The Storm Breaks (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 4)

by Julia Brannan

  There is another reason why I am writing to you, and if you have read this far, I hope you will not stop now. It is to tell you how desperately sorry I am for any distress my actions have caused you. I have just re-read the previous sentence, and realise how formal it sounds, but my feelings are far from formal. I treasured your friendship more than you will ever know, as did Anthony, and the loss of it is my only regret in the life I have chosen. Our regard for you was genuine and never motivated by any ulterior motive. Not a day goes by that I do not think of you and wish that I still had your friendship. But of course I understand this can never be, and why.I am well, and I am happy; and I am not in Manchester. No one of my acquaintance knows my whereabouts; I have taken great care to ensure this is so. I do not know how deep your hatred for me is; if you choose to hand this letter to the authorities, I will understand.

  I don’t know if you still visit Sarah, or if her business was damaged by her association with me. I hope not, for she was as innocent as you and Edwin, as innocent as the Duke of Cumberland, and even the Elector himself. If you do visit her still, I would ask you to tell her I love her and think of her often and to give her the message at the end of this letter to read for herself.

  As for yourself and Edwin, I hope his career was not affected by his friendship with Anthony. He gave no information, willingly or unwillingly to us; and Anthony thought too much of Edwin to inveigle any from him. I love both of you dearly and will never cease to, regardless of your feelings towards me, which I know must be the worst.

  Yours, Beth.

  Caroline picked up her cup absently and drank the now tepid beverage, staring into space and running over the contents of the letter in her head. Was it possible for a man to sink so low that he would murder a baby? If Beth was right, he had already murdered a young girl and tried to kill her child, presumably only for sex. Was Richard really capable of such an act? It was almost beyond belief. She refilled her cup, then read the letter again.

  “You are wrong, Beth,” she said softly, running her finger lightly over the signature. “Maybe I should hate you, but I can’t.”

  If Beth was wrong about Caroline’s feelings towards her, could she also be wrong about Richard? Her eyes moved down beyond the signature, to the postscript.

  Dearest Sarah, I think about you all the time, and remember especially the last night I saw you. Those moments are very special to me, and I hope there will one day come a time when we can meet again, although I realise you may not wish it. Everything I told you then was true, except the reason for my hasty departure; I would not have you implicated in my actions, actions of which you had no knowledge. If it is one day possible, but only if there is no danger to you, I pray that we will meet again, in friendship, or if not, at least not in animosity. Yours always, Elizabeth.

  Hanging from the bottom of the ‘E’ of Elizabeth was a tiny doodle of a spider hanging from a thread. Caroline’s brow furrowed. There was something not right here, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. It was not the spider; there was something wrong about the tone of the whole postscript. She read it again, but the words seemed innocent enough. Beth had been very close to Sarah, affectionate even. Even so…

  Caroline looked at the clock. Five o’clock. Edwin had said he would be home for dinner at six. She would wait, and discuss the letter’s contents with him before taking any action. In the meantime she would go up to the nursery and play with Freddie for a while. That would take her mind off things. They could finish building their kite, maybe, which was currently a shapeless mass of coloured paper and glue, Freddie having put the majority of the labour into its construction. Perhaps one day, in a very strong wind, it will even fly, she thought, smiling as she climbed the stairs.

  * * *

  Sarah was sitting on a stool behind the counter in her shop. On the wooden surface sat an open book and a bottle of ink. She bent her head over the book and in a slow and laborious hand, wrote;

  Hair Powder, one pound of 5d

  Lavender Water, one pint of 5s 2d

  Candles, one pound of 2s 10d

  She put the quill down and surveyed her handiwork proudly. Not bad. A little wobbly, perhaps, and there was a slight blob after the ‘C’ of ‘Candles’, but overall, not bad at all. Keeping accounts might be boring, but it was a good way to practice her new talent of writing. Caroline would be proud of her.

  Sarah stood up and moved around the room, turning down all the lamps except the one next to her account book and closing the curtains across her little bow-fronted display window. Although she normally stayed open until eight or nine o’clock and it was now only a little after six, she doubted she would have any more customers tonight. The weather was cold and blustery with the occasional flurry of snow. Prospective customers would see the light through the door window and know she was still open for business. If anyone did come, turning up the other lamps again would be a moment’s work, and in the meantime she could finish her accounts.

  She sat down again, dipped the pen and, tongue protruding a little between her teeth, wrote, with great concentration;

  Tea, one pound of 12s 6d

  The door opened, the little bell attached to it jingling merrily, and a icy blast of wind blew in. Sarah looked up, smiling, and the words of greeting died on her tongue.

  “Hello, Sarah,” said her visitor jovially. He stepped in, closing the door behind him.

  They regarded each other for a moment, the man’s expression cool, amused even, the woman’s frozen with fear. He has no hold over me, she told herself, frantically trying to regain her poise. I owe him nothing, I am a respectable businesswoman.

  “I am closed,” she managed to say after a moment, her voice surprisingly steady. She stood, hoping her height, which was almost the same as his, would give her an advantage.

  “Indeed? I am delighted to hear it,” said the man, smiling and reaching behind him to pull down the blind that told customers she was no longer open for business. “I wanted to have a private chat with you, and I see I have come at the right time.”

  “I have nothing to say to you, Captain Cunningham,” she said. Her sense was returning now. He was a bully; if she showed how afraid of him she was, she would encourage him. He liked people to fear him. She stood erect and looked him in the eye.

  “Oh, you are wrong, Sarah,” Richard replied, taking a couple of steps further into the room. The lamplight gleamed on the buttons of his scarlet coat, on the basket hilt of his sword, on his polished leather boots. “I think you have plenty to say to me. You have a very nice place here,” he continued, looking round the room with admiration. The walls were covered with a silky striped cream paper. Polished walnut tables lined the walls, each surmounted by a mirror, in which clients could observe the miracles Sarah worked with their plain faces and thin lank hair. On the tables were a myriad of bottles and jars, containing cosmetics, oils, powders and other beauty paraphernalia, the purposes of which were a mystery to Richard. He picked up a bottle of scent that was on the table nearest to him and held it up to the light. “It must have cost a great deal to decorate and furnish such a shop as this. Why, the rent alone must be a pretty penny.” He put the bottle down carefully, looked at her and smiled. Anyone witnessing the altercation would think him an old acquaintance, impressed by the business acumen of his friend, rejoicing in her good fortune.

  Sarah gauged the distance from where she was to the door of her private apartment. If she could reach her room and get through it, there was a back door leading out on to a filthy rubbish-filled alley, and freedom. Casually, she took a step away from the counter.

  “I pay my own way, Captain,” she said. She took another step.

  “I’m sure you do, now,” he replied. “But it must have cost a lot to set up in the first place and you didn’t pay for that with your own savings, did you?”

  “No,” she admitted, her voice as calm as his now, although an icy sweat had broken out in little beads on her brow. “Beth gave me a su
m to start up, as you know, but since then I have paid for everything myself. I owe nobody nothing.” She stopped, cursing inwardly at her sudden lapse into her old way of speaking. He would notice it, and the fear that had caused her slip.

  He did not seem to.

  “Ah, but you’re wrong. You owe me a great deal,” he said, running one leather-gloved finger down the curve of the scent bottle.

  “No,” she replied firmly. Another step. Ten, twelve maybe, to the door. “Beth, maybe. But to you I owe nothing. As I said, I am closed. I am expecting a friend to call soon and would be obliged if you would leave. Now.”

  He smiled, again. She had never remembered him smiling, before.

  “You have a friend?” he said, clearly not believing her lie for a moment. “I’m intrigued to learn who would call someone of your background ‘friend’. Perhaps I’ll wait to meet this person. In the meantime, let me put you straight about something. As I’m sure you know, Beth was not married to the traitor Anthony, not legally anyway. Which means he had no right to give her the dowry, and she had no right to spend it. You have set up your little business with my money, Sarah, and I think you owe me at least the courtesy of a conversation. In fact, I think you owe me a great deal more than that.”

  Gently he pushed the bottle, toppling it onto its side. It rolled slowly along the table and off the edge to the tiled floor, where it shattered. The cloying scent of violets filled the air.

  “Oh, how appropriate,” Richard said. He flexed his fingers and moved forward towards her.

  Sarah ran. She almost made it to the door before his hands closed on her shoulders and he spun her round, slamming her against the counter and bending her over it face down, her hips and legs trapped by his weight as he pressed himself against her from behind. Her toes just touched the floor and she scrabbled frantically for purchase, her hips grinding painfully against the edge of the counter. His hands moved from her shoulders and she tried to raise her upper body, but then his fingers tangled in her hair and he forced her down again, so that her cheek was pressed against the polished wood of the counter. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him looming behind her, suddenly huge, terrifyingly powerful and no longer smiling, and she felt the panic building again.

  “You forget what you are,” he said coldly. “I think it’s time I refreshed your memory.”

  The pressure on her hips relented slightly, and then he was hauling her skirts up with his free hand, driving his knee between her legs to force them apart and she knew what he intended to do, and the panic overflowed, driving out everything else.

  “No!” she screamed.

  She kicked backwards wildly, meeting only air, her hands groping blindly along the counter for anything that she could use as a weapon. Almost casually he lifted her head up. Then, his fingers still firmly grasping her hair close to the scalp, he turned her head and slammed it face down into the hard wood of the counter.

  The pain was incredible. Never, never in her life had she known any like it. It exploded in her brain, shattering all her resistance, along with her nose. Her teeth drove down through her lip, blood filling her mouth, and she fought against the oblivion of unconsciousness even as the weaker part of her longed for it as a release from the agony.

  Richard had succeeded in raising her skirts over her hips, and was now fumbling with his breeches. He turned her head sideways so her cheek was pressed against the counter again, and casually surveyed the damage. She spat out weakly, the blood from her mouth joining that pouring from her ruined nose and pooling under her cheek. Her limbs had gone limp and tears of pain and terror filled her eyes, blurring her vision.

  “Now,” he said, taking out his penis, already fully erect, and without any preliminaries thrusting it hard into her. “I will remind you that you are, and never will be any more than a common street whore. And then you will tell me where I can find my bitch of a sister. Then we’ll have a little more fun. And if you please me I might, just might, not cut your throat afterwards.”

  He began to move inside her, grunting with pleasure. Sarah closed her eyes, felt the waves of faintness ebb and flow, and prayed this time for the oblivion she had fought so hard against just moments before.

  * * *

  Just before six Caroline left Freddie to be bathed by his nurse and went downstairs, peeling bits of green and red paper off her sticky fingers as she did so. It would take a hurricane to get this lump of a kite off the ground. Still, it might teach her already stubborn son that it was wise to take advice from others occasionally. They would take it out on the next windy day and when it failed to fly, they could start again.

  As she descended she met Toby, who was painfully making his way up to her, clinging hard to the banister.

  “Ah, my lady,” he said. “A message from the master. He regrets that he will not be able to join you for dinner, and asks that you dine alone. He will return as soon as possible, but may be very late.”

  Oh, damn. She stopped on the stair, pondering what to do. One more day would surely make no difference. She was reluctant to do anything about the letter without Edwin’s knowledge and approval.

  “Thank you, Toby,” she said. She started to move past him, to go down to yet another dinner alone. She was happy that Edwin was now a front-bencher, but it was lonely for her.

  “Will there be anything else, my lady?” Toby asked.

  “No. Yes,” said Caroline. “Ask Peter to prepare the carriage for me, please. I intend to visit a friend this evening after dinner.”

  There could be no harm in giving Sarah her message and finding out what it was that had happened to Beth the night Richard beat her. Then in the morning, armed with all the facts, she could discuss it with Edwin before deciding what to do next.

  She went down to the dining-room and the enticing smell of roast beef.

  * * *

  It would never end. He would keep grinding away inside her forever, and she would die of the pain and humiliation of it. She tried to lift her head from the counter to relieve the agony a little, but he was bracing himself on the hand that clutched her hair so tightly, his free hand reaching under her to maul her breasts. Her cheek slid up and down the counter in time with his thrusts, sending hot shards of pain shooting through her head. His breathing was getting faster and more ragged now, and surely he must be close to his climax. Then he would ask her where Beth was, and she didn’t know and wouldn’t tell him if she did. Maybe she could distract him for long enough to escape, and if not then he would kill her, quickly if she was lucky, and at least then it would be over.

  There was a knock on the door, which Sarah hardly noticed, so intent was she on the pain hammering in her head, but the ragged breathing behind her stopped instantly, Richard froze, and then the knock came again.

  The door was not locked. If she screamed now…

  His hand moved to the back of her neck, his gloved fingers biting deep into the sides of her throat, and his face was suddenly close to hers, his breath hot against her ear.

  “Make a sound, bitch, and I’ll break your neck,” he hissed. She swallowed hard. White sparkles danced across her vision. He was cutting off the blood flow to her brain. In a moment she would faint and any chance of a rescue would be gone for ever. She would take the risk, scream anyway. She took a breath.

  The door opened.

  “Hello, Sarah, it’s only me. I know the blind’s down, but I saw the light…” The voice stopped and there was a sharp intake of breath.

  Richard’s erection withered away to nothing and he carefully withdrew, easing the grip on Sarah’s neck a little in the process.

  “Mrs Harlow,” he said, his voice tense. “You call at an inconvenient moment. I am here on official military business. I think it better if you leave.”

  Instead of doing as he asked Caroline took a step into the shop. Sarah, suddenly terrified not just for herself but for her friend as well, found the courage to speak.

  “Please, Caroline, do as he says,” she mum
bled. Surely he could not kill her now? If Caroline left, then he would maybe beat her, he could get away with that, particularly as he could, if he wished, prove she was a whore, but he couldn’t do anything that would bring the law down on him. Suddenly, getting Caroline to leave became a priority. If she came any further into the room, he would have the chance to kill them both. “Please,” Sarah said again.

  Even if Caroline had understood the indistinct blood-fuzzed words, she would not have paid them any attention. She had no intention of leaving. But she didn’t come any further into the room either, choosing instead to remain by the open door.

  “Miss Brown has already been interviewed by the Duke of Newcastle himself, as have all those with any connection to Anthony and Beth,” Caroline said. “I suspect you exceed your authority, Captain Cunningham.”

  “Where my authority comes from, madam, is none of your concern,” replied Richard tightly. “I suggest again that you leave and do not interfere in matters that are no business of yours.”

  “That is where you are wrong,” she said, her voice cold and aristocratic. “I think it is indeed my business when I find a respectable woman in the process of being brutalised by a soldier on her own premises. What your colonel will have to say on the matter when I tell him, I cannot imagine.”

  Even in dim light and from the other side of the room, Caroline saw Richard’s colour rise.

  “You call this a respectable woman?” he said, his voice harsh. “Let me tell you what you have been permitting to dress your hair for the past two years. She is a whore, madam, a common poxed whore. I picked her up off the streets of Manchester myself, where she was giving her body to anyone with a penny in his pocket.” He smiled and made some move Caroline did not see, which caused Sarah to jerk suddenly and gasp with pain. “She will do anything for money, this respectable woman,” he spat, his voice thick with contempt. “Including betraying her king and country. Now, for the last time I say, go home and let me continue my interrogation.”