She shifted her weight slightly and was reminded of the growing wetness between her thighs, as the thirteenth lash found its home on the crest of her buttocks and she howled some more. There was a stray thought that desired him to do something more than this, to show her his complete mastery of her body, but she wasn’t entirely certain what she needed from him.
The final three strokes thundered through her, and she felt something inside her being forced out; some of the unpleasantness that made her break windows and steal police officers’ helmets. When the last one made her scream into the soap, she strained against Edward’s firm grip that held her against the wood and leather. As the pain in her bottom and the unpleasantness in her mouth continued attacking her, she stayed over the desk for several seconds in a stunned silence.
* * *
Edward put the tawse away then he gently tilted Adeline upright. He pulled the soap out of her mouth with some difficulty, because she’d bitten down on it so hard that she’d gotten her teeth stuck in it. Once it was out, he guided her into the corner. Her bottom was a furious dark pink, and he reflected that, if she continued this behavior, he would be forced to feed her nothing but kale and broccoli to ensure her skin withstood this much punishment, since both were recommended to prevent or repair bruising.
He sat at his desk and contemplated the little damp patch near the edge of the green leather. Her arousal had been obvious. His, on the other hand… he hoped fervently that he had concealed it. She needed to know he would correct her with a firm hand, and that meant she mustn’t know how difficult it had been, while she was over the desk, for him not to unfasten his trousers and fill her fully visible opening with his hardness. She was such an attractive little minx.
Once she had remained still for the allotted time, he called her back to the desk and watched her stand before it contritely. Her perky breasts had hard nipples, and her whole body was tantalizingly nubile.
“I’m sorry,” she told him.
He nodded. “I forgive you. For the rest of the day, you are confined to the guestroom, and you are to take all meals up there. You will remain as you are, since I suspect that, incorrigible as you are, you would still balk at walking down the road in the nude. If this is the only way to prevent you from running away, then this is what must happen.”
“You think I wouldn’t go out like this?” she challenged.
“Shall we find out?” He got to his feet and marched her to the front door.
When he put his hand on the door handle, ready to open it, she shrank back and stood behind him.
He nodded in satisfaction. “As I suspected.” He walked her upstairs to the sink in his bathroom. “You may rinse the soap out of your mouth, now,” he told her. She fell upon the sink and washed her mouth out about ten times before she stood up from the basin and dried her face with a towel. Once she had freshened up, he returned her to the guestroom, then he went downstairs to the kitchen.
At his request, the cook made up a tray of tea, with two teacups and a pot full of leaves and hot water, a bowl of sugar lumps, and a small jug of milk. Some biscuits were added, and he took the whole set upstairs to Adeline, keen to prevent the servants from knowing that he was keeping her naked. It went so far beyond propriety that they might resign.
He pushed the door open and set the tray down on the empty dresser. A woman’s dresser was normally filled with perfumes and night creams, and all those other mysterious cosmetics that they spent hours decorating themselves with. He cast his mind to Felicity’s dresser, still crowded with all sorts of beautifully packaged items that she had no use for in her resting place.
He turned around. Adeline was sitting up in bed, with the blankets pulled up to her shoulders for modesty.
“I thought you might like a cup of tea to help get the taste of soap out of your mouth,” he informed her.
She looked up at him with glassy eyes and shrugged. “I don’t care,” she replied sullenly.
“Come now, there’s no need to be so churlish. You ought to drink something. I’ll pour you a cup as soon as the tea has brewed.”
“Maybe I want to die of thirst.”
He sighed. She wasn’t going on a hunger strike on his watch.
“Do you know how much danger you put yourself in on a regular basis out of sheer stubbornness?”
“I don’t care! Don’t you know anything? I. Don’t. Care. So what if I fall out of a window? Or rot in prison for trying to help someone? Nobody would mourn me. I can do what I like because nobody cares enough to stop me!”
“I will stop you.” He spoke quietly but firmly.
She stared at him for a moment, looking like she’d been slapped. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“You know, I think that might be the most sensible and intelligent word you’ve spoken since you arrived.” They were getting somewhere. She’d moved away from unfounded statements and into questions. His voice softened. “I am going to stop you because I want you to be happy. Such terrible tragedy befell your family and mine. That blasted war took so much from us. More than just the ones we lost.”
He poured two cups of tea, added milk and sugar, and stirred them before passing one to Adeline. She took it, and delicately sipped the drink.
He decided to ask her the question at the forefront of his thoughts. “Why did you escape yesterday? Is it truly so awful here that you would rather be out on the streets consorting with criminals in your underthings?”
Adeline sighed. “She wasn’t a criminal. She was criminalized. There’s a difference.”
“Explain.”
“She was a war nurse who got hit by a shell. The poor woman lost both her legs. She was about my age, perhaps a year or two older. And instead of being celebrated for her bravery, she is out on the street being arrested. When people walk past, they look through her, and nobody sees who she was or what she did. They only see what she is now. And they call her a vagrant. Her entire life is over, and she can’t be twenty-five yet.”
“And you escaped to go and visit her?”
“No. Never met her before in my life. I was going to catch a train to Glasgow when I saw her. Spent my train fare on cough mixture and food for her.” She sipped her tea and frowned.
Edward looked at her in surprise. He knew, if she were willing to go out in only her chemise, that she had wanted to be free more than anything. It did fit her past behavior though, that her chaotic decision-making would include helping others to her own detriment.
“Then a copper appeared and started laying down the law.”
“You know, that is rather what he’s employed to do.” Edward had nothing but respect for the policemen whose difficult task was to maintain order in the city.
“The brute had absolutely no compassion or regard for her plight.”
One thing still didn’t make sense in her story. “Why did you steal his helmet?”
“I was rather hoping he’d become so distracted by what I was doing, that he might forget Mary entirely, and let her be. I ran off with the hat because I thought, the further away from her he got, the more likely he was to forget her.”
“And did he?” It was another of Adeline’s hare-brained schemes, all right. He wondered if she’d ever thought through a single course of action in her entire life.
“He arrested both of us.”
Edward shook his head and tried to look serious, but secretly he was impressed. Adeline’s behavior had been disgraceful, but her heart had been in the right place. That seemed to be a large part of her problem. As far as he knew, she had a strange sense of honor and decency that had very little to do with the laws of the land. If only she would let him guide her, he was sure she could do great things.
She put the tea down and shifted position; clearly sitting was uncomfortable. He narrowed his eyes and stared into his teacup as he started to realize something about Adeline.
“You’re very angry all the time, aren’t you?”
She frowned and started to shake he
r head, but then nodded. “I’m furious at the sheer stupidity of the entire world.”
“Is that why you constantly have to do the wrong thing all the time?”
She looked up at him, and for a moment he thought she was going to throw the teacup at him, but when he caught her gaze, her blue eyes seemed sorrowful. She opened her mouth to speak and her voice seemed slightly distant. “They’re calling this decade the ‘roaring twenties.’ Do you know why they call it that? Because we’re all grieving, we’re all in pain and we’ve all lost our loved ones. We don’t know why we’re still here and they’re not. So we roar.”
Comprehension dawned and Edward’s heart clenched as he realized she was still trying to get over what had happened. The war had cut across her formative years. His childhood had been happy and uneventful. The war had been gravely worrying, a time of much loss and seriousness; he couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like for a little girl. He knew she’d lost her younger brother, Max, as well as one of her older brothers. Her eldest brother Arthur had returned, but by all accounts, he was still suffering the aftereffects of shell shock.
Edward tried to reassure her. “They died doing something important.”
“No, they didn’t! They died for nothing! It was all complete bloody carnage while the royal families ensured they defended their precious treaties! It was pointless slaughter.” Her voice started to break a little.
He shook his head and spoke firmly. “No, it wasn’t. It can’t have been. That’s not fair on those who died. The only people who decide whether they died heroes or villains are those of us left behind, and so we must believe they were heroes, fighting evil, because that’s why they did it. They believed. It doesn’t matter the truth of it. Was Serbia right to assassinate the archduke? Was Austria right to retaliate? It’s irrelevant. The only way we can make up for the terrible loss is to know—to know—that they were all heroes.”
She stared at him. “My brothers don’t need your pity,” she said coldly, then turned her head away from him.
“No, they don’t. But the world needs to know they lived, and that they died, and why. Otherwise this will come around again. Will our men defend our country a second time, if they think the first one was pointless?”
“You’re talking rot. This will never happen again. It can’t. No one would allow it. Anyway, we didn’t win. Everyone says we did, but we didn’t. Nobody won, we all just gave up because it was foolish. And since the King of Prussia, who was incidentally the Emperor of the German Empire, had abdicated on account of being a terrible ruler, he got away with it and left his people to take the consequences!”
Edward could see that Adeline felt strongly about the whole thing, even if she didn’t understand some of the finer details.
“So, you’re saying that all the people who allowed the Great War to happen, who frivolously cast millions to their deaths, won’t do it again?”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing of mine left for them to take away.” She bit her lip and it was clear she was trying very hard not to cry. “When we got the letters, I didn’t believe the news. Until the war was over and the soldiers were back home, I hoped the news about my brothers had been a mistake.” She frowned, as though she barely believed she was telling him this. “It sounds utterly vapid, but I went to the station, hoping my three brothers would bound out of a carriage, jesting with one another, big grins on their faces, but there was only Arthur, and he was a shadow of his former self. One only had to slam a door too loudly and he’d startle. Father called him a coward.”
Edward remembered too well the effect that shell shock had on good men. “He was a brave man, Adeline. Anyone accusing him of cowardice didn’t understand. I was on the front lines, too. I saw it. Some nights, I still dream about what I saw. But if war broke out tomorrow, I would return.”
“Why? It’s a fool’s errand. Not because I’ve any cowardice; simply because it’s ridiculous!”
“I would enlist because it was my duty to my country.” How could he explain that to someone if they didn’t understand it? Didn’t they teach girls to be patriotic at school?
“Duty be hanged! They all did their duty and behaved themselves, and went to war like good little soldiers, and look where it got them. Buried, that’s where. I don’t want to end up like that! Why live life making yourself miserable to please others? Good behavior gets you nowhere!”
Edward shook his head. “Bad behavior has worse consequences. And behaving yourself or following society’s rules doesn’t mean making yourself miserable. Think about some of the things you’ve done recently, and then think about how those all ended. Weren’t you miserable when you cut your hand? Or when you had to stand before a judge and tell him that you had stolen a policeman’s helmet?”
Adeline looked taken aback, as though she hadn’t even thought about it.
“When you put it that way, I suppose my choices haven’t exactly had happy endings.”
At least the girl could be reasoned with, Edward decided with a sense of triumph. He finally felt as though they were getting somewhere.
“Would it make you feel better if we found some way of helping Mary?” Edward asked.
“You mustn’t send her to the workhouse! It would be beastly!” Adeline said. “If that’s your answer, I’ll escape again the moment you’re not looking and I’ll get her back out again!”
Fire flashed in her blue eyes. Truth be told, Edward had forgotten that Edinburgh still had at least one poorhouse, as they were called in Scotland.
“I didn’t consider it. Anyway, as a trained nurse she’s probably inadmissible. A wheeled carriage and some means of gainful employment seem more appropriate.”
“What work could she do?”
“I’m sure she could knit, sew, or embroider. Floristry. Something of that ilk. Possibly even secretarial work. I think she simply needs an opportunity.”
Adeline’s eyes lit up and she nodded thoughtfully. “She might need someone to help her. I think we should arrange all this as soon as possible.”
“I’ll make some calls. You remain here; you’re still being punished. Finding a homeless war nurse was no reason to steal a police officer’s helmet.” Edward went downstairs and summoned Guy, his manservant.
“There’s an infirm woman begging for money at the train station. See to it at once that she gets some accommodation and a wheeled carriage, and some sort of lady’s maid to help her with things. I’ll foot the bill.”
“Accommodation?” Guy’s brow furrowed.
“Rent her a house or a bedsit somewhere within walking distance of the town center,” Edward explained.
Guy nodded and went off to carry out his employer’s instructions.
Chapter Four
After Edward left, Adeline lay down under the blanket and attempted to think clearly. It was difficult, given that Edward’s lingering, masculine scent was one big distraction, on top of the enduring soreness in her bottom. Their conversation had given her a lot to consider, however, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about any of it.
She had held her emotions inside herself for so long, because nobody would talk to her about her brothers. All through the war, Adeline had been kept from reading the papers, and since the war wasn’t seen as something that young women needed to pay attention to, she hadn’t gone out of her way to defy her parents’ wishes on that front. The things she heard from girls at school and visitors to Hathersedge Manor were frightful enough.
When she’d tried to speak to her mother, the day Arthur was brought home, the older woman shook her head and refused to be drawn. Arthur, too, was not a cove of conversation about things. Alone, Adeline had been left to imagine what might have happened, and frequently spent long hours out in the expansive gardens of Hathersedge, chain smoking and trying to avoid being noticed by her mother, who was an avid health fanatic.
Adeline’s outlook on life had irrevocably changed on an overcast afternoon in late November 1918, when Adeline’
s mother had been in the conservatory, conducting one of her stuffy book club meetings, which had less to do with reading books and more to do with keeping up appearances. Her mother’s friends were all that breed of hypocritical society women who liked to pretend their disdain for James Joyce’s Ulysses, whilst secretly harboring copies purchased from Parisian booksellers. Adeline could now attest to this, having spotted a discreetly placed copy in the typical stack of books found in every smallest room at every stately home from Dorset to Mid-Lothian, at every society function she had attended in the past few months.
On that particular day, Adeline had been looking for somewhere to smoke out of view of the glass shell that contained a dozen or more of the well-to-do clotheslines when she’d first spotted one of Siegfried Sassoon’s poems, tucked away in an out-of-date newspaper in the corner of one of Hathersedge’s many potting sheds.
Sassoon had been to war, as far as she understood, and actually held a respectable rank, but his writing showed the reality that she craved to understand. It confirmed her worst-held fears about the war, about its effect on people. Until that moment, her heart had overflowed with uncontrollable sadness about what had happened to her brothers, but then, she had felt angry. God hadn’t taken her brothers, men had; and not the men who had pulled the triggers or thrown the bombs. It was bigger than that.
She went to the local library that afternoon and looked through the back issues of The Times, then she sent off to the publishers for the pamphlets of war poems authored by a list of like-minded individuals. She compared the experiences of the men who had been at the front with the oblivious drivel of Jessie Pope, and came to one inescapable conclusion: All the rules were lies that only worked if everyone followed them. Not only that, but the rules didn’t even benefit the people obeying them. A lot of her school friends had gone out into the world with an overwhelming intent to savor every moment of life, particularly since there was a national shortage of men, and ensuingly, she knew a lot of girls who liked to live raucously. None of her friends were especially prone to introspection and Adeline had found it easy to let her anger burn away in the back of her mind while she went where she liked and did what she liked. Her parents had despaired of her, but only when they spent a few moments thinking about her at all. The rest of the time, she could have been invisible.
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