“So. You received the message.”
The voice was not Henry’s. It was Uncle Edmund’s.
In her panic she tried to pivot on her bare heels but was glued to the spot, as in a nightmare. For Edmund had caught her neatly around the waist and held her in a firm grip.
Edmund was grinning. Smart, this gel. And quite the little actress into the bargain. She had read him correctly and—like the best-trained filly in Mrs. Bennett’s stable of trollops, by God!—was ready to play the part that suited him best: the scared, the reluctant, the cornered damsel. Ah, there would be good sport tonight. He congratulated himself on having tolerated his wife’s whim, a decade or so ago, in giving the bastard child a home. Here was ample reward indeed!
“Not so fast!” he said, his teeth gritted in a mock scowl. “Don’t I deserve a kiss?”
Lucinda was paralyzed. The scope of her own stupidity had knocked all the strength out of her. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t! How could she have thought…It was the terrible news about Thomas—no, it was Henry’s arrival that had put her off her guard…
“Don’t I deserve a kiss, for pardoning your nurse?”
She stared at him, horrified.
“She’d have been hanged, you know, if I hadn’t intervened,” he said.
She cleared her throat and shook her head, as if to loosen it. “Thank you, uncle,” she managed.
“Well?” he mooched.
She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. But still he did not let go. His grip tightened. “You owe me more than that, young lady,” he said hoarsely.
“Please let me go,” she stammered. “Please?”
She heard his rough panting and smelled his hot sweat. He was standing too close to her, much, much too close. She averted her face, turning as far away from him as possible.
“Ah, nn-nn-nnn!” he chided, chucking her under the chin, forcing her to face him. She shrugged loose with a sharp twist of the head, but he had already transferred his attention elsewhere. Her skin puckered to goose bumps—he had pulled the nightshirt up over her head. There was a brief tug-of-war as, giggling apologetically, she tried to recover her property. But the nightshirt was ripped out of her hands and tossed across the room. Now she was no longer giggling. She was gasping, close to tears. She tried to hug herself, to cover her nakedness with her arms, but he pried them off her chest and with little effort pinned them to her sides.
And now without any further ado or explanation he started on something that was all wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, taking her to the furthest reaches of alarm: something that was much, much too intimate to be subjected to at the hands of an uncle she loathed. Yes, she really really, really loathed him and—God, what was he doing?—he was forcing himself on her like a battering ram! No. Stop it. It couldn’t be! What was she supposed to do? What would a lady do in this appalling situation? How could she register her refusal to participate in such a disgusting activity? She could not push him away, could not get a proper foothold—he was pressing her back against a cabinet; only the tips of her toes touched the floor. She attempted a scream, but he was squeezing her too tight; the scream came out as a strangled cough. She tried struggling, too, but when that elicited a playful snarl of approbation, she decided it was best to hold herself rigidly still and uncooperative instead.
Apparently whatever he was trying to do was not easy for him either, for now he was grunting with frustration. Again and again he rammed and again and again he was repulsed—five, six, seven times. She felt a little surge of hope. Maybe he’d have to give up? But he kept at it. She tried, desperately, to spit out a woolly thread of wig clinging to her nauseated tongue.
At last he broke through, and her eyes stung suddenly with stupefied tears. All her muscles ached with recoil. No! No, no! This could not be happening! It was the very center of her being he was invading, a place—a secret, a sacred, a forbidden place—a place she hadn’t even known existed, until now! What was in it for him? Did he like it? She really didn’t see what there was to like about it. It was like being poked and scraped by an icepick. Yet Uncle Edmund was making little snorting, grateful noises in her ear. The cabinet he had her pinned to answered him with loud creaking groans. What if someone walked by, and heard…?
It occurred to her there was another noise. It was loud too. It was even more mortifying. It was—Oh Lord, it was her. It was the worst thing of all. It was the breath being squeezed out of her lungs, rhythmically—Uhnn, uhnn, uhnn. As if she were condoning this depravity with grunts of approval. The hideous indignity of it almost choked her. She wanted to die. But she could not stop the sound, not even by holding her breath.
Did other men and women do this? Like this? Surely not. Surely it was her uncle’s sick aberration. Surely no maid before her had ever been subjected to something so shameful. How could she have let it happen to her? For it was her fault. She should not have come here. Even if it had been Henry who had sent her that note, she should not have come. A proper lady wouldn’t have. In her mind she heard her Aunt Clarissa’s bitter words—men cannot help it, you know. It is up to us to help them control, through our proper behavior, their urges…
She peeled away the outer layer of her distress and tried to crawl under it, drawing it over her like an invisible cloak, or some comforting animal hide. A fleece, a donkey’s skin. In the calm darkness she could finally focus on Henry. Henry was upstairs asleep, wasn’t he? Henry could not, would not let this happen. Never. He was going to come bursting in—now, at any moment—and push this monster off her, restore everything to its proper order. No, better yet: Henry would kill her uncle. He was a soldier. He had a sword. He could do it. He loved her. He had kissed her once. He had to come, let him come, please, God, come and save her…
But Henry did not come. It was Edmund who came, noisily, perfunctorily. And then released her.
She sank to the floor. He fumbled with his clothes, not looking at her. He said, gruffly, his voice loud in the stillness, “You may go now.”
Obediently she pulled herself to her feet and stumbled to the door.
“Don’t forget this!” she heard behind her.
With a sweaty, chiding grin, he was holding out her nightshirt.
She snatched it from him, and fled.
25
RESCUE ME
Bessie was sitting on the edge of the bed.
“What’s the matter, lamb? Are you ill?”
“I—I don’t feel well this morning, that’s all.”
“Keep still now, let me feel your neck. A little warm, I think. I’ll fetch you a nice cup of comfrey, that will make you feel better.”
Bessie’s eyes had taken on a new quality—a haunted, puzzled look, set in hollow sockets. Looking into them no longer gave you the confidence that no matter how bad things were, at least Bessie knew that everything would come out all right in the end. Looking into those eyes now, Lucinda could not help thinking about the night’s ordeal, and—worse, much worse—Henry’s apparent indifference…
“Ah, pet!” At the sight of Lucinda’s tears, Bessie started crying too, and gathered her up in a big hug. They clung to each other, cheek to cheek, ear to ear, each facing out over the other’s shoulder so that their tears might mingle but their eyes, thankfully, did not have to meet.
Bessie was crying about Thomas, and, naturally, she thought that Lucinda was crying about Thomas too. But what Lucinda was really crying about was a broken heart, the horror of the night before, and the shameful soreness between her legs; she knew that Bessie didn’t know that, and that Bessie thought she was crying about Thomas. Which made Lucinda cry all the more, because it made her feel terribly selfish, a lousy friend to Bessie, a hypocrite too, and more lonely and miserable than ever.
When the sobs had dwindled to hiccups, they untangled themselves.
“Dear me!” said Bessie, and stood up. “I’ll just go and fetch that comfrey now…”
Lucinda did not protest.
Later that afternoon she was a
llowed out of bed, after telling Mrs. Limpid she was just suffering from her monthly terms. She had barely set foot in the schoolroom when Sarah burst in through the opposite door.
“Children!” said Sarah breathlessly.
There was no time for the older children to object to this put-down, for right behind her, in stepped the visitor, Mrs. Limpid in tow. Sarah was proudly showing her betrothed around.
“My darlings! You do remember Captain Beaupree, don’t you?” Sarah simpered. She sounded just like their mother.
“Hullo!” Henry muttered, grimacing like a bear forced to balance on a circus-ball before a rowdy audience.
Harry, aged twelve, immediately planted himself in front of Henry. “I am joining your regiment, sir, as soon as they’ll let me. I’m an excellent horseman, ask anyone. Everyone says I’ll make a topping officer…”
“Harry,” Sarah snapped, “Don’t talk nonsense. You’re just a baby.” She went on in a sweeter voice, “Captain, come, I want to show you the work I was telling you about…”
She dragged him off into a corner, by the window, so that he could examine by the best available light the little embroidered cap she had just completed.
Lucinda pressed her back into the wall and kept quite still, hoping to make herself invisible. But Henry looked up and saw her.
He gave her a rueful wink of recognition.
It was enough to make her hope again.
That night, a little after eleven o’clock, Henry Beaupree heard someone fumbling at his door. He sat up in bed, quickly pulled a shirt over his head, and struck the flint to light the lamp.
“Who is it?” he called.
“Me,” came the trembling reply.
“Who?”
“Lucinda. I must speak to you…”
“Ah, the little cousin! You had better come in then!” he laughed. When she pushed open the door he swung his bare legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He motioned to her to come forward, and pulled out a stool for her to sit on.
As soon as she was installed on the little footstool, fidgeting with her nightshirt, pulling it tightly over her knees and down below her ankles, like a drum, the words came tumbling out.
“I’m sorry…I know I shouldn’t, but I don’t know what else to do, where else to turn, you’ve got to help me…” she stammered.
Without his wig, his head close-cropped, his ears exposed, he looked quite different—younger, more innocent, like a schoolboy. He said nothing to encourage her to continue, but gazed at her with a knowing smile. She had to look away. Glancing down, she saw the crumpled paper she had been clutching in her hand. She thrust it at him mutely.
“What’s this?” Quickly he read the words. Midnight. Same place. He looked up at her, his eyebrows raised. “Is this for me?”
She shook her head.
“No, not for me? For you, then?”
She nodded with her head down.
“Who is it from?”
“Uncle,” she whispered.
“Your uncle? Sir Edmund?”
“Yes.”
“Ah,” he said, not unkindly. “Your uncle desires an—assignation. With you.”
She nodded.
“Tonight.”
She nodded again.
“I see. And you do not wish to go.”
She shook her head vehemently.
“And this has been going on—a long time?” Henry looked at her sternly.
She shook her head again. “No. It was last night—he tricked me…I didn’t realize…” She started to cry.
With a tinge of sarcasm, he continued, “You do not wish to visit your uncle. At his request. At midnight. And yet—if I understand you right—you are not averse to visiting me, a strange man, in my rooms, at a similar hour?”
“Oh, but—” She swallowed. There was an unbearably hollow feeling in her chest. It wasn’t pretense, then. She understood it now. “A strange man”—that was how he thought of himself in relation to her. As far as he was concerned, she had nothing to do with him. The daydreams, the mystical connection between them, all empty lies. No, not lies: foolish wishful thinking. That much was finally clear.
“I thought you could help me,” she whispered.
“How can I help?” he asked reasonably. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“Oh—I don’t know…” It did seem a silly idea, all of a sudden.
She shuddered in the brutal silence that descended upon them. She watched the lamp’s flame flicker, and followed the narrow curl of black smoke wavering and dissolving into the air.
Henry, watching her, sighed. Curse his creditors! It was true that his debts were considerable; that was the reason he was here. The bride on offer had an attractive portion, but her family was another matter altogether—one aunt, the lady Margaret, threatening to tell the world about their brief liaison if Henry went ahead with the marriage to her niece; another aunt, reputedly as ugly as sin, accused of witchcraft; the mother a foolish coquette mercifully struck dumb; and, it now appeared, a scoundrel of a father with no compunction about doing the dirty deed with his poor young ward in the dead of night…Truly, it would be best to cut one’s losses and beat a hasty retreat. He sighed. Yes, surely that was the best, the decent, the only thing to do.
“So. How can I help?” he repeated.
Rescue me, she thought. Sweep me off my feet and carry me away on your galloping steed. Kill my uncle. “Oh, I don’t know, I really don’t know why I came,” she whispered, and felt her eyes filling up and spilling over.
She looked very small and vulnerable, and he could not help feeling sorry for her. He placed a hand lightly on her head. The head turned up towards him in an affecting gesture of appeal, like a lapdog grateful for being petted.
“I love you,” she gasped, desperately. “I’ll do anything, only please, please…!” She bowed her head again, and rubbed angrily at her tears. “I am in love with you, that’s all.”
It made Henry laugh. “In love?” he said. “Do you realize what your uncle would do to me if he found out?”
“He doesn’t have to. Find out, I mean.”
Henry was not a man to resist temptation.
Gently, courteously, he led her to the bed.
It was well past one o’clock when Sir Edmund betook himself to his own bed, cursing. He was not going to humiliate himself by waiting for the little baggage any longer. But he had to confess to himself that the waif’s reluctance made it all the more exciting. For if shocking a young maiden was all one was after, then one had but to betake oneself to Mrs. Bennett’s in Whetstone Park, where a bevy of damsels stood by to be horribly scandalized and outraged, if that was what one ordered. Instead, here was the real thing, the pleasure enhanced by a tinge of incest and the fact that this was not a slut but a lady. The waiting and the anger would only increase the fun of it. Although one’s patience did, of course, have its limits.
Tomorrow, he resolved, he would take measures to ensure himself of access to his prey.
26
LIFE’S GREAT SECRET
There were many things whirling through Lucinda’s mind the next morning, but her failure to obey her uncle’s summons was not one of them. She was sitting on her bed, carefully putting on her beaded slippers, when she heard shrieking next door.
“No! No! You’re lying! It isn’t true!”
She pushed two of her cousins out of the doorway to see what was going on. “What isn’t true?” she whispered to Catherine, who, with the other children, was silently observing Sarah’s spectacular tantrum.
“Hush, hush, my dear,” Mrs. Limpid was saying, “these things happen, don’t they. You will see, there are plenty of other…”
“Oh shut up! I hate you! Go away. I hate the lot of you! Leave me alone, can’t you…” Wailing, Sarah ran blindly from the room.
“But Sarah my dear…Sarah!” Mrs. Limpid scurried after her pupil, pleading for decorum.
“What isn’t true?” Lucinda repeated. There was a lo
ud thumping in her ears.
“It’s her captain, “crowed Sebastian. “He’s bolted! He left a note for Father, he’s broken off the betrothal!”
At first Lucinda felt only joy, her head spinning. Henry would not continue the pretense with Sarah! He could not do it! At last, at last, he had recognized the love that had been in his heart for Lucinda ever since the first time they’d met!
But there was a catch. The doubts and insecurities came hurtling back, whacking her with a mighty wallop between the ears: but how could he have left without some message for her, without taking her with him, without taking revenge on Uncle Edmund?
Reeling from these conflicting emotions, she crawled back into bed in order to review what had happened in the night, and sort it all out in her pounding head.
Henry had led her to the bed, and when she had seen where they were headed, she had drawn back a little.
“Actually,” she had protested shyly, “That wasn’t what I meant…”
What she wanted to say was that he had misunderstood her. She had told him she’d do anything, but surely not this, not the bed, for heaven’s sake! At least, not now, not right now; eventually, yes of course—and gladly. But these things were supposed to happen only after a decent interval of courtship, after all the details were settled, the vows exchanged and the proprietary band of gold had found its way onto your finger! Surely he knew that a young lady wasn’t allowed to lie abed with a man…It was a sin, wasn’t it?
But how was she to convey this to him tactfully? It was her fault, she had blurted out the wrong thing, as usual. And of course her coming here in the dead of night might have given him the wrong idea.
She did not want to offend—no, no, that was not the right word—she did not want to hurt his feelings. For she might put him off, she knew he was easily put off, and this time she mustn’t chase him away, as she had done that time in his valet’s room, when he had tried to kiss her.
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