Hadrian

by Grace Burrowes

  And then the first thread of courage had trickled through her, the first drop of rage. “I refused to faint,” Avis said, her voice stronger. “I refused to leave my sister alone with him like that, but I was fainting, and then I heard another rip—my bodice—and he laughed again and said something about my breasts.”

  “Do you recall what he said?”

  “I couldn’t hear him at first.” She rested her forehead against Hadrian’s sternum. “He grabbed at me, at my breasts, and that meant I could breathe for a moment. He hurt me, bruised me, and the pain helped me not faint, but then I caught Alex’s gaze. Hadrian, she had a knife.”

  Fenwick typically wore a knife, but not until that moment had Avis realized why the sight of it made her uneasy.

  “You’re sure?”

  “She was younger than I, less of a useless lady, and she carried one in her riding boot. She was advancing on Collins, murder in her eyes, and I’ve never seen anything so frightening as my baby sister bent on taking a life.”

  “She did not kill him.”

  “No.” Avis said it very softly, and for Alex’s sake, Avis rejoiced in that answer. “No, she did not. As much as it pains me to know my sister saw me assaulted, at least she did not take a life.”

  “She escaped.”

  In some regards, Alexandra had escaped. In others, she’d sentenced herself to banishment, to the south and to spinsterhood.

  “Collins sensed her movement. Right as he would have spotted her, I shook my head at her, and she must have read the desperation in my eyes. She did what I wanted her to do instead.”

  “Which was?”

  “The latch on the cottage was old-fashioned, the simplest mechanism, but it worked on two sides of the door, two latches, really. We were locked in, but all it took was something slender inserted between the door and the jamb to lift the outside latch, and because we had brothers, Alex had the knack of it. She used her knife to lift the latch and pelted right into Collins’s group of accomplices.”

  “What did Collins do?”

  “Hit me again. And raped me.”

  * * *

  Confession might be good for the soul, but it was hell for the hearts of all involved. Hadrian didn’t have to be a former vicar to know that.

  “Tell me exactly what happened, Avie.”

  Had Hadrian not been soothing himself tactilely with his hands on her naked body, not been reassuring himself that Avis was real and whole in his arms, he could not have asked that question. Her recitation battered his faith in a benevolent God, and how much more must it buffet her?

  “I don’t want to say the words.”

  She’d spare him those words, daft woman. Hadrian’s hands stilled, and his courage damned near deserted him, until he recalled all the missteps, wantonness, and maliciousness attributed to Avis, and by the very people who ought to have shown her compassion.

  “You need to say the words, love. I need to hear them, and you need to say them. You haven’t said these words once in twelve years, and yet, within you, they’re never entirely silent.”

  “Nobody wants to hear them. They’re ugly.” Her tone confirmed that she believed these words made her ugly, and hopeless, and eternally ashamed.

  “What happened to you is ugly. You are glorious.”

  She was silent for a moment, as if weathering yet another blow. “I’ll tell you this once, but then you must not ask it of me again.”

  Hadrian was demanding, not asking. “Tell me.”

  He resumes his caresses, his hands wandering over her face as well, mapping her features and trying desperately to fortify her with tenderness.

  “He poked at me, between my legs, and as horrid as the entire situation was, because my belly had been aching, that made it even worse. I was on my back, on the table, and he stood between my legs, jabbing at me. I could hear him as if from a distance, and he was cursing me, telling me I was selfish, and stupid, and no man would want a great cow of a girl like me, and how was he to get sons on such a brittle, mewling stick, and it hurt as if he were stabbing at me blindly, Hadrian.”

  “How did he touch you?”

  “Between my legs,” she said, her breath hitching. “He jabbed at me even as he was cursing me, and he squeezed my breasts, one after the other, hard. I wanted to faint then. I wanted to die.”

  Why hadn’t she wanted Hart Collins to die? Why had she never, ever allowed herself to wish for that? For Hadrian purely wanted to murder the bastard, slowly, after he’d subjected him to intimate, disfiguring violations—plural—before witnesses.

  “What ended this?” To the extent that it had ended.

  “Alex got away. She clambered onto a horse and made a dash for it, and she must have made it as far as the home wood before she was tossed. The men outside yelled for Collins to get the hell on his horse.”

  A man could hurt a woman intimately without entirely destroying her innocence, but Avie’s recitation was not yet complete.

  “Did Collins set his clothing to rights?”

  “He couldn’t, not properly.” She rose up enough to peer down at him in puzzlement, her forearm pressing against his chest. “He’d torn off some buttons in his haste to sin, and he cursed vilely when he got my blood on his clothes.”

  Why would a man triumphant from despoiling his intended curse? “Did you see his member?”

  “I did and I recall wanting to laugh, for it was the oddest-looking little dangle of flesh I’d ever seen. I’d spied on my brothers, of course, but never at such close range, and not for years. Then I realized I must be mad, to laugh at anything ever again, no matter how bitterly—and I did not care that I was mad. I also did not laugh.”

  She settled back down against him. “Gran Carruthers explained to me, years later, that a man will be stiff when he’s in the act and soft immediately after.”

  Hadrian made silent promises to his beloved that in addition to inspiring her to passion, some day he’d inspire her to laughter—real laughter, the healing kind.

  “Dangle of flesh, Avie?”

  She buried her nose against his chest, blushing the blush of all blushes, judging by the heat next to Hadrian’s skin. “Like a small boy. Not like you.”

  Hadrian shifted to kiss her temple, because Avis knew more than she grasped. “He had your blood on his clothes?”

  “From when he’d tried to button up,” Avis explained. “His fingers were bloody—I could smell the blood along with the spirits he reeked of—and it was like the musty smell, and his slaps, and all the other unpleasantness. The scent helped me not faint.”

  Unpleasantness.

  “His fingers were bloody,” Hadrian reiterated. “Think carefully, Avie. Was his cock bloody?”

  He felt the shift in her, felt the first, piercing light of truth dawn, and then she began to cry.

  “Not his—not that part,” she got out. “You’re saying he jabbed at me with his fingers, not his—only his damned infernal fingers.”

  “You were violated just the same,” Hadrian said, and in a way, it was worse that Avie had suffered confusion as well as assault, though perhaps the courts wouldn’t have termed such an attack. “Though excessive drink might have been responsible for the fact that he was unable to violate you with the part of him that could have got a child on you.”

  Or a terrible, fatal, disfiguring disease and a child.

  First came a hitch of her shoulders, a crack in her emotional dam, and then she cried in silent, wracking sobs. Finally, she succumbed to the noisy, undignified tears of great grief.

  Through it all, Hadrian held her and prayed that knowing the truth of what had happened—parsing through it deliberately, searching for facts and conclusions she’d not been strong enough or well informed enough to face alone—would contribute to her peace more profoundly than all the kindly silences she’d endured in the past twelve years.

  “I must be heavy.” Her voice was husky with tears.

  “You are perfect.” But when she levered off of
him, Hadrian let her go—difficult as that was.

  “We’ve tarried up here too long,” Avis said, dragging the sleeves of her dress up over her arms. “I hope you can do something with my hair, Hadrian. I can’t present myself looking like this.”

  Hadrian sat up, abruptly hating the dress, and hating worse Avis’s prosaic tone of voice. “This changes everything, my dear.”

  “It changes nothing.” Avis wiggled her bodice into order with alarming detachment. “I was a fallen woman this morning, I’m a fallen woman now, except that you’ve at least shown me what pleasure there is to be had in my lapse and helped me clarify a few details of my past. Have you seen my pocket comb?”

  He passed it to her, trying to think around the frustration roaring through him.

  “Avie, this hasn’t been just a pleasant dalliance between a pair of sophisticated adults out to ease their mutual boredom. You offend me, God, and yourself if you imply that.”

  Avis set the comb to the side. “Perhaps I’ll offend Him less do I finish dressing, for you seem disinclined to put yourself to rights.”

  Enough was enough. “Avis Portmaine, this role sits ill with you. I can understand that you’re upset, and you deserve time to find your balance, but I took your virginity, and I will see the matter put to rights.”

  “The matter?” Her tone was curious, merely curious, but in her eyes, Hadrian saw something indecipherable and pained. “There is no matter, Hadrian. All the world thought me unchaste before this, now I am unchaste in truth. Reality has become consistent with perception. You’ll have to do up my dress.”

  Fuck your dress.

  “I wasn’t Rue’s first,” Hadrian said through gritted teeth. “I’ll be damned if the only woman to allow me to be her first will yawn and stroll down the hill without at least promising me she’ll honor our betrothal. I don’t care if you want a perpetual engagement, or you set a date five years hence, Avis. In some fashion, you will acknowledge that we belong to each other.”

  That little confession at least got her attention.

  “I’m sorry, Hadrian,” she said, her tone softening. “You made a betrothal announcement without my permission. I am under no obligation to—”

  He assembled his attire, his movements jerky as he rooted among the clothes and blankets.

  “What’s this?” He held up a small piece of paper that certainly hadn’t fallen from his pockets.

  “That is mine!” Avis tried to snatch the note from him, but he had it in a firm grasp. The look on her face wasn’t polite, or indifferent, or even sad. It was desperate, into the nearer reaches of unhinged.

  He surrendered her property to her rather than endure the sight of her torment.

  “I suspect whatever is in that note affects us both, Avie, as much as what happened on this blanket has affected us both. I’m asking you to share this burden with me.”

  The day was surpassingly beautiful, but Hadrian endured a taste of hell when Avis turned from him. As a vicar, he’d learned to deal in platitudes and appearances, and maybe a better gentleman than he would accede to whatever drove Avis now.

  He could not accede, could not accommodate, could not pretend.

  Perhaps Avis could no longer pretend, either. She put her face in her hands for a long moment, the picture of feminine torment.

  “Avie, you’ve endured undeserved misery and injustice, year after year, and I cannot bear that you should endure it alone any longer.” He reached toward her, but let his hand drop rather than inflict an unwelcome touch on her. “Avie, I am begging you. What is in that note?”

  She raised her face from her hands, her expression blank and eerily reminiscent of the morning Hadrian had found her after Collins’s assault.

  “I had intended to betray you, you know,” she said. “I’d trade on your affection for me, exorcise a demon or two, then set you free. I would use you. When you demanded a recounting from me, I should have refused, but I used you for that too.”

  Collins had used her. Hadrian could see her drawing the parallel. He brushed her hair back over her shoulder when he wanted to lash his arms around her.

  “Collins was a selfish monster, my lady. You are hurting and overwhelmed, and you have every right to be furious, but you have used no one.”

  She smoothed the note flat against her skirt.

  “I intended to use you, and for that I apologize. Despite my behavior this morning, I care for you very much, Hadrian Bothwell. Please recall, on some future night when you regret your public declaration bitterly, when you loathe the memory of this day, that I tried to spare you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Avis passed Hadrian the bit of foolscap. She’d been to the sea as a child, stood in the frigid surf and been pounded by roaring, unstoppable waves, one after the other, and even the might of the ocean did not compare to the emotions swamping her now.

  Relief was among them. Relief, to know the exact metes and bounds of Hart Collins’s crime, and a towering satisfaction, to learn that he’d had to resort to an improvised and imperfect sort of violation. As consolations went, that ought not to have mattered, but to grasp exactly what had happened, to sort causes and effects, had unknotted all manner of anxieties.

  Another wave slapped her with grief, for the ignorant girl she’d been, for the precious, tenacious friendship Hadrian offered, friendship she had trespassed on as far as she could stand to.

  Shame swirled through her too, because she’d planned this assignation with cold calculation, the way a master of hounds assesses footing, distance, and speed when approaching an obstacle on horseback. She’d intended to use Hadrian’s attentions to vault over some yawning emotional incompleteness, and then gallop on her way.

  As Hart Collins had galloped off. The comparison nearly choked her.

  Sheer mortification lurked beneath the surface too, because even Hadrian should not have to know the intimate details of what had transpired twelve years ago—more of the details.

  And rage. She was well and truly ruined, had been for years, but the day’s developments revealed to her a fraction of the joy and pleasure her ruination had denied her.

  None of which was Hadrian Bothwell’s fault.

  She waited while Hadrian read the note, but being Hadrian, he had to read it aloud.

  Tell Bothwell that marriage to the whore of Cumberland will make his family’s title a laughingstock and Landover synonymous with debauchery and sin—assuming he survives the ordeal.

  “Where did you find this?” His tone was clipped to within a hairsbreadth of murder.

  “Can you at least put on some clothes while we discuss it?” At least cover up the bounty Avis would never plunder again?

  She added a perverse gratitude to her list of emotions—gratitude that she’d plundered Hadrian’s treasures once—for grief and gratitude were sides of the same coin.

  “Help me,” he said, holding up his shirt. “I’ve breeches somewhere in this mess.”

  Silently, they got him put to rights, and then Avis sat with her back to him so he could do up her hooks. She presumed further by using the pocket comb on his hair, but didn’t ask Hadrian to tend to her similarly.

  “Where did you find this note, Avie?” How stern he sounded, the wrath of God come to Cumberland.

  “In my sitting room when we returned from church.”

  “You’ve carried that note around for two days?” The rest of the question hung in the crisp afternoon air: Without telling me?

  “I’ve received other notes,” she said, finger-combing her hair into three skeins. “I doubt it will be the last.”

  His brows knit, suggesting even the wrath of God was subject to puzzlement. “Is the handwriting the same as the others?”

  Her hair was a right disaster. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The handwriting on this one.” Hadrian fussed with his cuff-links when Avis knew he wanted to bellow and shout and stomp about. “Was it the same as the others?”

  “I don’t—well, ye
s, the same as some of the others, as best I recall.”

  “You’ve a bloody collection?”

  Bloody, from Hadrian Bothwell—though his word choice was apt. “Yes, Hadrian, I do. A collection going back years.”

  “Oh, Avie.” The wrath and sternness went out of him, replaced by sorrow? Disappointment? Very likely, the emotional seas buffeted him too.

  His arms came around her and he knelt up, folding his body over hers.

  “You haven’t said a word to your brothers, have you, or to Harold, or the magistrate?”

  His embrace felt heavenly, but his protectiveness would be his undoing. “What is the point? Advertising these notes would only serve to further my shame.”

  He should have repaired to his side of the blanket, and then disappeared down the hillside. Hadrian was bright. The magnitude of the mess that was Avis’s life would soon become apparent to him.

  And yet, his arms were still around her, and the damned tears crowded Avis’s throat again.

  “Hadrian, I can’t—You shouldn’t feel as if…” A shudder passed through her, the result of tears that would not remain unshed.

  “No more of this nonsense, Avie,” Hadrian admonished as he lay back and drew her against his side. “No more bearing up heroically on your own, no more keeping secrets, no more soldiering on to protect everyone else’s sensibilities. You have me now, and I will be damned if you’ll push me away again.”

  Stubborn, awful, wonderful man. “But that note—”

  “Threatens my life,” Hadrian finished for her, proving he’d comprehended every vile word. “And obliterates your right to happiness as my wife. As a work of nastiness, it’s brilliant. You will show me the others, and we’ll find the culprit and lay information.”

  “Being nasty isn’t a crime.” They would not lay information.

  “Threatening a man’s life might be,” Hadrian countered. “Publishing lies regarding a woman’s good name surely is.”

  “They aren’t lies. I’m not chaste, and nobody would have believed me had I insisted I was before today.”

  Hadrian gently shut her jaw with one finger. “That is a matter for another argument, Avie Portmaine. You will honor our betrothal now more than ever, for somebody means you harm in your own home. You need the protection my name can afford.”