House of Dark Delights by Louisa Burton Read Free Book Online

gentlemen.” Nudging the girl’s slippered feet apart with a high-heeled shoe, Sandwich parted her redtufted slit and pushed his middle finger in. She sucked in a breath, her eyes shut tight, as he probed that which had ostensibly never felt the touch of a male hand.
    â€œRight. She’ll do.” Pointing to a row of nuns’habits hanging by hooks in the robing alcove behind him, Sandwich told her, in French, to change into one of them, leaving herself completely unclothed beneath. He instructed one of the ladies, a Mademoiselle de Beaumont, to assist the virgins in their disrobing, which for reasons beyond Darius’s ken prompted much appreciative laughter.
    â€œSo soon?” asked Mrs. Hayes. “It took me all day to get them properly flashed up, and now you want them to take it all off?”
    â€œâ€™Tis your fault for being late. They need to be ready for the banquet as soon as the mass has ended.” Sandwich beckoned to the next girl in line, who lifted her skirts without being asked and barely flinched during the examination. “You may take your leave, Mrs. Hayes. I’d say we have the matter well in hand here.”
    He inspected the girls one by one, pronouncing them either intact or “close enough,” before sending them off to the alcove to disrobe in full view of the guests. The gentlemen—some of the ladies, too—opined liberally on their various charms as they unlaced their dresses and peeled off their underpinnings, assisted by the fair-haired, French-accented Mademoiselle de Beaumont. A few of the maidens struck Darius as remarkably blasé about the lewd exhibition, one or two genuinely embarrassed. Others appeared so overwrought despite their cooperation that he suspected they were acting the part they’d been taught to act.
    In any event, their spectators seemed appreciative enough. Several of the men stroked themselves as they took in the little performance. Darius noticed Inigo ushering a pretty little thing from the room, his front trouser panel already half undone, one hand fisted around a wine bottle.
    A strikingly handsome man lowered his raven-haired lady companion from his lap to the floor between his legs and unbuttoned his knee-breeches to free his erection. Those sitting nearby watched with undisguised interest as the lady licked and fondled the rigid organ. “Brava,” they praised when she swallowed it to the very root, causing the recipient of her ministrations to clutch her head, moaning, “Ah, Lili, but you are a talented wench.”
    On a red silken couch in the corner, two men positioned the lady with the split skirt on her hands and knees so that one of them could roger her from behind as she took the other in her mouth. A bewigged gentleman whom Darius recognized from newspaper illustrations as Frederick, Prince of Wales, bent a masked lady over the back of that same couch and canted up her petticoats. He lubricated his weapon with spittle and slammed it into her so hard she shrieked.
    â€œGood show, Your Highness,” praised a bacon-faced fellow in a too-tight, fancily embroidered coat who’d come over to watch the bawdy tableau while working himself off. “Give her a taste of the royal cutlass,” he grunted as he thrust into a lace handkerchief. “Stab it in and twist it! Split the wench! Spank her arse! That’s it, good and hard. Aye, that’s it…”
    â€œWhat have we here?” The voice was male, softly deep, German accented—and far too close.
    Darius’s whiskers thrummed a warning just in time for him to leap away from the hand that was about to scoop him up.
    There came a chuckle as his would-be captor straightened up, tugging a scented handkerchief from his voluminous, fancily embroidered coat sleeve. He was Prussian-pale, with gray eyes, full lips, and a hard, outthrust jaw. Although his hair was concealed beneath a fashionably small powdered wig, Darius could