by Jane Lark
She turned away from his father. Harry reached out a hand. Her stillness said that she was confused, trapped somewhere between the past and the present. But so was he and so was Charlie.
They walked back along the seafront. His hand holding his mother’s as Charlie gripped his other arm. He was covered in blood and the women looked pale and shocked. They were stared at a dozen times by passers-by.
Ginny was not at the inn and nor were Rob and Henry.
He left Charlie with his mother in the room his parents had taken, then went to another and stripped off his clothes. He washed the blood from his skin, ignoring the screaming in his mind as he saw himself doing the same thing many days over during the war.
The gash in his forehead was not deep. Without stitching there would be a crooked scar, but it had ceased bleeding and he did nothing to it. His thoughts now were for Charlie’s young sister, alone in the streets. The sun was setting already. She would be alone in the dark if no one found her soon.
~
It was ten o’clock and the night was cloudy, moonless, and therefore black. Harry was not ready to stop looking. He would not leave the girl on the streets. He had no idea if the others were still looking, but they had not returned to the inn before he’d left it over two hours ago.
He’d decided to go into The Lanes, the area of narrower streets and alleyways. Perhaps she might have felt safer in these enclosed places.
He walked past the ‘grand joke’ of a palace. What had the old king known of the sinful elements of Brighton? Harry’s uncles on his mother’s side would probably know. Two of them were dukes and the other an earl and they moved in circles that would have known what the old King did.
Did they know about his mother?
He walked away from the opulence of golden gilded domes and into the narrow streets instead gilded by the glow of gaslight. If she was hiding here. It was folly. She would be more at risk in a narrow street than in a wide one. A wide street had the space to run. Yet she was little more than a child, and with a child’s mind these streets might feel safer.
His hands swung at his sides as he walked, but they were held in fists and his right palm itched for his sword hilt to rest on.
He walked past a couple and a man alone and glanced down a narrow unlit alley on his left. He would have walked on, but in a line of yellow-tinted gaslight that fell into the alley he saw the bent legs of a woman sitting on the doorstep of a shop.
He walked into the alley. The woman’s legs disappeared as she turned when she heard his footsteps.
It was definitely a woman who was hiding.
He did not call out. If it was Ginny, she must be terrified and he did not want her to run again. If it was her. Poor child.
He walked as though he simply walked, as though he was not looking for anyone.
She was only a few paces away from him. He could not see her yet, though, because she had huddled back into the alcove of the shop door.
Then he did see her. A small, slim figure hunched and curled up as she sought to be invisible.
In the dark her hair did not shine out its colour and yet it was auburn with tight curls, like her sister’s. Some strands had come loose from a knot and they framed her pale cheek, which was turned away from him. She was still trying to hide.
‘Ginny.’
Her head turned, her eyes opening wide, and she scrambled to her feet. But she could not run, he stood in front of her hiding place, blocking any chance of flight.
She resembled Charlie. There was no doubt in his head that he’d found Ginny.
‘Do not worry. You have no need to be afraid. I am here to help you. Your sister is at an inn near by. Did you know she has married?’
The girl nodded.
‘I am her husband and you have no need to be scared any more. I am going to take you to her.’
She merely looked at him, her eyes saying she was unsure whether or not to believe him.
He had no way to prove himself. He had only his words and his actions. ‘You must trust me. I know it shall be difficult to trust another man at this moment. But if you come with me, I will take you to Charlie and there will be supper, if you need it, and a safe place to sleep.’ Lord, had Hiller used such words to tempt women back to his home? ‘I swear no one will hurt you.’ He wished he had thought to bring a maid from the inn with him and yet, in reality, what evidence did that give? Was that how the madams found their girls? The girls who had run away from home…? He could not bear to think of the women he’d lain with before any more.
‘Come. Let me take you to safety and I promise that within two days you will be with your mother.’
‘Where did y’u meet Charlie?’ she asked in a quiet voice that said she was looking for proof.
‘Here. On the beach.’
‘When?’
‘A few weeks ago.’
‘And y’u married ‘er…’
‘I fell in love with your sister.’
‘What age was she when she left ‘ome?’
‘She was fifteen, Ginny, and I know your age too because she has told me, you are twelve.’ Just that. Too young to sleep in a doorway. ‘Come back with me? I promise to keep you safe.’
He lifted a hand, encouraging her to step out and walk beside him. She hesitated for a moment more, but then she did so.
As they walked, she continually glanced across at him in a way that implied she was still unsure if he was trustworthy.
His father had called him irresponsible for half his life and Drew had mocked him as the family’s black sheep—he was not that man now. There were two women he had to protect. He would see Charlie’s sister finish her childhood in a safe way, in a safe place. Yet he was meant to go to India in five weeks.
His Uncle Robert who had, he discovered, come with his father but had seen Henry running and joined him, was waiting at the inn and Henry was there too. The others were still looking for Ginny.
She stood to one side of Harry as he introduced her to his uncle and cousin. She did not speak.
Harry took her up to his mother’s room, hoping Charlie would be there. She opened the door, saw her sister and rushed past him to embrace Ginny.
‘Shall I order her food and a bath?’ He asked Charlie, as he saw his mother in the room.
‘Yes do. Well done, Harry,’ his mother said. ‘We will stay with her. Tell your father to leave us alone here.’
He nodded.
When he returned to the taproom, he ordered ale then joined his uncle and Henry. ‘My heart is heavier than it ever was when I took the lives of men in war.’ It was Gareth he should have said that to. Gareth would have understood.
‘At least the girl is safe now,’ his uncle said.
‘Yes. Yet I feel as though I want to save every woman from such a life. She looked so vulnerable in that dark street. I found her in a shop doorway. If it had been someone else who found her…’
Henry was staring into a glass of wine. He had used whores too. Harry wondered if Henry now saw the world as he did.
‘I am only glad that Hillier is dead,’ Uncle Robert said. ‘He cannot hurt another woman. I killed a man like that myself. I have never regretted it.’
Henry sat back and glared at Uncle Robert. ‘You killed a man…’
‘Once. And, as I said, a man like Hillier who deserved to die. But I did not attack him, he attacked….’ He stopped speaking and looked at Harry.
‘Who?’ Henry asked.
‘No one. It is simply that this situation has thrown my thoughts back through the years.’
His mother. Harry knew it. ‘Which man?’
He could tell from the look in his uncle’s eyes that he knew Harry had understood. Harry’s father must have told his uncle who Hillier was, and his uncle must have known the rest. ‘Another man who disapproved of having a woman taken away from him.’
The man his father had taken his mother from… His mother knew even more of how Charlie was feeling than Harry had imagined.
‘You have found her.’ Harry looked over his shoulder as his father and Drew came into the room.
‘Yes. Where’s Rob? Have you seen him?’
‘He is with John at the barracks.’
‘John? Is he here too?’
‘He came with us. He did not approve of your mother coming. He came for her sake.’ His whole family had rallied again. But the pain in his chest denied any pleasure he might take from that fact.
‘John was looking for the girl with Rob, but I told them about her brother being accused, so they went to the barracks to work the magic of a duke and a politician. The Pembroke Pride to the rescue,’ Drew laughed.
Once they were all sitting at the table a bottle of whiskey was brought over, with glasses.
~
‘Harry!’
Harry stood as he heard the desperation in Charlie’s voice. Everyone else about the table and at every other table in the taproom looked across the room to the origin of the shout.
Her hands were clasped together, her clothes creased and the loose strands of hair that had escaped her pins hung in curled little rats’ tails about her face. She looked upset, wrung out by shock and grief, and her eyes begged him to hurry to her as he walked across the room. On closer inspection the hazel glistened when it caught the candlelight. She was about to cry, only it did not look like simple tears trapped behind her eyes but an extreme outburst of emotion.
‘Is everything all right?’ His father asked as Harry reached Charlie. He had followed.
Charlie bit at her lip, silently saying she did not want to say what had distressed her before his father.
‘I’ll manage it, Papa, sit back down.’
He touched Charlie’s arm as his father left them, she had still not said a word. ‘Would you like some fresh air? Shall we go outside?’
She nodded slightly.
He turned away, glancing back at the others. They had returned to their conversation.
He was holding her arm gently as they left the inn, opening and holding the doors for her as she seemed to be walking half in a daze.
When he was outside, though, she did not stop walking, but the heels of her boots clicked on the cobbles as she carried on glancing about her with that sense of desperation.
‘What is it, Charlie? What has upset you?’ Was the past rising up in haunting memories or the scene with Hillier sinking down on her or was it thoughts of her sister… ‘How is Ginny?’
The yard was dark, the horses that were here were stabled for the night and the grooms catching some sleep before another coach arrived. But the cloud had cleared and light came from the moon and the stars.
‘In here.’ She caught hold of his hand and pulled him towards an empty stall.
‘What is it?’
‘Oh, Harry!’ Her sob erupted the moment she had got him to the stall and her arms came up about his neck as the tears that he had seen came hard and fast with hiccups and wails.
‘Darling.’ His hand stroked over her back as her pain soaked into him like rain into the earth. It hurt to love her. ‘I should have come here last night. I know. Forgive me.’
She was sobbing still.
‘Was your sister…? Was she…?’ God he could not bring himself to say the word.
Charlie pulled free of his embrace, then held his hand again and pulled him further back into the stall, so they were in dark and out of sight of the yard. He heard the horseshoes on the brick floor in the stall beside the one she had chosen.
The horse whinnied as Charlie began to whisper. ‘He did not rape her. I came in time. But he touched her in the carriage and made her touch him and his trousers were undone when I found them and she was on her knees…’ Her eyes and expression spoke of memories of the same acts and the same moments.
She began shivering in a violent way. More than she had been shaking the night that Hillier had thrown her out on to the street. He rubbed her arms gently, but her posture said that she would not have accepted an embrace. She swallowed and then her palm pressed against her stomach. Was she going to be sick, as his mother had been?
She straightened, looking as though she clenched her teeth against the nausea. Then she breathed out a harsh breath. ‘It is the memories. As you said. We had to force her into speaking, your mother and I. Urging her. Begging and encouraging. Your mother said that it was better that she spoke and that if there might be a child, then there were herbs and medicines that could be used quickly to try to prevent it. It is as though Ginny is a stranger to me. She looks at us both as though we are as cruel as him. I am only trying to help her. Yet I can see she has been told things about me, Harry. Things that are not true. And when I look at myself in her eyes…’
There was a shaky intake of breath and then her hand fisted and struck him hard on the shoulder.
‘Ow. What was that for?’
She hit him again. ‘You should have gone. We should have gone last night. We could have stopped him fetching her! We could have stopped this!’
Stopped Hillier hurting her sister, or her sister hurting her?
He caught hold of her wrists to end the rain of thumps on his chest. ‘I said, I was sorry. I know you are right. I should have trusted your judgement. But you did not trust me and it cut, and my mind was a muddle.’
‘Ah.’ There were tears again and then her forehead rested against his chest while her arms wrestled in his hold, but as though she did not really want to be free but to fight for the sake of a fight. ‘My mind is a muddle too,’ she said on a sob, her warm breath seeping through the cloth of his coat.
‘I know. It is why I gave you laudanum. But I know that was wrong of me. I am sorry.’
‘I keep seeing him. I keep seeing him that first day in the carriage and then in his house and what he made me do for accepting that cake. And I see myself in Ginny’s eyes and she hates me. She blames me. I want to help her and I cannot. She does not want to be with me…’
She looked up. Even in the darkness at the back of the stall he could see the shine of tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. ‘I gave up my life for her sake…’
He let go of one of her hands and wiped her cheek with the cuff of his oldest coat. His newest coat had been left on Hillier’s body. This coat had been worn in battles. ‘I wish I could make this right. I wish that I could give you back your life. I cannot. But we have the future. We will make that right. Do not give up on your sister and let us thank God that she was not more seriously assaulted.’
Charlie sniffed back more tears in answer. ‘She would not have been assaulted at all if we had left last night.’
‘It will do no good to jab at me or yourself with thoughts like that. Hillier would have already left here to fetch her. If we had come last night, they would have still been together in the carriage.’
She gritted her teeth and her glittering eyes caught the small amount of light as they glared at him defiantly.
He shook his head. ‘I am not your enemy. I know you are upset and muddled and looking for someone to blame, but it is not me, darling. You should have just come to me yesterday and not run. If you had talked to me in the first place I would have caught your brother up and come here with him. But I still say, we could not have stopped Hillier from being in the carriage with your sister. Nothing could have been done differently to change that. Though I am sorry for it. But at least you have her here now and we found her before worse things happened.’
She huffed out a breath.
It was not just about her sister. ‘I know you are hurting, Charlie. I know. Let me hold you.’ She had not come to him to talk yesterday, but she had come to him again today in need of comfort.
Her arms wrapped about his middle. His settled on her shoulders. Then came tears and sobbing again. His fingers ran over her hair.
‘Ginny is not even speaking to me. She looks at your mother when she speaks.’
&n
bsp; His hand stroked over her hair again as she spoke against his neck. ‘She has not seen you for years—’
‘She does not even know your mother. She hates me because she has been told by my mother and brother that I did wrong.’
What did he say? How could he provide the comfort that would wipe out the past. His hand stroked over her hair again. ‘You make me feel inadequate,’ he said quietly. ‘I felt inadequate yesterday, and especially when you did not trust me enough to talk to me. I wish I knew how to make you feel better.’
‘When you hold me I feel better,’ she said against his neck as her arms tightened about his middle.
He held her tighter too. ‘I am sure that when your sister comes to know you better, as I do, she will learn to love you again. Forgive her. She must be traumatised today, love her as—’
‘I do. I gave myself up to Hillier because Ginny was hungry and crying!’
‘I know.’
His hand ran over her hair again. This must feel like such a betrayal. Guilt and a sense of betrayal. He knew those emotions well. ‘Darling.’
She sniffed again, then drew away from him, wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her dress. ‘I am sorry. I am being selfish.’
‘You are not.’
‘I have been away too long. Your mother will wonder where I have gone and Ginny might want me.’
His posture stiffened, as hers had, and his lips pursed. He did not think he had helped her. He had tried laudanum, and failed, and comfort and kind words, and failed.
He reached out and held her hand, then lifted her fingers to his lips and felt his ring against them. As he lowered their joined hands he said, ‘I have agreed with Papa and John that you, Ginny and my mother will return to John’s in the morning. I will stay to help your brother and John will send the second carriage to collect your mother and your brother’s wife.’
She nodded. That was all.
His fingers tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. ‘Perhaps, during the carriage ride, Ginny will come to know you better.’
‘Perhaps.’
I love you. He did not say the words. Now did not feel like the right moment. He did not want his love for her forever tainted by Hillier’s death. ‘Did you come downstairs for something?’
