“What have you done, Father?” she retaliated. Her male attire served only to make her seem more child-like and vulnerable, but Giles was pleased to hear that not all her fight was gone as she spat out words of anger. “How could you consent to this, to pairing me with him?” She flicked a terrified glance at Macleane. “Does my happiness mean naught to you? Am I not worthy of your affections and love? Was I not always dutiful and dependable?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then did you not think before you made free with my inheritance, and hence sacrificed me?”
Mr. Allenthorpe extended a shaking hand toward his daughter. “Fortuna, I’m sorry. You must come with me. The arrangements are made. There’s no alternative unless you wish to see your mother and sisters in the poor house.”
Her face twisted in revulsion, and a lone tear trickled over her cheek.
Giles clenched his fists in rage. They were going to pay for this. By God, they were going to pay.
“Oh, quit your blubbering,” Macleane snarled. He jabbed Mr. Allenthorpe between the shoulder blades, propelling him forward over the rug toward Fortuna. “Grab the buer and take her home. You can mourn the family’s general lack of virtue once we get there, because you are all rather lacking in that regard. I’ll have my hands full keeping the rest of your brood in check.”
Mr. Allenthorpe threw a beseeching look in Fortuna’s direction and extended his hand, only for her to smack it away. Macleane took his place. He reached out one meaty fist and grasped Fortuna by the hair. “Best send for a quack too, to ensure she’s hasn’t the clap or the pox.” He tugged her closer still, transferring his hold to her chin.
A growl of rage rippled up Giles’s throat, but he bit down hard and held it in check. Timing was what mattered now. He’d didn’t want Macleane to realize he was up. Still it tore at his innards to see Fortuna treated so badly. Macleane turned her this way and that as if he were inspecting a horse.
“I guess there’ll be no need to tread softly, softly since you’re already broken in. Pray you’ve no buns in your oven, miss, because I’ll not raise another man’s get. I’ll have it dealt with. Make no mistake, your only value is in the form of your namesake.”
Fortuna bit into the fleshy base of Macleane’s thumb. At the same time, Giles leapt forward and brought the heels of his clenched fists down hard upon the back of Macleane’s neck. The baronet toppled sideways into a chair, releasing Fortuna as he fell.
“Run!” Giles yelled. He loomed over Macleane, placing himself in the way so that Fortuna might escape. She fled past him and her father and straight out of the door into the gloom of the corridor. Darleston followed her. Giles hurried after her too, but Macleane’s remaining lackey caught him by the arm and swung him like a throwing hammer.
Off balance, Giles staggered into the window bay. Fine. If they wouldn’t let him use the door, then he’d use a different route. He hauled open the window sash, and shirttails flapping over the top of his breeches, he swung from the ledge across to the drainpipe and slithered downwards. He landed with an ungainly thump amongst the detritus in the slush-filled gutter.
Fortuna ran past him just as his hands left the pipe.
“Hey, whoa!” a voice called.
Time seemed to slow as Giles turned. The wagon man pulled hard on the reins, but it was early morning, the street quiet and the heavy drays moving too fast. He stretched, but the horses spun her out of his grasp. The wagon harness caught him hard across the arm, throwing him sideward away from the rumble of hooves and wheels. By the time he’d righted himself, the wagon had stopped and Darleston’s fist held tight about the reins, steadying the horses, while the wagon master, paled to a chalky-white climbed unsteadily down from his perch.
“Fortuna,” Giles gasped. She lay sprawled across the cobbles like a broken doll, her golden hair fanned around her head like a halo. Darleston knelt beside her.
Giles could barely breathe as he staggered toward her. All he could think was that there wasn’t any blood. No blood. That had to be good. He sagged beside her and cradled her in his arms. How could he have been so stupid? To think of living for even a moment without her. All this time, he’d taken her presence in his life for granted and in doing so had destroyed her. What a stupid, blind fool he’d been. He ought never to have placed her in such danger.
“I love you, Fortuna. Don’t go.”
A commotion broke out around them. People emerged from shop-fronts and houses to encircle them. Giles was vaguely aware of Mr. Allenthorpe and Macleane emerging from the molly house. The former wailed in despair.
“Ran straight out in front of me,” the wagon master kept repeating, as if trying to convince himself.
“Giles, we need to get her to a doctor.” Darleston’s fingers curled tight about his shoulders. He sent a young lad tearing off up the street to the coaching inn on the corner.
“Never mind that,” Macleane pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “I’m taking her home.”
“She’s not going anywhere with you.”
“Is that so? Constable.”
“Giles,” Darleston cautioned. “You have to let go.”
The constable, who had been drawn by the crowd, towered over Giles. “What’s to do?” he asked.
“This man is a crook, sir. He will not release the girl.” In his ridiculous finery, Macleane unfortunately looked every bit the gentleman Giles did not, with his fight injured face and rumpled attire.
Giles barely gave the constable a glance. He kissed Fortuna’s clammy brow. Her breathing was flighty and shallow. She was still with him, but for how long. Tears pricked at his eyes. He was going to lose her, just as he’d lost Emily.
“And, who are you, sir?” asked the constable.
“Her fiancé, Sir Hector Macleane,” Macleane replied. He grabbed Mr. Allenthorpe by the wrist and tugged him closer. “And this man is her father.”
Chapter Fourteen
Eight hours later, Giles lurched along the river bank in Hyde Park, swinging a brandy bottle. He didn’t care that his shirt was heavy with rain or that the wind had claimed his hat, which now drifted upon the dark and turbulent waters of the Serpentine. Come to think of it, he seemed to have mislaid his coat too. None of which mattered, because Fortuna was lost. His stupidity had damn near killed her, and he’d been forced to give her up to that brute, Macleane, and her insipid father, when she’d needed him most. They refused to let him see her, and had threatened him with a kidnapping and molestation charge if he came within sight of the Allenthorpe family home.
Giles stumbled over a tussock and landed on his knees on the soft turf. The numbness that had descended upon him when Macleane had first torn her from his arms, to take her home was slowly dispersing. But the further down the bottle he drank, the more wounds seemed to open in his innards. He’d been cruel and selfish, placing his principles above her needs. Although even now the notion of binding her left a bad taste in his mouth. Too bad that Macleane had no such qualms about forcing her into servitude.
Shame flushed his face, when he thought on that abysmal behaviour, leaving his skin itching from the pinpricks of heat. He’d flown Darleston’s guardianship sometime during the mid-afternoon, needing space to make sense of his actions. Unintentionally, it appeared he’d damned her just as effectively as if he’d arranged the marriage to Macleane himself. Stupidly, he’d let himself think that she’d be his forever, while he’d offered her nothing but physical pleasure in return. Fortuna needed security, more than the freedom to love as she wished. She was selfless, unlike he, prepared to sacrifice herself for those she loved.
Giles’s strangle-hold on the bottle neck tightened, as vivid details of Fortuna writhing beneath him besieged his tired mind. That he’d never have her stocking-clad legs entwined around his hips or experience the sweet taste of her lips again was slowly sinking in.
Over. Darleston had said the adventure was done. That he had to live with the consequences of all his prevaricating. But how c
ould he, when all he could think of, was the fresh dewy scent of her skin? He wouldn’t abandon her. There had to be a way of extracting her from this bind.
At least he knew she was alive. The physician he’d accosted leaving Jermyn Street had told him that much.
Brandy dribbled over his chin along with more raindrops as he lifted the bottle again. Giles swallowed, and sniffed. The words of song came to his lips. “Oh, when shall I see you my love… Oh, when shall I see you again? When little fishes fly and the seas they do run dry. And the hard rocks… they do melt with the sun.” He saluted the river, and toppled forward.
He kept losing them; first his mother, then his sister, now Fortuna. He just prayed Fortuna would not seek the same release as Emily. Morton claimed the child had arrived early, and blamed that for her death—the same fate had stolen away his mother—but Giles didn’t believe it. He’d seen Emily wringing wet. Emily, the girl who refused to go out in a boat because she feared the water, had looked as if she’d taken a swim fully clothed. Somehow, as he strained to the far reaches of his mind, her image became superimposed upon the dark waters before him, white cloth fanned eerily around her still form, her face serenely peaceful as she floated among the reeds.
Morton had driven her to it. Emily had never desired the marriage. She’d pleaded against it, but no one had listened. It was her duty to do what was expected, and the match was a fine one. Two old families linked together and a handsome stretch of land settled upon their future offspring. Only Morton, not content to take a mistress to indulge his taste for flagellation, had inflicted his perversion on his reluctant bride.
That was another matter he’d prevaricated over. He ought to have had it out with Morton right after Emily’s death, but grief and his prior involvement had torn him in two. Then, when he’d managed to start functioning normally again, he’d been too afraid of what he’d uncover to stir that particular nest of maggots again. Instead, he’d practiced free love and allowed folks to brand him a rakehell, rather than explaining to them the reasons for his beliefs.
That had to change.
Giles pushed himself to his feet. Things had to change. He had to stop skulking around in the background. He had to find justice for Fortuna and Emily, and all the other women like them.
The brandy burned his throat as he finished it off. Giles cast the bottle into the river.
It all made perfect sense now. “Just listen,” he told his reflection. “I want to know the truth. The truth of what you did to my sister.” He’d face Andrew and Clemencè and have it out with them. Mayhap, he’d present himself to the Allenthorpes too, and make them see reason. It wasn’t just to have Fortuna marry Macleane. It wasn’t right that she should bear the burden of the family debt when it wasn’t of her making.
Giles dunked his head in the icy water, which helped wash most of the brandy fumes from his head. The walk would see off the rest. He’d see the Mortons first, they lived closest.
* * * * *
The Mortons were at dinner, when Giles barrelled his way in past the matching footmen. “Did you beat her?” he bellowed, to a shocked chorus of complaints.
Morton snatched up a napkin to wipe the gravy from his lips, and then forced Giles across the hall into his study. “What the devil are you doing here, Dovecote? You’re a mess. Have you been attacked?” Brows crinkled in alarm and disgust he tugged at the sodden sleeve of Giles’s shirt. “Jeezus, man, you reek. Have you been in the river, or just rolling about in the gutter?”
Giles pushed him away. “Neither.” Here in the warmth, the dampness of his clothes was beginning to filter through his senses. He ignored the urge to shiver, and persisted. His state of dress was completely irrelevant. “Did you? Admit that you drove her to it with your filthy acts.”
“Drove whom to what?”
“You beat her. Darleston told me about your tastes. Can’t believe you defiled her like that. She took her life because of you.” He sniffed. There was water running from his hair over his brows. “How could you take pleasure in hurting a woman like that?”
“What the devil are you talking about, Giles?”
“Emily. You drove her to her death.”
Andrew Morton’s pockmarked skin took on a ghastly ochre hue. He gripped the edge of his mahogany desk until his knuckles whitened, and his voice, when he spoke, emerged as a thinly disguised growl. “She died in childbirth along with my son.”
Giles had heard the all lies before. “No.”
“Stop this. Are you drunk? Have you been in a fight? I’ll have them make a bed for you. Mrs. Peters can prepare a poultice for those bruises.” Morton leaned over to reach the bell pull, only to have Giles grasp his coat breast.
“No bed. No interruptions. I want to the truth out of you. I know what you’re saying is a lie, because I saw her, and she told me—”
“Giles!” Even standing squarely to attention, the top of Morton’s head only reached Giles’s nose. Morton tugged at Giles’s grip on his coat. “Dear God, man. I don’t know what’s happened to you tonight, or what Darleston has said, but you need to rest. We’ll have this conversation tomorrow.”
Giles further tightened his grip, forcing Morton to bend forward. He hissed into the man’s face, “We’ll have it now. Do you deny ever raising a hand to her?”
Something cracked in the sallow planes of Morton’s face. His lips thinned into two bloodless lines. “I worshipped her, Giles. I’ll not deny I lay my hand on her behind more than once, but only because she begged me to do so. Before our marriage I’d never raised a hand to anyone in my life. It was her suggestion.
“No…no…”
“She’d seen pictures of it, you see. Pictures, which I understand are on display in your house.”
“No…no… Listen to me.” Giles gushed. “She couldn’t have seen ‘em. She wasn’t like that. My Emily was pure, innocent.”
Morton actually dared to laugh in his face. “The devil she was. She had a rakehell for a brother. I’ll give you that she was a virgin when she came to my bed, but she was no prude. Rather she was sensual and needy. If she got maudlin and sullen she’d beg me to bend her over my knee and smack her bottom until it burned. Base desires never troubled her, though she liked to deny her enjoyment. Oft times she’d try to lie still while I took my pleasure, and try to stop herself from enjoying it like she imagined a proper lady ought, but she never could stop herself from giving in.”
No. This wasn’t so. Cold seeped beneath Giles’s skin, dispersing his righteous warmth. Nothing Morton said made sense. Emily had been unhappy. She’d told him before the marriage that she hated Morton to his core. And she hadn’t died in childbirth. He knew…he knew that she had drowned. He’d followed the trail of puddles upstairs and glimpsed the doctor pumping the water from her lungs, before the nurse had shut him out.
“You’re lying.” Recently, he’d seen too much deceit. Unable to contain his rage any longer, he lashed out, catching Morton a good one in the stomach so that he doubled, gasping for breath. “You ruined her,” he growled. “You killed her.” Feelings Giles had locked up for over a year welled up like a torrent, and spilled out of him as an incoherent babble. Months of grief he’d tried to disguise, all the love he’d felt, the anger at her loss compounded with the recent loss of Fortuna.
Crouched in a defensive position, Morton yelled back at him, but all Giles heard was the rushing of blood in his ears. His sister had deserved a chance at happiness. All women deserved their freedom, not the tyranny of marriage. He’d never wanted to be responsible for binding a woman in that way again, and that’s why he’d failed Fortuna. No matter how he acted, he couldn’t make things right. He couldn’t free her from the stranglehold of marriage.
He swung at Morton again, only for something heavy to hit him across the jaw. Giles ploughed into a small table, upsetting it, so that the gaming pieces stored beneath its hinged lid spilled across the carpet.
“Stop it, stop it! He doesn’t know.” His attacker tugged at h
is wet sleeve, pulling him upright off the carpet again.
Giles blinked uncertainly at his assailant—Clemencè, while Morton used the distraction to scuttle behind the secretaire.
“Giles, he knows less than you do.” Lip trembling, Clemencè dipped her dark head. Tears glittered in her eyes when she looked up again. She released her hold on his sleeve, and turned to her brother. “Andrew, I’m sorry. Giles is right. She didn’t die in childbirth. She drowned.”
“Drowned—how could she drown?” Morton bellowed the question so loudly, Giles swore a pistol had fired inside his head. He found the sound curiously sobering. “But the ruined sheets…the screaming…the blood.” Morton lapsed into a blanched silence. The veins in his temples seemed to protrude form the skin, pulsing with his emotions. “Are you telling me none of that was real?” He stared at his sister, and then turned, bewildered, to Giles.
Clemencè crossed to the fireside mantle, her delicate hands clasped as if in prayer. “The screaming was our mother. Dr Poulson thought there might be a chance the baby had survived so he cut Emily’s stomach open.” She hugged herself tight, but her mouth remained determinedly set.
Giles stood in a daze, still without an answer to how his sister had died. Morton, however, sagged to his knees, not just dazed but crushed.
“It was an accident.” Clemencè returned to her brother’s side. She knelt before him, so that her white skirts fanned over his knees, and clasped his hands. “It was a stupid accident, but mother made me swear not to tell you. She said it was best not to burden you with the details, for if you thought it were because of the baby you’d get over it quicker. Women die so often during birth.”
Morton stared at her as if she’d grown two heads. “What accident? What happened? Who says we get over it?”
“Yes, do explain,” added Giles.
The tip of Clemencè’s upturned nose turned pink. “We were down by the lake, throwing crumbs for the ducks when her waters broke. I ran for help, but I guess she slipped. She was doubled over with the pain. I heard a splash and went back, but she was too far in for me to reach her.” She bowed her head, as tears slid across her cheeks.
Three Times the Scandal (Georgian Rakehells) Page 27
