by Jude Knight
“He told me to meet him in the far corner of the garden, and all three of them were waiting for me. Ben went first.”
Hugh swore, quietly. While she had been talking, he sat beside her and lifted her onto his lap, resting her head on the shoulder still wet from her earlier tears
“He said he was sorry. But that it was my own fault. I shouldn’t have accepted the invitation.”
“What did your father do?”
“When I told him? He accused me of leading them on, enticing them. It is always the woman’s fault, Hugh. But it isn’t true. I did nothing. I would have done nothing. I was not to blame.”
Her voice rose as she struggled to convince him, and he coaxed her head back to his shoulder again. “I believe you. I do, Becky. You’re right. Men blame women, when it is the animal within themselves they should blame.”
“My father threw me out. He said I was a whore and no daughter of his. The Master’s sons came after me, laughing. They would have used me again, had they caught me, but I knew a way behind the stables and under the wall, and I ran until my feet were bleeding worse than my...”
“Ah, Becky.” Her eyes were dry, but his were not. “Becky, my poor girl. Who saved you, Becky? Was it Aldridge?”
“No one. I have run away many times, Hugh, and there has never been a handsome prince or knight errant. That first time, I was found by a bawd and her bullies, who locked me up until I stopped trying to run away. I did stop, after a while. You can get used to most things. Take enough gin, and you don’t even feel it after a while.
“Most whores spend their earnings on drink or laudanum, did you know that, Hugh? Because being used by man after man, all day and all night, just a convenience for them to rub themselves on... it hurts, Hugh. It hurts more than you can imagine.”
“Becky.” It was a broken plea, almost a sob, but she had no mercy left.
“Do you think we all want to be whores? Some of them were forced, as I was. Some believed a man’s honeyed words for a day, or a week, or months, before he left them to go off and ruin some other poor lass. Some say their man was true, but he died and no one believed the vows they’d made in secret. Who am I to say they were wrong? They ended as I did, for all of that.
“And yes, some thought making a living on their backs would be the easiest option, or they had no other way to eat.
“I even met some who liked what we did. Women have appetites too. And some women... I have met people who will use others, many others, to satisfy their appetites.”
She tipped her head to see his eyes. “Do you know what we call them, most of them? Do you, Hugh?”
“Light-heeled?” he suggested, clearly choosing the gentlest insult he could think of.
She shook her head. “Men. We call them men!” She almost spat it at him, and he flinched as if she’d slapped him.
Did his conscience bother him? Good. Her anger and grief still high, she could spare him no pity. In the next moment, a tear escaped and ran down his cheek, and she almost stopped. But if she did not finish her story now, she might never again have the courage.
She hid her head again in the crook of his neck. She didn’t want to see his face when she told him what happened next.
“I took too much laudanum. It was... I do not know. It must have been stronger than I expected. I do not remember what happened next, but I was told later... one of my customers bought me from the abbess. I was cheap, I suppose, because they expected me to die.
“He took me to a doctor and paid to have me nursed back to health.”
Hugh said nothing. His jaw was rigid, and tears streamed down his cheeks.
“When I was well enough, he moved me to a little cottage on the grounds of his house, far enough away that his wife, who was an invalid, was not offended by the sight of me. He visited me there most days. I should be grateful to him, I expect. He did save my life, and he did stop me taking the drink and the drugs.”
“But he also used you,” Hugh said, quietly.
Becky grimaced, the memories cascading around her. The sheltering confusion of laudanum was gone. Later, she learned the knack of separating her mind from what was being done to her body, but back then, she was sober for the first time in years, and without defences.
“He used me,” she confirmed. “He kept the door locked and set a servant to watch it, afraid I would run away. To where? I had no heart for it. He was so angry when he found I was with child. He cursed the doctor for not purging the brat when I was first removed from the brothel. He said I was a poor investment, and... well, never mind.”
Hugh was finding this hard enough. He did not need to know she had been forced to pleasure the old man with her hands and mouth since, he said, he couldn’t bear to touch her when she was so bloated and ugly, but he’d paid and would have his use of her.
“He died. Shortly after Sarah was born, he died. And his son sold me to another protector.”
“Sold you? But... how could he sell you?” Hugh sounded more indignant than unbelieving, but she explained anyway. “I do not know what else to call it, Hugh. He found another protector, told me I could choose that man, the brothel, or the street. And later, I found he had taken a considerable sum of money for the transaction. My new protector made me give Sarah to a wet nurse, so she would not disturb his pleasure, and he would not tell me where she was.”
Many times, she had been tempted to turn back to the mindlessness, the dreamtime security of drink and laudanum. But her baby was out there somewhere. She was determined to get her back. Fortunately, her new protector was indulgent, in his own way, free with his gifts, and—once he was sure of her—happy for his mistress to go visiting and shopping when he had no need of her.
Becky soon discovered where Sarah was kept, and she began to plan a future free of men and their demands.
“I knew I would never be free unless I started using the men who would use me. I chose my next protector, and the one after that. I insisted on keeping Sarah with me, and a nursemaid to look after her when I...
“I began to save, mostly jewellery I was given, but some of my pin money. Then...” She fell silent, still angry with herself for choosing Perringworth. He had seemed the best choice at the time: gentry rather than merchant class, apparently wealthy, and willing to give her a house of her own, albeit in a village some distance from Bristol.
“Was that when you... fell in with Aldridge?” Hugh asked. He sounded apprehensive.
Becky shook her head. “No. In fact... the man I chose... the man I thought would be my last protector was my worst mistake of all. Bad things have happened to me, Hugh, but almost never by my choice. Perry was my choice, and he cheated me of everything I’d saved, then offered me to his creditor. Not just me, Sarah, too. If Aldridge hadn’t happened along, Perry’s creditor would have put us back in a brothel to pay off his debt. Smite, they called him. He already had a buyer for Sarah.”
Hugh was swearing again, low, long, and vicious.
“Aldridge rescued me from Smite’s men, then he went to London and paid for Sarah so Smite would not come after her. I owe him, Hugh. Even if Perry had not stolen everything, I could never have afforded to pay Smite, but Aldridge did it without thinking, and without... we had no agreement. He could have demanded anything, and I would have given it gladly, to save Sarah. He never once made demands.”
“It would have been nothing to him, you know. He is so rich, I doubt he noticed.”
“That is immaterial. He saved Sarah, Hugh, and he did not have to. Then, after I agreed to be his mistress, he set her up in her own house, and did everything he could to protect her from what I was. I will owe him forever. I know you do not like it, but I cannot change how I feel. He saved Sarah.”
“You love him.” Hugh looked suddenly much older, all the strength drained from the muscles of his face.
“Love him?” Becky was surprised. Hadn’t Hugh been listening? “Hugh, he used me, too, the same as the others. He is a kind man, and so rich being generou
s is no trouble. He was my rescuer, and I was grateful. But he became my protector. Do you not understand? I was under an obligation to him. I had a contract with him. I was not free to choose him. I owe him for saving me and Sarah, especially Sarah, but I do not love him. I am fond of him, perhaps, but I do not love him. He was to be my last protector.”
Hugh set her gently back on the couch and stood. Whatever powerful emotion racked him, it was too strong to take sitting down. He strode back and forth, his face working, then suddenly knelt before her and took both her hands in his. He lifted them to his mouth and kissed them.
“Thank you, Becky,” he said. “You were right. I needed to hear. I did not realise...” He seized her shoulders and pulled her into a violent kiss, and she met his passion with her own, not understanding what he was feeling, but moved by it nonetheless.
Then, suddenly, he pushed away. “I... I need to be alone for a time. Forgive...” And he was gone, leaving her in the wreck of her own storm, to wonder what damage she had just done to their marriage.
Chapter Eighteen
He rode all afternoon, though it felt longer. He let the horse pick the way much of the time, while his mind went over and over the horrors his wife had lived through. His wife. His gentle, kind, comfortable wife who had made his house into a home, gathered his daughters into her heart, and made him happy.
He was no better than all the rest: a user, a destroyer of women. Lady Ballingcroft’s face floated before him again, and dozens of others he’d tempted with honeyed words.
Like he had Becky. Oh, he’d offered marriage, but that wasn’t what she wanted, was it? “I was not free to choose,” she said. He hadn’t offered her freedom, he and Aldridge. Instead, she was being used again. To carry the child who would save the estate. To mother his other children and manage his household. And to comfort him with her body. He was no better than the unnamed and uncounted men who had used her before.
What was it Aldridge had said? “You aren’t fit to kiss the hem of her robe.” He hated that Aldridge was right. He hated Aldridge. He hated every man who had used his Becky, up to and including himself.
She wanted her freedom, to be left to her own devices, and no wonder. After all she had been through, why would she ever want to service a man again?
But he and Aldridge had barged in with their selfish plans.
He couldn’t fix it; couldn’t turn back time and give her the quiet village she wanted, but he could respect her wish to be left alone. He wouldn’t impose himself on her again. From this day, she would be a saint in his household, to be cherished and protected, but worshipped from afar.
His mind made up, he returned home.
In the schoolroom, he was told when he asked after Lady Overton. He thought of following her there, but decided to wait until they met at dinner. He had to act normal, convince her nothing had changed.
But only one place was set, and the butler informed him Lady Overton had retired early. “Her Ladyship complains of a headache,” he said.
“Ah. Yes. She was unwell earlier,” Hugh replied. Was his butler glaring at him? No. Just his guilty conscience. He shouldn’t have left her. He should have stayed and reassured her. He pushed his plate away. “I find I am not hungry. You can clear.”
But when he arrived in their bedchamber, she was asleep, pale, except for her red-rimmed eyes and small, but for the great mound of her belly.
He wandered up to the nursery. The children were also asleep, but the governess was still awake, doing some mending by candlelight. Yes. That was decidedly a glare. Had Becky said something? No, she never complained, never criticised.
He remembered her red eyes, and their raised voices. Undoubtedly, the servants had drawn their own conclusions and taken sides. And they were right. He wished the woman a good night and went back down to his bedchamber, where he crept into bed beside his sleeping wife, not daring to touch her.
In the morning, Becky’s heavy-lidded eyes suggested her sleep might have been feigned. She’d clearly had as little rest as he. “Stay in bed,” Hugh advised. “You don’t need to get up.”
But she came downstairs, wan but composed, before he left to supervise firewood cutting on the far side of the estate. “Make sure you stay warm,” she said, but there was no warmth in her voice. It wasn’t cold, exactly. Lifeless and dull, as if the woman who lived inside the beautiful, brittle shell had gone away somewhere.
That evening, when Becky joined him for dinner, he ventured to discuss the duchess’s letter that had set off the disastrous conversation. “The governess that the Duchess of Haverford recommended...” he began.
Her head came up, and her eyes met his for the first time that day. Alarm? Fear? Hugh put out a hand as if to an injured animal, not touching, just showing he held nothing that could harm her. “You believe she would be suitable?”
Her voice sounded rusty, as if she had injured it with all her crying the day before. “Her Grace...” she stopped, cleared her throat, and started again. “Her Grace has interviewed her, and says she is suitable.”
“Will you send an acceptance? Or do you wish me to do so?”
Becky looked startled.
“I have thought about what you said. I believe you, Becky. It is wrong to blame women when the fault lies as much—no, even more—with men. I know that governesses are often treated poorly. If the duchess believes this woman can be trusted with our daughters, then I will trust her. And I will trust you to... to notice if anything is wrong.”
Becky nodded, but she looked no happier. “I will write to the duchess,” she said.
“Becky.”
She was watching her fork push food around her plate, and he had to say her name again before she would meet his eyes.
“Becky, I just wanted to say... I need to say... I am so sorry. I... forgive me.” She looked bewildered, and well she might. He barely knew what he meant himself. What he’d done to Becky was the least of what she had suffered. But he wanted her absolution for crimes against all the women he’d ever bedded, using them to meet his needs and blaming them for their lack of purity. So what if he had done the same as every man he knew. That was no excuse for being a user. A destroyer.
She was shaking her head, eyes dry and bleak. What did the gesture mean? ‘I won’t forgive you?’ ‘I don’t understand?’
He couldn’t stay to explain. His own eyes were filling and he couldn’t weep in front of her. He had no right.
He took himself off to his study and the brandy decanter. When he was calmer, he would apologise again.
He was sorry for hurting her, for not trusting her, for manipulating her into marriage, for being a man and, therefore, a representative of the tribe that had hurt her. He was sorry for it all, and he could never make it up to her. But he would live his life trying.
For the next few weeks, he worked manfully and kept to his resolution. He asked after her health, rode into the village to find treats to tempt her failing appetite, hunted her out several times a day to make sure she was comfortable.
When he wasn’t with her, he rehearsed telling her how sorry he was, but in her presence, faced with her polite reserve, the words dried up.
He gave up suggesting things they could do together in the evening, after she begged off three nights in a row, though he missed the quiet times together reading, and missed still more, making music together: he singing as she played the pianoforte.
Instead, Becky went up to bed early, and Hugh retired to his study and the brandy, creeping up after she was asleep to chastely dress in a nightshirt and tuck himself spoon-fashion behind her in the dark. A nightshirt! He hadn’t realised he even owned such a piece of attire. But he felt the need to reassure her she was in no danger of being forced to endure his attentions. Indeed, when his ardour rose at the touch and smell of her, just the thought of the horrors she had been through was enough to shrivel him again.
Slowly, it dawned on him that he had fallen in love with his wife. Fallen in love with her, been s
evered from her, and missed her like a lost limb. It was too late now. If only he had told her! He couldn’t force the words on her now, when he had hurt her so badly, and she so clearly regretted marrying him.
The house was in mourning.
Becky barely talked and never smiled, except when she was with the children. The servants crept silently about their tasks. And Hugh escaped as often as the weather allowed, which was rarer and rarer as Christmas approached.
The new governess and her daughter arrived and were installed. Patrice Goodfellow, Mrs Goodfellow under their roof. She seemed a nice enough woman; modest and polite. And the girls liked her. Soon, Emma and the Goodfellow child, little Portia, were the thickest of friends, and the schoolroom was ankle-deep in preparations for Christmas.
Becky, who had made so many plans for the holiday, lost interest. She pretended for the children’s sake, and Sophie and Emma accepted her feigned enthusiasm. But Sarah was worried, hovering over her mother, answering questions for her when Becky drifted off into silence, finishing decorations her mother started, when Becky’s hands fell idle.
“She will be well when the baby arrives,” Hugh reassured Sarah and himself. He hoped it was true.
The only happiness left in the house centred on the schoolroom. Hugh started going there often. And, if he was careful and quiet, if she didn’t see him watching, his wife sometimes smiled at things the children said. Once, even laughed. A sad little chuckle, reminding him how much he missed her happy gurgle. It had been gone for weeks. Since before he had forced her confession.
Before and After. His life had fractured into two pieces. Before, when he had been happy and thought Becky was. After, when he knew she only pretended, and he didn’t know how to console her.
Chapter Nineteen
The baby was born on Christmas Day, coming into the world so quickly that the midwife was barely in the door before she was up to her elbows in the final work of the delivery.
“I have the lady now, Lord Overton. You can leave her with me,” the woman said.