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“She is the proprietress of the private chambers. Where we work.”
“Oh.” Eloise felt slightly uncomfortable. Were they going to those private chambers? What was Eloise about to see?
“Is Grace…”How do I put it delicately?“One of Hades’ women?”
“One of his women?” Verity halted, and Eloise ran into her back. Verity turned toward Eloise, her face shaded ominously by the candlelight. “Don’t you know about the curse?”
Eloise shivered in the cold room, and it seemed like the wind appeared out of nowhere. Where would the wind come from in a tightly locked space?
“What curse?”
Verity cackled. “You must be the only person in London who doesn’t know.”
The cackle, the echo in the cold, dank corridor, the ominous shadows playing on Verity’s face made an uncontrollable fear creep up to the usually logical Eloise’s mind.
“I do not believe in curses,” she said and put her hand over Verity’s to move the candle so the shadow didn’t cover more than half of Verity’s face.
Verity shrugged. “Whether you believe it or not, there’s a curse on that man. Doomed to love no one. And if he so much as dares, that love is taken from him.”
Eloise bit on her lip. “Like Ava?”
Verity let out a deep sigh and turned to continue on to their destination. “He treasured her, kept her by his side. He meant to protect her from everything. But he is not all-powerful, despite his name. But as it turns out, the curse does not discriminate against the type of love. Sister or lover, it doesn’t matter. None of the women he’s loved ever lived to be twenty.”
“How many have died?”
Verity shrugged. “Nobody knows.”
“Well, was there anyone besides Ava?”
Verity shrugged again.
Just as I thought.
“The point is, he does not partake in the pleasures of the flesh. Or he risks dooming the woman.”
“Where did this rumor about the curse begin, anyway?”
“I don’t know. I was told by one of the women when I arrived. Because apparently, some of them tried to get into his good graces, by… well, you know, getting him into bed. But he refused. Once in a while, he would ask a woman to disrobe for him andperformwhile he watched. But he’s never been intimate with women. Not with men either, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Verity hastened to add.
Eloise swallowed, her hair standing on end. She didn’t understand her reaction to Verity’s words. What did she mean by performing? What did he require them to do? She shifted, feeling uncomfortable in her own skin.
They finally reached the end of the corridor, and Verity opened the door with a flourish. “Welcome to Hades’ hell.”
Eloise’s insides quivered in anticipation. She had never thought she’d ever be so lucky—or unlucky, depending on whose opinion you were listening to—to see a real-life gaming hell.
Instead of a wide hall or a ballroom, or whatever Eloise imagined in her mind, they turned into a tight corridor once again. There were holes in the wall, and Verity gestured to a couple a little above Eloise’s eye level.
“Take a look,” Verity urged.
Eloise stood on tiptoe and took a peek.
Nowthatlooked like a gaming hell! It was a vast, dark room with a few tables. Half the room was invisible for the cigar smoke, but the half that was visible was almost as disturbing as what she’d seen during her first night dining with the bandits. Men in expensive clothes and nicely groomed wigs sat around tables playing cards and drinking spirits. Some men had half-dressed harlots sitting on their laps. The men were fondling their breasts or playing beneath their skirts. Women were likewise touching and groping the men, whispering in their ears.
Eloise wrinkled her nose.
“Come,” Verity beckoned. “There’s more.”
And there was a lot more. Some rooms were benign and just had gentlemen playing cards or fish, with harlots standing by the sides of the rooms until called on to leave for another room. Other rooms were semi-private, as Verity explained, with lush settees and comfortable chairs, similar to the first room Eloise had seen. The lords were a bit looser there, the harlots a bit less clothed. Eloise was afraid the next room they’d see would be completely shameless.
