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“But now this is what I really wanted to show you.” Orlanda paused so suddenly that Alexa almost bumped into her. “There is a curtain here which I will draw aside to reveal another kind of stage. I tell you this before because you must know that neither you nor I can be observed from the other side of what appears to be a wall of mirrors. So, now you will see my private theater and enjoy the performance mat is offered tonight, I hope. This is the room to which my young ladies bring the men that they choose—customer or coachman. And they do so with the understanding that should I, or any personal guest of mine so choose... Ah!” Orlanda’s soft, throaty laugh suggested infinite possibilities before she said: “If you should like to join the two on the bed or take the woman’s place, the choice is yours, of course! And I will even promise you privacy from all prying eyes—even my own!”
Even while she made that last provocative offer Orlanda had begun to draw aside the curtain with short tugs on a velvet cord, revealing at last a stage set of mirrors lighted by crystal lamps that hung from gold chains in every corner of the enormous room. Dominating everything else was the only item of furniture in this particular chamber of Venus—a bed so large that it could easily have accommodated three couples at one time on its sheets of soft, oyster-colored velvet that almost seemed to glow.
A performance indeed! Without her realizing it, Alexa’s fingers had suddenly tightened against each other while her eyes dilated. Why, this was almost like looking through a shop window! But with what a difference, for these were certainly no dressmakers’ dummies swathed with lengths of material.
Both naked and both unmasked, they sat opposite each other—the man’s sun browned back to the mirror while the young woman faced it. She was quite lovely, leaning slightly forward, her full red lips parted and her silvery blonde hair covering just enough of her breasts to make her pose even more provocative as she deliberately invited the caress of the fingers that pushed aside strands of hair to find crimson peaks which seemed to quiver as the woman’s breathing quickened. Her hands clutched fiercely at his shoulders as she whispered something and almost flung her body against her dark-haired partner, straddling him while her pale-ivory legs wrapped themselves about his hips.
“She is always hungry and always impatient, that Maddalena!” Orlanda whispered at Alexa’s side as the man brought his hands up to the young woman’s shoulders and pushed her backward while she continued to cling to him, her hips moving and now arching upward to answer thrust with counterthrust.
Alexa could feel her face becoming hot as her own breathing quickened unwillingly and her heart began to pound. The bed became an arena as the couple, like lusty young animals, playfully grappled with one another and changed positions, the man moving onto his side first and then onto his back with his hands as dark as mahogany against the pale flesh of his partner’s hips as he controlled her wild, writhing movements and her silver hair swung back and forth between them like a wind-tossed banner. At the next instant Maddalena had suddenly flung her head so far back that the veins became ridges against the arch of her throat, her mouth open and contorted as if she was in the throes of acute agony. And it was between that tautly held-moment and the next, when the woman let her body collapse limply forward over his that Alexa knew for a certainty what the purely intuitive part of her mind had guessed from the very beginning; holding her rooted in place by a sick kind of fascination that forced her to watch the whole obscene ritual of abandoned depravity.
Her sharply indrawn breath sounded more like a hiss as furious thoughts clashed against each other in her mind. Libertine! Lecher! Whoremaster! Debauched, profligate, hypocritical swine! And to think that this same infamous animal who frequented whores had dared to try to seduce the naive innocent she had been at the time, and his hands had actually touched her flesh with the same casual intimacy and the same calculated caresses he bestowed on his paid harlots! Why, if she had not learned by now how to exercise some control over her baser emotions, she would have been sorely tempted to... to...
“My dear! I had no idea that you would become quite so enthralled by my private theater. Or could it be that it is one of the performers who has managed to hold you spellbound?” The rather archly uttered question in Orlanda’s low, throaty voice broke into Alexa’s baleful thoughts, bringing her back to caution as well as reality. Still it took some effort to pull her gaze away from that rumpled bed and its lust-sated occupants—ivory-white against copper-bronze and sun-dark fingers tangled in a web of pale silver. Before Alexa had found a suitably convincing rebuttal Orlanda was already continuing with a hint of teasing laughter underlying her words. “If your hesitation is because of what you just witnessed, I think I can assure you with almost complete certainty that he has held himself back from...complete fulfillment. I myself have encountered only a very few men who have this kind of control; and I should warn you that should you meet one you might find yourself exceptionally fortunate or exceptionally unfortunate! But now, while Maddalena is still limp with satisfaction, would you care to take her place? I hope you must know by now that there is no need to feel shy here.”
During Orlanda’s suggestive little speech Alexa had managed to regain some semblance at least of her usual detachment. Keeping her back firmly turned on that garishly set stage, she said cuttingly: “Oh, I am really far from being shy by any means, but I myself believe that he must be one of those unfortunate males who can manage to give women a certain amount of pleasure without attaining completion themselves. Poor devils, how frustrating it must be for them!”
“Do you really think so?” Orlanda did not sound convinced in the least, although Alexa saw her give a slight shrug, as if to say that it was quite unimportant. “Ah, well, if you do not feel curious enough to want to find out for yourself which one of us is the better guesser, is there any other kind of spectacle or experience that might appeal to you?”
“Well, perhaps I really should look in on my husband before I think of how I might indulge myself,” Alexa said quickly, hoping she did not sound too sanctimonious. He had actually begun to make love to the more than willing Maddalena again! Were there no limits to his vile lechery? If she could have run away from the disgusting spectacle without making a complete fool of herself, Alexa felt that she would have done so. As it was she had to force herself to walk slowly enough to let Orlanda think she was reluctant to leave her theater of fantasy.
“I must admit that your idea of a mirror that becomes as transparent as a pane of glass on one side certainly provides one with a different perspective,” Alexa managed to say as they reentered Orlanda’s opulent bedroom. “And it was more than kind of you to allow me into your confidence.”
She was obliged to pause while Orlanda stopped before a mirror to pat at her hair and touch her cheeks with color that made them seem to glow with healthy vitality. “My dear,” Orlanda said casually over her shoulder, “I must admit that I cannot accept the credit for that particularly clever idea. It was one of my closest friends who thought of it first. Have you heard of a Madame Olivier?”
The suddenness of that seemingly innocuous question took Alexa by surprise, so that her straight dark brows puckered slightly before she said inquiringly, “No. At least I do not think so. Should I know her?”
Orlanda continued to study herself in the mirror quite unnecessarily, with her beringed fingers still touching a ringlet here and a curl there; but Alexa, standing behind her now, noticed that those dark eyes were watching her now, even though she used the same lightly casual tone of voice as she replied.
“Well, my dear, I had wondered, you know. And especially since I have been asked so many questions of late.” One shoulder lifted in a shrug as Orlanda finally turned away from her mirror to
face Alexa’s frowningly questioning look. “Lawyers!” she uttered contemptuously, with a slight wrinkling of her nose. “Why should I tell lawyers anything at all? And especially when after all these years I am told they are trying to find one of my closest and dearest friends? There are very few people I trust, cam, and lawyers least of all. But when Sir John—yes, your husband—also asks me similar questions, then I find myself wondering. Even quite curious; I must admit it. I began to ask myself why, after so many years, people are trying to find the whereabouts of Solange Bouvard?”
Chapter 26
Afterwards, when her mind had had the time to adjust itself to all of the startling revelations she had been subjected to in one evening, Alexa would often find herself wondering how she had prevented herself from bursting into peals of hysterical laughter as Orlanda, after scanning her face intently, had finally explained all her mysterious allusions. Solange Bouvard, the long-lost Aunt Solange she had become so anxious to find, was in fact now known as Madame Olivier, notorious all over Europe for running two of the most expensive and exclusive Fancy Houses in London. What subtle irony! And all the more so since it was in a Roman bordello that Alexa had first heard of what her mother’s sister had become.
Oh yes—if she had not been so stunned for several moments after Orlanda had made that first bluntly uttered revelation, Alexa was sure she would not have been able to control herself. But as it was she must have looked quite uncomprehending, so that Orlanda, with a rather impatient shake of her head, had gone on to enlighten her even further.
“How could I be certain, after all, how much you had already been told by those two? That Martin Howard who was always hanging about after Victorine, and his sister Harriet, who pretended to be Victorine’s friend and Solange’s as well when all the while she was eaten up with jealousy and hate because she had always wanted Dare— and it was Victorine he chose to elope with instead. Ah, if you could have been there to see her face when she heard of their elopement, as Solange and I were that day. ‘Be careful,’ I warned Solange later. ‘She has decided that you are to blame for everything, and now she hates you!’ And of course I was proved right later, after Dare had suddenly turned up from the dead—or so it seemed to all of London. I had already come to Italy by then, with my first Conte...”—Orlanda grimaced wryly—“or, believe me, I would have warned her once more—especially against seeing Dare again, or the Marquess of Newbury as he had become by then. My poor Solange had a weakness for the very good-looking men in those days, and she had always had eyes for Gavin Dameron, even after she knew he was after her younger sister. Ah, yes...”
Orlanda had, while she had been speaking, produced a slim cheroot from a thin gold case; and now, after sending Alexa a questioning look, she shrugged as she lit it and inhaled deeply, then exhaled a spiral of smoke with a sigh. “Yes,” she repeated, her wise eyes resting thoughtfully on Alexa’s set face, “if I had been there I would have reminded my friend to be careful—very careful—of bringing herself to the attention of the Witch, as we used to call the Marchioness Adelina. A very evil woman. And one that you too must be very careful of.”
There was much more to the story that Orlanda related, of course, and by the time she had finished Alexa no longer felt like laughing. Indeed, she had by this strangest of coincidences found out much more than she had bargained for. Enough to make her wonder bleakly if she might not have been much better off being born the natural daughter of Martin Howard, instead of being of the warped stock she had sprung from. Her paternal grandmother was a completely amoral and unscrupulous woman who was capable of doing anything, including brushing people who annoyed her out of the way as casually as if they had been no more than buzzing flies; capable, in fact, of going so far as to get her son’s legal wife safely out of the way with the threat of bigamy in order that he should contract a bigamous marriage with a Duke’s daughter, by whom he had already had three daughters. And as for Gavin Dameron himself, Alexa found that she could not bring herself to think of him as her father any longer. What sort of a man could callously discard a young, newly wed wife with an infant daughter, allowing her to believe him dead and then turn around and “marry” within two years another woman his mother chose for him? And there was more— even worse than that, if such a thing was possible and Orlanda was to be believed.
When Orlanda interrupted her narrative in order to light up yet another of her cheroots, she lifted inquiring brows at Alexa as if to invite questions; but the younger woman remained silent for so long that she might have been transformed into a marble statue.
“My dear, I hope I have not said too much? But if you are planning to go to England, where you might meet all these people, you will be very much better off knowing everything before. Do you not agree?”
“Tell me, please. My...I suppose they are my half sisters, as strange as it seems! Do you know anything about them, or what they are like? I suppose they must still be quite young, the poor creatures!” Her face hardened suddenly. “And he, the Marquess of Newbury. What of him now?” When Alexa saw that instead of choosing to answer all of her blurted-out questions immediately Orlanda was leaning forward to offer her a cheroot, she hesitated only momentarily before accepting one this time, although she had never smoked before.
“Here, let me light it for you....” Orlanda’s rather amused look told Alexa that she had already guessed at her inexperience, even before she warned her not to try to inhale the smoke at once, especially if this was the very first time she had tried a cheroot. “Watch me, and try to do as I do, but instead of pulling the smoke into your lungs you would be much wiser to blow it back out gently, like so. Otherwise you might soon begin to feel quite sick.” Then, while Alexa tried determinedly, glad to have something different to concentrate on for a few moments, Orlanda said abruptly: “You must not think that I am trying to evade your questions, cara. I will tell you as much as I know, if I can do so without breaking confidences. But no more tonight, I think. Too many shocks are never good for the system, and I think you need time to absorb and think about everything you have just learned. And also...” Orlanda leaned back with a roguish smile and gestured with her cheroot as Alexa almost choked on a mouthful of smoke. “Also, you see, perhaps I also need time in which to ponder over what I have learned about you tonight.” Catching Alexa’s rather startled look, she chuckled. “That surprises you? Ah, my dear, those of us lucky enough to have reached my position in our profession do so because we have learned almost everything there is to know about human nature, and especially its weaknesses, I am afraid. But I am an observer, and there are many I can also sense as well as see. A good madame should understand women and their emotions as well or better than she understands men.”
Stubbing out her cheroot in a silver and brass ashtray, Orlanda met Alexa’s suddenly wary eyes with a teasingly mocking smile that was almost a challenge, then rose to her feet and shook out her skirts. “Sometimes I am afraid I chatter on far too much, and that was a habit that Solange always chided me for.”
It was almost unwillingly that Alexa followed Orlanda’s example and rose also, feeling herself abruptly dismissed when there was still so much left unsaid and far too much implied. After all, she had not been the one to initiate what had turned out to be a series of unpleasant disclosures. And now, even though she had extinguished the cheroot she had accepted far too daringly, Alexa felt as if some of the smoke she had tried hard not to inhale had become trapped in her head, making it swim quite alarmingly as soon as she stood up.
How she had always hated admitting to any weakness in herself, and disliked most of all to feel pitied! Orlanda would almost likely begin fussing over her if she realized how easily she had been overcome by just a few puffs of smoke. Taking a deep breath and holding firmly on to the back of the chair she had just vacated, Alexa decided to buy herself a few more minutes in which to recover her equilibrium by asking one last defiant question.
