by Ruth Owen
“Have a care, girl,” the widow warned, her fingers tightening on the mantelpiece.
Rina’s Irish blood quickened in her veins. For years she had bottled up her feelings, stuffing away her hurt and anger for her father’s sake. But her father was dead, and so was this woman’s hold over her. “You say Papa’s death ended your obligation to me. Well, it ends my obligation to you as well. Find someone else to marry your despicable son. I’ll leave this house first thing in the morning!”
Sabrina squared her shoulders and marched out confidently from the parlor, feeling better than she had since the day she had arrived at the musty old town house. But after she had gone, her stepmother gripped the poker and began stabbing the helpless fire with a vengeance, while her thin-lipped mouth twisted in thought.
“‘Tis no use!”
Sabrina flung back her heavy bedcovers. The silver moonlight flooding through her tiny garret window showed that it was still in the middle of the night, but she’d been tossing and turning for hours. She threw her shawl around her shoulders and padded to the window. “I’ll not get any sleep tonight.”
After she’d left the widow’s parlor she’d gone directly to her room and packed up her few belongings, leaving out only the secondhand psalm book that her parents had given her on her confirmation day. As she’d gotten into bed she’d opened the volume, seeking words of hope and guidance. But the only verse that had leapt out at her were full of despair and dire warning. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips.
Shivering, Rina stared out through the frost-etched pane. Outside, the night wind howled like a lost soul. She pulled the woolen shawl close to her throat, feeling a chill creep down her spine that had nothing to do with the winter cold. She didn’t believe in signs and portents any more than she believed in Lady Luck, but in the lonely garret room it seemed as if the whole world was conspiring against her, to try and turn her from her new life—
A board creaked. Rina twisted around to look behind her, then silently chided herself when she saw nothing but shadows. It was only the wind blowing through the cracks in the old walls. The widow was going to let the place fall to ruin right on top of her. Picturing the old harpy neck-high in rubble held a certain appeal.
Sighing, Rina pressed her cheek against the frosted pane, relishing the feel of the icy glass against her skin. The widow had been right about one thing—without looks or a fortune to recommend her it was doubtful that any man would willingly seek out her hand. But though her stepmother had been right about her dismal matrimonial prospects, she’d been quite wrong about love being nothing more than a fairy tale. Sabrina knew that it existed—she’d seen it every time her parents had looked at one another.
Rina knew she had about as much chance of finding true love as she did of finding a golden nugget in the London gutters, but she’d vowed never to marry for anything less. She might be plain, but she could still dream…
Creak.
That wasn’t the wind. Rina spun around and peered at the room behind her.
“‘Lo, S’brina,” an all-too-familiar voice slurred.
Albert—a very drunken Albert by the sound of him—had entered her bedroom and closed the door behind him. He stepped toward the window. Rina saw that he’d discarded the coat he was wearing earlier, and his wrinkled, half-buttoned shirt was only partially tucked inot his pants. “Get out of my room this instant!”
“Now, ‘s’at any way to talk to your betrothed?” he asked, taking another teetering step toward her.
“You are not my betrothed!”
Her fury had little effect on him. Ma said we’re betrothed. And what Ma says goes.”
He continued towards her. A needle of fear pricked through Rina’s consciousness, but she ignored it. After all, this was Albert, and she’d discouraged his unseemly advances a dozen times before. She pulled herself up to her full height, which was almost equal to his, and said in her most scathing tone, “Albert, don’t be an idiot. Regardless of what your mother says, you don’t want to marry me any more than I want to marry you. Now, leave this bedroom at once, and we’ll forget this unpleasantness ever happened.”
His low chuckle raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “Don’t have be unpleasant. No siree, it don’t.”
He was close enough that she could smell the strong spirits on his breath, and see the unnatural brightness in his eyes. His gaze swept over her thin night rail, making her feel sick in a way she’d never experienced before. The fear she’d brushed aside came back with a vengeance. “Albert,” she said, speaking slowly and precisely. “Albert, this is foolishness. I want you to turn around and leave this room now. Please.”
“Please, is it?” he sneered, his ugly laugh rubbing against her raw nerves. “Well, I will please you darlin’. I’ll please you fine.”
She moved back. “Stop it! I’ll scream—”
Albert’s arms snaked around her and yanked her against him. She opened her mouth to scream, but found her protest stifled by a wet, liquor-stale kiss.
Rina had never been kissed before. She’d imagined it many times, speculating that it would be sweet an slightly bracing. But this kiss was sloppy and vile and it made her feel dirty clear through. She twisted her mouth away from his, and struggled out of his embrace. She backed away and felt the oak bedpost behind her, gripping it for support. “All right, you’ve had your fun. Now get out.”
“Oh, no, S’brina. Fun’s just beginning.”
Once again she opened her mouth to scream, but he was too quick for her. He reached out, grabbing her breast in a punishing grip. Her words died in a choked gasp. She felt shock and fury, and—shame. She’d never been with a man and was only vaguely aware of what happened when a man and woman mated, but the small bit she did know paralyzed her with horror. She stared at Albert, seeing him in a new, terrifying light. “I beg you, don’t do this. Don’t—”
He shoved her backward onto the bed and fell on top of her, crushing the air from her lungs with his heavy body. Desperately she tried to twist away, but his weight pinned her down. His hands were everywhere, his moist, sweating palms pinching and squeezing her breasts and midriff. Gasping for breath she tried to scream, only to have his tongue drive deeply into her mouth, nearly gagging her. The foul kiss seemed to last forever, until he finally drew back and placed his hand over her mouth. She struggled, trying to bite him, but he’d expertly turned his hand in such a way that she couldn’t get at him. He’s forced himself on women before, dear God, he’s done this befo—
Her thoughts ended in horror as he yanked her night rail up and gripped her naked backside.
“Well, there’s a surprise,” he muttered with a foul chuckle. “Your looks ain’t much, but you’ve got an ass like a harlot. This ride won’t be half bad, no siree.”
He lay on top of her, the front of his pants pressed intimately against her most private area. She felt an unnatural stiffness in his groin, a hardness that made her instinctively try to clamp her legs together. But Albert’s knee was already stationed between her legs, forcing her to keep them apart.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his patronizing tone only adding to her terror. “It’ll hurt some, but you’ll get to like it.”
A band of moonlight fell across him, illuminating his fumbling with his pants. Horror and loathing welled up inside her. For years she’d suffered the slights and offenses he and his mother had thrown at her. But if she let this happen she’d never be able to hide from the pain. She was exhausted and terrified, but she had to fight. She had to.
Forcing the panic aside she made herself look at her stepbrother, schooling her expression into something that approximated pleasure. Then, with an acting talent worthy of the great Sarah Siddons herself, she moaned breathlessly against her stepbrother’s hand. “Albert. Oh, Albert.”
Her sudden change startled him, but only for a moment. Almost immediately, a broad, self-satisfied grin spread across his face. “Like what you see, do
ya? You’re all the same. I never met a bit o’ muslin what didn’t want my—”
His sentence ended in a yelp as she drove her knee into his groin.
“You bitch!” he screamed, doubling over in pain. “I’ll get you for this!”
Sabrina barely heard him. The minute his grip slackened she reached behind her for the candlestick on the nightstand. Grasping it tightly, she lifted it high, then brought it down on his head in one stroke.
He went limp. She scooted out from under him and backed away toward the door, still clutching the candlestick in front of her. She wanted to be ready if he came at her again, but he lay unmoving on the bed. Staring at him, Rina rubbed the back of her hand across her swollen mouth, trying to scour away the feel of his kisses.
“That’s for me,” she breathed, her laboring breath slowly returning to normal. “And for Kitty.”
The door opened as Widow Murphy barged into the room, a lamp held high above her head. Sabrina blinked at the sudden illumination, then focused on her stepmother. The widow was still wearing her black cap and mourning gown instead of her night-shift. Bile rose in Sabrina’s throat. She’s still dressed and awake, probably waiting for her son to report back to her—
“Albert!” The woman rushed to the prone figure of her son. “Dear God, what’s happened?”
“No more than he deserved. He tried to force himself on me, but I expect you already know th—”
“You wicked, evil girl!”
“Evil?” Sabrina cried. ”He’s the evil one. He tried to rape me.”
“You think that matters? After what you’ve done!”
“What I’ve done?”
The widow stepped aside, allowing Sabrina her first clear view of Albert to the light. She skimmed his half-dressed form, shivering as she realized how close he’d come to completing his foul mission. Then she saw his face, and the trickle of crimson blood sliding down across his brow.
“You’ve killed him,” hissed her stepmother. “You’ve killed my darling boy!”
The bleak winter night yielded to the promise of a glorious dawn. Threads of light quested up into the mother-of-pearl sky, lacing themselves into a bright quilt that furled itself like a golden banner over the dark silhouettes of the eastern rooftops. Wrens and starlings cried their symphony of welcome into the morning sky, while far below horses clattered as they pulled their ice wagons and milk carts over the cobblestone streets. Morning sunlight streamed in through a hundred bedroom windows. But to one young woman in a lonely garret room, the sunlight brought no smiles, and its gentle warmth couldn’t heal the icy dread that gripped her heart.
You’ve killed my darling boy.
The widow’s tragic words played over and over in Sabrina’s head. It wasn’t entirely true—Albert had still been alive when a couple of the male tenants had carried him out of her garret down to his own room on the floor below—but that had been several hours ago. Since then she’d heard nothing. She’d thought about going below stairs, and had even changed into her dark woolen dress for the purpose, but the widow had made it quite clear that she didn’t want Rina anywhere near her beloved son. You did this to him, you brazen strumpet. And if he dies, it will be on your head!
“I’ve killed a man,” she whispered as she stared bleakly at the brightening sky. The fact that the man was a complete rotter made not a whit of difference. Deserved or not, she’d robbed another human being of God’s greatest gift. Albert may not have taken her physical innocence, but he’d most assuredly taken her spiritual one.
The door opened. Sabrina turned around, expecting to see her stepmother, but instead met Tilly’s stone-dull gaze. Slouching against the door frame, the second maid looked singularly unremorseful at the fact that her lover was dying one floor below. She must be in shock, Rina thought, feeling a new weight settle on her shoulders. “Tilly, I’m so very sorry. I know you cared deeply for Albert, and I—”
“You stupid cow.”
“W—what?”
“You ‘eard me,” Tilly said as she entered the room. “You coulda had it sweet. We both coulda. He’d have married you up proper to please his mum, and kept me on the side for the necessary. We’d a been in cakes and cream for the rest of our born days. All you had to do was give him a bit a’ what comes natural.”
“There was nothing natural about it. He was trying to force himself on me. Surely as a woman you understand.”
“I understand that now I got to find me another gentleman what wants to take care of me. Your priss-and-proper ways have cost me dear, they ‘ave. Course, they’re gonna cost you a good sight more…”
Smiling unpleasantly, the maid raised her fist level with her ear, and made a sharp jerking motion upward.
For a moment Sabrina didn’t comprehend Tilly’s pantomime. Then she gasped, her hand flying involuntarily to her throat. “Don’t be absurd. They can’t hang me. I hit Albert in self-defense.”
“Ain’t a man on God’s green earth who’ll see it that way. The magistrates all got wives and mistresses of their own, and they wouldn’t want ‘em gettin’ uppity ideas. They’ll say you killed your betrothed for wanting some womanly comfort.”
“He wasn’t my betrothed. He was trying to rape me!”
Tilly shrugged indifferently. “Don’t matter much if he were. Women been put on this earth for man’s pleasin’. That’s the way it’s been, the way it always will be. If the master dies, they’ll hang you for killing a bloke for only wanting what every man jack of ‘em expects. And if anyone sheds a tear at your passing, it soddin’ well won’t be me.”
Hanged!
Sabrina stood staring at the door Tilly had closed behind her. Cold spiders of fear began to climb down her spine. Unconsciously, she began to finger the high lace collar circling her suddenly vulnerable neck.
She’d seen a man hanged. When she was seven she’d gone with her parents to a country fair. While her mother was discussing needlework and her father was studying a neighbor’s new hunter, Rina had stolen away to a crowded field at the far end of the fairgrounds, where her parents had expressly forbidden her to go. She’d expected to find a play or puppet show taking place on the raised wooden platform overlooking the field. Instead, she’d seen the trap door open beneath the bound figure of a hooded man, and felt the earth shudder beneath her as the rope snapped taut. She could still remember the jubilant cheers of the crowd as they watched his slowly twisting body jerk out the last of its life.
“‘Tis madness!” she cried aloud. “Surely they won’t arrest me for defending myself. They can’t!”
Her father had told her once that even a sorry hand can be a winner if you play it right. Well, she’d been dealt a sorry hand indeed, but hiding in her room wasn’t going to make it any better. She yanked open the bedroom door and headed for the stairs, determined to face the consequences of her actions without fear or regret.
Her bold resolution, however, proved short-lived. When she reached the floor below, she heard voices nearby. The words were too muffled to make out clearly, but as she peered around the corner and down the narrow hallway, she caught a glimpse of the speakers. One was the bent, black-garbed shape of her stepmother. The other was a stout man she’d never seen before, but he wore the unmistakable dark cape and red waistcoat of the Bow Street Runners.
The widow had not even waited for Albert’s passing to se the law on her! The Runner would take her to the hellhole of Newgate Prison, where she’d have to defend her honor in open court. The magistrates all got wives and mistresses of their own, and they wouldn’t want ‘em gettin’ uppity ideas. They’ll say you killed your betrothed for wanting some womanly comfort.
Well, if her stepmother thought Rina would go like a lamb to the slaughter, she was sadly mistaken. Daring and risk were two words outside of Rina’s normal vocabulary, but she’d be damned before she’d hang for defending herself against her despicable stepbrother.
She started up the stairs to retrieve her satchel, but dashed down and around to the
back of them as she heard someone coming her way. Her eyes level with Napoleon the parrot, she watched her stepmother led the Bow Street Runner toward the upper floor. Apparently Rina hadn’t left her room a moment too soon!
She considered making a break for it, but she doubted she’d make it down the entire back hall and stairway without running into one of the boarders. In a few minutes the Runner would realize tha she was missing, and start a room-to-room search. It would only be a matter of time before they found her.
Her heart pounding, Rina slipped deeper into the shadows beneath the stairs. For years the area had been used for storage, jumbled with old furniture and worn-out household items that her miserly stepmother refused to throw out. Rina squeezed between the piles of clutter until she reached the back of the small space. She pressed against the wall, and noted in surprise that the wall contained a small window, whose glass was so thickly coated with soot and grime that it appeared opaque.