House of Dark Delights (25 page)

A muscular fellow in a dusty blue
tunica
stood chiseling away at one of the blocks, which was well on its way to being a finished sculpture, while his models—Inigo and a voluptuous raven-haired beauty, both naked—posed for him. The young woman, Tita presumably, was bent over with her legs widespread, hugging a thick tree trunk stripped of its bark—a stand-in, obviously, for the column—while Inigo stood behind her with his hands around her waist, his back slightly bowed and his hips tucked.

The first remarkable thing Elijah noticed about Inigo was his erect penis. About as thick around as a woman's forearm, it was actually penetrating Tita, with about five or six inches showing. Never in his life, even among primitive tribespeople who weren't terribly shy about such matters, had Elijah witnessed an act of coition taking place right in front of him. Not that this was sex in the usual sense. Inigo and this woman, although physically joined, weren't even moving; they were posing. It made sense, now that Elijah thought about it, that such accomplished sculptures would have required live models. Silently chiding himself for his priggish reaction, he strove to take an intellectually detached view of the situation. He was a scholar of human beliefs and practices, not some judgmental Philistine. And what was happening here was, after all, an artistic endeavor.

“Stop thrusting, Inigo,” the sculptor ordered. “I'm doing the crack of your ass.”

“You
wish
you were doing the crack of my ass,” Inigo retorted with a snort.

Tita chuckled. The sculptor cast his gaze wearily to the heavens, but Elijah could see that he was fighting back a smile. “Don't get a big head over it, darling. It's not
you
that gets my heart beating like a bird's. You're an overgrown child, and I loathe children. It's that truncheon of yours. I swear, it's the most lickable thing I've ever seen, and I've licked a few in my day.”

With a snicker, Inigo said, “Curious thing, Marcus, how you always manage to bring the conversation around to that particular subject.”

“People enjoy talking about their areas of expertise,” Marcus said as he blew a puff of dust off the statue's marble buttocks.

“That good, are you?”

“I've been assured there are none better.”

“All right, then.” Withdrawing from Tita—by God, that thing was huge—Inigo turned and strode toward Marcus, his fist wrapped around the proffered organ. “Prove it.”

That was when Elijah noticed the second remarkable thing about Inigo, which was that he had a tail that swung back and forth as he walked. Beyond shock at this point, Elijah just stared, wondering what was next.

Marcus recoiled from Inigo's outthrust, glistening erection. “Not after it's been in
that,
” he said, pointing to Tita's exposed sex with his hammer. “Tonight, after we're done here, I'll meet you—”

“You had your chance,” taunted Inigo as he returned to Tita, grabbed her hips, and pushed himself back in, causing her to purr delightedly.

“Bitch,” Marcus said as he returned to his work.

The third remarkable thing Elijah noticed about Inigo—and at this point, it was a mere footnote to the rest, a mild curiosity—was that his ears were pointed and he had a pair of small, bony horns poking through the cap of black curlicues on his head.

“
Will
you stop that damned thrusting?” Marcus demanded.

“You want me to stay hard, don't you?”

“Think arousing thoughts.”

“I've been thinking about you licking me. It isn't doing the job.”

“I like it when he thrusts,” said Tita, squirming with pleasure.

Reaching around to touch her between her legs, Inigo said, “So you do.” Tita moaned as Inigo caressed her. He thrust harder, more purposefully.

“Stop that!” Marcus snapped, but the command fell on deaf ears. “Oh, hell,” he muttered. “Will you at least be quick about it this time?”

“Oh…” Tita sighed, clutching at the tree trunk, her breasts and hair swaying with every thrust. “Oh, yes…yes…yes…”

Without pausing in what he was doing, Inigo turned and looked directly at Elijah. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” he said in Julia's voice.

                  

Elijah opened his eyes to find himself back in the clearing, lying on the blanket. A woman was crouching over him to unbutton his trousers, her face obscured by a swath of rippling, golden-brown hair. The gauzy morning dress she wore, apple green with tiny white dots, had always been his favorite.

“Julia?” he said incredulously.

She turned and smiled at him, the breeze lifting her hair. He breathed in the Roger & Gallet eau de cologne he gave her for Christmas every year, tears stinging his eyes.

“Oh, my God.” Elijah reached out with a trembling hand to touch her hair, her face, his arm oddly heavy, as if he were underwater. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Julia. How can this…? How can you…?”

“I can't stay long,” she said as she caressed him. “I just want to feel you inside me again. Just let me…”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Oh, God, yes.” How long had it been since he'd made love to her? Since well before he'd lost her, because she'd been so ill for so long. He moaned her name as she stroked him, reveling in her cool, soft fingertips, her familiar touch.

Tucking her skirts up, she knelt astride him, easing him into her, and it was so sweet and warm and perfect, just like it used to be. She kissed him as she moved, rocking slowly and gently at first, then deeper, faster…

They climaxed together, as they often used to, she coloring hotly as she always did, breathy little moans issuing from her. They lay together quietly as he softened inside her, their hearts beating next to each other, their lungs slowing in unison.

“I've missed this,” he said, his breath ruffling her hair as she lay atop him with her head nestled heavily in the crook of his neck. The feel of her body conforming itself to his, the warmth of her skin, the knowledge that there was one person in the world who lived for him as he lived for her…God, he'd missed it so much.

“You can have it again,” she said.

“But…you said you couldn't stay.”

Rising up a bit so that she could meet his gaze, she said, “After I leave here, you'll never see me again. But there are other women…”

“No.” He tried to shake his head, but it was too difficult. “No. I couldn't.”

She chuckled softly, as she did whenever he was being unaccountably stubborn about something. “Of course you can. You must. You were never meant to be alone, Elijah. No human is.”

“But—”

“I can't rest easy if I know you're alone, wanting this,” she said, indicating the two of them lying together as one, “
craving
this, but thinking you mustn't. What we had was beautiful, but I'm gone now, and you're still here, stuck in this human form that needs so much. Grief has its natural limits, Elijah. It's time for you to tuck me away in your memory and open that generous heart of yours to someone else.”

“Julia…”

“You know I'm right, Elijah. You know it here.” She kissed his forehead. “But you need to feel it here.” She rested a hand on his chest, over his heart. “Will you try?”

He searched her eyes, accepting the wisdom of what she was saying, but loath to tell this woman who'd been the other half of him that she was replaceable.

As if he'd spoken that thought aloud, Julia said, “She won't be me. She'll be the woman you need now, not the one you needed when we fell in love. It won't be a betrayal. It will be what you need, what I want for you. Will you try, my love? For me, if not for yourself?”

He managed to say, “I'll try. I will.”

She smiled, and touched her lips to his. “Sleep now.”

“No,” he said, knowing that when he awoke, she would be gone. “No. Stay, Julia, please. I need you.”

“You have me. You'll always have me.”

“But—”

“Close your eyes, love,” she murmured, stroking his forehead with a feathery touch. “Just for a few moments.”

She whispered something else, then, strange, foreign words that he couldn't make out. Elijah's eyes drifted shut, and he found himself floating on the edge of sleep, thinking,
Don't leave. Please don't leave.

He strained against the darkness, the swirling nothingness, forced his eyes to open, his limbs to move. His heart leapt when he saw her on the blanket next to him, lowering her skirt as she rose to her feet. But then he saw that her hair was black, hanging in a braid down her back, and that the skirt she was smoothing down wasn't green gauze, but plum-colored silk.

“Lili?” he said groggily as he sat up.

“You're awake,” she said, with a little note of surprise.

“Wh-where is…?” He looked around the clearing as he heaved himself unsteadily to his feet.

“Inigo went back to the chateau a little while ago. Don't you remember?” She crouched down to take hold of the blanket. “Would you help me with this?”

“Oh. Of course.” Elijah stole glances at her as they folded the blanket—at her wrinkled
lubushu
, her slightly disheveled hair, the high color on those exotic cheekbones.

Had she…? Had they…?

Lili raised her gaze to him, her smile sweetly intimate, then lowered it again.

Good God.
His stomach twisted with guilt, until he recalled Julia's words—or her words as he'd dreamt them.
It won't be a betrayal. It will be what you need, what I want for you.

“It's gotten warm,” she said, taking his arm. “We can go to the bathhouse and cool off in the pool.”

A few yards down the path, Elijah paused and said, “If you don't mind, I'm going to linger a bit and have another look at that altar.”

“Of course. Take your time.” She kissed his cheek and walked away.

The altar looked just as it had when they'd first entered the clearing, the stone weathered and discolored by more than two thousand years of exposure to the elements. Elijah ran a hand over the corner design depicting Lugus, tracing its circular border for any gap or sign of looseness; there was none.

It was just a dream,
he told himself, feeling a little foolish. But then he noticed the wing of the raven, which had been carved, unlike the rest of the image, in high bas-relief, as if the bird were about to rise up off the god's fist. Elijah closed his hand around the wing, feeling indentations beneath it that conformed perfectly to his thumb and fingertips.

He pulled; the disc shifted. He smiled in amazement, and pulled harder. It stuck, so he jimmied it a bit, twisted it this way and that. Presently, it lifted free. It was about three inches thick, rimmed with wax-coated bronze and curved inward so as to remain securely seated in the opening. Where it had been, there was a vertical tunnel, also lined with bronze, within the boulder that served as a leg for that corner of the altar. Looking down into it, he saw a cylindrical parcel wrapped in leather.

“My God,” he whispered as he reached down into the hole to lift the parcel out. “My God Almighty.”

He laid the parcel on the altar and pulled away the leather, which was stiff with age, as carefully as if he were unwrapping a priceless Egyptian mummy. The scroll within was parchment, which was excellent, parchment being a good deal more durable than paper. He unrolled it slowly, shaking his head in disbelief. It was heavily inked, from beginning to end, in neat rows of writing. The alphabet was Roman, which the Gauls—for this was surely a Gaulish manuscript—had adopted long before their homeland came under Roman rule about fifty years before the birth of Christ.

What was so astonishing about this document was that there was nothing else like it in existence, given the reluctance of Gaulish druids to allow important matters to be committed to writing. Of course, there was always the chance that the information on this scroll was of little historical import, but if so, why had it been secreted here with such care?

Elijah shivered with excitement as he recalled Sedanias recording every word spoken by the old man, Brantigern, who, slave or not, was clearly a revered elder—a soothsayer, no less, as respected by his Roman masters as by his Gaulish kin. Was it possible that this Brantigern, knowing that Roman occupation spelled the death knell for his people, was endeavoring to capture for posterity centuries of Gallic history and knowledge?

Elijah considered what to do with the scroll as he rolled it back up. By rights, he should return it to its resting place. Kit was exceedingly protective of Grotte Cachée's artifacts. He'd issued several stern reminders since their arrival that nothing of historical value was to be disturbed. But whereas Elijah respected his friend's curatorial diligence, how could he possibly ignore a document as potentially significant as this?

He couldn't. But neither could he let Kit know that he'd found it, much as he loathed the notion of keeping such a volatile secret from his oldest friend. There was a compromise, though, that he could live with. He would return the scroll to its hiding place tomorrow morning, before he left here with Catherine and Thomas. But first, he would copy it down, word for word, so that he could translate it later.

Elijah replaced the stone disc, rolled the scroll back up in its leather wrapper, tucked it inside his shirt, and returned to the chateau.

Five

I
T'S JUST
I,” said Catherine as she knocked at the library door that evening.

She heard her father's chair scrape away from the table at which he'd been copying that scroll all afternoon, a task he expected would take him many more hours. “Are you alone?” he asked.

Catherine sighed. “Of course.”

The key turned in the lock. He let her in, then returned to the table and picked up his pen. “This part I just copied down looks like a five-year calendar,” he said excitedly. “It's known that the Romans forced the populations they conquered to use the Julian calendar and none other, but no one has ever known how the Gauls kept track of time and the seasons. Until now,” he added proudly.

“Are you—”

“Oh, and the very beginning of the scroll looks most promising,” he said, turning to the first page in the notebook he was filling with transcription. “Look,” he said as he pointed to words on the page. “Alisiia, Vercingetorix, Titus Labienus, Mark Anthony, Julius Caesar…It must be a recounting of the Gallic Wars from the perspective of the Gauls. Until now, all we've had was the Roman side of the story. If I have time tonight after it's all copied out, I'll go back and start translating it right from the beginning. Perhaps there will be an explanation as to why some of the Vernae fled the Romans and some stayed.”

“Splendid, but are you sure you should be doing this?”

“You sound like Thomas and Inigo,” he grumbled.

“
Inigo
knows about this?” Thomas had been assisting in the copying all afternoon, albeit grudgingly, given the subterfuge involved. But why would Elijah have confided in Inigo, of all people?

“He came in before I had the foresight, in my zeal, to lock the door. He asked me if I thought it was ‘quite kosher to slink around behind Archer's back this way.'”

“What's ‘kosher'?” she asked.

“It's a Jewish thing,” he said with that little wave of the hand that meant he was too preoccupied for long explanations.

“Is Inigo Jewish?”

“I suspect he's of Greek origin,” Elijah said as he bent over his work, “but he came here with the Romans.”

“With the
Romans
?”

“Oh…” Another dismissive wave, this one a bit flustered. “With…
some
Romans. You know what I mean.”

“No.”

“He said people had all kinds of reasons for writing things down, and that there was no reason to think the scroll was ever intended to be widely distributed. I told him it might contain vast stores of new information about the history and beliefs of the Gauls. He said that was all the more reason to think long and hard about releasing it, given how secretive the Gauls were about those things.”

“Those sound like good points,” Catherine said, surprised to find herself caring about the wishes and superstitions of an ancient people.

“Not from a historian's perspective.” Glancing up at her, he said, “Are you just here to add your voice to the chorus of outrage, or is there another purpose to your visit?”

“I've been dispatched to shepherd you and Thomas and Inigo to the dining room,” she said. “Supper's about to be served.”

“I don't have time for supper if I'm to get this all copied by tomorrow morning. Neither does Thomas.”

“I'll let him be the judge of that. Where is he?”

“Out there.” He gestured across the cavernous library to the French doors that let out on the balcony, through which Catherine saw two male forms silhouetted against the twilit sky. “He's taking a cigar break with Inigo.”

“You let him have breaks?” Catherine inquired wryly as she crossed the room, fluffing up the bustle of her dinner gown and smoothing her chignon.

“Ten minutes every two hours,” replied her father, who if he'd recognized her tone, had chosen not to acknowledge it.

As she approached the French doors, one of which was ajar, Catherine heard her name spoken by Inigo.

“It is my fondest desire,” Thomas said through a flutter of smoke, “but she won't have me.”

“You've asked her?”

“I have.” Thomas turned with a sigh to lean back against the balustrade.

Catherine ducked behind the velvet draperies.

“Are you sleeping with her?” Inigo asked.

“My God, man, what kind of a question is that?”

“I take it the answer is negative,” said Inigo with a hint of humor in his voice.

“I don't know how you can even ask that.” Thomas sounded genuinely taken aback. “She's Dr. Wheeler's daughter, and a…well, she's obviously completely innocent in such matters.”

“Obviously?”

After a brief pause, Thomas said, in a deadly serious tone, “Do I need to punch you in the head, Inigo? Because if you ever suggest such a thing in anyone else's presence, I will.”

“Please don't. I hate being hit, and I've never learned the art of hitting back, so it's always pretty much an exercise in humiliation.”

Thomas said, “You're an ass, Inigo, you know that?”

“Of course.”

“What you've got to understand,” Thomas said, “is that other parts of the world—even other parts of France—are nothing at all like Grotte Cachée. Your way of life, the self-indulgence, the…intemperance…”

“Intemperance? You mean sex?”

“You live in this remote little valley where no one ever comes unless they're invited, and even then they have trouble finding it. You and your friends are like some primitive tribe that's been cut off geographically from the rest of civilization for so long that you've become a world unto yourself, with your own distinct customs, mores, and taboos…or lack thereof.”

“But you've at least kissed her, right?”

“I'm not going to discuss my love life with you, Inigo.”

“Or lack thereof,” Inigo echoed with a little snort of derision.

“Insolent fucker,” Thomas muttered, chuckling. Catherine's mouth flew open, not so much because she was shocked, although she was, a little, but because she'd never thought to hear an epithet of such extreme vulgarity from the lips of quiet, scholarly Thomas Lee.

Thomas said, “I'm trying to…I
was
trying to conduct an appropriate courtship.”

“An appropriate courtship.” She could hear the mocking shudder in Inigo's voice. “Sounds more like a business arrangement than a romance.”

“As I said, Inigo, you have no notion of what's acceptable and what's not in the civilized world.”

“Please tell me you're not a virgin.”

This time it was Thomas who snorted with laughter. “I'm twenty-four years old.”

“That's a no, I hope.”

“It's different for men than for women.”

Catherine stood paralyzed with shock. It had never occurred to her, ever, that Thomas might have had sexual relations with women. She'd never even thought about, never considered the possibility.

“Whores?” Inigo asked.

“We had a laundress when I was sixteen.” Thomas's voice took on an entirely different tenor than when he'd been discussing her—lower, vaguely roguish. It was the kind of voice she'd heard before among men sharing masculine exploits in the company of other men when they didn't realize she was listening.

Sixteen. Good Lord, sixteen?

“She was older,” Thomas said, adding, with an amused edge to his voice, “and
most
instructive.”

“Thank God for laundresses,” said Inigo.

“And there were others while I was at Yale,” Thomas continued. “Not whores per se, but they liked their little baubles and trinkets.”

“Of course.”

“My only long-term relationship of that sort was a mistress I took in India when I was doing fieldwork there after my senior year.”

Catherine could literally not believe her ears. Thomas had spent many long hours describing his year in India studying ancient Hindu mythology. Never once had he mentioned a mistress. But why would he have? A gentleman would never discuss such a thing with a young woman—or rather, a young
lady,
a status that had evidently condemned Catherine to appalling ignorance about that which transpired between men and women.

Or at least the interesting things.

“Lili fancies you,” Inigo said.

Catherine edged closer to the window.

“I think Lili fancies every man she meets,” Thomas said.

“That's what makes her so perfect for your needs.”

“My needs?”

“Don't pretend you don't have them, after telling me about the laundress and the trinket-and-bauble girls and the Indian mistress. And what with Catherine having given you the heave-ho, I shouldn't think there'd be anything to stop you from paying a little call on Lili tonight in her apartment. I'll tell her to expect you.”

“Don't do that.”

“But she'll be delighted.”

“But Catherine—”

“Catherine's not interested. Lili is. Why are you making a simple tryst so bloody complicated?”

“Because the woman I've just recently asked to marry me would be sleeping under the very same roof. Have you no standards at all?”

“We've already established that I don't. And I can't believe you're letting Catherine get in the way. She rejected you, for God's sake.
She
rejected
you.
”

“I still love her,” Thomas said soberly. “That will never change.”

“Yes, but it would appear that she doesn't return the sentiment, and this is, after all, your last night here in our remote little valley of low standards and raging intemperance.”

“I've got that manuscript to copy.”

“You do know which Lili I'm talking about, don't you? Beautiful, seductive, loves fucking more than life itself?”

“Have
you
slept with her?” Thomas asked.

“Nah, we don't do that.”

“We?”

Inigo hesitated as if choosing his words. “We're like brother and sister. See? I do so know about taboos.”

“What about Elic? Aren't they—”

“He won't care. There's not a thing in the world to stop you from enjoying a friendly good-bye romp with the indefatigable Lili.”

Thomas sighed. “I don't know.”

He didn't know? That meant he might. Catherine felt as if her stomach were turning inside out.

“You won't have another chance with Lili after tonight,” Inigo said. “And as for Catherine…it's a big roof, brother.”