by Nina Mason
Louisa smirked. “To find a husband?”
“To be sure. For what else have we to do but marry well?”
“Very true,” Louisa agreed with distaste, “though I have not come to make a match, as I am already engaged.” She saw no need to mention that she was in fact betrothed to two different men about whom she felt very differently.
“Pray, is your intended anyone I might know?”
Louisa tried very hard to keep her countenance as she made her reply. “Are you at all acquainted with Lord Charles Hillsworth, the Earl of Glastonbury?”
The girl’s eyes brightened. “I am indeed…and, if I may say so, you have made an excellent catch. For he is to inherit his uncle’s estate as well as his late father’s, is he not?”
“His uncle is my father,” Louisa told her, “who has arranged our marriage against my objections.”
Confusion overtook Miss Walpole’s features. “But what is there to object to? For Lord Hillsworth is not only rich, but also handsome and charming—in a roguish kind of way, admittedly—but is that not the best way possible? For it is common knowledge that reformed rogues make the very best sort of husbands.”
“If such a belief indeed exists,” Louisa said curtly, “I have never heard of it. Nor do I agree with the notion that a bad man’s character can be improved through wedlock, especially when it is the husband, not the wife, who holds the whip hand in marriage.”
“You are right, of course…but I still should like to know how it feels to be seduced by a knave the likes of Mr. Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility. How charming he was—until he broke poor Marianne’s heart, of course. After that, I did not like him at all. What say you, Miss Bennet?—or have you not read the book of which I speak?”
This started a discussion of the book that lasted until Georgie returned from her hunt for Miss Nicholson. The bloodlessness of her sister’s face and the fact she’d come back alone made Louisa fear her sister had found Miss Nicholson broken and bleeding at the foot of the stairs.
As soon as Georgie reclaimed the seat beside her, Louisa, forgetting Miss Walpole, asked very hushedly, “What has happened, dearest, to make you so discomposed?”
“I will tell you later,” Georgie whispered hoarsely in reply. “Somewhere we cannot be overheard.”
When tea was over, the dancing resumed. As the hour grew late, the company began to disperse. Finally, Louisa had sufficient space to resume her search for Theo. Arm-in-arm with Georgie, she circled the ballroom, losing more hope with every new turn.
By the time Charles appeared to claim the last dance, Louisa had given up all hope of being rescued tonight. The final set was a waltz, which her cousin performed admirably—though not without his hands wandering to areas she would have preferred they did not.
On the ride home, he insisted upon sitting so close to her he wrinkled her new dress, which had miraculously survived the crowded ball unmolested. At one point, he kissed her cheek and then said, to Miss Nicholson of all people, “Have I not caught a pretty bride for myself?”
The secretary, who had reappeared after tea with no explanation for her absence, looked exceedingly put out. Louisa understood her reaction no better than she did the point of her cousin’s taunt.
When they arrived back at The Paragon, Louisa tried to exit with the other ladies, but Charles kept a tight hold on her wrist. Pulling her back down beside him, he waited until the others had gone inside before pushing her down on the seat. Bringing his mouth very close to hers, he said, “Kiss me, my dear cousin, or I shall chuck your mother and sisters out on the street the moment your father drops dead.”
Appalled and afraid, she turned her face away in refusal “I will grant you no such liberty, as I strongly suspect you have every intention of chucking them out whatever I do.”
Charles, angered by her rebuff, gripped her face between his fingers and forcefully pressed his lips against hers.
“Get off me,” she cried, beating her fists against him. “Get off me before I scream.”
He withdrew his lips, but kept his face very close. “You clicketed that low-life sailor, didn’t you? That’s right, I know all about your sordid affair, you cuckolding whore. I shall marry you anyway—because I am determined to have the whip hand over you—but know this: if you bear his bastard, I shall drown the brat in the horse trough and throw its carcass to my hounds.” He released a chilling laugh before adding, “It seems my dogs have developed a fondness for human flesh, having lately had a taste of your lover’s.”
His remark set Louisa’s heart and mind to racing. Charles made it sound as if he’d set his dogs on Theo—but, in her frantic state of mind, she could not work out how or where such an attack might have occurred. Rather than ask, she spit in her cousin’s face. “I hate you, you swine. I have always hated you. And I would rather marry a beggar with no more to his name than the rags on his back than a heartless monster like you!”
Charles clamped his hands around her throat and forced her head into the crack between the seat and window. “But it is not up to you, is it? It is up to me—and I care no more about your feelings than those of the animals I used to torture in front of you. In a week, you shall be mine to do with as I please—even share you with my friends. I have invited some of them to join us on our wedding night. Would you like to know what I have in mind?”
Having read Fanny Hill, she could guess well enough. “I have no wish to hear anything you have to say on any subject.”
The second he let her go, she bolted from the carriage and into the house. Heart hammering, she ran up the stairs as fast as her satin slippers permitted. Upon reaching the semi-safety of her bedchamber, she slammed and locked the door before dissolving into a puddle of silk and sorrow.
She could not, would not marry Charles whether Theo came for her or not. She just needed to come up with a plan that included where she might go and how she might survive. Perhaps she could find work as a seamstress, milliner, or plaiter of straw hats and bonnets—provided those who employed such people would overlook her lack of experience.
Georgie, already in her dressing gown, ran to where Louisa had collapsed on the carpet. Dropping to her knees, she wrapped her arms around her sister’s shoulders. “Dearest Lou-Lou, whatever is the matter? Why are you crying? What has happened to upset you so?”
“Ch-Ch-Charles,” was all Louisa could manage to get out between sobs.
Georgie held her tighter. “What did he say? What did he do?”
Much as Louisa wanted to bare her soul, she thought better of burdening her sister with the sordid details of the exchange. It would only upset her to know what Charles was like when there was naught she could do to help her. Nobody could help her now but Theo, wherever he might be.
Sniffing back her tears, Louisa said, “We quarreled in the carriage. About nothing of importance. And I am just behaving like an over-emotional bride-to-be.”
“You forget, sister, how well I know your disposition,” Georgie told her. “You rarely shed a tear over anything—let alone matters of no importance. But take heart, dearest Louisa, for your Captain will come. Of that, I have no doubt.”
“I only wish I could be as sure,” Louisa said with a sigh. “I had so hoped to see him at the ball tonight…which reminds me, what happened to unnerve you so while you were hunting for Miss Nicholson?”
Her sister inhaled deeply, as if to gather her courage, peaking Louisa’s curiosity all the more. “I found her…but not alone. She was with Charles, discussing their agreement to install her as his mistress after he marries you.”
Georgie covered her eyes and woefully cried, “Oh, Louisa, it was all so ghastly and so shocking, I knew not what to think—except that what they were discussing was wrong. So very, very wrong and wicked.”
So, Charles had been clicketing Miss Nicolson. And that explained why she so often sang his praises and gave him longing looks when she believed herself unobserved. It also accounted for his teasing in the carriage. Clearly, h
e exploited her attachment to cause her pain and amuse himself.
Just as he will do to me after we are married—if it comes to that. And how dearly I pray it will not!
Louisa drew a deep breath and blew it out. However hard she tried to evict from her mind the threats her cousin made in the carriage, she could not seem to block them out. Neither could she forget his odd aside about his dogs acquiring a taste for human flesh.
Now that she was in a better state of mind to reason out his remark, she could see only two ways Charles’s dogs could have bitten her Captain. The first was that Charles took his dogs to Greystone Hall to confront his rival; the second, that her cousin’s dogs bit Theo when he came looking for her at Midsomer Park.
And if Theo had been to Somerset, he must have gone there looking for her, which meant he might yet find her in time.
Twenty
When Charles invited Louisa to take a stroll with him the next morning after breakfast, she feared he meant to mistreat her. To avoid being alone with him, she looked across the table at Georgie, who was sopping up the egg yolk on her plate with a piece of toast. “Why do you not come with us, sister dear? It is very fine out today…and the fresh air and exercise will do us both a world of good.”
Georgie swallowed her food and opened her mouth to say something, but before she could get the words out, Aunt Hildegarde interjected with a painted-on smile, “I have plans for Georgianna this morning, so she is quite unable to accept your kind invitation.”
“Who, then, shall go with us?” Louisa asked, forcing the question through her thickening throat. “For you know as well as I that we shall raise eyebrows if seen walking out of doors unchaperoned.”
“While I applaud your concern for the proprieties,” her aunt replied, “seeing as your wedding date is so near, I cannot imagine any real harm will be done.”
Not to my reputation, perhaps, but very likely to my person!
“What about Miss Nicholson? Cannot you spare her long enough to accompany us?”
Yes, the tension would be as thick as the porridge in front of her, but she would gladly endure any level of awkwardness to avoid being at her cousin’s mercy.
“Miss Nicholson has work to do,” was the Dowager’s succinct and definitive reply.
“My Dear Louisa,” Charles smarmily inserted, “I am beginning to suspect you disfavor my company—which, I shall not scruple to assert, wounds me deeply.”
Louisa met his gaze across the table. “How perceptive you are. Have you also discerned that I would rather be burned alive than be your wife?”
Charles nearly choked on his bacon. When she smiled at his distress, her aunt brought her fist down on the table with a force that rattled the dishes.
“Insolent girl! How dare you speak to my son—and your future husband—with such disrespect! You will marry him—and accept his invitation—whether you like it or not. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, aunt.” Louisa lowered her gaze to her porridge, which was growing colder, thicker, and more unappetizing by the moment.
“Good,” the Dowager returned in triumph. “Now, apologize to your betrothed this minute.”
With poison in her heart, Louisa looked across at Charles. As their gazes collided, she could see the spite burning in his eyes. She opened her mouth to say what she must, but could not bring herself to speak against her convictions. After a few silent moments spent constructing an apology acceptable to her and her aunt, she said to him, “Forgive my rudeness. It was impolite of me to speak to you so frankly.”
With a leaden heart, she lifted a spoonful of porridge to her mouth and forced herself to swallow. Although she felt no hunger, she needed to do something to hide her distress. Elsewise, he would see the power he held over her and use it to his advantage—the same way her father did.
As soon as the meal was finished, Louisa left the table. Charles wasted no time bringing her bonnet and cape, which she miserably put on before taking his arm. Without delay, he whisked her out of the house and onto the cobbled sidewalk fronting the building.
They walked past the stately homes occupying the several blocks from Paragon Street to the Royal Crescent and across the road to the Gravel Walk. All the while, they made insipid small talk Louisa could scarcely bear.
The footpath was sheltered by garden walls on one side and tall trees on the other. After a time, she gathered the courage to ask Charles something she’d wonder about for some time past. “Why do you want to marry a woman who holds you in contempt? You obviously have no more affection for me than I have for you, so what compelled you to make the match?”
He put his gloved hand on hers. “Since you asked, I chose you to be my wife for three different reasons. Firstly, you are beautiful, and having a beautiful wife will make me the envy of other men. Secondly, having mastery over someone who despises me excites me more than I can say. And lastly, though by no means leastly, my mother desires me to marry you for the benefit of your family. And, since I pride myself upon being a dutiful son, I could not disregard her wishes as easily as you ignored your father’s.”
Appalled by his remarks, she jerked her arm from his and turned back toward Paragon Street. Before she got above three steps away, he grabbed her, spun her around, and greeted her startled look with a threatening grin. “None of that now, darling, or I shall be forced to bring you to heel.”
Gripping her upper arm with painful force, he dragged her back toward the path. Seething with anger, she fought in vain against his pull. “Why have you brought me on this walk? What do you mean to do to me?”
“I will confess no more than this: I have given more thought to what we discussed last night and have made a new plan.”
Louisa did not know what he meant, nor did she wish to. Digging in her heels, she halted his progress and, as he turned to berate her, she slapped his face with all the force she could muster.
Eyes wide with shock and rage, he brought his free hand to the pink handprint she’d left on his cheek. Then, his eyes darkened, his jaw clenched, and his lips flattened into a puckered line.
“You bitch,” he hissed like the snake he was. “You will pay dearly for that little act of defiance.”
Rather than hit her as expected, he lifted her off her feet and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The ease with which he did this struck fear into her heart. She was vastly outmatched in strength. If he tried to force himself on her, she would never be able to fight him off.
Still, she would not surrender without a fight. She kicked her legs wildly and pounded her fists on his back. This, to her dismay, only provoked him to spank her hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. He swatted her again as he carried her toward a thicket of trees.
Finding a secluded spot, he set her on her feet and pinned her back against the trunk of a large tree. As he loomed over her, his forced kiss flashed through her mind. She tried to free herself from his grip, but could not break his hold on her. Then, with a dastardly laugh, he stepped back and drove his fist into her abdomen.
“That was for good measure,” was all he said before seating himself on a nearby bench.
As she watched him, loathing bubbled up inside her like trapped air in a stagnant pond. On the surface, a swan flapped about in the struggle for flight. That swan was her hope that Theo would save her from a lifetime in hell with this spawn of the devil.
* * * *
Upon returning from her outing with Charles, Louisa ran upstairs to her room, glad for once her sister was not within. She was in no mood to be interrogated about why she was so upset. Even if she did feel like talking, she could not explain what happened without revealing that she might be carrying the Captain’s child.
As usual, the bed is piled with pillows. In a fit of despair, she threw them all at the wall. She was livid with everyone: Charles for trying to abort her unborn child; Aunt Hildegarde for giving him the opportunity to abuse her; her father for bullying her into marrying that pig; and herself for leaving Gr
eystone Hall after Theo asked her to stay.
He said he had a bad feeling. Why did she not listen? If she had, she would be happy now instead of more miserable than she’d ever been in her life.
She picked up one of the pillows and hugged it to her. She felt barren inside. Barren, broken, and bleak. When tears welled in her eyes, she forbade them to fall. If she swallowed her pain, as she had all her life, the bitterness would gradually lessen. Eventually, it would become no more than the unpleasant aftertaste of a poison she’d been forced to ingest, yet had miraculously survived.
The thought engendered another even darker one. She would kill herself. If Theo did not come before the wedding, she would put on her gown, as expected. But, instead of going to the church to marry Charles, she would drink a cup of tea laced with Arsenic. There was a bottle in the pantry the servants used to kill rodents.
She could see it all now. They would find her in her on the bed in her wedding gown. She would leave a note, explaining why she’d done it. That way, her father would know he’d driven her to suicide by refusing to take her love for Theo seriously!
There were, of course, other options less dramatic than killing herself. She could run away and look for work, for instance. Not that it would be easy to support herself and a child on the pittances earned by waitrettes, laundresses, and shop girls—or that any respectable establishment would hire a single woman in the family way.
Would a disrespectable one take her on? Not a common brothel, but a pleasure-house patronized by wealthy and discerning clients. Like the one run by Mrs. Cole in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
After enduring her father’s beatings so stoically, she ought to be able to bear the physical affections of a few gentlemen of means. And while she might be prevailed upon to whip some of them from time to time (as Fanny Hill was), they would not be allowed to strike her without prior consent (which she would of course withhold, as she found no pleasure in being beaten).
