LITMIR.BIZ

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even a hint?” Tom pressed.

      In response, Ellingsworth put a finger to his smirking mouth, then wheeled his horse around.

      Together, he and Tom rode off into the night.

      Bloomsbury slumbered peacefully as Tom and Ellingsworth rode down an avenue lined with prosperous-looking homes. It hardly seemed the environment where a club—of admittedly unknown character—might thrive. The street was empty, while lamplight glowed warmly on the houses’ facades.

      Ellingsworth pulled his horse up outside one genteel but ordinary home that boasted several stories and a colonnade, with potted plants flanking the front door. Heavy curtains had been drawn in all the windows, keeping the activities inside hidden. Not a sound emerged from the structure. No human voices, no music. Nothing.

      “Still as the grave.” Tom eyed the building doubtfully. “You’re having me on. There’s no club in there.”

      “I’d never feed you poor intelligence. Not when it came to finding new pleasures.” Ellingsworth looked affronted that Tom even suggested such a thing.

      “My most sincere apologies.” Tom inclined his head. “What do we do with our cattle?”

      “We take the mews to a stable in the back, but everyone enters through the front door.” Ellingsworth clicked his tongue as he guided his horse toward the narrow alley beside the house, and Tom followed.

      A considerable brick stable awaited them, staffed by three smartly dressed grooms. A few carriages were parked outside, dozing coachmen sitting atop the vehicles. But within the stalls, there were horses of varying quality and age. Some were sleek, pampered animals clearly purchased from Tattersall’s, while others had seen years of hard service to their owners. There was even a donkey.

      As he handed one of the servants the reins, he studied the groom’s face for some indication as to what kind of place this might be—a knowing wink, or maybe a sneer of disgust. Yet the servant seemed to deliberately school his features so that he gave nothing away.

      “Be needing a mask, sir?” the groom asked.

      Tom frowned at the servant’s use of sir rather than my lord, but he surmised that any club requiring a mask seemed to want anonymity for its patrons, insisting that he be called by his proper title might be ill-advised.

      “I have one,” Tom said, patting the inside pocket of his jacket.

      “You’ll want to put it on now, sir. Before you go inside. House rules.”

      As Tom donned his blue satin mask, he saw that Ellingsworth did the same with one made of bronze silk.

      “We’re to play at being highwaymen?” Tom guessed.

      In response, his friend smirked. “Badger me with as many questions as you like, but I’ll answer nary a one until we’re inside.”

      Tom heaved a sigh. “You’re enjoying my torment.”

      They walked back up the mews to the front of the house.

      “The trouble with you, Langdon, is that you’re far too indulged. That’s what comes of being the heir. Whatever you want, you get, and if anything is denied you, you insist it’s worse than the sufferings of Tantalus.”

      “I am not indulged. I merely dislike delaying gratification. Waiting is unsupportable.”

      Ellingsworth snorted. “You may be able to wield a sabre, and you can shoot, but you’d make for a terrible soldier.”

      “I’ll leave soldiering to more desperate blokes like you.”

      His friend’s expression darkened. “Those days are behind me.”

      Tom fell into troubled silence. Since returning home from Waterloo, his friend’s temperament shifted and altered rapidly from moment to moment. Ellingsworth might be full of quips and jests, and in a trice, he would grow moody and withdrawn. Though it worried him, Tom never asked about these abrupt changes in humor, held back by a concern over his friend’s masculine pride. He sensed it had something to do with the War, something that, as a ducal heir, he would never experience.

      How could he offer Ellingsworth a listening ear when he couldn’t begin to understand all that his friend had seen and done, all that he’d survived? Perhaps someday, Tom might bring the subject up—delicately. Until then, he’d be Ellingsworth’s companion in revelry.

      They emerged back onto the street, and Tom held the gate that opened to the walkway leading to the front door. As if sensing the new experience that lay just steps away, his heart thudded with excitement as he approached the club’s entrance. Distantly, the bell at St. George’s proclaimed it to be one in the morning, straight in the middle of a rake’s day. While the good people of London slept and rested in anticipation of their labors, he and people of his ilk prowled the streets in search of adventure.

      Ellingsworth stepped to the door and knocked. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.

      Tom’s lips pressed together as he suppressed a laugh. A secret knock? Truly? How trite.

      The door opened, revealing a masked young black woman with closely shorn hair. She wore a coral-hued mask, and she gazed at Tom and Ellingsworth expectantly.

      “I’ve come for the plums,” Ellingsworth said.

      “We haven’t any,” was her answer.

      “Peaches will suffice.”

      Tom frowned, dimly recognizing the exchange from someplace, but he couldn’t quite recall where he’d heard it. A moment later he realized the phrases came from Alone with the Rogue. He’d read the erotic novel—penned by the mysterious and wildly popular Lady of Dubious Quality—cover to cover, and then reread it almost immediately after turning the final page.

      For all its pretense at secrecy, the Orchid Club certainly had good taste in literature.

      The masked woman opened the door wider. “Come in, friends.”

      Tom and Ellingsworth stepped into the vestibule and the woman firmly shut and locked the door behind them. A single candle burned in the candelabra on a small table, but Tom could still make out the details in the entryway. It resembled any other in a well-to-do home, with nondescript but well-rendered paintings of exotic flowers hanging on the walls, and a large unlit chandelier hanging overhead.

      “Is this your first time at the Orchid Club?” the woman asked.

      “Yes,” Tom replied.

      Ellingsworth said, “My name’s—”

      She held up a hand. “No names here. The club abides by a code of strictest privacy. All are equal within these walls.”

      Tom’s brows lifted. An egalitarian club was astonishingly progressive. Clubs were supposed to be strongholds of elitism, or so White’s would have anyone believe.

      “The only person at the Orchid Club who is permitted a name is our proprietress, Amina. But you are not to ask anyone else for anything that might identify them. Is that understood?”

      Both Tom and Ellingsworth nodded.

      “There is one other rule which must be obeyed,” the woman said. “Everything must be consensual. No one shall be persuaded, coerced, or bullied.” Her voice firmed. “Whoever does not submit to this will be summarily escorted out and banned from returning.” She snapped her fingers and two brawny men emerged from the darkness, their faces impassive behind their masks. “These gentlemen are here to enforce the rules. I pray you do not make me summon them. Do I make myself clear?”

      “You do,” Tom said. His mind spun, trying to determine what exactly transpired at the Orchid Club that required these rules.

      “How much to enter?” Ellingsworth asked.

      The woman spread her hands. “That is at your discretion. We operate on the largesse of

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