Jo Beverley - [Malloren 01]

by My Lady Notorious

  As she began to undress she wondered where Cyn was now. For a traitorous moment she prayed that he was nearby, planning her rescue. Then she thrust that thought away. She had to want him to be on his way to Winchester and Verity. She’d told him, if she should be caught, to cut free and get Verity to a new place.

  She stripped naked and hurried into the women’s clothing—silky chemise, taffeta petticoat, and sleeved bodice. It surprised her that the garments were of such fine quality, but she supposed even Lindle had not been able to find any pauper’s clothes at short notice. Heaven knows where he’d found these, for the colors were clearly not intended to go together. The chemise was pink, the petticoat coquelicot scarlet, the bodice green and yellow stripes.

  She had to struggle with the hooks at the front of the bodice. Not only was it too small, but it was indecently low. No matter how she tried to adjust it, it barely skimmed her nipples, and at the slightest movement they popped free, leaving only the pink chemise to cover them, and that was so fine as to be transparent.

  She stuffed them back in and looked down at herself in horror. The colors were tasteless, the bodice indecent, and the petticoat stopped inches above her ankles. This was not by accident. Her father was dressing her like a whore.

  She wanted to change back into her male garments, but that would only result in her being stripped by the odious Lindle. She had no doubt that her father and his toady would not return until they had found a way to get rid of Fort.

  How strange that her brother, whom she had thought of as the enemy, had now become her bastion.

  As no footwear had been provided, she put on her male stockings and boots. They looked ridiculous, but were warm and more decent. Also, for warmth and decency, she draped her coat about her shoulders. Something pricked her fingers.

  Rothgar’s pin! Lud, another piece of evidence against her, and it would not fit in the crack behind the mantel. After a moment she fixed it to the inside of her petticoats. It should go undetected there even if they stripped her. If they found it, she could claim it came with the garments. They were not long off another body. She could smell that.

  There was still no sound of approach.

  Don’t stand here waiting and worrying, she told herself. Do something. She walked the room thinking about everything that had happened.

  Months ago, when Fort had berated her for her behavior, she had seen him as one of the conspiracy bent on her ruin, but now she saw that he too was her father’s victim, though he did not know it. Could she open his eyes?

  He’d had reason to believe her unchaste, and now she’d confirmed it, which didn’t help her cause. He doubtless wouldn’t protest if she were whipped. But she didn’t think he’d stand by for Walgrave’s calculated cruelty. The trouble was that the earl would find a way to get rid of him before starting on that tack.

  Chastity kept track of time only by the chiming of the distant clock and the fading of the light. Four times she tensed when footsteps came to the door, but no one entered. It was just part of the torment. She tried not to let it weaken her.

  Then the key turned. She faced the door, summoning her strength. It turned back. Another trick. She cried then, but forced herself to stop before anyone heard. She applied her mind to seeking solutions instead of straining for footsteps.

  Her father could be pushed into losing control. Perhaps he would reveal something in that state, but Chastity shuddered at what he might do to her at the same time. She prayed that Fort refuse to be sent away, but knew it was futile. Fort didn’t realize yet that the earl was the enemy.

  It was full dark and the clock had just struck eight when the key turned again. This time the door opened. Her father entered, followed by Lindle bearing a candlestand which he placed in a corner. Fort was not with them. Chastity braced herself.

  “Your brother has gone to check on Major Frazer,” said the earl blandly. “He will be back in a little while.” He looked her over. “That jacket hardly matches the outfit. Take it off.”

  It was pointless to fight these minor skirmishes, and so Chastity obeyed.

  The earl nodded. “You may keep the boots. I wouldn’t want you to catch a chill.” His eyes traveled over her, every touch making her feel unclean. “A most becoming outfit for you, my dear. Lindle, you are to be congratulated.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “You may now take away those improper clothes, Lindle, and dispose of them.”

  Chastity watched in despair as the male garments were removed from the room. She tried again to adjust the striped bodice, then forced herself to stop. Such actions would only give her father satisfaction.

  The earl watched her coolly. “You know me by now, daughter. I am not to be denied.”

  “And yet I did deny you.”

  His eyes narrowed, betraying that her words had hit home. “So, do you think you won?”

  “No. But neither did you.”

  He raised his cane and she flinched, but he only touched her head. “Your hair is almost becoming bearable, isn’t it? I fear it will have to go before we part.”

  Chastity closed her eyes and forced herself not to beg. She couldn’t help remembering what it had been like when it was just a dark stubble, how ugly it had been.

  “But you mustn’t think too badly of me, my dear,” purred the earl, which terrified Chastity. “See?”

  She opened her eyes. Lindle had returned with a wig, a charming honey-brown wig. It was very like her natural color. She looked sharply at her father.

  “Indeed. It is made from your own hair.” The earl hooked it onto the gold knob of his cane and presented it to her. “Tell me where Verity is and you may have it. Come, try it. Lindle, a mirror.”

  The earl fitted it tenderly onto her head. Chastity shuddered at his touch. Lindle appeared with a long mirror which he propped against the wall. The earl steered Chastity in front of it and for the first time in months she saw herself as she should be. Thick glossy waves framed her face in an exact reproduction of her natural style, as if the horror had never been . . .

  The wig was snatched away and she cried out. She was a freak again. She saw the full effect of her costume. A freak, and an indecent one! She covered her chest with her hands and turned away.

  Her father snared her hands and held them tight behind her, forcing her to face the mirror. She closed her eyes. He arched her so her nipples sprang free of the bodice. “The rouge, Lindle.”

  Chastity writhed but was helpless as her chemise was pulled down and something rubbed on each areola.

  “Look,” said her father.

  When she refused, he twisted her arms until she obeyed. The crests of her breasts were a virulent scarlet. She might as well have been naked, despite the chemise.

  “How can you do this?” she cried to her father. “How can you let that . . . that creature touch me!”

  He showed no remorse, but he released her aching arms. “You bring it all on yourself,” he said as he strolled away. “I have given you everything that a daughter could desire. I would have ensured your welfare, but you have no trust, no sense of duty to your family, to me your father. Now you see the cost. That rouge, by the way, is a staining one. You will not be able to wash it off. But you may well find it appropriate.”

  Chastity turned slowly to face him, recognizing the approach of some new device.

  He took out his gold pocket-watch and flicked it open. “It is now a quarter past eight. Tell me Verity’s location by nine and you may go free. Remain obstinate, and you will be delivered to a bordello down by the river. The abbess is eagerly awaiting such a tasty morsel, and assures me she will choose for you only the most interesting customers. Do you know what that means? A few months ago, I would have thought not, but now I wonder. What adventures have you been enjoying, daughter, since I unwisely left you at liberty . . . ?”

  “You can’t!” she gasped.

  “Indeed I can. You are no longer of any use to me.”

  The reptilian coldnes
s of it struck Chastity dumb, but on the whole she was relieved. Her father would keep his word—he always kept his word—and would let her go if she told him where Verity was. She would do it, just before nine o’clock. She would be free, and by the time Walgrave or his minions arrived at Winchester, Verity would be gone. Thank heavens the earl didn’t know there was a third person in all this.

  The earl pointed at the wig on the floor. “As a further inducement, if you oblige me, you may have that as a douceur.” He turned toward the door.

  Chastity fought hard not to show her relief.

  He turned the knob.

  She eased out a long breath.

  He stopped. “What have I forgotten, Lindle?”

  The servant made no reply to this rhetorical question. The earl turned back. “Ah, yes. There is the question of my daughter’s punishment, isn’t there?”

  Fear shot through Chastity as a real pain. She’d let him fool her again.

  The earl saw it and smiled. “Let me see.” He began to count on his strong, spatulate fingers. “One, you left your home without permission. Two, you dressed in indecent clothing. Three, you wandered about England and even gathered some money.” He raised his brows at Chastity. “Would you care to tell me how? No? No matter. Four, you have led your sister astray and put her and her child in danger. Five, you have been impudent and obstructive to me. Six, you are unrepentant. Kneel on the ground.”

  “No, damn you!” Chastity cast around for any kind of weapon, but there was nothing. Nothing.

  “Seven, you use foul language. Lindle.”

  The secretary moved forward, amiably implacable. This time, no matter how hopeless, Chastity would not submit. There was no trace anymore of the paternal in this. It was driven solely by revenge and spite.

  She fought, even managing to bite Lindle, but he overpowered her, wrenching her hands painfully behind her back. He tucked her head backward under his arm. His armlock on her almost choked her, but she kicked. Nothing was in reach of her boots.

  He hauled her skirts up and she felt the chill air on her legs and buttocks. She let out a piercing shriek that was mostly rage. They couldn’t do this to her again. They couldn’t!

  Lindle tightened his arm, choking her silent. The cane whistled and fire leaped across her thighs.

  “You must learn, you she-devil!” snarled her father, and lashed her again. “You must learn! No one defies me! No one!”

  A third blow bit into her thighs and she let out a strangled cry.

  “Good God, Father. What are you doing?” Fort cried, bursting into the room.

  Chastity was released. She crumpled to the ground, fighting for breath.

  “Discipline,” snapped the earl. “Do you too deny my right?”

  Fort was white with shock. “No, of course not. But this is hardly proper, or appropriate.”

  The earl’s color rose high, and he was close to losing control. Chastity prayed that Fort would finally see him for what he was. But Walgrave won the struggle with himself. “You may be right, my boy,” he said ruefully. “Yet the girl stretches my tolerance with her defiance and her selfishness. She still will not assist us to find her sister.”

  Fort came over and gently raised Chastity. “You must,” he said. “Frazer has left his command. He gave some story of a family emergency, but I doubt it.”

  “I knew it,” snarled the earl. “Damn you . . . !”

  Chastity saw Fort’s eyes widen at the sight of her clothes, and she didn’t try to hide the indecency of them. “If he’s gone to Verity, Fort,” she said, “she’ll be safe.”

  Fort turned to the furious earl. “I suppose that’s true, Father. Frazer will see to her welfare.”

  The earl’s color deepened to purple. “Has my whole family run mad? Am I to stand by while my elder daughter elopes with an officer within weeks of her widowing, and do nothing? Why, after this trollop—” He jabbed Chastity sharply in the breast with his cane so that she cried out. “—has dragged our name in the dirt, who knows what will be said? Doubtless that Verity killed her first husband to be free to wed her lover. Even the child’s paternity will be in doubt.” He was spitting by the end.

  A horrified Fort had pulled Chastity to his side for protection, but now she broke free. Her father hovered on the brink of revealing his true nature, and she would push him over. “No,” she shouted. “You may have ruined me, you loathsome hypocrite, but I won’t let you destroy Verity!”

  The earl slashed at her face with his cane, but she blocked it with her arm. A scarlet weal sprang up.

  “Stop it!” Fort shouted, and seized the cane. He snapped it and hurled the pieces aside.

  “Lindle!” howled the earl. “Knock the traitor out!”

  Still smiling, the burly secretary closed on Fort. The earl, now spitting with rage, urged him on. Chastity, for the moment, was ignored. She could do nothing for Fort, and she doubted his danger was as great as hers. She took her chance and fled, grabbing the wig as she went.

  “Stop her!” bellowed the earl. But Chastity, wings on her heels, was already down the stairs and out into the close. One of the earl’s men stood there, but he wasn’t a big man. She caught him by surprise and knocked him over.

  She sprinted down the narrow deserted street, her short skirts now an advantage. It was dark, though, and she went flying over a cask someone had left by their doorstep.

  She picked herself up, gasping and trembling, and forced herself to slow a little. Behind her, voices called, but the pursuit was not yet well-organized. She thought of trying for help at some house but dismissed the idea. In her present garb, no respectable person would let her through the door and besides, almost anyone in England would turn his errant daughter over to the Earl of Walgrave.

  She pushed her red nipples back into her bodice and plunged down a dark alley, then turned swiftly into another, then another, her only intent to lose any pursuer. She had no idea where to go, or where to seek help.

  Would Fort be in any condition to assist her?

  If only Cyn were around. She caught back a sob. It seemed another life, those few sweet days in his company.

  Down a narrow street she flew, grazing her elbow on a wall. Past a gaping night-soil-man. Into another dark alley, gasping for every breath. Was she running in circles?

  Suddenly, the alley disgorged her by the side of the Thames, on the docks. Small vessels bobbed at anchor, and nearby a song drifted out from a tavern. For a moment that cheerful sound comforted her, but then she remembered about a brothel down near the river. She shuddered and shrank into the shadow of a bend in a wall, knowing this was no place for her to be.

  She took a moment to catch her breath and tried to throw off the panic that tangled her mind. It was no good; it had all been too much. She hurt. She was terrified of worse to come. She was a hunted thing now, seeking only a hole to hide in. She stretched her senses for any sound of pursuit.

  What should she do? She’d been desperate to escape her father, but now she was alone at night, penniless and close to naked in a strange town. In the roughest quarter of a strange town and looking as she did, she had no hope of help.

  She realized she was clutching the wig and pulled it on. It would make her look a little less peculiar.

  It was tempting to stay here, cowering in the shadows, but she had to move. She’d be safer in a better part of town. Perhaps she could hide in a garden or a shed until daylight. What then, she did not know.

  Voices approached and she froze, pressing back against the wooden wall behind her. Four men strolled by, complaining in a thick burr of the price of tobacco. When they went into the tavern, the volume of the singing abruptly rose, then fell. When they were gone she sagged with relief and tentatively crept out of the shadows.

  A flickering lantern outside the tavern shed a little light, and she could see that the area was deserted—of people, at least. Two fat rats scurried past that feeble light.

  Chastity fought back a whimper and sidled down t
he building until she came to another alley, a mere dark gap, leading into shadows. She entered its maw. Her boots slid on the slimy ground and the stink made her want to vomit. Doubtless the other alleys had been the same, but she’d been too panicked to notice.

  She thanked heaven she couldn’t see what this narrow passageway was like, but feared what she would step into next. She remembered the alley in Shaftesbury and the dead cat. This alley smelt as if it held any number of them.

  It held a live one. She stepped on it and it scratched her knee and fled, yowling.

  Dear heaven, she thought with a whimper, was there an inch of her that was not cut or bruised?

  She put a hand out to touch the chill stone of a wall at her right, doubtless the wall to a back yard. She ran her hand along it as she staggered forward, for it gave assurance of reality in the dark. In front of her all was pitch-black. Only above, if she looked up, was a narrow band of gray—the cloudy sky.

  She began to think she would never see light again. She heard a strange noise and realized it was her own gasping whimpers. She gulped them down.

  Then she glimpsed light ahead. It was only a faint golden glimmer, but she stumbled toward it as if it were the gate of heaven. The alley broke into a slightly wider lane, leaned over by old narrow houses, mostly dark. One had a guttering flambeau by the door and it was that she had seen.

  It was as if sanity had returned to an insane world.

  There was nowhere to hide here, though. No breaks between the houses, no steps. She raced toward a wider street, desperate to get away from the river and into concealment.

  Voices ahead!

  She froze, looking right and left, but it was hopeless. She shrank back against a wall, praying that this not be her pursuers, that these men not come her way . . .

  But then they appeared, a linkboy lighting the way for two scarlet-coated officers—one rotund, one slender. The officers were jovially drunk, but steady on their feet.

  Chastity edged toward a door, hoping it would look as if it were her home, and that they would pass her by. Faint hope. They stopped. The thin one raised a quizzing-glass and smiled. With a shared leer, they sauntered toward her.