I waited, every instinct sharpening.
“He called it the Floralia.”
The word struck my chest with singular force. Any man with a classical education knew what it implied. The Floralia had been an ancient Roman festival, ostensibly held in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers and spring. In practice, it had been an excuse for excess—masked revels, public licentiousness, the deliberate abandonment of restraint under the guise of tradition.
Understanding settled with sickening clarity.
This, then, was the “entertainment” for which the young women had been taken.
It was not merely a feast. It was permission—an absolution men granted themselves to abandon restraint entirely, to indulge appetites so base they could only be pursued in secrecy. Acts condemned by law, conscience, and civilization itself were recast as sport, cloaked in silk and ritual, and excused as celebration.
Revulsion rose swift and cold. “How soon?” I took a swallow of the brandy.
“In two nights’ time,” Nicky said. “He complained the notice was shorter than he liked, as he will need a costume. His tailor, apparently, is performing miracles.” His lip curled. “As if that was the thing that mattered.”
I rose at once and paced the length of the rug. Two nights. Very little margin. And barely any time. “Did he say where?”
“No,” Nicky replied. “That was the part he found most amusing.” He took a sip of the brandy. “He is to present himself at a particular stretch of the river after dark. A barge will be waiting. From there, he is to be taken to an unknown destination. Masks are required. No names. No questions.”
I stopped pacing.
A barge. The river. Anonymity by design.
Every piece slid into place with sickening clarity.
I turned back to Nicky, forcing my voice into a steadiness I did not feel.
“As dissolute as it sounds,” I said, “this could still be a gathering of willing participants. Paid women. Courtesans who understand precisely what they are selling. Depraved, perhaps, but not unprecedented.”
The words tasted foul even as I spoke them. But they needed to be said. Logic demanded it. Proof mattered.
Nicky did not answer at once. He set the brandy glass down carefully on the sideboard, aligning it with unnecessaryprecision, then faced me again. The color had drained from his face, leaving something tight and grim in its place.
“That is what I told myself at first,” he said. “That it was merely another indulgence for men with more money than conscience.”
I waited.
“But Fairleigh would not stop talking,” Nicky continued quietly. “And he said something, offhand, as though it were of no importance at all.”
My chest tightened.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Nicky met my gaze directly. “He said the women were not courtesans.”
The room seemed to narrow around us.
“Not willing participants,” he went on. “Not women who understood the bargain.”
Cold spread beneath my ribs. “What, then?” I asked.
Nicky did not soften it.
“They are virgins.”
The word echoed in my mind, stark and obscene in its implication.
Virgins. Young women selected for that particular perversion precisely because they had never been touched by a man.
