An Earl to Save Her Reputation

by Laura Martin

  Miss Fortescue let out a sob, covered her mouth with her hand and fled swiftly in the direction of the house.

  ‘I shall see to my sister,’ Mr Ronald Fortescue said quickly, beating a hasty retreat, closely followed by his brother.

  Anna felt her pulse begin to slow as she looked away from the target and up into Harry’s reassuring eyes.

  ‘What an action-packed morning,’ Rifield said, his eyes still wide with shock.

  ‘I will escort Lady Fortescue to her room,’ Harry said, taking Anna’s arm.

  ‘Good idea.’ Rifield leaned in. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after your guests. Take all the time you need.’

  As Harry led her gently across the lawn they heard Rifield gathering up the rest of the bewildered guests and suggesting a nice sedate stroll about the gardens.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ Harry growled, pacing backwards and forward across Anna’s bedroom floor. He shouldn’t be in here, certainly not alone with the woman he was pretending to be engaged to, and most certainly not with the door firmly closed and locked.

  ‘If you mean my late husband, he’s dead already,’ Anna said, calmly, with that little shrug of the shoulders he was coming to like so much.

  ‘He used to stand you in front of the target and shoot arrows at you? That’s disgusting, it’s barbaric.’

  ‘Only in the first few months of our marriage,’ Anna said quietly.

  Somehow he didn’t think Lord Fortescue had stopped due to a reformation of character.

  ‘Did he harm you? Is that why he stopped?’

  Harry stopped pacing in front of Anna and held her gently by both upper arms, looking her over head to toe as if for arrow wounds.

  ‘No, whatever else Lord Fortescue was, he was a good shot, could hit where he wanted to on a target with an arrow from thirty feet.’

  ‘So why did he stop?’ Harry asked quietly, wondering if he really wanted to know.

  ‘He liked to see the fear in my eyes, to know he had absolute control not just over my body but also my mind, my emotions.’

  ‘You can’t mean to say you stopped being afraid.’

  Anna looked down at the ground for a few seconds before answering, ‘I stopped caring. I stopped caring whether the arrow hit me or not.’

  He couldn’t find the words to respond for a few seconds. It was unconceivable, a husband putting his wife in such danger, all for a little amusement, to see the fear in her eyes. What kind of man...what kind of monster...could do such a thing?

  ‘Did he do other things to you?’ Harry asked, his voice no more than a whisper. He had to know, but at the same time dreaded her answer.

  ‘Harry,’ Anna said, raising a hand and trailing her fingers down his face, ‘you don’t need to know.’

  No wonder she’d been so adamant she would never marry again.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, raising a hand so it covered hers, looking deep into her unwavering grey eyes.

  ‘We should...’ Anna started to say.

  ‘There’s no rush. Rifield will keep the rest of the guests busy. Tell me.’

  With a sigh Anna turned away. He thought she would refuse again, tell him to get out of her rooms, perhaps even start packing to return to London, but instead he saw her fiddling with the fastenings of her dress.

  ‘Help me,’ she said, looking over her shoulder.

  ‘What...?’

  ‘You wanted to know, so help me.’

  Motioning to the fastenings at the back of her dress, those normally a maid would help her with, Anna began to pull at the pale green cotton. In a daze Harry stepped forward, his fingers fumbling as he reached out for the first of the fastenings. He couldn’t deny he’d thought about undressing Anna, couldn’t deny he’d imagined this moment a thousand different ways. He’d desired her from the moment their bodies had careened into one another in Lord Prenderson’s study, but never had he thought he would be undressing her in the middle of the morning in his family home.

  After a few seconds he’d loosened the dress just enough for Anna to slip it down. The rustling of material revealed a thin white cotton chemise, which went from the top of her back to well below the knee, covering her body and preserving her dignity, but Harry felt as though he were looking at her naked. As he watched she tugged at the ties at the front of the chemise.

  ‘Anna?’ he asked, trying to be a gentleman, trying to give her the opportunity to stop.

  ‘You wanted to know, you wanted to see.’

  ‘Stop,’ he said, hearing the lack of emotion in her voice. The last thing he wanted was for her to do anything against her will. ‘Stop, Anna.’

  She shook her head, pushed the chemise from her shoulders and pulled down. Harry heard himself take a sharp intake of breath as the skin of her back was exposed. Her skin was milky white, just the colour of the cream off the top of the finest milk. He’d touched her hand, her arm, her cheek enough times to know the skin would be soft and velvety to the touch.

  Latticed across her back were a half-dozen pale scars. Long and thin and straight, there could be no mistake they’d been made by a rod. Without thinking Harry raised his fingers and gently touched one of the scars. It was well healed and one day far into the future probably would disappear, but to make such a scar would have required a deep wound and a cane wielded with a monstrous force.

  ‘He beat you,’ Harry said quietly.

  ‘Among other things.’

  He had so many questions, so many things he wanted to ask, but hearing the emptiness in her voice Harry gripped the edge of her chemise and tugged it back up over her shoulders.

  He gently tightened the fastenings of her gown and once she was dressed again Anna turned to face him.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think you’d understand, Harry,’ Anna said with a small, brave smile.

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘He was cruel. He was evil. He revelled in holding power over me, by seeing the naked fear in my eyes, by finding new ways to torment me.’

  ‘He did this to you for a whole year?’

  Harry felt sick to his stomach, roll after roll of nausea working its way through his body. Who could do such a thing to such a woman? Who could do such a thing to anyone?

  ‘It was worse at the beginning. I learnt to submit.’

  ‘Submit?’ He echoed the word with horror.

  Anna shrugged. ‘I conducted myself in the manner he wished me to, after a few months of beatings. I sat straight, didn’t fidget. I didn’t look at anyone else when we socialised, didn’t speak to anyone else except on his express command. I did everything he told me to. Everything.’ There was disgust in her voice, as if she thought she should have been stronger, should have stood up to her late husband more.

  ‘That made him stop?’

  Anna laughed, but it was humourless. ‘No. Of course not. He always found an excuse, always found a reason.’

  ‘How did you survive?’ Harry’s words were hushed, awed, and he saw Anna close her eyes for a moment before answering.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, as the tears started to glisten in her eyes.

  In two steps she was in his arms, her head buried deep in his shoulder, her body racked with sobs. Harry wrapped both arms around her, pulled her close and stroked her hair. Murmuring soothing sounds, he held her minute after minute, wondering if this was the first time Anna had allowed herself to crack a little, to cry about the terrible things she’d suffered during her year of marriage.

  As Anna cried Harry felt a rage like no other building inside him. Here was a kind and gentle woman who had been terrorised throughout her marriage, persecuted by the man who was meant to protect her.

  ‘Did they know?’ Harry asked, as Anna pulled away for a second, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

  ‘Who
?’

  ‘His children. Those cretins I have invited into my home.’

  When Anna didn’t meet his eye Harry had his answer.

  ‘Promise me you won’t do anything, Harry,’ Anna said, regaining some of her usual poise.

  ‘I can’t do that. They knew what their father was doing to you, yet they did nothing?’

  ‘What could they have done? I was his wife, his property.’

  ‘Not his property,’ Harry protested. ‘You’re a person, a woman, not a piece of furniture he can smash up on a whim.’

  ‘The law is very clear, Harry. Once a woman marries everything she has, including her person, belongs to her husband.’

  ‘Not to abuse and injure.’

  ‘He can do whatever he likes. Lord Fortescue used to discuss with his cronies the best size and thickness of rod to keep a woman in line. Apparently it is frowned upon to use a rod thicker than a man’s thumb.’

  Unable to resist a quick peek at his own thumb, Harry felt the blood surge to his head.

  ‘He beat you with a rod as thick as a thumb?’

  ‘I’m not sure he stuck to that rule exactly. I think the rods he used were often thicker.’

  ‘Did he...?’ Harry closed his eyes, knowing he had no right to ask the question, but somehow needing to know the answer. ‘Did he rape you?’

  ‘It would have been well within the law,’ Anna said, ‘but no, he didn’t. He was unable to...’ She trailed off, staring at a point on the wall. ‘Sometimes I wondered if it would have been better if he wasn’t unmanned, if his rage for me would have been less.’ She shook her head as if trying to get rid of an unpleasant thought.

  ‘How did you bear it?’ Harry asked, knowing that many women would have been completely destroyed.

  ‘I didn’t have a choice. He was my husband, until one of us died.’

  ‘I don’t know how you survived,’ he said quietly, ‘but I’m glad you did.’

  * * *

  Anna rested her head on Harry’s shoulder. For a whole year, ever since Lord Fortescue’s death, she’d clung on to the secret of the abuse she’d suffered, not wanting to taint anyone else with it, not trusting anyone with her secrets. Today, as she’d stood in Harry’s garden, listening to her stepsons chuckling at the memory of just one of the many terrible ways their father had sought to demean and terrorise her, she’d felt something snap inside her. She didn’t have to be afraid any more. Her husband was dead and his children couldn’t touch her. Whoever was sending her the packages and threatening letters didn’t know who they were up against. She’d survived a year of physical and psychological torture, she could survive a few nasty surprises in the post.

  When Harry had escorted her back to her room she hadn’t meant to tell him quite so much and certainly had never planned on dropping her dress and chemise to expose her back and the scars that told a little of the beatings she’d received. There was something about him that made her want to open up, to share her secrets and share her past, to let him into all the dark corners of her soul that she didn’t even dare to peep into.

  ‘I suppose the Fortescues will leave now,’ Anna said quietly, ‘before we can work out which of them is sending the packages.’

  Immediately Harry sprang to his feet and strode to the door.

  ‘Please don’t do anything,’ Anna said, her voice calm but authoritative.

  ‘I won’t stand by while those brutes walk away, thinking there is no shame in laughing at how their father abused you.’

  ‘Please, Harry. I ask you not to do anything.’

  He hesitated and she felt a weight lift from her as he crossed the room and cupped her face in his hands.

  ‘Stay here,’ he instructed.

  Of course she followed him, having to run through the corridors to keep up with his long, purposeful strides.

  He flung open the door to Mr Ronald Fortescue’s room, catching him shouting at his valet who wasn’t packing quickly enough for his master’s liking.

  ‘What is the meaning—?’ Mr Ronald Fortescue asked, his question cut off as Harry barrelled into him.

  There was a short tussle, but it was obvious from the outset Anna’s stepson hadn’t a chance against Harry’s superior size and strength, and especially not when he was bursting with fury.

  ‘Did you know?’ Harry asked, his voice low but dangerous.

  ‘Know what?’ Mr Fortescue tried to sound defiant, but there was a tremor in his voice.

  ‘Did you know what your father was doing to her?’

  ‘I... I...’

  Harry flung him away, disgusted, and Mr Fortescue staggered back.

  ‘Why are you sending Lady Fortescue the letters and packages?’ Harry asked.

  A look of genuine confusion passed across Mr Fortescue’s face.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘Not him,’ Harry growled and walked from the room, catching Anna’s hand and pulling her behind him.

  Next on his list was the new Lord Fortescue, Anna’s oldest stepson.

  ‘What the devil—?’ Lord Fortescue started to bluster as Harry burst into his room.

  ‘I’ll be quick,’ Harry said. ‘I want you out of my house as much as you want to leave. Why are you sending Lady Fortescue packages?’

  ‘Packages?’

  Even Anna could see Lord Fortescue was not lying. He had no idea what Harry was talking about. That was two off the list, leaving only Miss Fortescue.

  ‘Come on,’ Harry said, pulling Anna behind him again, marching her along to her stepdaughter’s room.

  This time Harry knocked and waited for the door to open a crack instead of bursting in. Even in his anger he couldn’t bring himself to act ungentlemanly towards a female guest in his house.

  Miss Fortescue’s face was pale and drawn and Anna realised with a jolt of surprise that she had been crying. Red-rimmed eyes and the red tip of her nose gave it away, as did the three handkerchiefs discarded on the bed.

  ‘What will you do to me?’ Miss Fortescue asked, managing to stand up straight and look Harry in the eye as she spoke.

  ‘Do to you? Nothing.’

  ‘I thought you might summon the magistrate.’

  ‘Antonia,’ Anna said, stepping forward, ‘I’m sure what happened in the garden was an accident.’

  Shifty eyes hinted that it perhaps wasn’t entirely accidental, but Anna chose to ignore it.

  ‘At least I’m sure you never meant to hurt me. Sometimes when we hear something we don’t like we react in a way we can’t control.’

  Miss Fortescue nodded as if in agreement, still unable to meet Anna’s eye.

  ‘I won’t summon the magistrate—in fact, I will let you leave here with no further consequences to your actions, if you answer a couple of questions truthfully,’ Harry said, his voice stern. ‘If you refuse to answer or lie to me then I will need to reconsider what I do about the incident in the garden.’

  Smoothing down her skirts, Miss Fortescue motioned for him to continue.

  ‘I understand you dislike Lady Fortescue and have done since she first married your father.’

  ‘Yes,’ Miss Fortescue answered, her voice quiet but clear.

  ‘Why?’ Anna asked the question before Harry could continue, realising she had many theories on the reasons her stepchildren hated her so much, but no definite answers.

  For a few seconds she didn’t think Miss Fortescue would answer, but then a petulant mumble came from her mouth, a cascade of reasons why she’d disliked her father’s new wife from the moment they’d met.

  ‘My mother had been dead less than six months when you seduced my father. You’re six months younger than me, it’s disgusting, and we all know you only married my father for his title and his money.’

  Most of what Miss Fortescue said was true. Anna had married Lord Fortescu
e when he should still have been in mourning for his first wife, but it hadn’t been her choice. What Miss Fortescue didn’t know, and Anna was certainly not going to tell her stepdaughter now, was that her father and Anna’s father had met to discuss a possible marriage before the first Lady Fortescue had passed away, when she was lying sick in her deathbed.

  ‘We women are not often lucky enough to choose our own fates,’ Anna said quietly. ‘I did not ask to marry your father, did not even know who he was before the arrangement was made.’

  Miss Fortescue looked away rather than acknowledge the truth in Anna’s words.

  ‘What do you think you will gain by sending me those horrible packages?’ Anna asked softly.

  ‘What packages?’

  Just like her brothers there was no hint of guilt on Miss Fortescue’s face, just a look of mild confusion.

  ‘Never mind,’ Anna said. ‘I wish you a safe journey, Antonia.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Anna pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and shivered. It was a beautiful sunny day, but still early in spring and the sunshine couldn’t make up for the crisp bite of the April air.

  After ensuring the Fortescues had all been escorted from his property Harry had gone to check on the rest of his guests, promising Anna he would slip away as soon as possible and come meet her here in the formal gardens. His voice had brokered no argument when he’d insisted they needed to talk further, and Anna found she couldn’t be angry with his authoritarian tone as she agreed they should discuss the events of the morning.

  Watching two blackbirds tapping at the grass with their beaks, Anna sank back on to the stone bench, allowing her body to relax. When she had been married to Lord Fortescue she had got into the practice of always sitting straight, never slouching, even when she was alone, just in case her husband surprised her and found her in a position he did not approve of. It was a hard habit to break, but slowly Anna was finding she could will her body to relax if she reminded herself no one would ever again reprimand her for sitting comfortably.