Lord John and the Hand of Devils (4 page)

“True, he is nothing in himself. His associations, though, are more substantial. Those with whom he allies himself are scarcely without power, though not—not yet!—in control.”

“And who are those? I am quite ignorant of politics these days.”

“Sir Francis Dashwood, John Wilkes, Mr. Churchill…Paul Whitehead, too. Oh, and Everett. You know George Everett?”

“We are acquainted,” Grey said equably. “The invitation you mentioned…?”

“Oh, yes.” Quarry shook his head, recalled to himself. “I finally discovered the whereabouts of the hall porter. He had overheard enough of Bubb-Dodington’s conversation to say that the man was urging Gerald to accept an invitation to stay at West Wycombe.”

Quarry raised his brows high in implication, but Grey remained ignorant and said so.

“West Wycombe is the home of Sir Francis Dashwood,” Lady Lucinda put in. “And the center of his influence. He entertains there lavishly, even as we do”—her plump mouth made a small moue of deprecation—“and to the same purposes.”

“The seduction of the powerful?” Grey smiled. “So Bubb-Dodington—or his masters—sought to entice Gerald? To what end, I wonder?”

“Richard calls the West Wycombe assemblage a nest of vipers,” Lucinda said. “Bent upon achieving their ends by any means, even dishonorable ones. Perhaps they sought to lure Robert into their camp for the sake of his own virtues, or”—she paused, hesitant—“for the sake of what he might know regarding the prime minister’s affairs?”

The music was starting afresh at the far end of the room, and they were interrupted at this delicate moment by a lady who, spotting them in their leafy refuge, came bustling in to claim Harry Quarry for a dance, waving aside all possibility of refusal with an airy fan.

“Is that not Lady Fitzwalter?” Buxom and high-colored, the lady now pressing Quarry’s hand provocatively to her breast was the wife of Sir Hugh, an elderly baronet from Sussex. Quarry appeared to have no objections, following up Lady F’s flirtations with a jocular pinch.

“Oh, Harry fancies himself a great rake,” Lady Lucinda said tolerantly, “though anyone can see it comes to nothing more than a hand of cards in the gentlemen’s clubs and an eye for shapely flesh. Is any officer in London greatly different?” A shrewd gray eye passed over Lord John, inquiring as to what his own differences might be.

“Indeed,” he said, amused. “And yet he was sent to Scotland for some indiscretion, I collect. Was it not the incident that left him with that slash across the face?”

“Oh, la,” she said, pursing up her mouth in scorn. “The famous scar! One would think it the Order of the Garter, he do flaunt it so. No, no, ’twas the cards that were the cause of his exile—he caught a Colonel of the regiment a-cheating at loo, and was too much gone in wine to keep a decent silence on the point.”

Grey opened his mouth to inquire about the scar, but was silenced himself by her grip upon his sleeve.

“Now, there’s a rake, if you want one,” she said, low-voiced. Her eyes marked out a man across the room, near the hearth. “Dashwood; him Harry spoke of. Know of him, do you?”

Grey squinted against the haze of smoke in the room. The man was heavy-bodied, but betrayed no softness of flesh; the sloping shoulders were thick with muscle, and if waist and calves were thick as well, it was by a natural inclination of form, rather than the result of indulgence.

“I have heard the name,” Grey said. “A political of some minor repute?”

“In the arena of politics, yes,” Lady Lucinda agreed, not taking her eyes from the man. “In others…less minor. In fact, his repute in some circles is nothing short of outright notoriety.”

A reach for a glass stretched the satin of Dashwood’s broidered plum-silk waistcoat tight across a broad chest, and brought into view a face, likewise broad, ruddy in the candle glow and animated with a cynic laughter. He wore no wig, but had a quantity of dark hair, curling low across the brow. Grey furrowed his own brow in the effort of recall; someone had said something to him, yes—but the occasion escaped him, as did its content.

“He seems a man of substance,” he hazarded. Certainly Dashwood was the cynosure of his end of the room, all eyes upon him as he spoke.

Lady Lucinda uttered a short laugh.

“Do you think so, sir? He and his friends flaunt their practice of licentiousness and blasphemy as Harry flaunts his scar—and from the same cause.”

It was the word “blasphemy” that brought back recollection.

“Ha. I have heard mention…Medmenham Abbey?”

Lucinda’s lips pursed tight, and she nodded. “The Hellfire Club, they call it.”

“Indeed. There have been Hellfire clubs before—many of them. Is this one more than the usual excuse for public riot and drunken license?”

She looked at the men before the fire, her countenance troubled. With the light of the blaze behind them, all individuality of lineament was lost; they appeared no more than an assemblage of dark figures; faceless devils, outlined by the firelight.

“I think not,” she said, very low-voiced, glancing to and fro to assure they were unheard. “Or so I
did
think—until I heard of the invitation to Robert. Now…”

The advent near the jungle of a tall, good-looking man whose resemblance to Quarry made his identity clear put an end to the clandestine conference.

“There is Sir Richard; he is looking for me.” Poised to take flight, Lady Lucinda stopped and looked back at Grey. “I cannot say, sir, what reason you may have for your interest—but I do thank you for it.” A flicker of wryness lit the gray eyes. “Godspeed you, sir—though for myself, I should not much respect a God so petty as to be concerned with such as Francis Dashwood.”

Grey passed into the general crowd, bowing and smiling, allowing himself to be drawn into a dance here, a conversation there; keeping all the time one eye upon the group near the hearth. Men joined it for a short time, fell away, and were replaced by others, yet the central group remained unchanged.

Bubb-Dodington and Dashwood were the center of it; Churchill, the poet John Wilkes, and the Earl of Sandwich surrounded them. Seeing at one point during a break in the music that a good many had gathered by the hearth, men and women alike, Grey thought the moment ripe to make his own presence known, and unobtrusively joined the crowd, maneuvering to a spot near Bubb-Dodington.

Mr. Justice Margrave was holding the floor, speaking of the subject which had formed the meat of most conversations Grey had heard so far—the death of Robert Gerald, or more particularly, the rash of rumor and scandal that followed it. The judge caught Grey’s eye and nodded—his worship was well acquainted with Grey’s family—but continued his denunciation unimpeded.

“I should wish that, rather than the pillory, the stake be the punishment for such abominable vice.” Margrave swung a heavy head in Grey’s direction, eyelids dropping half closed. “Have you read Holloway’s notion, sir? He suggests that this disgusting practice of sodomy be restrained by castration or some other cogent preventative.”

Grey restrained the urge to clasp himself protectively.

“Cogent, indeed,” he said. “You suppose the man who cut down Robert Gerald to be impelled by moralistic motives, then?”

“Whether he were or no, I should say he has rendered signal service to society, ridding us of an exponent of this moral blight.”

Grey observed Harry Quarry standing a yard away, gleaming eyes fixed upon the elderly justice in a manner calculated to cause the utmost concern for that worthy’s future prospects. Turning away, lest his acknowledgment embolden Quarry to open violence, he found himself instead face to face with George Everett.

“John,” Everett said softly, smiling.

“Mr. Everett.” Grey inclined his head politely. Nothing squelched, Everett continued to smile. He was a handsome devil, and he knew it.

“You are in good looks, John. Exile agrees with you, it seems.” The long mouth widened, curling at the corner.

“Indeed. I must take pains to go away more often, then.” His heart was beating faster. Everett’s perfume was his accustomed musk and myrrh; the scent of it conjured tumbled linens, and the touch of hard and knowing hands.

A hoarse voice near his shoulder provided welcome distraction.

“Lord John? Your servant, sir.”

Grey turned to find the gentleman in rose velvet bowing to him, a look of spurious cordiality fixed upon saturnine features.

“Mr. Bubb-Dodington, I collect. I am obliged, sir.” He bowed in turn, and allowed himself to be separated from Everett, who stood looking after them, a faint smile upon his lips.

So conscious was he of Everett’s eyes burning holes in his back that he scarce attended to Bubb-Dodington’s overtures, replying automatically to the man’s courtesies and inquiries. It was not until the rasping voice mentioned the word “Medmenham” that he was jerked into attention, to realize that he had just received a most interesting invitation.

“…would find us a most congenial assembly, I am sure,” Bubb-Dodington was saying, leaning toward Grey with that same attitude of fawning attention he had noted earlier.

“You feel I would be in sympathy with the interests of your society?” Grey contrived to infuse a faint tone of boredom, looking away from the man. Just over Bubb-Dodington’s shoulder, he was conscious of the figure of Sir Francis Dashwood, dark and bulky. Dashwood’s deep-set eyes rested upon them, even as he carried on a conversation, and a ripple of apprehension raised the hairs on the back of Grey’s neck.

“I am flattered, but I scarcely think…” he began, turning away.

“Oh, do not think you would be quite strange!” Bubb-Dodington interrupted, beaming with oily deprecation. “You are acquainted with Mr. Everett, I think? He will make one of our number.”

“Indeed.” Grey’s mouth had gone dry. “I see. Well, you must allow me to consult…” Muttering excuses, he escaped, finding refuge a moment later in the company of Harry Quarry and his sister-in-law, sharing cups of brandy punch at the nearby buffet.

“It galls me,” Harry was saying, “that such petty time-servers and flaunting jackanapes make my kin to be the equal of the he-strumpets and buggerantoes that infest the Arcade. I’ve known Bob Gerald from a lad, and I will swear my life upon his honor!” Quarry’s large hand clenched upon his glass as he glowered at Mr. Justice Margrave’s back.

“Have a care, Harry, my dear.” Lucinda placed a hand on his sleeve. “Those are my good crystal cups. If you must crush something, let it be the hazelnuts.”

“I shall let it be that fellow’s windpipe, and he does not cease to air his idiocy,” said Quarry. He scowled horridly, but suffered himself to be turned away, still talking. “What can Richard be thinking of, to entertain such scum? Dashwood, I mean, and now this…”

Grey started, and felt a chill down his spine. Quarry’s blunt features bore no trace of resemblance to his dead cousin-by-marriage, and yet—his face contorted with fury, eyes bulging slightly as he spoke…Grey closed his eyes tightly, summoning the vision.

He left Quarry and Lady Lucinda abruptly, without excuse, and made his way hastily to the large gilded mirror that hung above a sideboard in the dining room.

Leaning over the skeletal remains of a roasted pheasant, he stared at his mouth—painstakingly forming the shapes he had seen on Robert Gerald’s mouth—and now again on Harry Quarry’s, hearing in his mind as he made them the sound of Robert Gerald’s effortful—but unvoiced—last word.

“Dashwood.”

Quarry had followed him, brows drawn down in puzzlement.

“What the devil, Grey? Why are you making faces in the mirror? Are you ill?”

“No,” said Grey, though in fact he felt very ill. He stared at his own image in the mirror, as though it were some ghastly specter.

Another face appeared, and dark eyes met his own in the mirror. The two reflections were close in size and form, both possessed of a tidy muscularity and a fineness of feature that had led more than one observer to remark in company that they could be twins—one light, one dark.

“You will come to Medmenham, won’t you?” The murmured words were warm in his ear, George’s body so close that he could feel the pressure of hip and thigh. Everett’s hand touched his, lightly.

“I should…particularly desire it.”

Part III

Christened in Blood

Medmenham Abbey
West Wycombe

I
t was not until the third night at Medmenham that anything untoward occurred. To that point—despite Quarry’s loudly expressed doubts beforehand—it had been a house party much like any other in Lord John’s experience, though with more talk of politics and less of hunting than was customary.

In spite of the talk and entertainment, though, there was an odd air of secrecy about the house. Whether it was some attitude on the part of the servants, or something unseen but sensed among the guests, Grey could not tell, but it was real; it floated on the air of the Abbey like smoke on water.

The only other oddity was the lack of women. While females of good family from the countryside near West Wycombe were invited to dine, all of the houseguests were male. The thought occurred to Grey that from outward appearance, it might almost be one of those sodomitical societies so decried in the London broadsheets. In appearance only, though; there was no hint of such behavior. Even George Everett gave no hint of any sentiment save the amiability of renewed friendship.

No, it was not that kind of behavior that had given Sir Francis and his restored abbey the name of scandal. Exactly what
did
lie behind the whispers of notoriety was yet a mystery.

Grey knew one thing: Dashwood was not Gerald’s murderer, at least not directly. Discreet inquiry had established Sir Francis’s whereabouts, and shown him far from Forby Street at the time of the outrage. There was the possibility of hired assassination, though, and Robert Gerald had seen
something
in the moment of his death that caused him to utter that last silent accusation.

There was nothing so far to which Grey could point as evidence, either of guilt or depravity. Still, if evidence was to be found anywhere, it must be at Medmenham—the deconsecrated abbey which Sir Francis had restored from ruins and made a showplace for his political ambitions.

Among the talk and entertainments, though, Grey was conscious of a silent process of evaluation, plain in the eyes and manner of his companions. He was being watched, his fitness gauged—but for what?

“What is it that Sir Francis wants with me?” he had asked bluntly, walking in the gardens with Everett on the second afternoon. “I have nothing to appeal to such a man.”

George smiled. He wore his own hair, dark and shining, and the chilly breeze stroked strands of it across his cheeks.

“You underestimate your own merits, John—as always. Of course, nothing becomes manly virtue more than simple modesty.” He glanced sidelong, mouth quirking with appreciation.

“I scarce think my personal attributes are sufficient to intrigue a man of Dashwood’s character,” Grey answered dryly.

“More to the point,” Everett said, arching one brow, “what is it in Sir Francis that so intrigues
you
? You have not spoke of anything, save to question me about him.”

“You would be better suited to answer that than I,” Grey answered boldly. “I hear you are an intimate—the valet tells me you have been a guest at Medmenham many times this year past. What is it draws
you
to seek his company?”

George grunted in amusement, then flung back his head, breathing in the damp air with enjoyment. Lord John did likewise; autumn smells of leaf mold and chimney smoke, spiced with the tang of ripe muscats from the arbor nearby. Scents to stir the blood; cold air to sting cheeks and hands, exercise to stimulate and weary the limbs, making the glowing leisure of the fireside and the comforts of a dark, warm bed so appealing by contrast.

“Power,” George said at last. He lifted a hand toward the Abbey—an impressive pile of gray stone, at once stalwart in shape and delicate in design. “Dashwood aspires to great things; I would join him on that upward reach.” He cast a glance at Grey. “And you, John? It has been some time since I presumed to know you, and yet I should not have said that a thirst for social influence formed much part of your own desires.”

Grey wished no discussion of his desires; not at the moment.

“‘The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall,’” he quoted.

“‘The desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.’” George completed the quote, and uttered a short laugh. “What is it that you seek to know then, John?” He turned his head toward Grey, dark eyes creased against the wind, and smiled as though he knew the answer.

“The truth of the death of Robert Gerald.”

He had mentioned Gerald to each of the house party in turn, choosing his moment, probing delicately. No delicacy here; he wished to shock, and did so. George’s face went comically blank, then hardened into disapproval.

“Why do you seek to entangle yourself in that sordid affair?” he demanded. “Such association cannot but harm your own reputation—such as it is.”

That stung, as it was meant to.

“My reputation is my own affair,” Grey said, “as are my reasons. Did you know Gerald?”

“No,” Everett answered shortly. By unspoken consent, they turned toward the Abbey, and walked back in silence.

O
n the third day, something changed. A sense of nervous anticipation seemed to pervade the air, and the air of secrecy grew heavier. Grey felt as though some stifling lid pressed down upon the Abbey, and spent as much time as possible out of doors.

Still, nothing untoward occurred during the day or evening, and he retired as usual, soon after ten o’clock. Dismissing the valet, he undressed alone. He was tired from his long rambles over the countryside, but it was early yet. He picked up a book, attempted to read, but the words seemed to slide away from his eyes. His head nodded, and he slept, sitting up in the chair.

The sound of the clock striking below in the hall woke him from uneasy dreams of dark pools and drowning. He sat up, a metal taste like blood in his mouth, and rubbed away the sleep from his eyes. Time for his nightly signal to Quarry.

Unwilling to allow Grey to risk such company alone, Quarry had followed Lord John to West Wycombe. He would, he insisted, there take up station in the meadow facing the guest wing each night, between the hours of eleven and one o’clock. Lord John was to pass a candle flame three times across the glass each night, as a sign that all was so far well.

Feeling ridiculous, Grey had done so on each of the first two nights. Tonight, he felt some small sense of reassurance as he bent to light his taper from the hearth. The house was silent, but not asleep. Something stirred, somewhere in the Abbey; he could feel it. Perhaps the ghosts of the ancient monks—perhaps something else.

The candle flame showed the reflection of his own face, a wan oval in the glass, his light blue eyes gone to dark holes. He stood a moment, holding the flame, then blew it out and went to bed, obscurely more comforted by the thought of Harry outside than by the knowledge of George Everett in the next room.

He waked in darkness, to find his bed surrounded by monks. Or men dressed as monks; each wore a rope-belted robe and a deep-cowled hood, pulled far forward to hide the face. Beyond the first startled exclamation, he lay quiet. He might have thought them the ghosts of the Abbey, save that the reassuring scents of sweat and alcohol, of powder and pomade, told him otherwise.

None spoke, but hands pulled him from his bed and set him on his feet, stripped the nightshirt from his body, and helped him into a robe of his own. A hand cupped him intimately, a caress given under cover of darkness, and he breathed musk and myrrh.

No menaces were offered, and he knew his companions to be those men with whom he had broken bread at dinner. Still, his heart beat in his ears as he was conducted by darkened hallways into the garden, and then by lantern light through a maze of clipped yew. Beyond this, a path led down the side of a stony hill, curving into the darkness and finally turning back into the hillside itself.

Here they passed through a curious portal, this being an archway of wood and marble, carved into what he took to be the semblance of a woman’s privates, opened wide. He examined this with curiosity; early experience with whores had made him vaguely familiar, but had afforded no opportunity for close inspection.

Once within this portal, a bell began to chime somewhere ahead. The “monks” formed themselves into a line, two by two, and shuffled slowly forward, beginning to chant.

“Hocus-pocus,

Hoc est corpus…”

The chant continued in the same vein—a perversion of various well-known prayers, some merely foolish nonsense, some clever or openly bawdy. Grey restrained a sudden urge to laugh, and bit his lip to stop it.

The solemn procession wound its way deeper and he smelled damp rock; were they in a cave? Evidently; as the passage widened, he saw light ahead and entered eventually into a large chamber, set with candles, whose rough-hewn walls indicated that they were indeed in a catacomb of sorts. The impression was heightened by the presence of a number of human skulls, set grinning atop their crossed thigh bones, like so many Jolly Rogers.

Grey found himself pressed into a place near the wall. One figure, robed in a cardinal’s red, came forward, and Sir Francis Dashwood’s voice intoned the beginning of the rite. The rite itself was a parody of the Mass, enacted with great solemnity, invocations made to the Master of Darkness, the chalice formed of an upturned skull.

In all truth, Grey found the proceedings tedious in the extreme, enlivened only by the appearance of a large Barbary ape, attired in bishop’s cope and miter, who appeared at the Consecration. The animal sprang upon the altar, where it gobbled and slobbered over the bread provided and spilled wine upon the floor. It would have been less entertaining, Grey thought, had the beast’s ginger whiskers and seamed countenance not reminded him so strongly of the Bishop of Ely, an old friend of his mother’s.

At the conclusion of this rite, the men went out, with considerably less solemnity than when they had come in. A good deal had been drunk in the course of the rite, and their behavior was less restrained than that of the ape.

Two men near the end of the line seized Grey by the arms and compelled him into a small alcove, around which the others had gathered. He found himself bent backward over a marble basin, the robe pushed down from his shoulders. Dashwood intoned a prayer in reverse Latin, and something warm and sticky cascaded over Grey’s head, blinding him and causing him to struggle and curse in the grip of his captors.

“I baptize thee, child of Asmodeus, son of blood…” A kick from Grey’s foot caught Dashwood under the chin and sent him reeling backward. A hard punch in the pit of the stomach knocked the breath from Grey and quieted him for the remainder of the brief ceremony.

Then they set him on his feet, bloodstained, and gave him drink from a jeweled cup. He tasted opium in the wine, and let as much as he dared dribble down his chin as he drank. Even so, he felt the dreamy tendrils of the drug steal through his mind, and his balance grew precarious, sending him lurching through the crowd, to the great hilarity of the robed onlookers.

Hands took him by the elbows and propelled him down a corridor, and another, and another. A draft of warm air, and he found himself thrust through a door, which closed behind him.

The chamber was small, furnished with nothing save a narrow couch against the far wall, and a table upon which stood a flagon, several glasses…and a knife. Grey staggered to the table, and braced himself with both hands to keep from falling.

There was a strange smell in the room. At first he thought he had vomited, sickened by blood and wine, but then he saw the pool of it, across the room by the bed. It was only then that he saw the girl.

She was young and naked and dead. Her body lay limp, sprawled white in the light, but her eyes were dull and her lips blue, the traces of sickness trailing down her face and across the bedclothes. Grey backed slowly away, shock washing the last remnants of the drug from his blood.

He rubbed both hands hard across his face, striving to think. What was this, why was he here, with the body of this young woman? He brought himself to come closer, to look. She was no one he had seen before; the calluses upon her hands and the state of her feet marked her as a servant or a country girl.