And now, I’ll turn it over to Laura and Carrie to describe the scene:

Check out those pillars and tiny robes!

In the middle, we have the sinister figure of Sir Francis Medmenham, the malevolent master of ceremonies, unleashing his… elephants?

A duke’s granddaughter must be dressed richly even for infiltrating a Hellfire Club meeting.  How gorgeous is that gown?  (And how very very Charlotte!)

And there’s Henrietta, oblivious as usual (and also very a la mode!).

Check out the elephants in the background….

It’s a good thing Robert spotted Charlotte in time and acted speedily or goodness only knows what might have happened….  (Although Charlotte looks less than pleased there.)

Thank you so much, Carrie and Laura!  Some of you may remember that this all started back in the days when I was writing Pink books.  Hence the name: Pink Carnation Peep Diorama Contest. So it warms the cockles to be taken back to those old Peep Pink days.

Laura and Carrie are legends when it comes to their Pink Carnation Peep depictions and this year is no exception.  If there were such a thing as a Regency modiste to the Peeps, Carrie and Laura would be inundated with orders from the Peep ton.  As always, I am in awe of the details on those gorgeous outfits.  (And the elephants!)

Speaking of elephants, I would also like to bid a warm welcome to Aurora, artist of the elephants, who joined her legendary mother and aunt in creating this Pinkorama!

Huzzah, Carrie, Laura, and Aurora!  Is it wrong that I’m envying marshmallows their clothes?

Below, with apologies for length!, is part of the relevant scene.  I just couldn’t bring myself to limit it to a short snippet….

Join us tomorrow for our third Pinkorama of  2026!

In the center of the nave, Medmenham raised his torch high, angling it towards a deep bowl that had been hung where a chandelier must have been, long, long ago.  His sleeves fell back from his arms, revealing two red-eyed elephants, whose trunks twined down his forearms. 

“Gentlemen!” he called out.  It was, Robert thought, a singularly inappropriate term under the circumstances.  “I give you… the sacred flame!”

Across the aisle, Wrothan inclined his head in a barely perceptible nod.  Next to him, the Frenchman nodded back. 

As fireworks shot into the air, cartwheeling through the high, arched ceiling, the swish of a monk on the move was barely perceptible through the crackle of the fireworks and the catcalls of the members.  Robert automatically cast a quick glance around as he prepared to follow, and nearly tripped over his own habit as he saw what the explosion of light had illuminated.  One by one, the babbling voices fell into silence as the hooded body of men stared, as one, at one small girl huddled at the far end of the nave, clutching at the door handle with one gloved hand.

Robert’s triumph turned to ashes in his mouth.  It wasn’t just any girl.  It was Charlotte.  Even in a shapeless dark cloak, with a hood shading her face, he knew her.  He would have known her anywhere.

Had she followed them?  Guilt rose, acrid and viscous, in Robert’s throat.  If he had brought her to this, however unintentionally….

“My, my,” drawled the amused voice of Sir Francis, as the last of the rockets exploded, unleashing a shower of sparks that made Charlotte shrink back against the door.  “The great elephant god is nothing if not quick with his rewards!”

Beneath the raucous laughter, Robert could hear a pitiful squeaking sound.  It was the leather of Charlotte’s glove, scraping against the door knob as she struggled to get it to turn.  Abandoning all subtlety, she turned her back on the company and used both hands to tug at the knob.  It was no use.  The door was stuck.

And so was she.

From the left side of the church came a decided click as the door to the churchyard swung shut behind Wrothan and his companion, prepared to implicate themselves in all manner of dastardly plans.  It was the moment Robert had been waiting for since the Colonel’s death, the culmination of months of painstaking plotting and tracking.  He had dreamed of this moment during the long voyage from India to England; the prospect of it had kept him warm against the biting winds of the endless ride to Girdings.  His revenge was finally at hand.

Robert didn’t have to think twice. 

He sprinted forward, grabbing Charlotte around the waist and hoisting her up over his shoulder so that all his fellow friars could see were a pair of rapidly kicking legs in silk stockings.  Let Tommy and the War Office man deal with Wrothan. 

“Mmmrph!” bleated Charlotte into his back. 

He decided to take that as, “Thanks, awfully for saving me,” rather than “Put me down right now!”

“Sorry, my fault!” Robert announced, making sure to keep any bit of Charlotte that might be the least bit recognizable between his back and the wall.  Since there was only one bit of Charlotte that anyone in the room ought to recognize, that was simple enough.  “This one’s mine.  I forgot to tell her to go round the back.”

He could tell the exact moment she recognized his voice.  Her hands stopped clawing at his back and her legs ceased their kicking.  In that one moment, she went entirely rigid, with a stiffness born of shock. 

A sucking sense of despair settled somewhere in Robert’s middle, like low-lying fog.  The game was up.  There would be no making it up to her now, no explanations that would suffice.  How could she not despise him after seeing this?  It would have been one thing to tell her about his recent activities—with suitable ameliorations—quite another for her to have seen it with her own eyes.  He had always known the gods were cruel.  He had just never realized quite how cruel. 

The only slight saving grace was that Medmenham looked even worse than he.  It was scant comfort.

“No fair hogging her!” one of his brethren called out in raucous tones.  “Share and share alike, that’s our motto!”

Robert could have sworn that their motto was “only the best for our orgies,” but a low rumble of assent greeted the man’s statement. 

“I say, pass ‘er over!” shouted out Lord Henry, losing his aspirates in his enthusiasm for female flesh.  “Looks like a ripe ‘un.”

“Ripe but not ready,” parried Robert, miming a hearty pat to Charlotte’s backside.  In for a penny, in for a pound, after all.  Her gasp of indignation was lost somewhere in the folds of his cassock.  “Can’t you see she isn’t properly costumed?  Besides, we can’t have the girls before the ceremony.  The god wouldn’t like it.  And if the god doesn’t like it….”

Charlotte hung heavy over his shoulder, so still she seemed to be scarcely breathing.  He could feel her listening with every fiber in her body, listening as though her life depended on it.  Didn’t she even trust him to get her safely out? 

But, then, why should she? Robert asked himself with brutal honesty.  His record so far hadn’t exactly been one of spotless knight errantry.  The truth of it stung like sharpened steel thrust straight through the vitals.

“I’ll just go deposit her in back, shall I?” Robert suggested.  He didn’t wait for anyone to propose an alternate plan.  Instead, he lurched towards the door to the vestry as fast as he could go, with Charlotte jouncing against his back with every step, twisting her out of the reach of an inebriated monk who made a grab for her temptingly displayed posterior. 

“No sampling the goods early!” he snapped.

“Someone needs to teach you to share,” pronounced Medmenham provocatively, hefting his torch.

“Would you share?” demanded Robert with deliberate insolence.  With the resultant burst of laughter as shield, he slipped through the door to the vestry, clipping one of Charlotte’s shoes against the doorframe in the process.  Charlotte made an irritated choking sound. 

Fighting for balance, Robert kicked the door shut behind them.  It wouldn’t stymie pursuit, but it might slow it. 

Charlotte immediately began to indicate that she wished to be set down. 

“Not.  Now,” Robert gritted out, tightening his hold on the backs of her legs.  “Do you want them to have you?”

With any luck, the members of the society would be too eager for the promised pleasure of their magical elixir and multi-talented dancing girls to care to pursue, but he wouldn’t feel properly safe until there was a good mile between Charlotte and the brethren.  Make that two miles, he amended.

Through the thick wooden door, the chanting was beginning, calling for the elephant god.  Medmenham must have used the torch to light the braziers.  Scented smoke began to seep beneath the doorframe, making Robert’s stomach heave in memory. 

Maybe it wasn’t just the smoke making his stomach heave.  Robert kicked open the door on the side of the vestry, taking out some of his anger on the unsuspecting planks.  This was not how this was supposed to have gone.  What in all the blazes was Charlotte doing barging into the Hellfire Club?  Serpent-like, he could hear Medmenham’s voice, urging Charlotte to improve her acquaintance with “architecture”.

Bending forward from the waist, Robert eased Charlotte to the ground, trying to keep her from tumbling over into the mud of the churchyard. 

Charlotte stumbled as she landed, swaying in place as she tried to get her bearings.  One hand lifted to her head while the other came to rest against the church wall.  Lowering her head, she took a deep breath, then another, sucking in the cool, damp air.

“Are you all right?” he demanded in a rough whisper, grasping her by the arms.  He resisted the urge to examine her for broken bones, an absurd notion.  Any bruises were undoubtedly internal rather than otherwise.

Charlotte ducked her head, still fighting for breath.  “Fine,” she wheezed, and then came the question he had been dreading.  “What was—”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said quickly, knowing he could only delay, not avoid.  “We need to get you away.  Before they come after us.”

How was he even to get her away?  He had come with Medmenham, in Medmenham’s carriage, which was now the devil only knew where. 

“What in the blazes are you doing here?” he demanded belatedly.  His hands tightened on her arms.  “Did Medmenham invite you?”

“No!  I hadn’t known he would be here.  Or you.  Or even where here is.”  Charlotte blinked a few times, as though she were still having trouble focusing.  “What are you doing here?”

He hardly remembered.  “I’ll tell you the whole story,” he promised.  “Later.  After we get you home.  This is no place for a lady.”

“But—” began Charlotte.

“Did you come in a carriage?  A sedan chair?  This is no neighborhood to walk about in.”

It was already too late.  A crunching in the underbrush alerted him to the fact that they were no longer alone. 

Whirling around to face off French spies, treacherous Englishmen, and drunken monks of any nationality, Robert himself facing a medium-sized female in an expensive silk cloak lined with swansdown. 

“Um, Charlotte?  Oh, hello, Dovedale.”  Lady Henrietta Dorrington flashed him a winning smile while Robert attempted to realign his jaw with the rest of his face.  “I do hate to interrupt, but there is something you ought to see.”

Charlotte had brought a friend?  Robert bypassed guilt and went straight to anger.

“Does either of you realize that this is not Almack’s Assembly Rooms?” Robert gritted out.