Lord John and the Hand of Devils Read Online Free PDF

Dashwood’s broidered plum-silk waistcoat tight across a broad chest, and brought into view a face, likewise broad, ruddy in the candle glow and animated with a cynic laughter. He wore no wig, but had a quantity of dark hair, curling low across the brow. Grey furrowed his own brow in the effort of recall; someone had said something to him, yes—but the occasion escaped him, as did its content.
    “He seems a man of substance,” he hazarded. Certainly Dashwood was the cynosure of his end of the room, all eyes upon him as he spoke.
    Lady Lucinda uttered a short laugh.
    “Do you think so, sir? He and his friends flaunt their practice of licentiousness and blasphemy as Harry flaunts his scar—and from the same cause.”
    It was the word “blasphemy” that brought back recollection.
    “Ha. I have heard mention…Medmenham Abbey?”
    Lucinda’s lips pursed tight, and she nodded. “The Hellfire Club, they call it.”
    “Indeed. There have been Hellfire clubs before—many of them. Is this one more than the usual excuse for public riot and drunken license?”
    She looked at the men before the fire, her countenance troubled. With the light of the blaze behind them, all individuality of lineament was lost; they appeared no more than an assemblage of dark figures; faceless devils, outlined by the firelight.
    “I think not,” she said, very low-voiced, glancing to and fro to assure they were unheard. “Or so I
did
think—until I heard of the invitation to Robert. Now…”
    The advent near the jungle of a tall, good-looking man whose resemblance to Quarry made his identity clear put an end to the clandestine conference.
    “There is Sir Richard; he is looking for me.” Poised to take flight, Lady Lucinda stopped and looked back at Grey. “I cannot say, sir, what reason you may have for your interest—but I do thank you for it.” A flicker of wryness lit the gray eyes. “Godspeed you, sir—though for myself, I should not much respect a God so petty as to be concerned with such as Francis Dashwood.”
    Grey passed into the general crowd, bowing and smiling, allowing himself to be drawn into a dance here, a conversation there; keeping all the time one eye upon the group near the hearth. Men joined it for a short time, fell away, and were replaced by others, yet the central group remained unchanged.
    Bubb-Dodington and Dashwood were the center of it; Churchill, the poet John Wilkes, and the Earl of Sandwich surrounded them. Seeing at one point during a break in the music that a good many had gathered by the hearth, men and women alike, Grey thought the moment ripe to make his own presence known, and unobtrusively joined the crowd, maneuvering to a spot near Bubb-Dodington.
    Mr. Justice Margrave was holding the floor, speaking of the subject which had formed the meat of most conversations Grey had heard so far—the death of Robert Gerald, or more particularly, the rash of rumor and scandal that followed it. The judge caught Grey’s eye and nodded—his worship was well acquainted with Grey’s family—but continued his denunciation unimpeded.
    “I should wish that, rather than the pillory, the stake be the punishment for such abominable vice.” Margrave swung a heavy head in Grey’s direction, eyelids dropping half closed. “Have you read Holloway’s notion, sir? He suggests that this disgusting practice of sodomy be restrained by castration or some other cogent preventative.”
    Grey restrained the urge to clasp himself protectively.
    “Cogent, indeed,” he said. “You suppose the man who cut down Robert Gerald to be impelled by moralistic motives, then?”
    “Whether he were or no, I should say he has rendered signal service to society, ridding us of an exponent of this moral blight.”
    Grey observed Harry Quarry standing a yard away, gleaming eyes fixed upon the elderly justice in a manner calculated to cause the utmost concern for that worthy’s future prospects. Turning away, lest his acknowledgment