by Louisa Trent
“How so?”
“Tell me a little something about yourself, something that has yet to appear in the mud press. Now, there is a stellar evasion tactic. Conversation! I recommend you try it sometime. Far superior to hurling nebulous accusations at me as if I had some nefarious purpose in attending a book reading. You will still strip, mind you, for I possess the memory of an elephant and will not be gainsaid in this, but getting to know one another will delay your inevitable unveiling.”
“What shall I say, then? What is it you desire to hear? What is it you want from me?” Anything to avoid this ridiculousness. “Perhaps I should relate to you my views on Dorothy Woodhull’s free-love movement or my beliefs on suffrage, labor reform, Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto…” She hung her head. “How about abortion? I could expound on that subject for hours, the illegal methods available, both herbal and otherwise. I did some recent research…”
“You did not abort your child. You took nothing, used nothing, did nothing to end its life. Your baby died of natural causes.”
“I willed it away. Do you hear me? I did! It was an embarrassment, a humiliation. It shamed me.”
“Not an it, madam. A baby, one you loved. Perhaps not initially, but clearly you did later, after adjusting to the pregnancy. You pleaded with me to do anything to keep him or her growing inside you. Furthermore, if a person’s will, regardless of how strong or constant, could change a circumstance, then I would walk without a limp. But we are not in charge of the universe, madam, and neither strength of will nor an abundance of wishes will make something so. If you feel the need to control events, then I strongly suggest you return to your writing, for only there may you play God.” He took a deep breath. “The ability to create order in a disordered world is a writer’s single solace and the only currency worthy of an author’s labor and devotion. Use it to mend.”
But that ability was lost to her. She could not write, not anymore. “Clearly, sir, you do not wish to hear the uncomfortably ugly things I have to say here. Then what? What is your interest?”
“Do not be difficult. I already defined my interest in you by telling you to remove your clothing. I am interested in seeing your form, your shape. I will confess to being inordinately fond of titties, and I should adore seeing yours.”
He clapped his hands, as though he were ordering a spoiled poodle to perform a trick. “Now, madam, we have chatted, and I am tired of waiting. Go on! Strip, like a good little wifey. You may leave on your stockings and garters. Also, the shoes. I do approve of those gold buckles at the toe, and the shoes’ adorable heels.”
“You really expect me to obey like the snap of two fingers?”
For demonstration purposes, she tried to click two digits together, but their clamminess prevented the snap.
What a failure she was. Lost her lover, her baby, her self-respect. Lost the ability to write. She could not even snap two fingers together and make a sound.
Her chin sank to her chest.
Even then, he did not let her be.
“You obeyed your father and married me, madam. Obedience comes naturally to you. I would even be so bold as to suggest you have a submissive streak, despite your rhetoric about women’s equality. Start with your basque.”
Her head jerked back up, and she glared at him. “You actually intend for me to go through with this charade? Why I never…”
“This I know. And without your needing to tell me. I am well aware Robert McDougal lacked the erotic imagination to play sex games. Strip,” he hollered.
“Only as a means to avoid intercourse.”
“The same applies here.”
She frowned. “You do not customarily…er…partake of congress?”
“I prefer watching. Does that scandalize you?”
“As I am presently embroiled in disgrace, I have grown inured to the concept of scandal. And you do not frighten me.” Ha! Her heart pounded in her chest. Her unsnapped fingers dripped perspiration. The prospect of dispensing with her clothes in front of him terrified her.
Though…the thought of playing erotic games did interest her. But how had he known about Robert’s lack of interest in such pursuits?
No way to know unless she asked.
“Do you know my lover, sir? Do you know where he lives?”
“No and no.”
“Then how can you presume to know what Robert McDougal liked to do?”
“Merely a hypothesis. And he is your former lover. Please to correct that pertinent fact in your thoughts. That he ran rather than wed you shows a sublime lack of intelligence. A deficit of intelligence correlates with a deficit of imagination, especially in sexual matters. Ergo, Robert McDougal did not play bedroom games with you.”
“Whereas you are brilliant.”
“Thank you. Let us just say I am smart enough to teach you how to snap your fingers and you are smart enough to enjoy the exercise. Now, strip!”
Her belly was as flat as always. She had not been with child long enough for it to ever round. However, her nipples had darkened right after her monthlies would have come due and remained a dusty shade of pink. Would he notice their nonvirginal shade?
As to the rest of her, as she now regrettably recalled, he had practically had his longish nose up her privates. She had no secrets from him.
She started to giggle. The wine, her thoughts…the ludicrousness of all of this…contributing to her rising fit of hysteria.
Her fingers trembling not at all on the plain clasps, she undid the short jacket of her brown traveling suit, not a braid decoration or facing or fancy stitching to be seen anywhere.
Since becoming a published author, she eschewed bright colors and froufrou garnitures. She wanted to present herself to the world as someone far too serious-minded for fashion, so she dressed with professionalism in mind. Though she no longer wrote and so had no professionalism to promote, her wedding felt like a funeral, so why not dress the part? The crape and veiling of deep mourning would have been appropriate for the occasion. Only wishing to avoid further upsetting Papa had held her back from making that statement.
Just as well. Wearing black weeds was too obviously an insult to her husband. One had one’s pride, and one kept up appearances. On her wedding day, she had performed a lengthy toilette. Labored over each article of plain clothing she pulled on.
And would soon take off.
She held her removed jacket by its shoulder seam. “Where shall I dispose of this?”
“The floor will do.”
“But the garments will wrinkle.” Even to her own ears, she sounded peevish. But really, what could he expect? She was honestly trying for civility, a daunting task in light of his intense scrutiny and with her nerves pinging so.
His unblinking stare unbalanced her. For goodness’ sake, she was cooperating with his inspection of her. The very least he could do was look elsewhere until after she finished removing her attire.
“Sir, would you minimally turn away while I disrobe? It is the end result that matters, not the process.”
“A lot you know,” he said with a smirk and continued to brood on her.
“If your clothing suffers the treatment, the articles will be replaced,” he offered as she cast off her dark necktie and white blouse.
By whom would they be replaced?
Her father? Or Talbot Bowdoin himself?
Enlightening, if her husband would clarify.
She only knew this: a ruined wardrobe would not be replaced by her. She was without funds, having spent all her earnings from her first and only book on gifts.
To Robert.
She examined her shoes, the soft kid leather slightly dented at the left toe below the tarnished gold buckles. Quite expensive shoes they once were too before their ruination. She had been the same. Haughty and uncompromising and expensive to maintain.
Now who would maintain her? Would she be expected to survive on the pittance she had brought with her from home?
Mr. Bowdoin had not dis
cussed making her an allowance. They had not spoken much at all. By all appearances, he looked to be a man of some means—independent wealth apparently. Though, for all she knew, he did pass the time with some occupation. Not that she cared what he did, other than as to how it related to her. She much preferred making up his background.
A well-to-do gentleman farmer—that was it! She had seen things growing in the fields at the rear of his estate when they rode up the drive in his carriage from the train station. Oh, goody. Over dinner, they could discuss turnips.
She dropped the cast-off white blouse and dark tie to the floor and then allowed the walking skirt to fall. Covered only by her underpinnings, she stood there. Unable to continue. Completely and utterly stalled, much like a train with an obstinate cow on the tracks.
Chapter Eleven
“Proceed, Mrs. Bowdoin. Why do you hesitate?”
Why did he think?
She was no hussy. No courtesan. This was not something she did every day of the week and twice on Sunday. She’d had one lover and dearly paid the price for straying from the straight and narrow.
She was neither straight nor narrow any longer. Her reputation had gone crooked and her brief pregnancy had altered her body, turning her formerly girlish figure womanly. Wider of hip, rounder of bottom, heavier of breast, she was far from narrow now. Her waistline and face had thinned, along with her arms and legs, lending her a mature rather than a coltish look. But what did she care if her husband approved of the changes, if he found her attractive?
Nothing mattered to her anymore.
Except doing what she must to appease him. After all, she owed him a debt. He had paid for her, not with money, but with a change of name, which turned out to be counterfeit.
The joke, as they say, was on her. And as she had not the strength to bristle over the pie in her face, she would simply lap it up and, as he so sordidly put it, strip off.
She subscribed to a more natural form. Even so, her close-fitting bodice had required a boned, Cuirass corset. The longer length of the undergarment in front contributed to a smoother silhouette all around.
And soon he would see that silhouette ungarbed.
But not quite yet.
As a sensible woman interested in her gender’s reform, she placed functionality and good health above beauty. A sturdy corset cover guarded the Cuirass corset against soil and perspiration…and a man’s unblinking stare.
“Here on out, when I allow you to wear a corset, which will be rare, you will don one sans sensible cover. Furthermore, no more basic cottons and linens. I expect to see you clad in pretty fabric, silks, and satins, skin out. And colors. Vibrant crimson and fertile greens.”
“I am no longer as green as once I was nor as fertile either. But wearing red does make sense. Perhaps I could get a scarlet tattoo. Not a scarlet A of course, as my sin was not adultery, but something similar. Perhaps a scarlet S for slut.”
“Self-pity is a not a sympathetic trait, madam.”
“Neither is conceit a handsome one, sir.”
“I plead guilty there.” He shrugged. “Luckily, character flaws only make a man more interesting.”
“While they force a woman to leave town.”
“Touché! My point was, lest you missed it in our convivial exchange—no more drabs for you, madam. I can afford to see you properly decked out. On the morrow, we go shopping for new clothes. One never knows who might see you.”
“Only you,” she protested.
“As I say, one never knows.”
“How dare you impugn my honor, sir. I am undeserving of your defamation. I coupled with only one man.”
“Tsk-tsk! Only one? Hardly worthy of a scarlet tattoo, then. No less than a hundred lovers qualifies there.”
“I loved him, only him.”
“Unlikely,” he shot back.
“Do not think to question my faithfulness. I am no cheat!”
“I never suggested you were, and fidelity was not what my ‘unlikely’ was directed to.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing,” he grumbled and changed the subject. “I have already admitted to an enjoyment of watching and that watching may include watching you with another man.” He paused. “Or men. I have the occasional yen for observing ménages.”
What had she gotten herself into?
“I can see my small vice has disturbed you. Inquiring over your new circumstances may help allay your fears. Ask away. I shall gladly answer your questions while you perform your wifely duty.”
She jumped at the chance to delay this abhorrence. “I should like to know about your household.”
He rose from his chair and leaned his haunches back against the rounded curve of the damask-covered table. “I winter in Boston, on Beacon Hill, and summer on the North Shore, here at Pride’s Crossing. Unlike all my neighbors, this home has not been in my family for generations. Linwood begins with me. Its seventeenth-century appearance is strictly nineteenth-century faux. I had it built only ten years ago.”
“How nice. A fraud facade just like your name,” she said and began to remove her underclothes.
“You certainly have a way with turning the screws, madam.”
She made him no denial. A slow and methodical torture was her specialty. Then again, she’d had plenty of practice. In her wicked imagination, she had built an effigy of this man. Each day, she ripped it apart. The image of his eviscerated entrails lying cut up and bleeding on the floor of her mind made her feel ever so much better. Another dark fantasy. If she were writing, she would rush to jot it down.
After the matter under contention—the cover—lay discarded on the floor alongside the rest of her dropped garments, she plucked at the pink ribbon above the corset’s first metal eyelet and then undid the satin bow at her cleavage. Pop. Pop, pop. The corset opened, and she let it too go to the floor.
In her chemise, two petticoats, hose, and drawers, she contemplated her husband as he contemplated her. She was not looking her best and knew it. Now was his opportunity to get back at her and tell her so.
“Go on,” she ordered.
“I can see you enjoy cracking the whip.”
“I am not much of a horsewoman.”
“That is not at all what I meant by my whip remark, but you will ride here. Though not me.” He laughed.
“Very well, but I shan’t like it. You can force me to do whatever you wish, but you cannot make me enjoy it.”
“There is a thriving arts community. You will like that.”
She could hardly contradict him there, but she need not share her enjoyment with him.
“Contacts are essential, and so I belong to all the usual places and intend to join the new ones as well,” he said. “The Myopia Hunt Club is slated to open in two years and I shall be there.”
“I neither hunt nor eat meat. Killing animals is cruel.”
He sighed. “Thus your untouched duck. We living beings are all cruel to one another in one form or another, and yes, you will eat meat. You need it to avoid poor blood.”
“My blood is richer than yours. At least I know who sired me.”
Overlooking her stab at spite, he continued his snobbish listing of credentials. “I also belong to the Eastern Yacht Club…”
“I have no talent for sailing.”
“And yet sail you will. A dose of sunshine out on the water will put color back in your cheeks. I am a member of the Essex Country Club.” He smiled. “Feel free to interrupt now.”
She did, and freely too. “I shun society. More so now than before. ”
“But as my wife, you will accompany me to all social functions.”
“I could not bear it. People will talk…”
“You will bear it, for you must. And people will talk regardless, so why not use the gossip to your own ends? In your books. Jane Austen made a whole career of such social commentary. I expect you not only to attend social engagements, but to hold your beautiful head up high and circulate convivially within
our circle of acquaintances. What is more, I expect you to play hostess at various gatherings here in this house and in my home in Boston as well. That is your role as my wife.”
His arrogance spurring her on, she raced through the remainder of her clothing, tossing each white unmentionable to the floor and stomping on them. Stomping on them all and kicking free of them too, as if each article of clothing she rid herself of represented a link in the chain to her past. As if each item made up the faces of those fair-weather friends who had backed away from her at the first whiff of scandal. How she hated their treachery, their two-facedness, their lack of compassion. And her hurt was not over their contribution to the destruction of her reputation. What did she care for the sullying of her name? She had lost a baby, her baby, and her circle of so-called friends had shunned her and saved themselves, guilt by association and all that. They had to a one avoided her. Their cowardly desertion had left her to grieve her loss alone.
My baby. My child. I shall never have another little boy or girl to love.
The melancholy litany circled inside her head, but no wetness came. Her tears dried up before she ever shed them. She mourned in private and silently, and would do so for the rest of her life.
Apart from her gold-buckled shoes, silk hose, and frilly white garters, she was naked. Contemptuous of him, her unwanted husband, she backed up to a wall and flung her arms out to the sides in a position of surrender.
He could not manipulate her if she gave herself over to him. A passive victory at best, but all she could manage.
At the moment.
Seething, she spread her legs wide.
Chapter Twelve
His bride quaked against the brocade-covered wall, the lush naturalness of her unadorned beauty a direct counterpoint to the dining room’s stuffy gilded formality. Never had he thought to have a wife, never mind a wife who would throw herself so fully into posing nude for him among the etched crystal glassware and gold-edged platters.
