Inside, the illustrious members of the Order of the Lotus were stripping off in preparation for their latest orgy. It was not an inspiring sight. From the variety of physiques revealed, not everyone spent his days boxing with Gentleman Jackson. While more than adequate for one vicar, the former vestry of the Church of St. Ethelred the Unsteady was decidedly inadequate for twenty grown men, most of whom were incapable of finding the fastenings of their own trousers without the aid of a valet. There was much hopping on one foot, flailing of arms, and airing of language that turned the consecrated air blue.

Unfortunately, the close quarters worked against him rather than for him. It was nearly impossible to pick out one voice in the cacophony of the whole and even harder to identify a set of familiar features beneath the close-draped hoods. A dozen colognes clashed for precedence, along with the ghost of ancient incense, masking any one scent. If Wrothan was there, he hadn’t yet done anything to betray his presence. He might, Robert concluded, be the elephant god, which would explain why he hadn’t yet put in an appearance. Or he might simply have had the good sense to keep his mouth closed and his head down. It was impossible to tell.

A particularly hearty elbow whapped into Robert’s ribs. This elbow, however, had been an intentional elbow.

“Looking forward to the evening, eh?” beamed Lord Henry Innes.

Robert managed to duck out of the way just in time to avoid a brotherly whack on the back. For whatever reason, Lord Henry still appeared to consider himself a sort of de facto godfather to the group’s newest member. A devil father? Robert was unclear on the appropriate nomenclature. The society seemed to veer between Satanism and paganism with no clear creed from either.

Despite the pretense of anonymity, Lord Henry’s hood was thrown carelessly back. Like Lord Henry, many of the members appeared to have no qualms about their identity being known; they called one another frankly by name and chatted openly about this ball or that rout and whether the next satanic celebration could be scheduled so as not to conflict with someone’s sister’s come out. “I expect you all to dance with her!” bleated the fond brother. “Or m’mother will have my head!”

There were, however, a handful of members who hung back from the general conviviality, staying close to the corners of the room, their dark robes like blots against the rough whitewash of the walls.

Robert poked Lord Henry in the arm and nodded towards the wall. “I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to that lot.”

Lord Henry shrugged with every appearance of unconcern. “Introductions ain’t quite the thing here, you know. Air of mystery and whatnot.”

“But what if” — Robert lowered his voice conspiratorially — “an intruder were to slip into our midst and spy on our revels? It would be deuced hard to tell in these robes, now, wouldn’t it?”

Lord Henry’s brow wrinkled. “Intruder? Can’t say the problem’s ever occurred, has it, Medmenham?”

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. The last thing Robert wanted was Medmenham involved in the discussion. It was too late now, though.

Medmenham smiled lazily. His teeth looked unnaturally white against the dark frame of his hood. Although he had kept his hood up, there was no mistaking who he was. The barbaric bracelets affixed to his arms proclaimed his identity as surely as any sigil. “Afraid of exposure, Dovedale?”

“If I were, would I be wearing this?” Robert gestured irritably to his robe. No need for them to know that he was still wearing his evening kit beneath it. Given the temperature of the stone floor, he wasn’t the only one to have kept his shoes on. Those brave few who had gone barefoot looked decidedly uncomfortable. “I am, however, still a stranger to society. I wasn’t sure . . .”

“How our activities would be received?” The concept appeared to amuse Medmenham mightily. “My dear fellow, the days when one might be banished from court for one’s naughty behavior is long since past. These days, there’s scarce a court to be banished from.”

“Deuced dull at court,” Lord Henry agreed. “No scandal, no intrigue, and not a woman worth seducing.”

“Not one?” Medmenham raised a brow at Robert.

Robert clamped down on his temper. “Don’t tell me you mean to promote the charms of Lady Pembroke,” he drawled. “You may have to fight the King for her, though.”

The mention of the Queen’s aging lady-in-waiting had the desired effect. The King’s recurrent sexual fantasies about the determinedly virtuous sixty-seven-year-old had everyone deeply baffled.

Medmenham laughed with genuine humor. “She certainly appears to have an aphrodisiac effect on His Majesty. I, however, fail to see the appeal. We shall find far better entertainment here tonight, I promise you.”

Robert craned his neck in a pretense of eagerness. “Where is this, er, entertainment?”

Medmenham’s lips curved in a slow, satisfied smile. This was his drug, the ability to manipulate his peers with the promise of pleasure, rewarding with access, punishing by withholding. “Not so hasty, Dovedale. As anyone will tell you, entertainment is best savored slowly.”

“It’s hard to savor what isn’t here,” riposted Robert. If Medmenham had his dancing girls stashed away elsewhere, what else did he have hidden?

“All in good time.”

“Is it time to start yet?” Innes bounced on his heels like a dog waiting for his master to throw a stick.

Medmenham cast a practiced eye around the room. The majority of the members had managed to make their way into their robes and were beginning to make inroads on the flasks concealed on their persons.

Cassocks, Robert had learned, afforded excellent hiding places for a multiplicity of items, including pistols and knives or, in Medmenham’s case, a small silver bell of the sort one might use to summon a servant. Raising it, Medmenham jingled it in a prearranged signal.

Far above them, in the bell tower, a deep tolling answered the soprano call of Medmenham’s bell.

In the Robing Room, the members, like greyhounds at the slip, began jostling into place, attempting to form the two straight lines in which they would process into the chapel. Even the antisocial souls propped against the wall abandoned their secluded havens to join in the general throng.

Robert focused his gaze on the men who had kept to themselves during the robing. If he hadn’t, he would never have seen the signal, the barely perceptible tilt of the head that summoned one of the hooded figures to meet another at the very end of the line. In that brief moment, as the man’s hood slipped ever so slightly, Robert saw all he needed to see. That was Wrothan on the left side of the room, perched by a pile of moldering Books of Common Prayer. Robert recognized the bump on the nose, a bump that Wrothan had always claimed was the result of ambush by the Mahratta but that Robert was more inclined to ascribe to a barroom brawl in the days before Wrothan had developed his pretensions to gentility and his following among the younger and more corruptible members of the aristocracy.

Wrothan’s contact was more adept. He moved smoothly into line with no betraying movement of any kind, his face perfectly hidden by the fall of his hood.

Robert wriggled himself into the line directly in front of them. Sound, after all, traveled forwards, and there was nothing to be gained by a view of the backs of their hoods. He exchanged terse nods with his partner in the line, whom he recognized as Miss Penelope Deveraux’s affianced. Lord Frederick Staines’s upcoming nuptials appeared to have had no visible effect on his extracurricular activities. Robert just hoped Tommy hadn’t spotted him.

With an unhurried movement, Lord Freddy adjusted his hood over his gleaming hair, easing his features into shadow. Robert twitched his own hood back the other way. Not enough to attract notice, but just enough to free his ears from the heavy fabric.

Between one stroke of the bell and the next, he heard one of the men behind him murmur, “I have your price.”

Between the reverberation of the bell and clomp and shuffle of two dozen variously shod male feet, the words were all but indistinguishable. The conspirators had chosen their moment well.

“Oh, no,” countered Wrothan, a little too loudly. Robert recognized the tone of his voice. He had heard it before, in the officers’ mess, when Wrothan knew himself to hold a winning hand. Wrothan’s whisper was shrill with repressed excitement. “I don’t believe you do.”

The Frenchman spoke sternly. He was, it was clear, not accustomed to being disobeyed. Unlike Wrothan, his pitch was perfect; although Robert stood directly ahead of him, he had to strain to hear. “The price will be what we agreed.”

Ahead of them, the door to the nave had been thrown open. The first row of false monks processed in two by two. “I don’t think so. Not if the prize is no longer in the palace. The game has changed, monsieur. I hold all the cards. Or, should I say, the card?”

“Very amusing, sir.” The Frenchman sounded anything but amused.

Wrothan, on the other hand, was enjoying himself immensely. “I couldn’t be more serious.”

The Frenchman’s voice was sharp as a well-honed blade. “You mean to say that you have — ”

“Yes.”

Have what? Robert wanted to shout. What had Wrothan filched from the palace? State papers seemed the most obvious answer. Secrets of the sort that could be sold for a high price. Unless, of course, the Frenchman was not working for his government at all. In that case, the prize could be nearly anything. The Queen’s diamonds alone could keep a man in frog legs for quite some time.