He turned on his heel, and without looking back, strode into the small adjoining dressing room and very quietly closed the door behind him.
The gilt-edged ormolu clock on the mantelpiece ticked away its minutes with time-honored accuracy. The orange embers in the fireplace crackled and hissed in their final death glow, eventually succumbing to the invading chill of the room. The hideous grinning skeleton, mouth agape, eternally suspended on The Dance of Death panel, silently taunted the motionless figure on the bed.
Lady Ann broke her habit and took Mrs. Tucker quite by surprise by appearing at the inordinately early hour of eight o’clock at the breakfast parlor door. It was really rather a foolish thing to do, for in all likelihood the newlywedded couple would not emerge for hours. Yet Lady Ann had awakened with a vague sense that something was not quite right, and in spite of the comforting warmth that tempted her to snuggle down in her bed, she had swung her feet to the floor, rung for her maid, and dressed with more speed than was her usual habit.
“Good morning, Mrs. Tucker,” Lady Ann said with a smile. “I suppose I am the only one to demand breakfast this early in the morning.”
“Oh, no, my lady. His lordship has been in the breakfast parlor for a good half hour, though I can’t say that he has quite done justice to Cook’s kidneys and eggs. Indeed, I don’t believe he has touched his breakfast.
Lady Ann experienced a sudden sinking in the pit of her stomach. This surely wasn’t right. But what could possibly be wrong? She said, “If that is the case, Mrs. Tucker, Cook won’t have to prepare more kidneys for me.” The door to the breakfast parlor was slightly ajar. As Lady Ann stepped into the room, she was able to observe the earl before he was aware of her presence. His plate was indeed untouched. He lounged sideways in his chair, one leather-breached leg thrown negligently over the brocade arm.
His firm chin rested lightly upon his hand, and he appeared to be gazing out onto the south lawn at nothing in particular.
Lady Ann straightened her shoulders and walked into the breakfast room.
“Good morning, Justin. Mrs. Tucker tells me you are sadly neglecting Cook’s breakfast. Are you feeling all right this morning?” He turned quickly to face her, and she saw the tense line of his jaw, the shadows beneath his gray eyes, the haggard lines about his mouth. The lines smoothed out in a trice. He looked remote and quite calm, but she knew she hadn’t been mistaken. Something was very wrong.
“Good morning, Ann. You are certainly up and about early. Do join me. I am simply not hungry this morning. There was enough food served yesterday to fatten up a battalion.”
Lady Ann sat in the chair to his right. She wanted desperately to question him, but she found herself at a loss as to how to proceed. His face grew rather forbidding, as if he guessed her thoughts. She began to methodically butter a slice of warm toast, and without raising her eyes again to his face, she said, “It seems odd that you are now my son-in-law. Dr. Branyon obligingly pointed out that I can no longer escape my new title of Dowager Countess of Strafford. How very ancient it makes me feel.”
“Give yourself another twenty years before you consider assuming that title, Ann. Ah, by the way, are you planning to marry Paul Branyon?”
“Justin, what a question, why I—” She was totally taken off her guard.
Her toast slipped from her fingers and fell atop her marmalade. She gulped. “That is quite a question to be hit with this early in the morning.”
“Yes, and a very important one that I’m sure you have no wish to answer.
Do forgive me, Ann. Questions such as that tend to place the person being asked in a rather difficult position, do you not agree?”
“Yes,” she said slowly, “naturally you are right. That was very well done. I don’t believe I’ve ever before received such an elegant poke in the nose.”
He rose, tossing his napkin beside his full plate. “If you will excuse me, Ann, I have many matters to attend to this morning.” She watched him walk from the room. She said nothing more to him. What was there to say?
She stared down at the array of dishes Cook had happily prepared for the newlyweds. Dear God, whatever could have happened? Arabella had been so very happy and excited the night before—not at all a nervous young bride.
Arabella. Oh God, she must go to her. Her concern made her feet fly up the stairs to the earl’s bedchamber, the chamber she hated more than any other in this great mansion.
The door stood partially ajar, and she tapped on it lightly as she entered.
“Oh,” she said in surprise at the sight of Grace, Arabella’s maid, standing alone in the room, the tattered remnants of a nightgown held in her hands.
Grace quickly dropped a curtsy, her brown eyes darting quickly away from Lady Ann’s face.
“Where is my daughter?” She walked forward, her eyes on that torn nightgown in Grace’s hands.
Grace gulped uncomfortably. Lady Arabella had given her strict orders to straighten the room before anyone was about. Here she was standing in the middle of the room with the evidence of the earl’s brutality in her hands. “Ah, my lady, her ladyship is in her own room.”
“I see,” Lady Ann said slowly, her eyes taking in the dried bloodstains on top of the bedcover, the red-tinged water and the blood-flecked towel on the washbasin. She felt sick with apprehension. No use in putting more questions to Grace. She would protect Arabella. She was out of the bedchamber before Grace could offer her a curtsy.
Lady Ann walked more and more slowly as she neared her daughter’s bedchamber. She could not help remembering her own wedding night, filled with pain and humiliation. She shook her head even as her steps slowed further. No, it could not have been like that. Justin was so very different from her late husband.
Still, her hands were damp when she knocked lightly on Arabella’s door.
There was no answer. Not that she expected one. She knocked again. Would Arabella refuse to let her come in? Then she heard, “Enter.” Lady Ann was not certain what she expected to find, but when she walked into the bedchamber, she looked at her very normal daughter of yesterday.
Arabella calmly rose to greet her, dressed in her black riding habit, her velvet hat set high above smoothly arranged curls, the black ostrich feather curving over the brim, nearly brushing her cheek.
“Good morning, Mother. Whatever has you up and about so very early? Is Dr. Branyon coming?”
She sounded calm. Laced with that calm was centuries of arrogance that dared Lady Ann to say anything. Had she not seen Justin, not visited the earl’s bedchamber, she would have felt the complete fool.
“You ride as usual?”
“Of course, Mother. Is there any reason why I should not? I always ride early in the morning. Is there something you would like me to do?” There was more arrogance, so much Lady Ann felt she would drown in it.
Lady Ann found that she could not rise to the challenge. If Arabella did not wish to confide in her, she could not press her. She realized then that Arabella had rarely taken her into her confidence over the years.
Only her father had shared her thoughts, her dreams, her fears, if, that is, she’d ever had any.
“No, my dear, if you wish to ride, it is certainly your affair. I simply could not sleep and thought to bid you good morning. That is all. Well, I did see Justin in the breakfast parlor. He did not look quite well rested. He looked a bit tense, even, perhaps despondent for some very odd reason, well—”
An arched black brow shot up in suspicious inquiry. “I suggest that if you are concerned for Justin, you simply ask him how he fares. Now, I fear you will grow overtired if you do not get your rest, Mother. If you will excuse me—” Arabella drew on her gloves, tipped her hat to a more jaunty angle, and walked to where her mother stood. She kissed her lightly on the cheek, her expression softening almost imperceptibly, and walked quickly out of the room.
Lady Ann stood staring after her daughter. Damnation, what had happened?
As Arabella guided Lucifer
past the old abbey ruins to the country lane that led to Bury St. Edmunds, her eyes were clear and straight, her gloved hands steady on Lucifer’s reins, her chin raised high.
Poor Mother, she thought, feeling suddenly guilty. She hadn’t treated her well. How had her mother known that something was wrong? And she had known. It was a mystery. So Justin hadn’t looked well rested, had he? He had looked despondent? Damn him to hell! Arabella rather hoped that he would rot, in addition to hell. He deserved to rot. He deserved every bad thing that could happen to him did happen.
Still, how had her mother guessed that something was wrong? Oh dear, had she seen the shambles in the master’s bedchamber? Had Grace not had enough time to burn her nightgown and the sheets? She would ask her when she returned to the abbey.
She flicked Lucifer lightly with the reins on the neck, urging him into a gallop. If only she could leave behind her all the ugliness, the pain, the hatred of the night before. And that horrible cream that had eased her, but still, it hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered to him. She felt sick with disappointment, with despair. She wanted to cry. But even as the wish flashed through her mind, she saw her father’s face filled with contempt. It was weakness, cowardice, to deny any experience that touched one’s life. It was utterly unacceptable to cry. Her shoulders straightened from long habit, however difficult, but she managed it, and her firm chin thrust forward.
Touch her life? God, Justin had ripped through her life, doing his utmost to destroy her. The nagging soreness between her thighs was bitter proof that he had violated her body. She would not let him ravage her mind and spirit as well.
His words were clear in her mind, yet they were so absurd that she had difficulty crediting them. She tried to remember his words, to give them some meaning she hadn’t yet comprehended, not to excuse him for what he had done to her, but to allow her to understand. Absurdly, he believed that the comte was her lover. And he’d spoken of seeing them at the barn.
It made no sense at all. She could not fathom how Justin had drawn such a damning conclusion. Someone must have lied to him, convinced him that she had betrayed him.
But who could have done that and, for God’s sake, why?
She frowned between Lucifer’s ears. It was beyond obvious that he had believed the lie. Then why had he gone through with their marriage? Ah, but she was being stupid. If he hadn’t gone through with the wedding, he would have lost the greater portion of his inheritance. And he’d said it himself. He’d been quite clear. She had betrayed him but he couldn’t kill her else he would lose everything. But he was thinking about killing Gervaise. She wondered dispassionately if he would kill the comte. She found that she didn’t care a great deal, except, of course, that the comte was innocent of bedding the earl’s bride.
She pulled Lucifer to a halt. He was breathing hard. She looked about her and realized with a start that she had ridden past the Roman ruins without even noticing. She drew up and patted her horse’s neck. She suddenly remembered a phrase she had overheard her father say to one of his friends: “I rode the wench until she would have thrown me off, if she could.” She thought ironically that at least the meaning of his crude remark was now clear to her.
Almost unwilling she turned Lucifer about and headed at a slow trot back to Evesham Abbey. She must have ridden for hours, for the sun was reaching its zenith in the sky.
She could feel her bitter calm begin to crumble the nearer she drew to his home. Justin would be there, waiting. She would have to face him, not just today, but tomorrow, a lifetime of tomorrows. For a fleeting moment she considered confronting him, to plead her innocence again, to demand to know who had told him such a damning lie. She pictured such a scene in her mind and saw herself pleading and him rejecting her pleas, as he had the night before. Instinctively, after his rage of last night, she knew that he would still disbelieve her. She pictured renewed fury and savage reprisal. In that instant she hated that she was female and thus weaker, hated his superior strength that could allow him to dominate her through sheer physical power.
Arabella shivered despite the hot sun that beat down upon her black riding habit. Surely he would not force her to submit to him again.
Hadn’t he said he wouldn’t spill his seed in her again? Hadn’t he said that he wanted no child from her? His revenge upon her had been thorough and merciless. But it was over now, or at least for as long as he kept to his vow.
She guided Lucifer into the stable yard, pulled up before her sweating groom, and slid to the ground. She hated the feeling of wariness, of dread that washed over her as she neared the front doors of Evesham Abbey. God, if she did not have her pride, she would have nothing. He must not know how he had hurt her, disillusioned her. She would not allow that. She thought again of his words of the night before, spoken so calmly at her and yet there was such deadly fury in his voice. She had played his words over and over in her mind, yet there was one word he had said to her that she did not understand. Strangely, it seemed vitally important to her that she know the meaning of that word.
She glanced up at the sun, guessed that it neared luncheon, then let herself quietly into a side entrance. She thought only to avoid seeing Justin before it was absolutely necessary. She trod through her home to the library, slipped through the door, and shut it quietly behind her.
Arabella was not an enthusiastic scholar, certainly not much addicted to the use of the dictionary. Thus she spent several minutes perusing the book-lined shelves to locate it. She had always assumed that any words her father did not use were not worth knowing about. She was beginning to think that in this instance she was wrong. She pulled the leather-bound volume from the shelf, wet her fingertips on her tongue, and began to riffle through the stiff pages.
Her fingers sped down the columns until she found the word she sought.
“Sodomy,” she read. “Middle English and Old French ‘sodomie’.” There were biblical references, but nothing to tell her what it meant. “Well, damnation. What could he have meant? What?” Arabella suddenly felt movement behind her and whirled about, nearly dropping the dictionary, so thick and heavy that it would have broken her foot. She looked up at the earl, who stood with negligent ease, his hand resting flat on the top of the desk. Her mouth went dry. She felt guilty even though there was no reason to. She’d even been speaking out loud.
Had he heard her? Of course he had.
“Well, my dear wife, what word could be of such interest to bring you to the dictionary?”
He sounded colder than he had the night before. Utterly apart from her.
Contemptuous of her. Would he hurt her again? Rip off her clothes again?
She shook her head even as she looked down at the word, so very damning by itself, and she tried to slam the dictionary closed. He moved quickly, wresting it from her arms.
“Surely we could have no secrets? Aren’t we married? Come, Arabella, if you wish to know the meaning of a word, you have but to ask me.” For a brief instant, she wanted to demand that he call her ma’am, but she couldn’t. Everything had changed. It was now too grave, too perilous. She said nothing. There was no hope for it. He would find the word. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d be damned if she would act guilty. She said with a tone she prayed was as cold as his, “I was looking up a word you screamed at me last night. I had never heard it before. I wanted to know what it meant.”
“What was this word I screamed at you?”
“Sodomy.”
His black eyebrows went up a good inch. She had no shame, the damned slut. She was shoving it right into his face, rubbing it in his nose. So be it. He turned slowly to place the dictionary onto the desk. Then he looked at her. She was standing tall, her shoulders squared. He looked at her, stripping her naked as he had the night before, and it was all there in his eyes, all the condemnation, the contempt, the rage. “Poor Arabella, did not the comte give you a term to describe your activities?
I understand it can be painful, this way a man can take a woman.
I have never done it. But perhaps now, that he has breached you, I will do it.
Was he gentle with you? But you are an intelligent woman. I cannot understand why he did not tell you what he was doing to you is called.
How very remiss of him.”
“I have no lover,” she said in the calmest voice she had ever heard from herself. It was flat, no emotion scrambling about to humiliate her further. “The comte is not my lover. I have no idea what this sodomy means. Either you will tell me or you will get out of my way. I will repeat it once more: the comte is not my lover. I have no lover or any sort. Tell me or move.”
She actually shoved at him. He grabbed her arms and forced them against her sides. “Sodomy,” he said slowly, looking down at her. “Very well. I will tell you what it is. You will recognize it quickly enough and I will see the knowledge of it in your eyes. When he took you, you were on your hands and knees, that, or on your belly. Damn you, stop looking so blank.
He took you from behind. Is that plain enough for you? He took you as he would take a boy were he a pederast.”
This hadn’t occurred to her. She felt utterly stripped of anything that she knew. “But surely that is impossible. Horses don’t do that, and I have watched horses mate. My God, it would be horrible. It isn’t what is proper, for man nor beast. What is a pederast? What do you mean?”
“Shut up, damn you. Very well, so he didn’t use you in that way then.
Then it was your mouth.” He jerked her forward, leaned down and kissed her hard. “Open your mouth,” he said against her lips. “Open your lips so I can taste you. Did that miserable little bastard spill his seed in your mouth?”
She didn’t open her mouth, despite the force he used. Finally, he let her go. He raised his head. Lightly, he touched his fingertips to her lips.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “he let you take him in your mouth. You have a beautiful mouth—soft and giving, even though you refuse to give it to me, I can imagine what it was like for him to caress his sex with those lips of yours.”
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