The Tainted Love of a Captain

by Jane Lark

Charlie stood on the black and white chequered marble floor, her gaze spinning about the columns, the marble fireplaces and walls and the stairs that wrapped about the walls at either side of the room. His hand lifted and his fingers pressed beneath her chin closing her mouth. She looked at him and smiled, her large eyes wide.

  ‘I need to go outside and see to Obsidian. Wait here.’

  She nodded then her head tilted right back so she could look at the painting on the ceiling.

  A groom came to untie Obsidian from the back of their hired carriage and Harry had him take Ash to the stables too before returning to the hall.

  Charlie was still staring at the ceiling, her arms hanging at her sides. She looked as though the room had overwhelmed her, swallowing up her confidence. He clasped her hand. Perhaps it would be good for her to see his brother’s wealth in small doses. It was right to take her out of this place and with him. ‘Come. As there is not a room ready we will go to see my brother’s solicitor together.’

  She nodded at him in the way she had of looking suddenly lost. There were still two sides to her. There was the confident Charlie who cried out to the world that she was careless and happy, despite anything that might try to deter it. Then there was this uncertain side of her that sometimes crept through. For some reason he had a feeling she had kept this side of herself a secret from Hillier. He could not even say why he believed it, and yet he did. He had realised in Brighton that she was keeping parts of herself hidden even from him.

  She was defiant again when they sat down in Phillip’s office. John’s solicitor, Phillip, managed all of John’s formal business and was also John’s brother-in-law. So Harry knew as he took a seat, by tomorrow and probably before the deed was even done, John, and therefore his father, would know Harry’s intent. But Phillip Spencer was the sort of man who knew everything. He was the same age as John, they had been school friends too, and since he had worked for John he had become the font of all knowledge.

  ‘I did not know you were coming to London, Harry. I did not realise you had more leave. What can I do for you?’ Phillip shook Harry’s hand before returning to his seat. He did not even speak to Charlie, but he’d glanced at her, in a way that implied he was wondering who on earth she was.

  ‘I need a marriage licence today and a church tomorrow,’ Harry answered diving straight in.

  ‘And you think I might provide them…’ Phillip’s eyebrows lifted. His gaze shifted to Charlie for a moment then he looked back at Harry.

  ‘No but I am sure you know how to obtain them. How do I go about getting a licence?’

  Charlie was sitting with her back straight as though she was at attention, and her chin was up high in that defiant posture that said she cared for no one’s opinion but her own. He assumed she feared she was being judged. Unfortunately, she was probably right. But they would likely have to deal with a lot of that in the next few days. No. He would deal with it. He would damned well threaten every member of his family if they did this.

  ‘Forgive me, but this is madness, Harry,’ Phillip said more quietly as if he did not wish Charlie to hear when she was sitting in the bloody room.

  ‘I am posted to India, I wish to take Charlie with me and this is the way to do it. There is not time for delay.’

  Phillip sighed.

  Perhaps Phillip did not like this but he would have to bloody well do it. Harry’s brother employed him.

  ‘Will you be our witness too?’ Phillip’s behaviour said that it was a bad idea but who else did Harry have to do it.

  ‘John is not going to be happy with you.’

  ‘John can go to hell for all I care. I do not give a damn what he thinks.’ Harry’s ire and impatience brimmed over. ‘I can go and ask a priest, I just thought it would be easier to come to you. You know everything.’

  Phillip sighed again. Phillip hated to do anything John would disagree with and yet Harry was John’s brother, surely that loyalty would transfer. ‘Go to the offices at Lambeth Palace you can obtain one there.’

  ‘And where can I use it.’

  There was another sigh. ‘There is a small church I know of and an elderly vicar with a good nature. I will arrange the wedding for you, if you obtain the licence. What hour do you wish to be married?’

  Harry glanced at Charlie. She looked at him blankly. He looked back at Phillip. ‘Ten. Then I can be at John’s in the afternoon.’

  ‘You are taking her there…’ Phillip’s tone expressed a mix of astonishment and outrage.

  Were they the emotions he would face at John’s? He reached over and clasped Charlie’s hand. Well damn them all if it was. But he saw his sister Mary’s face and he did not believe that all of his family would judge Charlie so badly after all Mary’s husband had not been a saint. He had eloped with Mary and been forgiven.

  Harry sat forward. ‘Would you write down the address of this church for us?’

  Phillip pulled over a sheet of paper. Then reached for a quill. Everything in his body language expressed his distaste of the idea.

  Perhaps Harry should keep Charlie in town and forget about going to see his family. But now he had spoken with Phillip if he did not go to John’s within a day John and his father would come looking for him. There was no doubt of that. They had done it before or at least his father had.

  Phillip blotted the address and then slid the paper across the desk.

  Harry stood and took it. ‘Will you be staying with John and Kate this summer?’

  ‘I do not think so. I am busy here.’

  Harry gave Phillip a nod. ‘Thank you. I will see you in the morning. At this church, at ten.’

  Phillip nodded his agreement.

  ‘He hates me,’ Charlie whispered as she grasped Harry’s arm once they’d walked out of the room.

  He squeezed her fingers against his side. ‘He does not hate you. He is angry with me. Did I not tell you, I am considered a trial to my family? Uncle Baba. The worthless black sheep, in my father’s flock, with a fleece that cannot be dyed and altered to match his values as he wishes.’

  She leant closer to him as they walked along the hall of the offices. ‘You are not bad, you are the kindest man I have ever met.’

  He opened the door and held it for her to go out, emotion tightening about his throat as though it would strangle him. Was he a good man? He had always thought he was, and his family had only ever teased—yet now, in the last weeks, he had come to wonder. He was not sure that he had always made honourable choices. And during the war… It was the bitter recollection of hurried choices that had always been the thing his mind could never stand.

  But he was confident with this choice and he did not care if Phillip or any of his family disagreed.

  She waited in the carriage when he went into the Palace at Lambeth to ask how a man obtained a licence to marry without banns being called. It took half an hour to obtain the right man who could give him such a licence. But that man then sent him out to the carriage to obtain the birth date of his intended wife.

  He opened the carriage door and leant in. ‘Charlie…’ She was sitting in the far corner, looking out at the Thames. Her head turned and she looked at him. Her eyes were shimmering, as though there were tears. Damn. Phillip had upset her more than he’d realised. Harry would have to write to him tonight. But now… ‘What date were you born? I need to know for the licence.’

  ‘April the sixteenth, eighteen-thirty-four.’

  ‘Thank you. I shan’t be too much longer.’ He turned away, denying the shout in his head. He’d done the calculation instantly. Twenty-two. He’d thought her older than that. Twenty-two and she had been with Hillier for seven years, she’d said.

  Since she’d been fifteen.

  Fifteen! The age she had gone to Hillier screamed at him repeatedly as he walked back inside the palace.

  Damn. Guilt had made him feel nauseous for months since the war and in the last few days he had learned to doubt his beliefs about women since he’d met Charlie and that
too had thrust fists of guilt at his stomach. But now his conscience shouted and growled at him as his father and John had always done over his behaviour with women who’d chosen to be paid for sex. John had always claimed the women had stories Harry could not know. Stories that had forced them to reach a point at which sex with a stranger was worth the money they received in exchange.

  God. It sickened him to think of the stories he had not heard spoken in the minds of the women he’d shared beds with.

  But most of all, it was Charlie’s unspoken story haunting him. He wanted it told—he wanted to know it now—and yet a part of him did not want to request it because he was unsure he could bear to hear it. He had to know, though. He cared about her and he wished to understand.

  Fifteen…

  When he returned to the carriage, the document they needed was within his coat, against his chest.

  Tomorrow she would be his wife and today… he would hear her story. But not now, let them shop for pretty things and he would put them all on his brother’s bill. And when John or his father cursed him for marrying the former mistress of another man he would accuse them both of being hypocrites. He was giving Charlie a happy ending, a life she deserved. She had never seemed really happy in the beginning; now there were moments when the pressure on them was eased and glimmers shone through of what things could be for them if cruel fate left them alone.

  When they returned to John’s, the porter told Harry a room had been made ready for them. He led Charlie upstairs by the hand as she hung on to his grip, looking everywhere, though nothing but the plasterwork and ceiling paintings were on show. All the portraits were covered with dustsheets.

  The suite of rooms they had been allocated was usually the suite his parents stayed in. It felt odd when he walked in; he had frequently come into these rooms to visit his parents over the years. They were the largest rooms, apart from John’s.

  Dinner was served at a table in the sitting room. Then Harry requested a cigar and whiskey—to share with Charlie – though he did not tell the servant that.

  Charlie’s eyes were still darting everywhere as they talked. The sitting room in the suite was more than four times the size of her little parlour and probably twice the size of Hillier’s sitting room.

  ‘Did you grow up here?’ she asked as he lit the cigar. He laughed because she whispered the question, as though she did not want it to be overheard by the furniture.

  She had been asking him question after question about his family over dinner. She now knew exactly how many men he was related to in the House of Lords and her pretty eyes had been getting wider with each second.

  ‘No. I have visited often as a child and as a man, but this was never my home. My father owns a house that is much smaller than this, on land that is only a few dozen acres. That is where I grew up.’

  She nodded, though her eyes continued to express her bewilderment.

  ‘Would you like some?’ He held out the cigar. Her hand already embraced a glass of whiskey.

  She nodded and reached out to take it from him.

  She was sitting forward in her chair; he was sitting back in his. He reached over and passed the cigar to her.

  ‘Harry…’ her voice was uncertain.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have not asked me where I grew up?’

  No. He had not known where to begin with the conversation. Fifteen… But where better to begin her story than at the start. ‘Where did you grow up?’

  ‘Not in a place like this.’ She sucked on the cigar, then blew out the smoke.

  But that had been obvious, she would not have needed to be a man’s mistress if she had. ‘So where, then?’ he prodded.

  ‘In a very small cottage. My father was a blacksmith. He worked in one side of the house and we slept in the other. It was one long room. We slept behind a curtain—’

  ‘We…’

  ‘My brother and I, my little sister slept in the room with my mother.’

  ‘Your mother… You have never mentioned your father until today—’

  ‘He died when I was eight, just after my sister was born.’

  ‘And then…’

  She sucked on the cigar again. There was a look in her eyes now, that careless defiance she had at times. ‘We were hungry and I wore rags and we lived on charity. Mrs Hillier and the vicar’s wife brought us bread and broth to eat.’

  Mrs Hillier… Good God. He sat forward in the chair. He had not realised there was a Mrs Hillier and that Charlie knew her. But what age had she said she was? Eight…

  ‘They gave us clothes too and my mother took washing in and I helped her do that, and Rodney worked on the farms.’

  ‘Rodney…’

  ‘My brother.’ This was all said so bluntly. As though she was speaking of someone else’s family. There was no real emotion in her voice and yet she was an emotional woman, he had seen that side of her.

  She held the cigar out for him to take back.

  He took it and asked the question that had been in his mind all afternoon. ‘And you left home when you were fifteen? Is that right?’

  Her eyebrows lifted as if she was surprised that he knew.

  ‘You told me the date you were born today, Charlie, and you have told me how long you were with Hillier; seven years. You were fifteen.’

  She blushed, then sipped her whiskey, glancing down at the glass to avoid his gaze. Then she looked back up.

  He raised his eyebrows at her, asking again without words. He wanted to know. He wanted to understand.

  ‘Yes.’ She did not progress.

  ‘How, Charlie? Tell me. Please.’

  She looked back at her glass. ‘I was not fifteen. I was fourteen when it began.’

  A bilious sensation spun through his gut; when what began?

  ‘I was not where I was meant to be. I was always up to mischief. That was what my mother used to say. She told me it was my own fault. But I liked Sundays. I liked to be on my own or with my friend, not in Sunday school or church. I was on my own…’

  Lord, where was this going? His palms became clammy with fear. He sucked on the cigar once more, then held it out to her, his hand was shaking; the hand of a man who had held a sword and a pistol square and strong in battle.

  She looked up at him as she took the cigar. There was still that disengaged look in her eyes. She was reciting this story to him as he might speak of a battle. The memory was shut away and not allowed to be joined and mixed with emotion—because if it became mixed with emotion that emotion would drown him. What of her?

  She looked directly into his eyes. ‘He invited me to go for a ride in his carriage and he offered me cake and jam and a cup of sweet tea.’

  ‘Good God, Charlie.’

  ‘You think I did wrong too…?’ She sucked on the cigar then blew out the smoke.

  ‘No. I think he did wrong. You were a child.’

  She shrugged. ‘He gave me money afterwards, to give to my mother and my brother.’

  ‘How old was your brother, then?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  Too young to stand up to a man who had the force of the British army behind him. My God. Harry wanted to return to Brighton and push his sword deep into Hillier’s cold heart. ‘What did his wife say?’

  An odd smile twisted her lips, a bitter smile. ‘She saw me leave the house in Mark’s carriage, when Mr Perrin took me home.’ He could finally glimpse an element of emotion through her armour. ‘She hated me. She started the rumours and then everyone knew what had happened. I was an outcast, spat at, and some of the people threw stones. Children who had been my friends threw stones.’

  ‘Charlie…’

  She shrugged again.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Stayed out of everyone’s way. But then people would no longer give their washing to my mother and so we had less and less money and Mrs Hillier and the vicar’s wife no longer brought us food or clothing. My little sister used to cry all the time because she was s
o hungry.’

  ‘Charlie…’ He had not thought he’d be shocked. He had slept with whores all his life. He had spent years in the army.

  She smiled and handed the cigar back to him. Then her chin lifted. ‘So I went back to him. He agreed to give my family money if I stayed with him. So I stayed with him so that my little sister would no longer wail with hunger and my mother would not cry. He sent me to Brighton and he would come and visit me at first, but then Mrs Hillier died and he moved to Brighton.’

  ‘Charlie…’

  ‘What do you feel?’

  What did he feel? ‘I have no idea.’

  She sipped the whiskey and then her head tipped to the side. ‘Does it disgust you?’ He had a feeling she was slightly intoxicated; she had drunk four glasses of wine with her dinner as well as the whiskey.

  ‘No.’ He disgusted himself. What were the stories of the women he had lain with in brothels… Rape. It had begun for her as rape at the age of fourteen and then she had been forced to turn to the man who had raped her to protect her from the havoc he had caused. Hillier had destroyed her life and she had stayed with him for seven years. Harry could not even imagine how she had done it.

  Damn it. She had learned to reconstruct her heart out of stone too, she must have done.

  ‘Do you still wish to marry me?’

  ‘Charlie, do not be ridiculous. I am hardly the man to judge you. You have lain with one man before me, for all the wrong reasons, but one man besides. I have lain with two hundred or more women. Or have I not told you that? Well, if I have not, you know it now. I have always used women who work in brothels and no one else until you. Do you still wish to marry me? I think it far more likely that you have cause to turn me away. Will you?’

  She shook her head. But then the truth was she had no choice as she’d had no choice with Hillier.

  ‘You are allowed to say that you do not want to marry me if it is not what you wish for. My family would support you if I cast you off. John is a saint. He would not see any woman injured by me.’

  She blushed, but then she drained her whiskey glass and set it on the table between them, stood, and came over to him. He sat back in the chair again as she made a seat of his lap and then held the cigar for him to take back. ‘I want to marry you,’ she said as she gripped his neck and then she pressed her lips on to his.