“No, but my mother was a governess.”
“A governess, eh? A penniless, beautiful governess. I wonder who your father was, then? I was in love with my governess when I was sixteen. I’d have married her if I’d been able to. Were they star-crossed lovers, like we were?”
“He was a gentleman.”
“A gambler and a gentleman who’d be rolling in his grave if he saw you now.”
“He’s not dead.”
Cyril looked surprised. “So, your father is a gentleman and yet you earn your living by lying with the likes of me.”
Charity shrugged. His words hurt but she said, “What else can a girl do when she has no other means of earning her keep? Besides, my father refused to acknowledge me. At least, he refused to do so when I was eight.”
“So, you know who he is?”
Charity nodded. Good lord, had she really told him all this? She’d simply been too outraged by his pathetic claim that no one loved him. As if he were the only one.
“Who is he?”
“I’m not telling you that.”
“That’s because it’s all one big tall tale to make you seem more impressive than you really are. You’re from the gutter.” He looked disappointed. “Girls like you don’t tell the truth.”
“Because we deserve to be in the gutter? And that’s how you’d treat us?” Charity felt the rage tingling in her extremities. “I think it makes men feel strong to beat down those more vulnerable. Mostly, it’s the men who’ve been treated badly in their own lives. That’s what the girls tell me at Madame Chambon’s.”
“Oh, really?” He tapped his fingers on the arm of the sofa as if deciding what to say or do. “Well, your job is to please me,” he said finally. He indicated her glass. “Drink up, Cathie. I’m not feeling as kindly towards you as I was.”
His eyes were dark and brooding. Charity shivered. What had made her speak so unwisely to such a dangerous bully as Cyril.
“So you’ve changed your mind again? Instead of being considerate and making this a first time to remember — and make me regard you kindly and favour you above all my other clients, you think violence is preferable? That it will give you the upper hand, which of course it will?” Charity pushed out her chest. “That is the coward’s way. That’s what the girls all tell me. It’s the cowards and the bullies who use force and strength whereas it’s the men who use kindness who are given the best treatment at Madame’s, I can assure you.”
“Good God, will you stop talking!” Unexpectedly, Cyril rose to his feet, sweeping his glass from the table with an angry thrust of his arm. “There is no goodness in me so why should I waste my time trying to be kind?”
Charity shrank against the arm of the sofa as he paced in front of the fire. Her heart was pounding now. He was volatile. Unpredictable. She didn’t have the measure of him. “Has no one ever been kind to you?” she ventured. She’d touched a nerve and perhaps it was unwise to pursue this line, but she thought she understood him a little better now.
“Not my father.”
“Nor mine to me.”
“I never knew my mother.”
“Mine sent me to look after an imbecile aunt. That was fun, too.” Charity said with heavy irony.
There was a slight pause, then Cyril suddenly let out an unexpected laugh as he rose from throwing a log on the fire. “Did you really conjure that up to best my tale of woe?”
“No, it’s true. I’ve spent most of my life in thankless drudgery before I found myself at Madame Chambon’s, after I was tricked there, thinking I was applying for work as a servant. Yet, for the first time in my life, I made friends. Women who had suffered cruelty, as I had, and who were kind to me.”
Cyril looked at her strangely. He’d stopped what he was doing and was now breathing heavily, his mouth working as if a torrent of words would tumble out at any moment, yet he was holding it all in. Finally, he strode toward the table and snatched up his brandy.
“Do you really need that?” Charity asked. “You’re bosky, as it is. I suppose you’re fortifying yourself for…”
“I do not need you to tell me what to do.” His words held an edge of dangerous quiet.
Charity steeled herself against the inevitable. He’d hurt her, regardless of what she said. The other girls had plenty of stories about men who liked to tell a girl with the back of their hands when they were displeased.
She faced him squarely, drawing back her shoulders. Preparing herself. Managing to keep the terrible fear inside her at bay. It was naïve foolishness and false bravado which had led her into this danger. She had no one but herself to blame.
Dear Lord, why had she not planned this better?
She closed her eyes and gripped the sofa’s arm rest. Yes, it was better that she closed her eyes and make her body pliant and accessible so that she’d suffer the least amount of pain. That’s what the girls at Madame’s had told her she should do. They’d said she must transport her mind to another realm. Some of the girls swore it was this which enabled them to earn the only living available to them.
Silence. It was a terrifying prelude.
She could hear only the clock ticking. Her surroundings were a black void with just her thoughts whirling around her head.
She shifted a little. Still waiting.
If she could concentrate on the good things she’d once looked forward to with Hugo, perhaps she wouldn’t even notice his assault on her body; though in her heart she knew it would be the beginning of the corrosive destruction of her very being, the very essence of her.
Charity, the innocent, was not going to get her fairytale with the happy ending, after all, but she must survive. And she had only herself to blame. Her foolishness had brought her right into this trap. The girl that Madame had cossetted, had been the embodiment of the dream they’d all had: that a client would fall in love with them; a client worthy of their affections, and that a partnership built on mutual love and trust and exclusivity would end their sordid lives selling the only commodity they had.
She became conscious, now, of the sound of her breathing, loud in her ears. Her hands were clammy and her world was black as she kept trying to imagine herself into another one, only to slip back into the terrible present.
But the time stretched out and still, he didn’t make his move as she’d expected.
Confused, she opened her eyes and found him staring at her. As if he, too, was unsure what to do.
He was standing near her, towering above her, his hard eyes trained on her.
After she opened her eyes, he put out his hand and touched her shoulder.
“Nice,” he whispered, stroking her bare skin. A light crept into his eyes and his lips turned up. “You’re shivering. You like it then?”
Charity focused every bit of loathing into her response. “I hate it.
He looked surprised before his eyes darted to the sideboard. “I’m paying you handsomely,” he said, indicating what was, indeed, a sum tucked beneath the brandy bottle that would keep her for a week.
“I don’t want your money,” she whispered. “I want my freedom.”
He continued to stroke her, though more tentatively now as he asked, clearly offended, “You dislike me that much?”
“I despise you.”
Now, he stopped the rhythmic movement of his hand that had been tracing the line of her décolletage and regarded her with a look that suggested he didn’t know whether to be outraged rather than merely offended.
Either way, he’d resort to violence. This is what men did when they were insulted. Charity watched the play of emotions cross his narrow, angry face. She began the count-down in her head.
And then the odd, tense silence was broken by the sound of running footsteps in the corridor, followed by a cry of outrage as Hugo burst through the doors, knocking aside a table as he hurled himself upon Cyril.
Charity was quick-witted enough to dart behind a large armchair by the fire as the two men crashed to the floor.
; “Fiend!” cried her beloved, gentle Hugo as he thrust his knee in the small of Cyril’s back and wrenched his arm behind him. His chest rose and fell and his eyes were wild as Charity had never seen them. “I’ll kill you if you’ve laid a hand on her!”
“She came willingly enough!” Cyril snarled, letting out a cry of pain as Hugo slammed his head upon the floor.
“Hugo, stop!” cried Charity as the blood from Cyril’s nose sprayed over the rug.
Cyril’s voice was muffled but she still felt the sting of his retort. “Good God! So she’s your little fancy piece. I had no idea.” He let out a surprised laugh, truncated with a cry of pain as Hugo slammed his head down upon the floor once more.
Chapter 8
Hugo took her to their special place. A house where no questions were ever asked. A house run by a kind matron who, perhaps, had her own reasons for turning a blind eye but who kept a neat, unremarkable lodging house where the rooms were clean and the bed was comfortable.
“I didn’t want to go with him,” Charity wept after Hugo had shut out the world and now cradled her against his chest in their warm, comfortable bed.
“My poor darling, I know that.” Hugo’s voice was thick with what Charity understood now were tears as she raised her head to look at him. They clung to his lashes but his voice was steady though his breathing was laboured. “Did he hurt you? Dear God, I’ll kill him! I’ll — ”
Charity shook her head as she raised her finger to his lips. “No, my love, he didn’t touch me. Well, only my shoulder. I promise you! You came just in time.”
She felt some of the tension drain out of him though his words were full of self-recrimination. “How will I protect you when I’m gone, Charity?” It was almost a cry of despair. “What will become of you? I can’t guarantee your security for the many months I’ll be away.”
“But you can guarantee my happiness now,” Charity whispered, tugging at the button that secured his collar. She’d soothe the worry from him as only she knew how. In the morning he’d be gone and Charity would be at the mercy of the world.
But for a few hours tonight, she could try and forget that. They both could.
And she’d do her very best to bolster his hopes that she would be safe.
He cupped her cheek and kissed her tenderly while Charity stroked his strong, young chest before wrapping her arms tightly about him.
“I will never forget you, Hugo,” she promised, revelling in the warmth and weight of him. He might be gentle but he was well built and well endowed. She might be innocent of other men but she knew her Hugo was more the lover than any of the gentlemen callers her friends entertained.
And more passionate.
“I won’t let you,” he vowed, his voice tight with promise. “You think I won’t come back to you? That I’ll fail in my promise to ensure your upkeep?” He rose above her on one elbow, his eyes bright. “I have managed, at least, to provide for you for the first two months I’m away. Madame has the money in trust so that you’ll not be turned into the street. I anticipate that by that time I’ll have managed to send you my wages after my first couple of months away. And I’ll write every day, Charity.” He took a deep breath. “I swear to you that in two years I will come back to marry you.”
“A Christmas wedding,” sighed Charity though she didn’t believe it. Still, it’s what he needed to believe when she farewelled him. He could face whatever hardships were in store if he truly thought he’d ensured Charity’s protection and that, not only would he be still alive and wanting to marry her in two years, he’d be allowed to.
Family pressure was a very powerful force. Old Mr Adams was not going to let his son marry a girl from the gutter without a fight, even if Hugo was a man of independent means.
“Yes, a Christmas wedding,” Hugo promised, as he rose over her, smiling that sweet gentle smile that never failed to make her insides roil with love and excitement as he stroked her into arousal. For the moment, he was hers. She felt he always would be, even if he never came back.
“With mistletoe in my bouquet,” she whispered, gilding the dream they both needed to pretend, for now, would become a reality.
“And my mother’s locket around your neck.” His fingers brushed across her throat and she shivered with anticipation as he positioned himself at her entrance. “For you will be accepted as my worthy wife, my precious girl. My father will — ”
She stayed his words with her forefinger, gently trailing it across his cheek as she shook her head. “Your father will never accept me, Hugo, but I don’t need that.”
“But I do.”
Charity drew in a breath and closed her eyes as he entered her.
With a sigh of ecstasy he whispered, “I swear on my life that I will come back and marry you, my darling.”
Chapter 9
“Just your trunks to seal, sir, and you’re ready to sail.” Keating, the butler stood to attention, waiting for the order as Hugo entered the drawing room. He would not be taking much. Two sturdy trunks were all he needed.
“This will be the making of you, my boy,” his father said, rising from his chair by the fire and walking towards him. He’d come down from the country, ostensibly to farewell his only child though Hugo thought it more likely that it was to ensure that Hugo would be travelling alone. His father didn’t even trust his brother to ensure Hugo brought aboard no stowaways.
Hugo nodded briefly but made no reply as he went to the writing desk where he’d been working on his last drawings and poems for Charity.
“What have you got there?” His father’s tone was genial as he moved to stand behind him.
Hugo ignored him. If his father wanted tacit forgiveness from his son he’d not get it. Hugo would never forgive him for his collusion with Cyril. The beatings and other punishments were forgivable. But not this. His father had garnished a deal that would make Hugo beholden to him; make him his slave. And Cyril had been only too happy to oblige. Hugo had always despised his cousin but he despised his father more.
“A fine drawing. Very fine.” His father nodded at the finely rendered head and shoulders drawing of Charity. “She’s a beauty, to be sure, and you’ve captured that.”
Hugo studied his last work of art. The last picture that perhaps he’d ever draw of Charity when it was just the two of them together. The wistfulness of her expression had tugged at his heartstrings when he’d caught her gazing out of the window while Hugo had been telling her about his visit to Madame’s. A visit during which he’d gone through every possibility to ensure Charity was employed as anything other than a slave to the gentlemen who stepped over the threshold.
When he’d tried to reassure Charity she’d simply smiled. He knew she didn’t believe him but he had to try and keep up the pretence, if only to keep up her hopes when hope was all she had.
A woman had few options if she didn’t have connections. A woman without financial independence was at the mercy of the world.
And if her name were tarnished, or if she had lost her reputation; if she had no references to recommend her to an employer. Then all she had to barter was her body.
Charity was like so many women, Hugo thought bitterly, though God knew it was hardly her fault.
“A beauty, I’m the first to admit. And no doubt obliging and good-natured. Everything a man could desire in a mistress.”
Hugo remained tight-lipped, moving away as his father put out his hand to see the drawing better. The stack of drawings slipped from his hands and floated to the floor. More than a dozen sketches and paintings of Charity spread about them, her beauty painful to behold right now.
There was the only girl he’d ever loved gazing at the painter with gentle trust in one. Or with heart-breaking hauteur in another. Her hair was tumbled and her bosom a touch too much in evidence in another but the one he reached for first depicted her in a ballgown, every inch the equal of the heiress his father would have him marry. Yes, she had grace and dignity to equal any one of them.
; “You’ll thank me one day, boy.”
Hugo turned at the low growl, making no attempt to mask his dislike.
“If anything happens to her when I’m gone I’ll despise you ‘til the day I die,” he said under his breath, before bending to gather up the rest of the drawings.
His father stopped him when Hugo would have brushed past him and out of the door for there was one final task he had to do before he sailed.
“I can see the attraction, Hugo, for you paint true to life. But she’d drag you down. And you’d come to resent her for it. What basis is that for a marriage? When you’d be bound to her for life?”
Hugo considered him a moment. His father had had the benefit of an education but he’d never been considered on an equal footing with his schoolfellows. He wanted this for his son more than he wanted anything else; hence the tortuous years at Eton, the miserable rounds of trying to mould him into the man his father wanted him to become.
“I should not care where she dragged me so long as she was my wife.”
The chasm between them had never yawned so deep. In the middle of a room boasting the trappings of wealth without softness, expense without taste, his father was as much a victim of his success as generations before him had been of their poverty.
He ran a hand through his thick white hair and his lustrous, salt and pepper moustache twitched. His watery blue eyes regarded Hugo with dislike. “I hope she knows you’ll not get a penny of your grandfather’s fortune if you wed her in haste before you leave.”
“Oh, she knows it well. But in less than two years I’ll be free to do as I choose.” Hugo turned at the door. “And I’ll be right back here. In London. Begging her to make me the happiest man alive and marry me. Romantic tosh, eh, father?” Hugo offered him a parting smile. Or, at least, the parody of one. “I’m the first to admit that it is inconvenient to have a heart, at times.” He pushed back his shoulders. “At least I can live with my conscience. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
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