After weeks of putting him off she had thought herself finally free when her father died. Despite her grief at his passing, she had been fiercely relieved to know that she need no longer suffer Simon Denker’s maulings, which had been growing more and more intimate. She needed only to retrieve Millicent and her own and her father’s belongings from the flat and then she would be on her own. The prospect had frightened her, but not nearly as much as Simon Denker did.
He had been waiting for her in the flat, and when he saw that she meant to leave, he threw her down on the floor and forced himself on her. She fought, but her struggles availed her nothing. Quickly, brutally, he had his way with her. Then, smirking, he got up to go, leaving her lying there, exposed and bleeding. To her horror she heard the key turn in the lock. When she banged on the door, screaming at him to let her out, he said that it would take more than that one lifting of her skirts to repay him for weeks of lost rent. He would keep her till he tired of her, and only then would she be free to go.
The flat was a tiny one on the third floor, the one window too small to allow escape. Had she screamed for help until her lungs ached, no one would have come to her aid. Such screams were all too common in that slum neighborhood.
So she had waited behind the door and knocked him unconscious with a chamber pot when he thought to come to her next. Then she grabbed Millicent and her belongings, locked him in the flat, pocketed the key, and fled. A hansom cab had taken her to dockside, where the Dove was ready to sail with the morning tide.
When she finished the telling, she was lying beside him in the position into which he silently had coaxed her, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest. As she glanced up at him, sore afraid of what she would read in his face, she saw that his jaw was set, his eyes hard. But that grim look was not, she thought, for her.
“So you see why I had to use the brooch,” she ended miserably. “I had no money, and he would have come looking for me.”
“You did exactly the right thing. Had I known all this, I would have applauded your courage rather than scolding you as I did upon your arrival.”
“Courage?” She peeped up at him, surprised out of her grief.
“Aye, courage. Anyone can be overcome by an enemy’s superior strength. Look at me, felled by a deuced tree! But instead of allowing yourself to be beaten, you fought back with the best weapons you could muster, and you prevailed. To knock the dastard over the head with a chamber pot was but a small recompense for what he did to you, my poppet, but I can promise you it made him smart for days.”
“I hope so!” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Then, conscious suddenly of how cozily she lay against him, she sat up and gave him a wavering smile as she struggled to get herself under control again. Her voice was a shade too bright when she next spoke. “I must put some salve on those scratches. And then I really should get started on supper. There are the pies your lady friends brought, but I must give the boys more than that.…”
His hand kept its hold on hers, though she tugged discreetly to be free. “Caroline.”
She cast a quick glance at him.
“You must not do this to yourself any longer. By allowing that—lame excuse for a man to affect you so, you give him power over you out of all proportion to his importance to your life. What happened to you was a terrible, brutal assault—but it is over. You have to let go of it, so that you can heal.”
“But I feel so—unclean.” She whispered the confession, ducking her head in shame that refused to be dismissed, eyes closing even as her hand unconsciously tightened around his.
“So you feel unclean, do you?” There was an undertone of harshness to his words that made her open her eyes and look at him in surprise. “Because of something that was done to you, by force, that you had absolutely no way of preventing, you feel unclean.”
He made a sound that was midway between a laugh and a snort. “If you want to hear about unclean, my poppet, let me tell you about unclean.”
27
She looked lovely, sitting there on the edge of his bed, her delicately boned fingers curled with unconscious trust around his. Her raven hair had escaped its pins yet again, to tumble in artless disarray over her shoulders and down her back. The remnant of tears trembled on her lashes and left damp patches on her pale cheeks. Her mouth was soft, vulnerable, her eyes haunted with memories and the shame they provoked. They glittered a luminous gold through the wash of moisture that still lingered in them, Unfallen. Her tongue—the tongue that did not taste of raspberries after all but something infinitely darker and sweeter—was just visible between her lips, which had parted in surprise at his words.
Matt had his fury for the man who had dared to harm her under tight rein. Had the dastard been within his reach, he, God-fearing Puritan though he might be, would have strangled the life from him without a second’s pause. But the man was not within his reach and probably never would be. All he could do was try to repair the damage he had done to Caroline.
Caroline. Beautiful, dauntless Caroline. The image of her felling her attacker with a chamber pot made him want to shake with laughter and, at the same time, howl with tears. That was so typically Caroline, courageous, spirited, yet vulnerable beneath the flinty skin she assumed for the benefit of the world. Her eyes were defenseless now as she waited for him to speak. Her head was slightly bent on her slender neck, drooping like a flower weighted down after a heavy rain.
He could not change time and undo what had been done to her. He would give nearly all he possessed were that possible, but it was not. He could help her only by laying himself as open to her as she had laid herself to him. He would reach out to her in the only way he could, by sharing the bitter secrets that he had thought never to speak of to a living soul.
“Just what do you remember of Elizabeth?” he asked, after a moment’s careful consideration of how to proceed. He did not want to hurt her further by needless revelations about her sister. Yet he thought that it would help her to know.
She blinked at him. “Very little. Although Mary has told me quite a lot.”
That surprised him. His eyes narrowed. “Gossiping, was she? I would not have thought it of Mary.”
Caroline shook her head. “It was more in the nature of telling me something that I needed to know.”
“She told you that Elizabeth was—not perfectly well in her mind?”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you that one of the symptoms of her illness was a—an appetite for men?” This was more awkward than even he had expected. How did one phrase, for gentle feminine ears, a description of how Elizabeth had been?
“Yes.”
Where first he had been nettled to think of James’s wife gossiping about his private affairs, Matt now had occasion to be grateful. It would make the telling so much easier.
“All right then. I had no inkling that she was not the innocent young girl she seemed to be when I met her. She lived with an aunt in a cottage on land that was—used to be—ours, and if the Civil War had not thrown our family into poverty, Elizabeth would most likely have never crossed my path. So you may blame all that subsequently happened on your good King Charles.”
He tossed in the jibe to tease her and was rewarded by a faint smile. But she did not rise further to the bait, and so he continued: “But of necessity we had taken up farming, and one of our fields lay near her dwelling. Nearly every day that we were there, she would come out to watch us work. It never occurred to me, then, that she did so because she had an—unhealthy interest in men. She was older, but I didn’t know it then. Besides, I was old for my years myself. She was a pretty thing, very playful and kittenish, and very interested in me. Like a fool, I let her attentions go to my head and—” He paused, searching for the right phrase, and eventually bypassed a description of what he had done in favor of the results. “Eventually she told me she was with child. Again like a fool, I wed her.” He smiled faintly, as an errant fragment of memory momentarily alleviated his self-d
isgust. “I even went to ask your father for her hand, which was how I became acquainted with Marcellus Wetherby. Where you were, I do not know, but I don’t recall ever setting eyes on you.”
And, he told himself silently, he would have remembered. He couldn’t imagine anyone who had ever seen Caroline forgetting her, especially himself.
“When I was younger, I lived with my mother,” she replied. “She and my father were married soon after Elizabeth’s mother died, but my mother soon grew tired of living flush one minute and hand to mouth the next, and so she returned with me to her own home. Not until she died did my father come and take me away.”
He nodded. “That would explain it, then—and also account for why you are so unlike Elizabeth, for which I heartily give thanks to God. But to go on, I soon discovered that the child Elizabeth expected was not mine. She had used me for a dupe to hide her sin.”
Caroline’s eyes widened. “Do you mean John …?”
Matt shook his head. “John is mine, I am reasonably sure. As is Davey. The timing—and their looks. Although ’tis God’s grace merely that she didn’t spawn a bevy of bastards. Despite the fact that I kept as close a watch on her as I could, I know there were others. The—she even tried with my own brothers.” The remembrance of that tasted bitter even as he said it.
“So Mary said.”
“God in heaven, is there anything Mary didn’t tell you? And Mary, I suppose, got her information from James. I had no idea the lad was so loose-tongued.” Matt’s lips tightened in annoyance at having his private affairs bruited about for strangers to hear. Although he was quite sure—at least he thought he was quite sure—that Mary would have revealed so much to Caroline and none other. And Caroline was not precisely a stranger—although Mary could have no way of knowing that. He made a mental note to have a word with James about his habit of confiding intimate family business to his wife.
“But if John is not—what happened to the child?”
“Elizabeth lost it soon after we were wed. I would have thought it mine still had she not confessed the whole, not in penitence, but to taunt me during a fit of anger because I would not do something she wished. She very soon regretted being so frank, but it was too late: I began to recognize her for what she was.”
“And what was that?”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “I’ll not give a name to it. She was my wife, after all, and the mother of my sons. I thought, when I moved her and my brothers here, that we could start afresh. But she never got better, only worse.”
“And for that you feel unclean? I think you behaved very nobly, given the circumstances.”
Matt said nothing for a moment as he grappled with a sudden cravenness that was foreign to his nature. She looked so very young and naïve, sitting there with her head tilted slightly to one side, her tears forgotten now as she listened with interest. For a moment he was tempted to keep the rest to himself. He need not reveal his shame—but he realized then that it was important that she know him for the base sinner that he was. When the truth was told, she could not fail to see him as despicable, while she herself, as victim rather than perpetrator of evil, was totally innocent in a way that he decidedly was not.
“You have not heard the worst yet, my poppet,” he said softly, and his hand tightened around hers as instinctively he sought the will to continue. Her rose-petal skin was silky beneath his touch, her bones fragile. Her eyes as she waited for him to continue were wide. He dreaded to see the change that would come over them when she knew—yet he wanted her to know. Telling her the truth about himself was the only palliative he had to offer her sick spirit.
“So tell me.”
Matt swallowed to combat the sudden dryness of his throat. “I did beget my sons on her, you see. Though I knew her for a whore and a madwoman, though her spirit repelled me as much as her flesh tempted me, I did enter her bed and take my ease with her—and more often than the two times that would have got me my sons. She would mock me for my weakness, flaunting herself, and I could not steel myself to resist. Only when I awakened to find her drunken and laughing at me on the morning after Davey’s conception did I afterward succeed in keeping my vow to stay away. And meager though that credit sounds, I cannot claim even that much grace. I admit I stayed away from her because, physically, her body was repulsive to me after that.”
Her eyes widened, darkened, flickered during his stark recital, but Matt could not tell what she was thinking. Now he watched her, almost shrinking inside himself, although he hoped he gave no outward sign. It was only when he felt her hand moving in his that he realized how tight his grip on her fingers was: ’twas a wonder he hadn’t broken her bones.
“Well?” His voice was harsh, far harsher than he had intended, but she sat there watching him and saying nothing, and he was sore afraid.
At that her eyes flickered again, and her tongue came out to wet her lips.
“Elizabeth was your wife,” she said at last. Her hand turned in his to cling to his fingers when he would have released her. “You had every right to use her as you did.”
His eyes darkened. “Aye, I know it. Yet the right was legal, not moral. The memory of it sickens me.”
“Just as the memory of Simon Denker sickens me.”
“Was that his name, the bloody bastard? From tonight onward I’ll add to my prayers the devout request that he roast forever in Hell.”
The merest hint of a smile touched her lips. “Good Roundhead that you are, you should not use such language.”
“I consider myself strongly provoked. And the term is Puritan, if you please.”
At that they smiled at each other, and Matt was conscious of a great easing of the weight he had carried about inside him for so long. Caroline didn’t seem to despise him for his weakness, and so perhaps he could stop despising himself.
“So now we have no more secrets between us,” he said after a moment that he spent idly turning her hand palm up in his and examining the slender fingers.
“No,” she agreed, watching him study her hand. After a moment she clenched her fist and withdrew it from his hold. He looked up at her inquiringly as she got to her feet.
“You need salve on those scratches,” she said, with a clear intent to return to business. Briskly she turned to the bedside table and started rooting through her store of medicines.
“And how shall I explain them, I wonder, if someone asks?” He was content to let her go. She had opened up to him, cautiously and not yet willing to stay so, and now like a shy flower had perforce to close again for a spell. He could understand that, and saw no need to push her for more than she could at present give.
“You may blame them on Millicent.” She turned to him, smiling, and with gentle fingers anointed his cheek with salve. Matt suffered her ministrations, setting himself to endure without allowing his senses to be overwhelmed by the sight and touch and smell of her as she hovered so near. If she were to heal, she needed time to do so. The boil of her shame had been lanced, the poison spilled. With careful handling she could recover fully. In the meantime he must keep his own baseness in check. As much as his body hungered for her, he would make no further move. Not unless and until she showed him that she was ready to welcome such.
She finished with his cheek, restored the tiny pot to the bedside table, and picked up the ruined and rejected piece of pie.
“I must see to supper,” she said, and started for the door. Once there, she hesitated, looked back over her shoulder.
“And Matt,” she said softly, her cheeks flushing palest rose, “thank you.”
For the longest time after she had gone, he could do nothing but stare at the spot where she had been.
28
Spring turned into summer, and summer waxed and waned. Caroline grew accustomed to her new place in the world and even found the time to fashion herself some dresses in the sober Puritan style. Though she turned up her nose at their plainness, the simplicity of the garments served to emphasize her beauty,
which grew extraordinary as ample food and happiness rounded her figure and pinkened her cheeks. Despite, or perhaps even because of, her questionable status with the elders of the community, she attracted a great deal of notice and turned more than a few masculine heads on the few times she ventured into town unescorted. When Matt or one of the others was with her, of course, none dared to so much as give her an admiring glance. The combined physical might of the Mathiesons was a force to be reckoned with.
Matt’s leg healed, though he spent much of the summer hobbling around, first on crutches carved for him by Robert and later with the aid of a stick. He made no further advances toward her, and Caroline was content to have it so. With their exchange of confidences, their affinity for each other deepened. She liked to think that they enjoyed an intimacy, not of the body but of the soul.
Her relationship with his brothers improved, aided tremendously by their devout appreciation of her cooking. Once Matt no longer required constant attendance, she was able to put herself heart and soul into outdoing the culinary efforts of Hannah Forrester. At this she achieved general success, although Goody Forrester’s offerings were still accepted by the brethren with great good will. As were Patience Smith’s (who had an eye on Robert), Abigail Fulsom’s and Joy Hendrick’s (who vied for Thomas), and Lissie Peters’s (who was after Daniel). Indeed, as the battle for the allegiance of the Mathieson men’s stomachs escalated, Caroline got the feeling that the men themselves were growing amused at the competition. They downed whatever delicacies came their way without prejudice or seeming preference, which was galling to the females concerned. As for Robert and Thomas, being assiduously courted by comely girls at ages twenty-three and twenty-one, respectively, was a novel and clearly not unpleasant experience. Although not completely cured of their misogyny, they appeared willing to suspend disbelief for the nonce.
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