Devonshire

by Lynne Connolly

  “You have no choice.” Terry looked uncertain now.

  “We have two counters you might find useful,” Richard continued. “They’re both called Cawnton. They have information you don’t possess. We know you need them, so don’t pretend not to care. How do my terms sound now?”

  I wanted to clap my hands and shout “bravo!”

  Terry finished his drink, frowning. “I misjudged you, my lord.”

  “But I didn’t misjudge you, did I?” Richard said grimly. “The Cawntons brought me the tokens of proof, so I took them as well as their tokens. I can’t think what possessed them to come in person, but it was a gift I took gladly.” He had turned the exchange. Without a bargaining position, Terry could have killed us, and if Terry thought his secret safe, he would have done so, to keep us from talking.

  “Where are they?”

  “Where are your hostages?” Richard countered. Gervase still looked about, but I dared not move, dared not let out a sound. Our peephole must be cleverly concealed. His searching gaze had passed over it more than once.

  Terry snorted. “The elder Cawnton wanted that ruby.”

  “He has a good eye.” Richard flattened his palm with the ring on it, the ring that had been winking on my finger so recently. “But a little greedy, I think. We’ll restore them to you, if you bring my property. We can make this exchange and then we’ll go, and you’ll have what you want.”

  “What proof will I have you won’t welsh on the bargain?”

  Richard shrugged. “None at all, except my word. And the word of the men you’ve known for many years, Sir George here and Lord Hareton. Our bargain applies to this run only, you understand.”

  “Of course,” Sir George agreed. I thought he could have used a glass of the wine, he looked so worried and upset. My heart went out to him in his distress, forgetting my own concerns in compassion.

  “One more thing.” Richard looked Terry directly in the eye. “Understand, this is between you and me, Terry, and no one else. If my property is damaged in any way, I shall take advantage of the kind offer your daughter is proposing to me. Lady Hareton has been hard put to it to keep her out of the house this last two days, but apart from one interesting exchange, she has prevailed.” I heard Gervase’s sharp intake of breath. “Pale, stupid maidens never appealed to me. I prefer the dazzlers. So your daughter will not even have the bliss she tells me she’ll achieve in my arms. However, everyone will think I have obliged her. After the stories begin to circulate, no one will touch her again, I promise you, and any social pretensions she might have will be ruined forever.” The fashionable exquisite had gone, to be replaced by a man only two people in that room had seen before. And one hidden spectator. “I know she’s panting to get me into her bed. I can’t turn around without the damned chit drooling over me. When I spread the stories about her lascivious behaviour with me—entirely fabricated, of course—then no one will receive her again.”

  “If you take advantage of my daughter,” said Terry urbanely, “you will marry her.”

  “No I won’t.” Richard met his stare. “I will marry Rose Golightly. She is mine, my property, I have bought and paid for her and she brings me advantages Eustacia can’t hope to better.” His cold demeanour fooled everyone but me, Gervase and Carier. Even Sir George stared at him in horror. “I’m the son of one of the wealthiest and most influential peers in the country. You can never aspire to our power. I’m also a rake, a libertine, or didn’t you know that? It won’t affect my reputation in the least, it will be just another of Strang’s cynical conquests but it will harm poor Eustacia.”

  After a moment, Terry lowered his gaze. “You sir,” he said to his desk, “are a scoundrel.”

  Richard laughed, but shortly, without any real amusement. “Worse than that, as you may have cause to know before too long. We have concluded our business here. We’ll see you at the cliff tops tomorrow night. What time would be convenient to you?”

  “Nine o’clock.”

  “We’ll be there.” Richard glanced at Gervase, who shook his head slightly. They went out of the room, and left Terry in his chair, sunk in thought.

  I felt bereft. It was one of the worst things I had ever done, not to cry out, when every fibre of my being was longing to do just that.

  The man Terry had called Peter kept his guns on our head until we heard the slam of the front door, and the trot of horses’ hooves up the drive. Then, without a word, he released our hands from the confining straps and left the room. We heard the outer bolts driven home.

  Tom and I moved away, and sat in the centre of the room, holding each other for comfort. I shook. My recent ordeal and then seeing Richard so close and not being able to call out to him undermined any self-control I had left. Tom was still recovering from the beating he’d received, so we sat, cuddling each other like children for at least half an hour. We might have wept a little.

  At last Tom spoke. “I’m sorry, Rose. I should have gone away when Strang told me to.”

  “Once you’d thought it over, you would have, but they didn’t give you a chance.” I straightened up.

  With the extra light from the peephole I saw him more clearly—the marks on his face, the rope burns on his wrists. I lifted my arms and examined at my own wrists, similarly marked. “They won’t have gone by next Thursday,” I said, trying for some levity. It worked to a small extent.

  “You’ll have to look for some extra lace ruffles,” Tom replied. “And I know how much you hate shopping.” I grinned. He knew nothing of the kind.

  “Don’t you think,” Tom said reflectively, “that Strang may be walking into a trap tomorrow night? Do you really think Terry will let us go that easily, before he’s rid himself of the contraband?”

  I remembered a fact that didn’t come out in that little conversation downstairs, and it gave me comfort. “I don’t think he has any such intention. But Richard knows it.” I lowered my voice, and moved closer to him. “There’s something I can’t tell you now, Tom, not because I don’t trust you, but because I don’t know who’s listening, but we’ll be quite safe once we get to that cliff top.” I leaned back and Tom nodded, showing me he understood. “Promise me you won’t try anything before then. We’ll come off all right.”

  Tom nodded. “Though it goes against the grain to do it. What he did to you, and what he’s done to my father, and God knows how my mother and Georgie are—” He broke off, his hand to his forehead. I went to get a drink and let him be.

  Chapter Twenty

  THEY LEFT US ALONE until the following evening, as the daylight began to fade. Tom and I had spent most of the time sleeping, and waiting. I found it helped me enormously to know where we were. I felt more heartened, trying to cheer up an ever more dejected Tom.

  Terry failed to appear. I believed he’d taken Richard’s threat seriously and would trouble me no more. I didn’t want to imagine what Richard would do if Terry raped me.

  When the door opened, Tom and I sat next to each other. The chair was brought in and Terry sat down heavily. He stared at me pointedly. “Come on then,” he said, roughly. I sat still. “Do it, or I’ll hurt him again.” He waved a casual hand in Tom’s direction.

  Sighing, I did as he demanded, despite Tom’s pleas for me not to. I had no wish to cause my friend any more hurt, and it seemed a small thing to me, if a distasteful one. It didn’t help. I sat next to Tom and watched as Terry got to his feet and walked over to him. First, he struck his head as he had before and then he kicked him in the groin, in an almost detached manner. Tom lay groaning, doubled up with the pain, and I made a move to go and help him.

  Terry turned his back on Tom, returned to his chair. “Come here.”

  I stared at him, debating whether it was worth defying him, but when I saw the expression on his face, I got up and went to stand before him. My stomach turned over, but I was determined he wouldn’t see my terror.

  There was no mercy anywhere about him. He pulled me down to sit on his lap, and then
laid his filthy hands on me. “Very good,” he grunted. I stared back, unmoving, feeling those clammy, meaty hands in the places he had no right to be. I called on all my training, everything I’d learned from Richard and Martha to keep my face impassive. He might abuse my body, but I wouldn’t let him see how much this hurt me, how devastating this attack was. And my fear of what was to come.

  “I went into Exeter last night,” he remarked, his hands busy tweaking, pinching, trying to get a reaction, “to see my wife and daughter. And do you know what my little angel told me?”

  “I can guess,” I replied coldly, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. Oh no. Eustacia had told him what she knew of Richard and me. I prayed she hadn’t told her father of our affection for each other, only the fact that we were lovers.

  “You’re not the ice maiden I took you for, are you?”

  He was so close his smell rose to attack my nostrils, all sweat and bad breath. “My daughter heard some interesting things in that room the night of the Assembly. Though why a man would want to marry a woman he’s already taken beats me.” He squeezed a nipple hard, and I caught my breath on the pain. “You’ll have to get used to that sort of thing. Whores have to put up with a lot worse, you know. Do you know what I’m going to do with you?”

  I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. He continued to talk without one. He watched me the whole time he spoke. “Skerrit can go back tonight, but I’m not letting you go. Not yet.” All the time he talked he pinched and squeezed, seeming to get satisfaction from my pain and humiliation. I put all my effort into keeping my face calm and clear, trying to forget my body belonged to me. “I need a hostage until Sunday at least. I don’t place any faith in promises, least of all your little lordling’s. But I can do something I’ve wanted to do for years.” He gazed at me, let his attention drift to my lips, my breasts, licked his thick lips with an equally thick tongue. “I’m going to bring you back here, strip you and take you. Then I’m going to give you to anyone who wants you. There’s plenty who’ll want a piece of a fine lady like you. I doubt if Strang’ll want you after what I’ll do to you.”

  Oh God, he would ruin me. Anything Richard and I shared would always have this taint, even if Richard still wanted me after this. Terry continued to taunt me with his hands and his voice, “Two birds with one stone, you might say. It’ll give my Eustacia a chance and I can take my fun at the same time. I don’t know how it is, but I’ve always liked to watch.”

  He reached down, and his gaze lustful on my face, fumbled his way under my skirts. I went rigid with horror and terror. I knew what he meant to do, and I couldn’t think of any way to stop him. He was going to rape me now. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to stay calm, not to react in any way.

  I couldn’t let him hurt Tom any more, and there was no one else here to help me. In desperation my gaze went to the man who stood behind the chair, a different one to the one earlier. He stared at me, his tongue between the few teeth he had left, his pistols trained on Tom. There was no help there.

  Tom didn’t take this in silence. He sat up again, heedless of any danger to himself. “Leave her alone, Terry. Lord Strang will kill you for this. Think of your daughter.”

  Terry smirked. “He can’t do much damage for all his fine words, and when he finds out what I’ve done, he’ll think twice about wedding this one, and turn somewhere else.”

  “Didn’t your daughter tell you? He loves her. He’ll kill you.” My heart sank. Tom had put a weapon in his hands.

  Terry paused in his disgusting behaviour, and gave Tom his attention. “I don’t believe that. Didn’t you notice yesterday? When he thought she couldn’t hear, he called her his property. That’s what she means to him. One breeding machine’s as good as another. He might keep this one for fun, but there’s a chance for my Eustacia. It’s up to her what she does with it. Besides, if he does keep Rose, I’ll know I’ve been there too, every time I look at her. And so will he.”

  I closed my eyes, and then opened them again. It was worse with them shut. It concentrated my attention on the senses of touch and smell. Terry’s rank body odour, together with the feel of his filthy hands on me made bile rise to my throat.

  Tom moved to stand up, murder in his eyes, pushing at me to get off his lap. At the same point my body did the deed for me. I was sick, horribly sick, all over Terry and me. It happened so quickly he didn’t have time to avoid it, and I took good care to ensure he received as much as I could give him.

  Norrice Terry stood up, let me fall to the floor, and cried out, “Whore! Bitch! My new leather breeches, too!” I fell in my own filth, broken, feeling I couldn’t sink much lower. He stormed out, leaving me there, and his man followed him, leaving us in the semi darkness we had become accustomed to.

  “Rose!” Unhesitatingly Tom lifted me out of the mess and took me in his arms. He let me cry, and he stripped off my soiled clothing for me. I lay in his arms unresisting, sobbing my heart out. This only delayed the inevitable outcome. Terry would make it worse for me now.

  By some miracle my shift had escaped the deluge. Tom pulled it up to cover me and fastened the drawstring securely. His stream of invective while he ministered to me would have shamed a sailor, but I let it wash over me. It wasn’t directed at me.

  When the door opened again, I clutched Tom in alarm, but it was only one of our guards. He dumped a bowl of water down on the floor, and threw a bundle of clothes after it. “He says you’re to change,” he told us, and left. We heard the bolts shoot home, but this for once brought me relief. It meant Terry wasn’t coming back.

  I blew my nose and wiped my eyes, then got up and sorted through the clothes. They were probably a maid’s by the look of them, but clean. I found an unmarked part of one of my petticoats and Tom tore it up for me to use as a washcloth.

  I felt no shame when I slipped my shift over my head, but Tom turned his head away and gave me some privacy while I washed away all trace of the vomit, and what was worse, Terry’s hands. This time they had brought some soap, sweet-smelling ladies’ soap. Eustacia’s, perhaps. Among the many marks now adorning my flesh, Terry had left a thumb-shaped bruise, on the side of my left breast. I examined it and decided it wouldn’t show over my wedding gown. I no longer knew if the ceremony would take place, but I had to behave as if it would. My whole body felt as though it didn’t belong to me any more, sore from Terry’s fumbles and hurts.

  Tom helped me to dress once I was in the clean shift, pulling the stay laces tight for me and fastening some of the tapes at the back. I had to instruct him, as he wasn’t at all handy with ladies’ clothes. It forced me to think of Richard again, how nimbly he could help me to dress, but I pushed the thought aside, fearing it would weaken me. Once I was decent again in the skirt and caraco jacket I’d been provided with, I sat down on the hard, wooden floor. I took down my hair and combed it until it was silky in an effort to get all traces of the man off me.

  Putting myself back in order my mood changed, from black despair to cold, hard anger. If I got away, this would not go unpunished. Fury would have been easier to cope with; this went deeper, searing its way through to an unbreakable resolution.

  Tom had not ventured to speak for a while; probably trying to get back his equilibrium. When he did, he sounded colder than I’d ever heard him, even angrier than he’d been before. “When we’re out of this, I’ll kill him.”

  I’d already made up my mind to it. “No, I will. No one will look at me and gloat like he’ll be able to.”

  “Do you want Lord Strang to know? I won’t tell him if you don’t want me to.” I stared at Tom, realising how far away he was from understanding. There was no point in arguing. He had never heard me like that, because I could never remember being so shaky, so upset, or so determined.

  “Yes. He has to know.”

  “Won’t it—won’t he feel—”

  “Soiled goods? I hope not. I’ll take the chance. There’ll be nothing between us, no secrets. We promised.”
I couldn’t live with that locked inside me, it would have been a betrayal.

  Tom paused, biting his lip. “You know what Terry said—about you—” He broke off. “Never mind.”

  “I won’t have to, will I?” I snapped, still angry. “It seems the whole world and his wife knows something that is no business of anyone else’s. Yes, I’m Richard’s mistress, I’ve been his mistress for the past six months.”

  “Rose!” If I hadn’t been so angry Tom’s expression of shocked propriety would have made me laugh. It did help to assuage my mood.

  I worked furiously on the knots in my hair. “If you ask me if it’s wise, I’ll hit you, I swear I will. We were too much in love to wait, at least I was. I’m getting married next Thursday, and I want you there to dance with me.” I wasn’t sure any more, but to doubt it to anyone else would have been a betrayal.

  I flung the hair back over my shoulder so I could look at Tom. He watched me, smiling now. “I’ll be there.”

  “And what,” I demanded, my anger fading, “is so amusing?”

  “You are,” he answered softly, still smiling at me despite our troubles. “Strang’s woken something in you. I’ve never known you like this; you’ve never been this determined, this sure of yourself. It suits you.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.” I bowed my head graciously, and sat down again to pin my hair up and put on the cap provided.

  Time must have been getting on, for as I was finishing my toilet, the door opened again and Peter came back in. He flicked a contemptuous glance at us. “Time to go.” He motioned us out of the room with one of his pistols.

  It was getting dark, but we still found the light dazzlingly bright when we stepped out of our prison. Another man waited in the little landing outside. He jammed a pistol into my back, urging me to climb a steep set of stairs.