by Emily Larkin
Something in Pip’s stomach tied itself in a tiny knot. “Three times,” she said.
His smile didn’t fade. It did change, though. Not derision, but warmth and affection. He knocked again. Tap-tap-tap.
The knot in Pip’s stomach untied itself, while at the same time she felt her cheeks burn with mortification. She looked away from him. “So that’s my greatest flaw,” she said, balling her hand more tightly on her knee.
“It’s not a flaw.”
“It is,” Pip said, looking back at him. “I do it every day. Several times!”
“It’s not a flaw,” he repeated. “It’s a quirk. An idiosyncrasy.” He reached out and took her balled-up hand and carried it to his lips and then, slowly and deliberately, pressed a kiss to her knuckles, and then a second kiss, and a third.
Pip’s heart almost stopped beating in astonishment.
He did it again—once, twice, thrice—laying soft kisses on her knuckles, and Pip loved him so much that she almost burst into tears.
Her gaze was caught in his. She couldn’t look away, could in fact barely breathe in sheer wonder that this man—this exceptional man—was kissing her in threes.
He hadn’t laughed at her. He hadn’t mocked her. He’d accepted her uneasy relationship with threes and was using it to show her that he loved her.
The feeling that she might burst into tears grew stronger.
Lord Octavius laid three more kisses on her knuckles, then lowered her hand. “We don’t have to marry right now,” he told her seriously. “We can wait. Three months, six months. However long you want.”
Pip shook her head. There was no need to wait, no need to get to know him better, because she could never love anyone as much as she loved him. “No waiting.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.” She was more certain of it than she’d ever been of anything in her life.
Lord Octavius gave her another of those joyful, bright-as-sunshine smiles. “Next week at Linwood Castle?”
“Next week at Linwood Castle,” Pip agreed, and she thought that her smile might be sunshine-bright, too.
Lord Octavius raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it again—once, twice, thrice. Pip felt his lips, soft and warm, and then she felt his tongue as he briefly tasted her skin.
A tingle of shock went through her. She shivered, but not with cold. Her cheeks flushed with sudden heat.
He did it again, the tip of his tongue sliding teasingly over her skin. The tingle ran through her a second time, a delicious hot-cold sensation. Her heart began to beat with great rapidity. Pip was suddenly intensely aware of the bed looming not three feet away, aware of the possibilities, aware of a fragile, nervous desire.
Lord Octavius laid another salutation on her skin, then frowned sharply and pushed up the cuff of her nightgown. “Did Donald do that?”
Pip followed his gaze and saw the ring of dark bruises where Mr. Donald had grabbed her. She shivered—a shiver that had nothing to do with desire—and nodded.
Lord Octavius’s frown deepened into a scowl. He seemed to bristle with anger, to almost grow in size like a cat puffing up its fur.
It should have repelled her—that sign that violence lay just beneath his surface—but it didn’t. The bristling and rage were instinct—his instinct. He needed to protect those he loved, to defend them, to fight for them.
“Did he hurt you anywhere else?” he demanded.
“A bump on the back of my head, that’s all.”
His scowl deepened. “The back of your head?”
“He threw me to the floor.”
Lord Octavius’s outrage magnified. He seemed to grow even larger. His rage vibrated in the air between them, but Pip wasn’t afraid. This was a man who protected those he loved, not hurt them. He’d keep her safe—with his fists if he had to, with his life if it came to that—and she would do the same for him, because that was what it meant to be human and to love someone.
Lord Octavius released her hand and reached for her head, as if to examine the bump for himself.
“It’s only a tiny bump,” Pip said, catching his hand and entwining their fingers.
He subjected her to a long, frowning look.
“I’m fine. Honestly.”
The frown became doubtful, and then after a moment the doubtful frown became a doubtful smile.
Pip smiled back at him hopefully.
The dangerous vibration in the air faded. Lord Octavius’s shoulders relaxed and his metaphorical hackles lowered. He stroked the bruises on her wrist. His touch was gentle, his expression introspective rather than outraged.
“You saved me,” Pip told him. “You and your cousin and Lord Newingham.”
His fingers paused on her skin. He looked at her, a questioning lift to his eyebrows.
“I wouldn’t have got away from him, if not for your lessons.” Remembered terror prickled its way up her spine. “I almost didn’t. He was so fast and so strong and so . . . so gleeful. He liked that he was going to hurt me. It excited him.”
She couldn’t repress a shiver at the memory of Mr. Donald’s terrible glee.
Lord Octavius must have felt it, for he released her hand and moved closer, putting an arm around her shoulders. Pip leaned gratefully into his solid warmth. “I didn’t understand until this morning what it meant to be petrified with terror,” she told him. “But I do now. I was so scared. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t scream and I had no strength in my arms and legs. If I hadn’t had your lessons I wouldn’t have got away. He came very close to overpowering me.” She shivered again, a comprehensive convulsion involving her whole body.
Lord Octavius tucked her more tightly against him and wrapped both arms around her. “I would have stopped him before he did anything,” he said. “I was less than a minute from your room. I would have stopped him.”
Pip imagined it: Lord Octavius knocking on the door, calling out her name. Surely she’d have found the breath to scream? One scream, even a tiny one, and he would have heard it and burst through the door and confronted Mr. Donald.
She had no doubt what would have happened then.
“You would have killed him,” she whispered. “And I probably wouldn’t have stopped you.” And perhaps Mr. Donald would even have deserved it.
There was a long moment of silence while they both digested this statement. “It’s better that it happened the way it did,” Lord Octavius said at last.
“Much better.”
Pip closed her eyes and let herself relax into his warmth and his strength. Her tension drained away, the remembered terror and panic fading like wisps of mist slowly evaporating in sunlight. She felt safe. She was safe. It was impossible to be safer than she was at this moment. Nothing could harm her when Lord Octavius held her like this.
She’d been lucky today. Incredibly lucky. Lucky to have had those lessons. Lucky to have landed that kick. Lucky to have Lord Octavius to hold her now.
None of the other women Mr. Donald had attacked had been that lucky.
Pip’s warm contentment didn’t dissipate like mist in sunlight; it vanished with the abruptness of a door being slammed.
Mr. Donald had attacked other women. Perhaps other governesses. Perhaps in this very room.
It was a horrifying thought. Had she been sleeping in a bedroom where other women had been attacked? Had she been sleeping in the very bed they’d been attacked in?
Pip couldn’t repress another shudder. Lord Octavius rubbed her back soothingly.
“He’s done it before, hasn’t he?” Pip whispered, her voice muffled against his shoulder. “In this room.”
She was hoping he’d say No, but he said, “Most likely.”
A sickening knot tied itself in her stomach. For a moment, Pip thought she might vomit. She concentrated on breathing, and when the nausea faded and she opened her eyes and saw the bed, she knew she couldn’t sleep in it tonight. She’d take the blanket and the pillows and sleep right here, on the floor beneath the
window where, God willing, nothing terrible had ever happened to anyone.
Another shiver went through her. “If we hadn’t met that day in London . . .”
“Don’t think about it.” Lord Octavius rubbed another soothing circle on her back, and he was right, she shouldn’t think about it, it was a pointless exercise, one that would only distress her.
But it was impossible not to imagine it.
If Lord Octavius hadn’t met her. If he’d not followed her here. If he’d not offered her lessons in defensive techniques . . .
She’d be fleeing Rumpole Hall at this very moment. Fleeing, because she didn’t dare spend another day in the same house as Mr. Donald. Fleeing, because she didn’t have the patronage and the money to see him brought to justice. Fleeing, because it was the only thing she could do.
An idea crystallized in Pip’s head. An idea that she didn’t entirely want to acknowledge but that she couldn’t ignore.
“There is another way of stopping Mr. Donald,” she said.
She couldn’t see Lord Octavius’s face, but she felt his surprise. His hand stopped making soothing circles on her back. “There is?”
“Yes.” She inhaled a shallow breath, released it, and said, “I can bring a case against him in the courts.”
Lord Octavius was silent for several seconds, then he said, “Do you want to?”
“It would be expensive,” Pip said. She’d have to hire the lawyers and pay for all the expenses, an expenditure far beyond the ability of a governess to meet—but not beyond the ability of a marquis’s son.
“Forget the cost,” Lord Octavius said. “Do you want to take him to court? Because if you do, I’ll pay for it.” He loosened his hold on her and sat back enough to see her face.
Pip looked at him, trying to read his expression. He was frowning again, but it wasn’t an angry frown; it was a thoughtful frown. His gaze was steady, serious, and he appeared to be trying to read her expression, too. Pip wondered what he saw there.
“It would be a scandal,” she said.
“Yes.”
“My name would be in all the newspapers. And yours, too, as my husband.”
He shrugged and took her hand, lacing their fingers together. “If you want to do it, we’ll do it, but Pip . . . do you want to?”
Pip looked down at her knees. She didn’t want to go to court. She didn’t want people knowing that Mr. Donald had tried to rape her. She didn’t want her name in the newspapers. She didn’t want people imagining what it had been like, wondering which parts of her he’d touched. She didn’t want them pointing her out and whispering about her. That’s Lord Octavius’s wife over there, the one with the red hair. Did you know that someone tried to rape her once?
“No,” she admitted. “I don’t want to, but if it will stop him from ever attacking someone else, then I’ll do it.” She bit her lip, and then said, “They might hang him.” A shudder ran through her. Not a shudder of remembered fear, but a shudder at the thought of a man hanging by the neck until he died.
Lord Octavius must have felt it, for his grip on her hand tightened. “We’ll try my way first,” he said.
Pip remembered what he’d said that morning, how difficult he’d found his encounter with Baron Rumpole. “Justice is best served by the courts, don’t you think?”
“Well, yes, but . . .”
“You don’t like terrorizing people. It’s not in your nature. Think how you felt after Rumpole.”
He shook his head. “This is personal. Donald attacked you, and if anyone punishes him it will be me.”
Pip looked at the stubborn set of his jaw and the fierce determination in his eyes and decided not to argue further. “Promise me you won’t kill him.”
“I promise.”
“And promise me that if your way doesn’t work—”
“If it doesn’t work, I’ll finance a case against him. I give you my word.”
Pip looked down at their linked fingers, and then back at him. “I thought you’d argue against going to court,” she confessed. “Because of the scandal. The newspapers, your family . . . I thought you’d want to keep it all hidden.”
“Stopping a rapist is more important than keeping my family’s name out of the newspapers.”
“I doubt the rest of your family would agree. The duke—”
“Grandfather would support you in this, most definitely.”
“He would?” she said doubtfully.
Lord Octavius gave an emphatic nod. “Very strong on justice, he is. I won’t deny he’s a little intimidating, but he’s a great gun. You’ll see when you meet him—and speaking of meeting him, I’d better go. We’ve got a long journey tomorrow.” He released her hand and climbed to his feet. The hem of his robe fell around his calves. Between slippers and hem were several inches of naked ankle. Pip averted her gaze from that glimpse of skin and stood, too.
Lord Octavius made no attempt to embrace her, merely turned towards the dresser and picked up his chamberstick. Pip was relieved. A few minutes ago there’d been a heated, tingling moment when she’d thought they might possibly make love, but that the moment had well and truly passed. She couldn’t make love with him tonight, not in this room where Mr. Donald had attacked her, not in that bed.
Lord Octavius paused on his way to the door and looked down at the floor. The drugget carpet was damp where she’d tried to scrub out Mr. Donald’s blood. He considered the stain for a long moment, his lips pressed tightly together, then looked at her. “We’ll stop him. One way or the other. I promise you.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Pip was halfway through breakfast with two very excited little girls when a knock sounded on the nursery door. Lord Octavius entered. Pip had a strong moment of déjà vu. Lord Newingham had looked exactly like this yesterday morning, out of breath and clutching a piece of paper.
“This just came by express,” he told her, thrusting the paper at her. “From my brother. Read it.”
Pip put down her butter knife and took the letter.
“Is Uncle Robert with you?” Edie asked, craning to look past Lord Octavius.
“He’s downstairs eating his breakfast,” Lord Octavius told her.
“Are you going to have breakfast with us?” Fanny asked.
“No. My breakfast is downstairs, too, but I had to show Miss Toogood this letter.”
Pip unfolded the missive. It was written in a masculine hand.
Otto,
I found two of the governesses and you were correct—they left Rumpole’s employ because they were attacked, but it wasn’t Rumpole who was the culprit, it was his valet.
The word “valet” had been underlined three times.
One of the governesses, a Miss Belton, is pregnant because of the attack. She has no family and her circumstances are quite dire. I found her in a poorhouse in Islington.
I’ve taken her to Linwood House and put her into the housekeeper’s care. It should be the baron and his wretch of a valet who provide for her, but she’s approached Rumpole twice in the past three months and both times was turned away at the door.
Miss Belton is angry at the world, as you can well imagine, and wants nothing more than to see her attacker burn in Hell. When I offered to finance a court case against him, she jumped at the chance.
Pip’s heart skipped a beat. She reread that last, astonishing sentence, but it still said the same thing. A court case.
Mother and Father are as outraged as I am. Father spoke with his lawyers this morning and has set everything in motion. It may take a day or two, but rest assured that someone will be along to arrest the man shortly.
Pip closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and reread that miraculous paragraph. It still said the same thing.
Mr. Donald was going to be arrested. He’d never be able to hurt another woman again.
I wish it were possible to arrest Rumpole for his part in this, the letter writer continued, but the lawyers advise us that it’s not. At the very leas
t, his name will be mentioned in the courts and some of the vileness of his character exposed.
Mother and Father leave for Gloucestershire tomorrow. The rest of us are traveling a day later. We look forward to meeting your Miss Toogood.
Q.
Pip read the letter again, from start to finish, then looked at Lord Octavius. He was watching her.
“You’ll not need to put your plan into action,” she said.
“No.” He had wanted to be the one to punish Mr. Donald, but he didn’t seem upset to have lost that opportunity.
“You don’t mind?”
Lord Octavius shook his head. He was clearly aware that the girls would recognize the name Belton, for he said, “The lady in question has greater need for redress than either of us. This is her fight, and I intend to help her win it.”
“We both can help,” Pip said.
“Yes.”
Pip folded the letter and handed it to him. “Thank you for bringing this up.”
“I knew you’d want to see it.” He batted Edie lightly on the head with the letter, and then Fanny. “You’ll be ready to leave in an hour?”
“Yes!” the girls chorused.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
It was while he was eating his last bites of breakfast that Octavius realized he had one more task to perform before he left Rumpole Hall. Accordingly, he didn’t linger at the table with Dex and Newingham, but went searching for a footman. He found a housemaid instead. When he described the man he was looking for, the maid said, “You mean Malcolm, sir?”
“Is he tall and thin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s him. Can you tell him I want to see him? I’ll be in the library.”
The library smelled faintly of urine. Someone had scrubbed the carpet where the port had spilled, but a mark remained if one knew where to look for it, hidden among the acanthus leaves.
Octavius stared at that dark blotch and remembered Rumpole’s terror, remembered him begging and weeping and pissing himself.
