Lady Linworth sighed deeply. “It sounds like a man in love.”
“But Ella chose another.” Kerrington paused for a moment of acceptance. “I must walk away—allow her what happiness she may find elsewhere. However, I shall not return to London for the Season. I must accept Lady Eleanor’s choice, but that does not mean I need a front-row seat to watch it happen. Even worse, I also will probably lose my best friend. How might Fowler and I continue as before knowing my feelings for Lady Eleanor?”
“It is a quandary. I will make your heart part of my nightly prayers. It should know peace at last. However, I want to make one point: You must ask yourself whether the woman you just described would willingly turn from you to Levering.”
James stood and helped her to her feet. He accepted her interference because he knew she acted out of love. He leaned in for a kiss on his mother’s cheek. “I knew perfection once with Elizabeth; I should be satisfied with my lot. Many men never hold happiness in their hands. Why should I think I deserve to feel such purity twice in a lifetime? Fate chose otherwise.”
Camelia Kerrington caressed his cheek. “I will agree to stay out of your personal life as you are a man and know your own heart, but I will not tolerate your saying you do not deserve what you desire.You are the best of men.”
James chuckled, “You may be prejudiced on my behalf.”
“Never,” she protested good-naturedly. “I always tell the truth. It is not just a coincidence, however, that the best of men is my son. Your father and I would tolerate nothing less from our boy.”
“Then I am fortunate to have such righteous parents. Come; let us have tea. Good English tea solves all our ills. It was one of the things I missed most when I traveled the Continent.”
And so Ella’s life became one long internment, burying her feelings and her ideas and her hopes and her dreams to protect her family. She endured Louis Levering’s dictates because she had no choice. She tolerated his bullying, placing a half-turned smile on her lips. What was most difficult was his forwardness in touching her. He often stroked the side of her leg or ran his finger across the rise of her breast. Each time Levering touched her, Ella suppressed the shiver of revulsion running through her veins.
“I look forward to burying myself in your radiance, my Dear,” Levering whispered close to her ear as the back of his hand brushed against her breast when no one was looking. They sat in a rented box at the theatre, surrounded by the ton, the same people who would celebrate the idea of her opprobrious situation. “I promise you will enjoy every moment of our coupling.”
“Please, Sir Louis, do not speak so intimately. We are not yet wed,” Ella offered a protest, hoping to ward off what she knew he would next say. His verbal familiarity became more and more explicit by the day. “We are in a very public setting, after all.”
“First, I cherish the blush my words bring to your cheeks, but why can I not tell my betrothed how I long to bury my cock in her wetness?” He placed her hand over his manhood and squeezed it against him. “See how hard you make me,” he murmured. “The lights are down, and no one can see. I want you to rub your hand over me. The idea of your touching me in public is quite ribald.”
“Please,” Ella pleaded softly. “Do not make me do this.”
Levering squeezed her hand tightly, purposely bending two fingers backward to the point of pain. “All I ask is for you to show me affection, Ella,” he hissed. “Of course, I understand your objection. I am, after all, purchasing your fondness with my mother’s diary. However, I had hoped you might soon care for me more than you do your precious Fowler heritage.”
Swallowing hard, Ella could not look at him, but she nodded her agreement, and Levering released his grip. Slowly, she moved her hand across his groin, feeling him pump his hips against her. She heard his breathing go shallow, but she never turned her head. Instead, she stared at the stage, tears streaming down her face.
“Excuse me,” he gasped close to her. He quickly stepped behind the curtained area at the back of the box. She could hear him as he frantically toyed with the buttons on his breeches to free himself. The sound of sporadic gulps of air told her exactly what he did steps away, shielded from view by the darkness and the velvet drapery. Ella had seen her father do the same thing, knew how Louis’s hand moved up and down his own tumescence until she heard his stifled shudder. A few moments later, he returned to sit beside her as if nothing happened. “Thank you, my Dear,” he murmured. “That was quite stimulating.”
Ella thought she might lose her stomach. “Might we leave, Sir Louis? I could use some fresh air.”
“No, my Dear. We will sit here and pretend we have not just delved in the forbidden.”
Ella choked back a sob, hiding her face behind her fan. With a convulsive swallow, she stiffened and sat tall, the perfect example of a daughter of the aristocracy. This would be her life—moments of debauchery hidden behind a façade of refinement. How could she live like this? Her only hope was that Sir Louis would leave her at Huntingborne Abbey while he took his perversions elsewhere. If she could live her life in solitude, then maybe she could survive. Solitude. It was her unanswered prayer.
“We will make a trip to Nottingham next week for a house party,” Levering announced on their way to Briar House from the theatre.
Ella’s head snapped around in surprise. She was purposely watching the busy streets through the carriage window, trying to avoid Levering’s close examination. “I do not believe His Grace will approve of our traveling together.”
“Then you will come up with a way to convince him. Tell him you travel with a female friend. Your brother does not need to know what we do with our time.” Ella recognized the menacing threat behind the flippant tone of his command.
“And if I am not successful?” she ventured.
Levering looked away, pretending to take interest in a drunken ruckus on a lighted street corner. “I noticed Miss Aldridge prefers to walk in Hyde Park each day.Would it not be a shame if she lost her balance and slipped into the murky waters of the Serpentine some day.”
He made no effort to mask the warning behind the words. Either Ella complied or Levering would find a way to hurt Velvet. “I will think of something.”
“Of course, you will.You are quite resourceful, one of the qualities which endears you to everyone who knows you.”
Less than a week later, she and Hannah journeyed to Nottingham in Sir Louis’s carriage. She had taken an unmarked hack to meet Levering at a posting inn on the London Road. Bran had surprised Ella by allowing her to travel with her “new friend” Miss Nelson to a house party in Leicestershire. Her maid’s presence was her brother’s only stipulation. Reluctantly, Levering had agreed to tolerate Hannah’s traveling with them in the carriage. He would have preferred that Ella’s maid ride on the top with his coachman, but Ella had convinced him Hannah would alert Bran of any such impropriety. Persuading Hannah to not disclose they did not journey to Leicestershire would be difficult enough without adding to their duplicity. Ella knew Levering had planned to take advantage of her in his coach’s privacy as he had in the theatre box’s privacy, more than likely worse than what happened that night.
His plans thwarted, the baronet was not in the best of moods, so both she and Hannah took their cues and sank quietly into the barouche’s squabs. Ella pretended to nap while Hannah did so in earnest. Ella listened and watched the man to whom she had committed herself. Besides the blackmail and the inherent threats, Levering of late had taken pleasure in physically hurting her, as he had hurt her hand at the theatre. He always chose a place not readily visible to others. Just the day before yesterday, he had pinched her side so violently he had left a bruise and had brought tears to her eyes. Her offense for his retaliation was tarrying in speaking to Gabriel Crowden in the park. She had felt safe with Godown’s closeness and had purposely talked to him longer than the baronet thought appropriate. He had expressed his discontent with the secret abuse.
Now, Ella recogn
ized the man sitting across from her to be a real monster. She had never feared stories of ghosts or goblins as a child, but she recognized evil when she saw it. Louis Levering was pure evil. He did as he chose and blamed everyone else for his failings. That made him a dangerous man. He would hold her responsible for his lot in life, and she would pay the price. In the past few days, she had quit accepting her fate at his hands, and Bran’s insistence on her waiting to marry became a blessing of a sort. It gave her a chance to formulate a way out of this mess. She needed to discover where Levering kept the diary and take possession of it before she could withdraw, but, at least, now she hoped to be free of him.
Ella realized that once she became the baronet’s wife, nothing could save her. By law, Levering would have the right to do what he wished with her. A husband could legally punish his wife without fear of retribution. Even Bran could not save her, although she was sure her brother would gladly kill Levering for what she already had suffered; but, she would not let her brother give up Thornhill by calling out Levering in a duel. Ella knew Brantley could kill Louis, no matter how much her future husband bragged of his prowess. However, dueling was illegal, and Bran would be forced to leave England again. She refused to let that happen.
It was funny of sorts; as a child and a young girl, she had thought her father the most base of men. Yet, she never once knew of his forcing his attentions on anyone. Even her own mother welcomed William Fowler to her bed. Every maid and bar mistress he had enjoyed over the years accepted his natural persuasion to become involved with him. Many of the household staff served him for years without his demanding their participation in his lust for carnal release. He asked quite often, but William Fowler accepted a refusal even from a lowly maid, and there was no retribution. Hannah, for example, was but a teen when she came to serve seven-year-old Eleanor. Hannah had never suffered because of the late duke—she avoided any dalliance her employer offered.
Ella could not imagine Louis Levering, however, accepting a denial from any servant in his household. If she became the baronet’s wife, Ella would leave Hannah behind. She would force no one else to suffer her private hell. When she sought her father’s attentions, wanting him to lessen the loneliness after losing both her mother and Bran in one fell swoop, he did love her in the only way he knew how. Her father’s fixation lay in desires of the flesh. It was as if he could not help himself. She remembered his crying and begging her forgiveness after touching her, but he returned to her time and time again. However, he never did more than fondle her. In fact, what James Kerrington gave her the night of her Come Out ball was much more intimate than any way her father had used her. It was not as if Ella had forgiven the former duke for how he had manipulated her; she had not—she would not, but she understood the difference between the love Kerrington offered and the obvious sickness from which her father had suffered.
She remembered also how Levering’s parents had cleverly attached themselves to the duke, and, needing his own form of acceptance, her father had opened himself to them. Her memories, those she had suppressed for so long, had returned over the last few weeks. She recalled once hiding behind a screen in one of the guests’ rooms while witnessing Robert Levering tying his wife to the four-poster and using a whip to take his true pleasure on the woman. She could imagine Louis Levering trying something similar with her. Ella was made to undress in front of them that evening, but they did not touch her—just watched with bestial delight before turning to their own form of profanity. Finally, she had escaped with her father’s help. He had strode openly into the room and had wrapped her in his arms. “I will not tolerate anyone hurting Ella,” he had declared to the Leverings. “It will not happen.”That was the last time she remembered the Leverings being guests at Thorn Hall.
She had never seen her father so incensed. It was the only time she really felt his love. That time, and when, with his last lucid moments, he had told her she was a “good girl.” At the time, she had thought he meant to compliment her diligence in caring for him during his sickness and for the estate in his absence. As she reflected on the moment, Ella now wondered if he had hoped to arrest her belief that she was not worthy. It was James Kerrington who had taught her to truly trust herself. He saw a woman he admired—a woman he wanted to love just as she was. She liked the person she saw reflected in His Lordship’s eyes.
Quite different from the image she observed when looking at Levering: His countenance hid the ice that flowed through his veins, the flash of a mocking smile, the stony cold roughness barely below the surface. In the inn’s private dining room the previous evening, he had twisted her arm behind her back when she resisted his advances, before forcibly pulling her dress down to expose her breasts wrapped tightly in her corset. She had feared he might take her there, but he had amused himself with fondling her breasts and invading her mouth with his tongue.
Setting her away from him, Levering had quickly unbuttoned the front placket of his breeches, freeing his swollen member. Ella had closed her eyes as he encased his rigid manhood in his hand. “Look at me,” he hissed. “Watch how I pleasure myself. Of course, I will let you touch me instead if you insist.” When she shook her head to refuse, Levering chuckled. “I thought not, but someday you will come to enjoy this as much as I.”
Then, in a shameless display, he ignited his own passion, focusing his gaze on her displayed bosom until his jaw locked in fervent pain, and Levering released his seed into the palm of his own hand. Taking the linen napkin from his place setting he wiped himself clean before tossing the cloth into the corner of the room. “Fix your dress,” he ordered as he restored his own clothing. “Go to bed and dream of our joining. It will be glorious,” he had instructed. “I will have a few drinks with the locals at the bar.”
Ella did not argue: She simply escaped as quickly as possible, finding comfort behind a locked chamber door and Hannah’s presence on a pallet before the cold hearth.
CHAPTER 9
“IT IS NOTHING BUT A HUNTING BOX,” Ella gasped as Levering’s carriage rolled into the circular drive before the small house. “I thought we were to meet some of your acquaintances for a country party.”
“We are,” he taunted, reaching for the coach’s handle. “It will be a more intimate party than what you anticipated, my Dear, but it will be a party like no other you have experienced.” He stepped from the coach and turned to help her down. “Come, Lady Eleanor, and meet my friends.”
Reluctantly, Ella placed her hand in his. What did the secretive baronet have in mind? Ella had expected interludes similar to what she had experienced in the inn the previous evening, but she had thought that with the number of people at a house party, she could limit her private time with him to a few incidents. Despite his obvious wish to possess her, until now the baronet had respected her virginity. However, as four gentlemen appeared with their “ladies” to greet Levering, she quickly determined her situation was dire. The men were too casual and the women too free in their attire.
“Ella,” he did not even use her title, not a good sign, “these are my old friends, Heath Montford, Gavin Bradley, and Danver Clayton. We have known each other since our school days, and this is a relatively new acquaintance, Allister Collins.”
None of the men even offered her a bow of acknowledgment, an indication of the lack of Society she was likely to find inside the house. “And the ladies are Susan, Louisa, Fanny, and Millie.” Louis gestured to each woman, accepting a rather passionate kiss from Fanny as he did so. “Hannah, you may join the other staff in the kitchen. I am sure Mrs. Blossom could use your help. Ella will send for you when she needs you.”
Realizing Levering wanted no witnesses to what he planned, Ella sent Hannah to the house, assuring her maid she would be fine for a few minutes.
“Let us go inside,” Bradley called as he wrapped his arm around Louisa’s waist. The others followed suit: Each man claimed one of the ladies as his own, but none of them treated the women with formal respect; they draped their
arms about the women, caressing and fondling as they returned to the house.
“How could you bring me here?” Ella demanded as they trailed the others into the house. Levering pulled her close, although he showed no more respect than did the other men.
“My friends wished to meet you, my Dear. I have told them all about you,” he tilted his head closer so she might hear him.
Ella jerked her head around to look at him. “You told them what?” she hissed.
“Oh, you mean the diary. No, that is our secret alone, but I told them I believed you to be willing to share your affections with them also.”
“You told your friends I would act as a complete wanton?” Ella came to an abrupt halt, forcing Levering to join her before they entered the still-open doorway.
Levering gave her a toothy smile of reassurance. “A complete wanton? No. I said no such thing. I simply indicated you might be willing to participate once you observed the others.”
“You simply indicated?” she accused. “I realize you feel a odium for my father’s part in your mother’s death, but do you despise him so much that you are willing to use me most ill? Have you no respect for me as a person that you offer me up to complete strangers?”
“They will not be strangers long, my Dear. Montford, Bradley, and Clayton are business partners, as well as friends. I owe a great deal of blunt to Collins. He is willing to accept your charms in payment for some of it. It is nothing personal; it is all purely business.”
The Scandal of Lady Eleanor Page 17