
Callum nodded. “I’ll be there. If only to make sure you don’t cheat, Mountjoy!”
I walked Christian to the door. As I opened it for him, he leaned forward and spoke quickly and quietly.
“I’ll send a message to Seagram to say I’ve been detained elsewhere. I’ll come and get you at eight. One last fling, my dear!”
Before I could agree or disagree, he had gone, closing the door behind him.
I shrugged to myself. What did it matter? Christian was going to Vienna. And we were going home! I felt it would be terribly mean-spirited to refuse Christian’s plans when he had taken the trouble to arrange something that he had obviously planned as a parting gift. I wondered with a flash of excitement what he had in mind for us. A final trip to a music hall? Perhaps to see Max Marchant one last time? Ah well. It could do no harm. And knowing Christian, it would no doubt be extremely diverting. A last, fond memory of London for me to take back to Glen Kyle.
“All ready? Excellent. I do like to see a punctual woman.”
Christian ran his eyes down my boy’s clothes and grinned sardonically as he wrapped my cloak around me with a flourish. We walked out quietly, but I had no need to worry about attracting attention this evening. The hall was empty and I could hear voices from behind the baize door that separated the staff from the residents. I always thought of it as the marker between “them” and “us.” I had knocked on that door once and opened it cautiously. Our maid had forgotten to leave us fresh towels, and rather than ring for her, as I was passing through the hall I thought I would ask for some to be sent up. My reception had been so incredulously icy that I wished I hadn’t bothered. Wryly, I realized it wasn’t just the so-called gentry who could be snobs!
Christian paused on the corner, looking for a cab.
“It’s very warm this evening,” he said. And indeed, it was. Warm and humid with a haze in the air rather than the normal yellow fog. I was beginning to perspire inside my thick cloak already. “Shall I take that off for you?” He slid the cloak off my shoulders and held it loosely over his arm. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“My, but don’t you look lovely this evening, Tomo.” I smiled at him uncertainly. His voice had an ironic tone that belayed his words. “There’s just one thing missing, I think.” He patted his pockets in an exaggerated display of looking for something he knew was there all along. “Ah. Here we are. Something beautiful to finish my best boy off.”
He held a small, cardboard box in his hand. He flicked the lid off and I said “oh” in pleasure as he held it out for me to see. A corsage for my buttonhole. Two huge carnations, arranged one above the other as if they were still growing on the living plant. Both were ice white with a deep red hearts so dark it looked as if the flowers were bleeding. The stems were tightly wrapped in silver paper.
“Nice, aren’t they?” Christian held the corsage up to my face so I could inhale the perfume. I took a deep breath and almost jerked back. The carnations smelled deliciously of spice and sweet blossoms, but beneath that perfume there was something else. A bitter, rather sour smell that seemed to me to bear the corruption of death, as if there was a canker in the living red heart of the blooms.
“Something wrong?” He held the flowers to his own face and sniffed quickly. “I thought you liked carnations?”
He sounded so hurt, I felt absurdly awkward. Perhaps it had been something in the street rather than the carnations that had smelled so wrong. He was holding the corsage out to me, so I took another sniff and smiled. It was the flowers, I was sure of it.
“They’re lovely. Thank you.”
Christian pushed the silver paper-wrapped stem expertly through the buttonhole in my lapel. It fitted so snugly, it might have been made for it.
“There. Now who’s the dandy!”
He raised his hand for a passing cab, and we climbed in and sat down. I was grateful for that as I felt quite giddy and sick. The heat, I thought. I swallowed nausea and wondered if I should tell Christian that tonight’s outing was not, after all, a good idea. That I felt ill and should go back to our apartment. But he had already given the cab driver our destination and he was looking so pleased with himself I did not have the heart to ask him to cancel whatever his plans were.
“I almost forgot. For tonight, ladies and gentlemen! For one night only!” I managed a smile at his strident impersonation of the music hall master of ceremonies. “We have something a little different. For you, madam! Or perhaps I should say, master!”
He produced something from his pocket. It glittered in the light and my eyes widened as I saw what it was. An eyeless carnival mask, black silk embossed with sequins.
“What on earth is that for?” I smiled uncertainly.
“For you, dear heart. I told you tonight was going to be very special, and it begins here.”
He leaned forward and pushed the mask over my head, tying the laces tightly at the back. I was about to protest when I got another lungful of the scent from my corsage. The scent-beneath-the-scent seemed to be far more powerful in the closed cab and I was suddenly dizzy. The effort of telling Christian I didn’t want to be blindfolded was far too much bother. I sat back and gave way to the rhythm of the carriage instead.
“Where are we going?” I asked lazily. “And why the mask?”
“We’re going somewhere you’re going to find intriguing. And the mask is all part of the fun.”
I dozed, I think. In any event, it seemed to be no more than a moment or two before the cab drew to a halt. Christian leaned forward and undid my mask before he helped me out of the carriage. I noticed he still had my cloak folded over his arm and I wondered idly why we hadn’t dropped it off at the usual place. Perhaps we were in a different part of London. I glanced around at my surroundings and I no longer wondered. I knew we were.
The cab clopped off briskly, leaving us standing in front of a smart, new villa. It stood alone behind a high-railed front entrance. The brickwork was stuccoed in light cream, the railings picked out in soft, dark grey. Money, I thought at once. And plenty of it.
“This is isn’t what I expected!” I smiled at Christian.
“You may well be surprised, Tomo. Shall we say it’s in the nature of amateur theatricals?”
He ushered me forward through the gate that swung open on silent, well-oiled hinges. There were four steps up to the front door. Not particularly steep steps, but my feet seemed to be oddly clumsy this evening and I was glad I had Christian to lean against.
“Thank you,” I said seriously.
“You’re most welcome,” Christian replied, equally courteous. We could have been an old married couple, we were so polite! The thought made me chuckle.
Christian rapped briskly on the door. I gazed around me as we waited for an answer. The villa was very secluded. There was a substantial, well-tended garden on the three sides of it I could see, and then no houses at all for at least a hundred yards. I frowned; I had never encountered such solitude in London before and it puzzled me.
A shaft of light showed as the door opened a crack, and then it was thrown wide.
“Mr. Mountjoy. At last. We were beginning to despair of you. And this must be Tomo. Welcome.”
Christian’s hand was in the small of my back, urging me forward. I looked at him reproachfully; no need to push!
Once inside, I paused in a wide hall, staring around with frank interest. The room was arranged very much like the reception area of a good hotel. A number of deep, comfortable leather armchairs were clustered around a low table. There was even a desk with an open ledger on it. I glanced at the person who had opened the door to us. I had almost passed the figure by, I was so interested in my surroundings, when I glanced back at her.
She was very tall, at least a head higher than I was, almost as tall as Christian, and clad entirely in black silk that gleamed in the gaslight. She wore a skirt suit, beautifully tailored but cut in a very mannish fashion, more like a riding habit than anything. The bodice was tight, the skirt narrow. Her hair was scraped back in a chignon so severe that it seemed to stretch the skin on her face back with it. She smiled, and so tight was the chignon I wondered if it hurt her to move her lips. And she was so very slim. The suit fitted from her shoulder bones down to her hips, with not a bulge or a curve anywhere. Her body looked more like that of an adolescent girl than a grown woman.
“My name is Amy, Tomo. I’m sure we’re going to be such good friends. Do come through, dear.” Her voice was rather deep and very attractive. I smiled inanely, suddenly shy.
“You go on through.” Christian nodded at me. “Amy will take very good care of you. I have a little business to attend to first.”
I glanced back at Amy, and then when I turned around again, Christian had vanished. How very rude of him, I thought. Amy crooked her finger at me, beckoning me forward, and I moved automatically. I had no idea what was amusing Amy, but she smiled widely at me.
“Oh, such fun!” She grinned. “Do step this way. Mr. Soames has said he would like you to see a little of our business before he greets you personally.”
Business? Mr. Soames? I was mildly puzzled. As the inner door opened, a draught blew the scent of my carnations toward my face and I inhaled deeply. They smelled lovely. Why on earth had I ever thought there was something rotten about their perfume? So delightful did I find it that I raised my lapel to my face and buried my nose in the blossoms, snuffling at them, as much to hide my confusion from Amy as because I had begun to like the smell.
“Now, Tomo dear. What do you think?”
Amy had slid her arm around my waist whilst I had been paying attention to my corsage. She tightened her grip and swiveled me around, at the same time waving her free hand in invitation. I stared. And blinked. And stared again.
The room was huge. So big, I could hardly make out the far wall. It was lit with mellow gas lamps, the flame turned perhaps half way down. I could not, I thought seriously, have read by such a light. But it was certainly enough for me to see what was going on around me. I stared and then gasped, remembering my manners and hiding my mouth behind my hand.
Was this Christian’s twisted idea of a joke? Was he really so very angry with me at telling him our adventures were over that he was prepared to inflict this on me? The huge room was filled with figures. I started to count them, then got distracted and had to start all over again. Somebody yelped close to me, and I lost count yet again. Perhaps twenty people, I decided. Men and women, about equal figures of both. Strangely, none of the groups of people were paying any attention at all to their neighbors. Still less did they appear to notice Amy and me. They might as well have been alone and private they were so absorbed in each other.
“Well, dear? Do you like what you see?” Amy had ducked her head so her mouth was close to my ear. Her voice sounded like a cat purring, and it tickled me.
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “I’m not sure what I’m looking at.”
Amy giggled, as though I had said something delightfully funny. “Come. I’ll give you a little tour.”
She tugged at my arm and moved a few paces into the room. She poked a horizontal body with her foot. When the man didn’t respond, she kicked him hard in the small of his back. I winced for him; Amy’s foot was shod in a sturdy boot. It must have hurt. I frowned at her reproachfully, but the man seemed not to mind at all.
“I’m sorry, mistress. So very sorry.” He crawled toward her, pulling himself along the floor with his hands. I wondered for a moment why he didn’t stand, or at least get to his knees, then I saw that his ankles were tightly roped together with cord. I followed the line of the cord absently, and then gawped as I saw it had been wrapped repeatedly around his kintama and drawn tight before being tied off in a complex knot. Every movement must have caused him acute pain. His tree appeared not to mind the outrage at all. It reared up like a broom handle and actually wagged as Amy reached down and tugged the cord viciously.
“I’m a naughty boy. Punish me!” the man screamed. A naughty boy? He must have been forty if he was a day. Amy kicked him under the chin and he rolled to his side, howling like a beaten dog.
“Later. Perhaps. If I can be bothered, and if you are very good.”
Amy turned and smiled at me sweetly. “Edward really can be too boring. Shall we leave him and find something more amusing for you, sweetheart?”
Her voice was very warm, very concerned. My mind was spinning like a child’s top, whipped into life with a piece of leather on a stick. I closed my eyes for a moment, and suddenly my memory fled away from me, back down the years.
When I was a child, Auntie had come to our village and taken me by the hand, just as Amy was doing now. She had led me away from my village, from my family. I had been terrified out of my wits then, but at the same time I had known that it was my duty to go with her. To do as I was told. But I had been just a young girl then. Now, I was a woman, with a will of my own. I no longer cared what Christian thought, whether I upset his joke. I would turn around and walk as quickly as I could out of this terrible room. I would find a cab eventually. Once home, I would take off my male togs and wrap them in a parcel that would go in the dustbin the first chance I got. I deeply regretted that it was so warm and I had no excuse to light a fire and burn them instantly.
Why, then, when Amy turned, tugging at my hand, did I follow her meekly? I willed my hand to tug itself from her grasp, told my feet to run. For all the good it did, my body might have belonged to someone else. Someone who could not even hear my thoughts.
“Now, what do you think of this?” Amy turned and smiled at me.
She had paused close to a trio of bodies. Two were men, sprawled on the floor and totally naked. I looked at their bodies critically and decided that they were not in the least attractive. In fact, they were downright repulsive. Both were late middle-aged and flabby. Veins were prominent on their calves, their hair—what there was of it—was plastered to their scalps with sweat. A woman stood over them, dressed in a tight, silken bodice that ended just below her hips. Her breasts threatened to spill out of the top. Her slender legs were encased in spangled tights. She smiled at Amy, who nodded.
I flinched back as the cat o’ nine tails whip in her hand sang through the air and left red streaks across one of the naked men’s back. He hissed with pain and she immediately reached down and grabbed his hair, forcing his head back until I could hear his neck creak.
“Mercy. Mercy, mistress,” he bleated.
“You disappoint me, William,” she breathed softly. “You must, I think, do something to please me before I can forgive you.”
His face was alight with anticipation. His eyes shone, his mouth drooping foolishly. The woman who had whipped him glanced at Amy, who nodded. The other man propped himself on his elbow, looking—not at his companion—but at the woman with the whip. She appeared to think for a moment, and then grinned widely.
“It seems to me that Frederick here is not quite as clean as one might wish. You, William. Take his pego in your mouth. Wash it thoroughly with your tongue. When you have done that, I want you to take his bollocks in your mouth and suck them until I am satisfied they are spotless. When you have done that, I may give you both a little treat.”
William didn’t hesitate. I felt nausea roll in my stomach as Frederick rolled quickly on his back, his arms and legs flung wide. Yet I could not tear my gaze away as I watched William lower his head and take his partner’s tree of flesh in his mouth, sucking at it as hungrily as a babe at the breast. Presumably to encourage him, the woman who towered over them both lashed his buttocks hard with her whip. She rolled her eyes at Amy, who smiled back.
“Come, Tomo. We cannot waste any more time on these foolish creatures. Don’t you find that men are intrinsically boring at heart? They have no originality. No spark of innovation.”
We meandered onward. I tried to keep my eyes fixed on Amy, but it was no good. My glance drifted from side to side, poking in the darkest corners. Some of the men were being beaten with whips and what looked like a dog lead. Some were in chains or tightly bound. My mouth dropped open as I saw one man suspended from the ceiling by chains that were wrapped around his chest. My eyes were drawn to the glint of metal at his breast and I saw that his nipples were pierced with thick rings. Thinner chains reached tautly from the rings to the chain he hung from. As I watched, a pretty, sweet-faced young woman spun him around and swatted at his hugely erect tree with a cane every time they faced each other. The chained man was gagged with a strip of rag, but he mewed every time a blow landed. His nipple rings strained with each movement. I stared in horror as I saw the reddened flesh of his aureoles tug and pucker. I was sure that the rings were going to tear through the sore flesh at any moment.
Amy glanced at me and smiled affectionately. “You are very quiet, dear.”
I sensed she was laughing at me. I tried to yank my hand from her grip, but yet again my body ignored my instructions. A recollection came to me, unbidden and unwanted, of a soldier in the field hospital where I had nursed at Scutari. He had been injured by a bullet that had severed his spine. Generally polite and cheerful, one day I had found him with tears running down his face.
“I’m sorry, nurse,” he had said brusquely, rubbing the tears from his cheeks fiercely. “I hope you don’t think any the worse of me. I’m just a bit down today, like.”
I had perched on the bed at the side of him and spoke anxiously. He was an excellent patient, and I liked him.
“What is it? Are you in pain? I could bring you some laudanum.”
“Would it? I don’t think so, miss.” He screwed his eyes up bitterly. “I ain’t got no pain. I wish I bleeding well did. If I had pain, I would know me legs were still there. But I can’t feel nothing at all below me waist. I keep telling me legs to shift. To get a move on. But it don’t matter what me brain says, they don’t listen to me.”
I straightened his bed and chatted to him until he was his usual cheerful self again. At the time, I had felt just a little disapproving that he was wishing pain on himself when I had to deal with men who were screaming in agony. Men who wanted nothing more than for the pain to go away. Now, I understood. Now, I would have given a year of my life to have my own body obey me, even if I felt pain. But it would not.
“I do hope you’re not feeling sorry for these foolish creatures.” Amy stared around contemptuously. “Each and every one of them pay vast sums to be allowed through our doors, you know. The more we inflict pain on them, the happier they are to come back to us, time after time. I have known rich men run through a fortune here. And then, when the money is all gone and their own families are reduced to nothing, they come back and try to persuade us to take them in for nothing. As if we are some sort of charity.”
I swallowed dryly. Something fastened round my ankle. I stared down and saw that a man was slumped at my feet. He was so terribly emaciated, I wondered if he was starving. Amy sneered at him, her lip curling in disgust. It was his hand that was grasped around my ankle. As I watched him, he inched his head toward me and his lips parted far enough to allow him to lick my shoe, pausing after a moment to look longingly up at my face. I thought my lack of response must have distressed him as fat tears began to run down his cheeks. Then his mouth parted, showing dirty, yellow teeth and his tongue stuck out and wagged at me lewdly.
My mind screamed at me to pull away, to take myself as far from this loathsome creature as it was possible to get. Yet I was transfixed and unable to move. Amy had no such problem. She stomped on my tormentor’s hand with as much compunction as a gardener might show in crushing a slug with his shoe. She ground the sole of her boot against his bones until he howled and rolled away, his injured hand fixed beneath his armpit.
“Take no notice,” she said soothingly. “Come along. Just past the table and we’ll be through into Soames’ private quarters.”
Part of my mind thanked all the gods for that. Another part began to wonder who Soames was. And far more urgently, what had happened to Christian? He could not have known what a dreadful place he had condemned me to. I rolled my eyes around the room—my neck stubbornly refused to turn—just to check that he had not been captured and strung up like the rest of the men in here. I could not see him, and I was grateful for that. Surely, if he had managed to slip out unseen, he would be back to rescue me, and soon. With a few large men, with even larger fists. Or even policemen. I flushed with shame at the thought that Callum would surely find out if the police were to be involved, but anything was better than staying here a moment longer than necessary.
“Ah. Just a moment. This might amuse you.”
Amy paused and I had no option but to stop with her. I was like a bunraku puppet, only possessing life when the puppet master moved my body at her command. What was the matter with me? Terror and confusion rose in a lump in my throat and I thought it was going to choke me. I managed to clear my throat, but the effort was terrifyingly huge. I tried to speak, and found I could not.
“Madam.” A pretty girl was standing by the table. She stood rigidly to attention as Amy approached her.
“The dice, please.” Amy held out her hand and the girl quickly placed a pair of ivory dice in her palm. She turned to me and reached for my hand, holding it out, palm up. “There, Tomo. Time you took something of an active part in our little amusement. Close your hand,” she said crisply. “Turn it over and throw the dice on the table.”
Why was it I could move when she instructed me to do so? I tried so very hard to defy her, to keep my hand closed, but my treacherous body was having none of it. I opened my hand and threw the dice on the table.
“Double six!” Amy sounded deeply approving. “Who’s a lucky boy, then?”
Both women turned to stare at the other side of the table. Amy twitched the thick baize that draped to floor level aside and I saw a naked man, bent over the sort of low wooden bench that might be found in a school. The pretty woman reached under the table and produced a long, whippy cane. Almost casually, she moved over to the man and raised the cane above her shoulders before swishing it down viciously over his bare buttocks. Instantly, a red line appeared on his flesh. By the time she had swung the cane three times more, the lines were oozing blood. He did not appear to be restrained in any way, and I watched bewildered, wondering why he did not get up and run away. Until the last few lashes, he didn’t even make any noise. It was only then that he moaned and arched his back and writhed.
“Thank my friend Tomo nicely for allowing you so much punishment,” Amy instructed.
The man rolled off the bench onto his stomach and hunched across the floor, the movement looking like the progress of some obscenely elongated caterpillar. He stopped just short of my feet and spoke with his head thrust into the floor.
“Thank you, Tomo. Thank you,” he whispered huskily. I bit my tongue, hard, as I saw he had left a trail of his own blood behind him.
“Come along, Tomo. Ignore that wretch. It wouldn’t do to keep Soames waiting.” Amy took my arm and tugged me forward toward a plain oak door. “I wonder if I might be able to persuade him to leave you with me for a while. It would be such fun!”
The door was perfectly plain. It had neither a handle nor a doorknob. Amy placed her fingers in the exact center of one of the panels and made a curious turning motion. The door swung open at once and she stood back, pushing me through in front of her.
“Ah. At last. What has Amy being thinking of, keeping you all this time? Welcome, Lady Kyle. A thousand times welcome.”