Shivers Box Set: Darkening Around MeLegacy of DarknessThe Devil's EyeBlack Rose (Shivers (Harlequin E))

by Barbara J. Hancock

  “You mean he raped you?” My voice was cold and hard. It was a word I had never said aloud. Rape was still a taboo subject, one which no lady would ever admit to knowing anything about. But I was so angry that I was not prepared to disguise what had happened to Betty by wrapping it in a euphemism. Betty’s curls tickled my chin as she nodded her head.

  “Miss, I didn’t encourage him, like he said afterward! I swear. I tried to stop him, honest I did, but he was too strong, and he hurt me.” The sobs came then, flowing fast and freely, and I rocked her in my arms as I would a child. My anger was ice cold but no less dangerous for its lack of heat. “He said it wouldn’t happen again after that first time. I didn’t know what to do. I needed my job and so I stayed. But he came upon me in the corridor and dragged me into one of the spare bedchambers and…” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I thought he was going to kill me. When he’d gone, I went to my own room, packed up my things and left.”

  “Betty.”

  She dried her eyes on a handkerchief and looked up at me with those trusting blue eyes.

  “You could be carrying his child.”

  She shook her head vehemently, curls flying. “No, miss. I was worried about that, but it’s one thing I’ve been spared. Thank the Lord.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Even so, just because he is an earl, it does not mean he can’t be brought to justice.”

  “But, Miss Lucy! It weren’t His Lordship what did them things to me!” And I did not know, in that instant of realisation, whether to be relieved or very afraid. “Good Lord, no, miss! He was always such a nice, polite young man. No, it was Mr Uther.” The tears spilled over again and, through them, she added, “And when he was doing those things to me…when he was—” she gagged on the word “—raping me, as you just said, he kept calling me ‘Lucia.’”

  My mind went blank then.

  It was almost an hour later when I left. Betty made me promise I would not go to the authorities and I reluctantly agreed. I had to admit to myself that, in a case where it would be her word against Uther’s, it was difficult to imagine that she would be the one believed. And, even in the unlikely event that he was brought to trial, Betty’s name, and that of her family, would be dragged through the mud. No right-thinking man would take to wife a woman who had lost her virginity, even by force, if the fact became public knowledge. No, much as it pained me, Betty’s chosen course of action—pretending that it did not happen—was the wisest one.

  Mrs Doughty relented slightly towards me as I took my leave of her. “If you want my advice, miss, you’ll do what our Betty done and get out of that nasty place. Bunch o’ heathens. Didn’t ought to be allowed in this day and age.” And that, I decided, as I made my way back across the bridge to the carriage, was a very sound piece of advice. My untethered spirits of a few hours before were shrouded now in darkness and self-loathing.

  * * *

  On alighting from the carriage, I paused in the courtyard, looking up at the imposing facade that would never be familiar to me, trying to decide what to do. I was aware of Pascoe regarding me with interested bemusement as I gave a decisive little nod. I headed for the Muniment Room, pausing to remove my hat and coat and hand them to a footman. The Muniment Room was a fascinating archive of the family history. It was also Uther’s particular domain. With walls lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves and neatly labelled drawers, it smelled of old books, beeswax and memories. The door was ajar and, as I approached it, I paused, my resolution faltering slightly.

  Before I could enter, Demelza’s taunting voice reached me, and I shrank back into the corridor’s shadows. “Have you tupped her yet?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Uther’s response was terse. “You know as well as I do that we dare not risk a child before we are sure of her, but I have been keeping her happy, yes. She is smitten, and surprisingly passionate. She’ll do anything I ask, just as we planned, although she is proving unexpectedly stubborn in the matter of the wedding.”

  “And when the time comes, will she, with her boyish body and milky-white skin, please you, as I do?”

  “There is no one like you.” His voice was low, hoarse, and I heard her laugh in response. “There never will be anyone to make me feel as you do, and well do you know it.”

  “Show me,” she ordered, and unable to help myself, I tiptoed to the open doorway. She was seated on the desk, her skirts about her waist while he stood, fully clothed, between her bare legs. As I watched, she tightened her ankles around his buttocks to draw him closer. Her gown had been pulled down so that her breasts were bare and he reached out a hand. Slowly, deliberately he took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it hard. She groaned, the expression on her face somewhere between pain and ecstasy. As she began to unbutton his breeches, I turned and fled.

  I ran and ran until I feared my lungs would burst. I paused at the top of the cliff, so close to the edge that I felt the tiny stones beneath my feet give way and slither down into the abyss. Panting, I stood there for long, aching minutes, allowing the wind to tug my hair free of its pins and the salt breeze to cleanse my face. The hollow cry of the gulls told the story of rusty chains twisting tight around my heart. My stomach gave up the fight and emptied its contents onto the grass. I retched until I could no longer stand. And then I sat on that high clifftop until weeping clouds swallowed the last beams of sunlight and gentle rain caressed my skin.

  I looked back at Tenebris, its soaring ramparts rising up from the cliff’s own face. Proud. Gaunt. Doomed. The thought of going back there cloaked my soul in fear. But within that cursed place there was one fresh green shoot of truth, one bright ray of hope, for the Jago future, but also for me: if I was to salvage anything of my pride, ever to value myself once more, I could not—would not—abandon Tynan now.

  * * *

  “Why, child, you look positively frozen!” Demelza was writing a letter, her chair and a small table drawn close to the fire in the great hall. I was struck again by her remarkable beauty. She rose as I came in through the door and reached out a hand to me in greeting.

  I shrank away. “I am quite drenched,” I explained at the look of enquiry on her face. I would never again see her without imagining the twisted, tortured expression she wore as she welcomed her own brother into her body.

  “Don’t tell me you went to Wadebridge without so much as a hat!” She regarded me with mild amusement.

  “No, but I returned earlier than I expected,” I said, and a slightly guarded look shadowed the amber depths of her eyes. “I went straight out again for a walk along the cliff path.”

  “Then get yourself away to your room and have them bring you water for a bath! We cannot have you catching a chill.” She waved me away and returned to her letter. Her unruffled manner indicated to me, as nothing else could, that the depravity I had witnessed was routine. I wondered how often Uther had stoked his lust with me only to slake it on her, or on poor, terrified Betty. The thought made my stomach rise rebelliously once more, but I quashed the feeling.

  * * *

  “Tynan, what was the name of your nurse?” I asked. He must have heard the urgency in my tone for he frowned slightly.

  “Maggie,” he said warily. “Why on earth do you ask?”

  “Is she still alive?” We were seated on our bench in the rose garden, and a soft breeze filled the whole world with the radiant fragrance of the delicate blooms.

  He looked startled. “I hope so! She was not so very old, you know, hweg. But her eyesight began to fail and she was obliged, eventually, to leave.”

  “What was her other name?” I asked. The blooms had wept pink-and-white tears onto the lawn. I picked some of the petals up from the grass and crushed them between my fingers. Tynan caught up my hand and lifted it to his face to inhale the freshly crushed scent. I hoped he would not ask why I wanted to know about his nurse. Truth be told, I was not really sure myself. It was a half-formed, almost nonsensical whimsy that had taken hold of m
e. I would be embarrassed to say the words aloud.

  “Scadden,” he said. “Maggie was my mother’s maid when she first came to Tenebris, and she was fiercely loyal to her.” His eyes bored into my face. I sensed he wanted to know more. I was pleased he trusted me enough not to ask. “I wish I could see her again, but it would break her poor heart to know…” He turned his face away briefly, but not before I saw the sadness in his eyes.

  We sat in companionable silence until a shadow fell over us. Looking up, I recoiled to feel the dark gold weight of Uther’s gaze upon me.

  “Do you care to escort me on my ride, Lucy?” His words were clipped and he pointedly ignored Tynan’s presence. I knew how in tune he was with my thoughts, and I tried to hide the disgust I felt when I looked at him now.

  I rose from my seat. “Thank you, but I cannot,” I said. His eyes glinted with annoyance, which I chose to overlook. “Mrs Huddlestone has promised to teach me to make a suet pudding this morning and I must not keep her waiting.” It was not entirely true. Although Mrs Huddlestone had indeed once scathingly suggested that I might benefit from learning how to make the stodgy dessert, no time or day for such a lesson had ever been specified.

  The little cook regarded me in some surprise when I entered the cool kitchen with its fresh-baked bread scent and jars of enticing preserves. Unlike Mrs Lethbridge and Miss Clatterthorpe, she did not regard my every movement with hawklike disapproval. Nor did she seem to be waiting for me to commit an indiscretion. Mrs Huddlestone was an incorrigible gossip and it was on this trait of hers on that I was pinning my hopes as I took a seat at her long, scrubbed table. Before I could attempt to glean any information from her, I was, of course, obliged to consume several potato cakes, topped with bacon and washed down with a tankard of home-pressed apple juice.

  “Maggie Scadden?” Mrs Huddlestone asked in some surprise. “Why ever do you ask about her?”

  “Oh, just that His Lordship mentioned her and I know someone in London who is looking for a good nurse,” I replied airily, hoping that my prepared story did not sound rehearsed. “And I wondered, since she appears to come so highly recommended, if she might still be available.”

  “Blind as a bat, she is now. Terrible sad it was.” She shook her head, her little mouth pursing even further. “Even Lady Demelza with all her potions couldn’t do ’owt to help her.” She sighed.

  “How dreadful!” I sympathised. “Did she move away from the area? I notice she does not come to visit.”

  “No, indeed. She lives in Padstow, but last I heard was she doesn’t get out much these days. Now, roll up your sleeves, miss, and do put on this pinny over your pretty dress, and I’ll show you how to bake a scone that’ll melt even the hardest heart.” I sighed. This, I supposed, was a fitting punishment for my artifice.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Mrs Scadden?” I asked, but her sightless blue eyes confirmed her identity before she spoke.

  “Who wants to know?” she asked a trifle belligerently.

  “My name is Lucy Alleyne,” I explained, standing on the doorstep, holding my cloak tight about me as the wind tried to whip it away. “I am staying at the castle, at Tenebris. I’m a friend of Lord Athal.” I had told Demelza that I was going for a ride. I suspected that she had plans for the day that involved Uther. I did not want to dwell on the details. It was a long ride, but I was used to that, and the terrain was considerably better than the harsh Indian landscape.

  Mrs Scadden said nothing for a very long time, and I wondered if I was about to be sent packing. Then, without a word, she held the door wide and stood aside so that I could enter. “I live with my sister,” she said, “but she is a seamstress and is upstairs in her workroom. So I can’t offer you any refreshment.”

  I assured her that I did not require anything, and she led me into a small, comfortable parlour. I took the seat she indicated and audibly swallowed the nervous lump in my throat. “I wanted to ask you a strange question. I hope you will excuse me and not consider me quite deranged for asking it.” She remained silent. It was not an encouraging sign. “I have been told that Tynan was a sickly child, who was lucky to survive his childhood.” Mrs Scadden nodded once in confirmation. “Did it ever occur to you that…” I bit my lip. Was I really going to say the words aloud?

  “That someone might be trying to kill him?” she finished for me, her voice calm.

  “Yes,” I whispered, closing my eyes as the truth, no longer a suspicion, intruded on my reason.

  “Every day,” Mrs Scadden said, still in that cool manner. “I wasn’t just his nurse, miss. It was my job to protect him. Her Ladyship begged me. She said she had a premonition that something would happen, and that she would not be there to see him grow up. She charged me to look after her boy and keep him safe. Oh, they were clever. It was all very subtle. He’d fall ill, recover, but be left a little weaker. It happened time after time. But I nursed him through each time. Between illnesses, I’d spend my time making sure no other accidents befell him…a loose coping stone, a walk too close to the cliff’s edge, a horse that became spooked when he was out riding. You would not believe the seeming bad luck my poor boy had. When my eyesight began to fail, I knew I needed help.”

  “How did Tynan survive?” I asked at last. “You say they were subtle, that they attempted to make it appear an illness or an accident, but why did they need to be careful? It seems out of character for Uther—his style is more direct. Tynan was all that stood between Uther and everything he had ever wanted. Faced with such determined evil, how did a little boy grow to manhood? It was surely against all the odds.”

  “My lady—his mother—she was known to write letters. They were like a diary, documenting her life.”

  I nodded and then realised that she could not see the movement. “I have read them. Tynan showed me.”

  “You have not seen all of them,” she said with confidence. “The ones she wrote during the week before she died were never found.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The day before she died, I went with my lady to visit a lawyer in Wadebridge. Mr Warleggan, it was. He was a friend of her papa, a good, honest man.” Her voice was sad and tired. “When she died, when she was murdered, Lady Demelza went through her things. She seemed angry about the missing letters and questioned me. I let her and Mr Uther—” his name was spoken with such venom that I briefly closed my eyes “—think that my lady had taken her last letters to Mr Warleggan. It was my insurance policy, the weapon I used to make them keep me there, taking care of my young lordship. They didn’t dare try to get rid of me. It didn’t stop them trying to harm him, but it meant they couldn’t do it openly. They knew that if anything suspicious should happen to Tynan, or to me for that matter, well, I let them think that Mr Warleggan would open the letters and pass them on to the magistrate. I know for a fact that Mr Uther went to see Mr Warleggan—he promised him a lot of money to part with those letters. But Mr Warleggan was an honourable man. He told him he did not know what he was talking about.”

  “But that’s criminal!” I exclaimed angrily. I bit my lip at my own foolish naivety. Was I really so surprised that Uther was capable of such villainy?

  “That’s not all,” she added grimly. “After that, Mr Warleggan’s offices were broken into twice and then burned to the ground!”

  “So the letters didn’t survive?” I asked, disappointment frosting my words.

  Although I knew she couldn’t see me, her eyes roamed searchingly over my face. She seemed to reach a decision and a long sigh of relief escaped her. “Mr Warleggan never had the letters,” she admitted. “I told them they were with him, and he didn’t deny it when Mr Uther went calling. But in truth the letters were never placed with the lawyer. They were removed from my lady’s collection just before Lady Demelza came snooping.” She smiled slightly. “I know because I took them.”

  “Do you have them still?” I asked, my heart giving a series of heavy thumps.

  “Yes.”
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br />   “What do the letters say, Mrs Scadden?” I probed gently.

  “There is one letter she wrote that, should it be made public, well, it would have blackened Mr Uther Jago’s name beyond repair. And the Jago name is all that matters to him. You’d best read it for yourself, miss.” She rose and, moving expertly around her own familiar room, made her way over to a tall bureau. It had a roll-top, which she slid down, her fingers running across the edge and into the neat cavity beyond. She lifted out a carved rosewood box and brought it over to me. I held it while she solemnly removed a large oval locket from about her neck. “Key’s inside,” she said, holding the ornament out to me. I took the locket and, with trembling fingers, clicked it open. A small, ornate key tumbled out onto my cupped palm.

  The words, in Eleanor’s now familiar sloping script, jumped out at me.

  Uther will not listen to me when I tell him I don’t love him anymore. Did I ever love him? Oh, I wanted him! My cheeks burn in shame when I remember how much! How did I let him do those things to me? Touch me, even taste me, so intimately? And all the while, in some perverted ritual of self-control, himself remain so aloof. Uther was my summer of madness. Then I met Ruan, and I learned what true love was. What a mad mixture of curse and pleasure that the only man for me must be Uther’s brother! Yet, even before I met Ruan, I knew I must break the spell Uther had over me.

  It was all so horribly familiar. I could have been the author of the words that jumped out from Eleanor’s page at me.

  He said I must do his bidding or he will tell Ruan what we once were to each other. His bidding! I know what he means. It is there in the way he looks at me. Everywhere I go, he is there. Dear God, I cannot go to him again. He makes my flesh crawl. Yet, what is the alternative? For Ruan to find out I was once intimate with his own brother? It would kill him, I know it would. He loves me so. Uther said he will tell him we consummated our lust, even though we did not. That I was not a virgin on our wedding night. I was, but I confess, to my shame, that I was more knowing than my poor husband could ever guess. He will describe my body to Ruan, tell him the sounds I made when he drove me to ecstasy with his hands and his tongue, how I inflamed him by allowing him to call me Lucia…