Free The Telltale Heart by Melanie Thompson Page B

find a bird of my feather, I would rather play at home.”
    He fit his curly beaver hat carefully on his artfully disheveled locks, picked up his Malacca cane and climbed out of the cellar.
    Cam watched him go, wondering if he had bitten off more than he could chew. The Hellfire Club was filled with dandies and wild young men, but was reputed to have quite a crew of bruisers guarding it.
    * * * *
    Edmund Torrington twirled his cane and whistled as he sauntered through the darkest part of town. None of the filthy residents or the toughs who frequented the streets bothered him. Edmund was an excellent swordsman, his cane held a poniard inside of it, but he was also an expert fighter, having learned the art of stick fighting as a child from Cam’s father, Robert Torrington, a soldier who traveled widely. Cam’s father brought home a manservant from faraway China. The servant, Jinqua, was very loyal to Robert Torrington who had saved his life when he found him working in the coal mines of Behar, India. Jinqua, now an old man, lived in Cam’s small flat above the cellars. He protected them still and had taught Edmund and Cam hand-to-hand combat techniques as children who would confound the most brutal of attackers. Many of Cam’s crazy ideas for medical treatments and inventions had originated in Jinqua’s fertile mind.
    When Edmund reached Madam Fouchet’s, a gaming house on Bennet Street, St. James, he did not knock on the front door or enter the Madam’s establishment. Instead, he opened a gate, followed a stone path to the rear of the house and descended a steep flight of stairs. At the bottom, a red door—particularly appropriate in this instance—awaited him. The knocker hung under a bronze mask of a satyr complete with horns. He rapped once and the door was opened by a liveried servant dressed all in black. He presented the footman with the card he’d received from the Marquis and was immediately ushered inside.
    The footman took his hat and cane and led him through a maze of corridors to another series of stairs. It seemed to Edmund they were descending straight into the bowels of hell itself. When they finally reached the bottom of four flights of stairs, the footman opened a door and stood back to allow Edmund to enter. Screaming echoed from deep inside what could only be a subterranean cave system. Edmund shot the footman a questioning glance which was received with a cold stare. Apparently, he was on his own. He entered the stone corridor, and with a great deal of hesitation, walked down it.
    The corridor—the floor as well as the ceiling—was cut from solid rock. It gave Edmund the feeling of being entombed. What, he wondered , have I gotten myself into this time?
    Another red door greeted him at the end of the corridor. He opened it and was shocked at the opulence that greeted him. From bare stone, he entered a cave hung with brocade, silk and velvet hangings, all of the deepest crimson. Thick, blood-red carpets covered the rock floor. A large group of gentlemen wearing black loo masks—Edmund counted eight—sipped drinks and watched as a naked woman shackled to the wall was whipped by a man wearing a black hood.
    Naked or nearly naked women walked through the room carrying trays with more drinks. A curvaceous blond stopped in front of Edmund and offered him a drink. He took it without glancing at her luscious breasts or exposed mons. All of his attention was on a young man also waiting on the gentlemen. He wore only a cloth bag which held his genitals. Edmund saw one gentleman stroke the young man’s naked buttocks with a caressing hand and was immediately aroused. As though in a trance, sipping his drink, he walked toward the handsome young man whose glowing blond locks, classic profile and muscular body made him appear a Greek god.
    One of the masked gentlemen pulled a woman onto his lap and fondled her teats as he watched the shackled woman squirm and