Saving Lady Ilsa

by Crystal Kauffman

  Long moments passed, filled with slow caresses and whispered adorations, and then Bradford rose to his hands and knees, kissing his lover as though to explore every inch of him. Ilsa’s eyes filled with tears. This was the gentle lover she’d glimpsed, and Frederick was lucky enough to call him mate. Bradford kissed and licked a path down his body until he took the other man’s cock in his mouth and made love to him in the most intimate way possible.

  She turned from the keyhole and rose on shaky legs. What they had was so pure and true. They defied God himself for their love.

  As wonderful as it was, she could not be part of it.

  She barely felt her feet moving across the plush rug as she walked back to the drawing room. She would wait for Bradford there and prepare her goodbye.

  * * * * *

  Dietrich paced the small kitchen. Too many female voices carried from the small bedroom he shared with Katrin. One of the women, an assistant to the midwife he guessed, had a shrill voice that set him on edge.

  Katrin’s screams were driving him mad. They repeated so precisely one could set a clock by them. And they weren’t the pretty little screams she sounded when he fucked her, either. These were guttural, dying-pig sounds of agony that made his stomach swim.

  “That’s good, child,” the midwife said. “Push.”

  He gritted his teeth. In calling her “child“, the midwife was making a snide reference to her youth, and his age.

  Roberta hurried through, hefting the bucket of newly warmed water. “Keep that cauldron stoked,” she snapped.

  “Yes, yes.” He hated being ordered about by a woman.

  He should be excited, but an underlying darkness told him something was wrong. The baby was early, but by the sounds of it, it was a big one.

  “It’s most certainly a boy,” Roberta had told him when the labor started. “I can tell by the way she carries him low and forward.”

  All Dietrich took that to mean was Katrin was fat. The midwife had given a vague nod in agreement. Their whispers in French had fouled his mood from the very beginning.

  “Push!”

  A grotesque grunting sound followed.

  “Almost there now!”

  “Eeeeeyyyyyyuuugggggh!”

  “Here it comes.”

  Katrin’s shrill scream cut like a knife.

  “It’s a boy!”

  Dietrich leapt to his feet and paced the room. A boy! Finally, a son!

  A baby’s wail broke and rose in volume. It had strong lungs.

  He forgot his worries. He would tell everyone. A son, finally, a son!

  He didn’t know what to do first. He turned left, then back the other way, stalking into the bedroom.

  Katrin was sprawled on the bed like a whale that had washed up during a storm. She whined his name. He strode to the bassinet where Roberta was laying the bundled form down.

  “Let me see it.”

  “Mr. Kilgard—” She straightened, bringing the babe close to her chest.

  “It’s a boy, I heard her say so.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Let me see it.”

  Reluctantly Roberta held out the swaddled infant.

  Chapter Four

  “I suppose even though it must be obvious, an explanation is in order.”

  Bradford strode into the drawing room and poured himself another brandy. This time, he stared at the liquid sloshing in the bottom of the glass but seemed disinclined to drink it.

  Ilsa’s palms sweated. After sitting here for nearly half an hour, she’d begun to feel the villain for spying on their love.

  “Mr. Stratton, I know my place,” she said, then cleared her throat and said more strongly, “you will tell me what you wish me to know.” At the very least, she no longer needed to act a mouse. She understood he’d not brought her here to test her compatibility as a lover, but to test her compatibility to tolerate his own unique situation.

  He was listening, she could tell, even though he faced his father’s portrait. When she fell silent, he looked up at it for a moment, then turned to her. “Frederick and I gave ourselves a ‘club’ name many years ago. The Seconds, we call ourselves, because we are both second-born sons.”

  “You have been together a long time, then,” she said, hoping her voice sounded encouraging.

  “I found him when he was twenty years old. Six years we’ve lived our lives together.”

  She didn’t ask what he meant by “found him“, only figured Bradford would explain if he wanted her to know. Twenty-six marked Frederick older than she’d first thought.

  “In a way, you fit our club. Being tossed aside for another by that horrid little man.”

  She forced herself to smile, even as his suggestion at her “membership” made her fear spike.

  She rose from the chair. Of all absurdity, Bradford seemed ill at ease and she wanted to stanch it. “I understand our marriage will be on paper only, and I shall have to leave here.” Her cheeks heated as she worried she’d just given herself away for eavesdropping. “If you choose to continue with it,” she finished.

  “I do,” he stated without hesitation. “Though your role here… I’m still not certain what it will be.”

  “I do not wish to intrude where I’m not wanted.”

  At this he waved his hand, sloshing the brandy. “Do not mind Frederick. He’s a tad impetuous at times.”

  “Still, you have a very strong bond with him.” She really would give herself away if she wasn’t careful. “I don’t wish to be the damaging party within it.” Ilsa paced slowly across the room. She stood beside him at the portrait, careful not to get too close. Strange, but she already missed what she’d never really had.

  “I shall make the choice for you. There are reasons why I cannot stay.” She supposed after what had been revealed to her, she owed him an explanation. She continued to stare at the portrait, unable to meet his eyes. She noted now, his father had been depicted in oils with kind eyes and a hint of an affable smile. She knew it was real because those traits had been passed down to Bradford.

  “I told you the first night…I’ve endured treatment that caused me to fear. You understood it was bad treatment.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly, no doubt sensing her need to unburden herself.

  “A little more than a year ago…it was at the hands of three men. Dietrich arranged it.”

  She looked at him in time to see his face show surprise, and then horror. “Good God, Ilsa. Are you certain of that?”

  “He never spoke of it outright, but…I had no reason to believe their claims were not true.” She turned away. “He sent me to a furniture shop near the river with fabric for a set of chairs. When I arrived, the three of them, one of them a very young, burly man more suited to ship work than furniture, informed me Dietrich had sent me to them to be cured of…my defect.”

  She shuddered at the memory. Bradford had gone deathly silent. “While I suspect Dietrich knows my inability to bear is as much his fault as mine, I understood he wanted a son so badly he would do anything to get it.”

  “That is atrocious. What man wants a child that is not even his?”

  “Dietrich is fifty-four years old. He is desperate.” She could only shake her head, for it made no sense to her either. “When I fully realized what was intended, my fear gave way to anger and part of me accepted, if only to spite him.”

  Now she did face him. “It is the same reason I stepped into your carriage. To spite Dietrich.”

  Bradford moved close with a frown fixed between his brows. “I am sorry, Ilsa. Had I known, I never would have…” He touched her arms gently.

  “You could not have known.” She tilted her head and smiled. “Worry not. The nights spent here with you were nothing like that night.”

  She eased from his touch and put a few paces between them, turning back to the portrait. Though she had resigned herself to telling this story for the first time ever, she could not do so while looking at him.

  “They t
old me Dietrich sent me to them to use with as they wished, as long as one of them planted his seed. They bound my hands to the rungs of a wrought iron bed and took me on a bare mattress in their cold, drafty workroom, one after the other. The night passed in a haze of pain. The youngest of them, it seemed he never tired. I awoke several times in the night to find him on top of me again. In the morning, I couldn’t walk. They carried me outside, put me into a phaeton and paid the driver to return me to Whitechapel.”

  She turned to face him, proud she had confessed her story without tears. Bradford watched her in silence, his eyes possessing a deadly gleam.

  “You are imagining he should be punished,” she said softly.

  “I am imagining he should be murdered.”

  She clasped her hands together. “I did not refuse those men. Though had I known the pain they would inflict, I would have.”

  “No woman should experience such repulsive torture, Ilsa. Even though you did not know exactly what they would do to you, they did. It is unforgiveable.”

  She smiled again. “You are a good man, Bradford. What you and I shared here was nothing like that horrible night. But it is because of that night that I cannot stay here with you and Frederick. I cannot do that again, not ever. I do not possess the courage.”

  “I will never ask you to do what you cannot.” He touched her arms again. “Frederick may seem gruff, but he merely puts on a dramatic front.”

  She swallowed and glanced to the floor as the first twinges of sadness mingled with her fear. After all he’d given her in these few days—truly she’d lived like a princess—she regretted she could not oblige them.

  “Stay a few days, a week at most, until the weather passes. Just to think on it. If you still want to leave when the roads are clear, I’ll have my driver carry you to Aberystwyth immediately after our marriage ceremony. I’ll require nothing of you in the interim, save you take your meals with us.”

  When she didn’t respond he lifted her chin with a fingertip. “One week, Ilsa. It is all I will ask of you.”

  Her stomach swooped as she nodded. “All right. One week.”

  * * * * *

  A small affair had been planned for dinner with the Earl of Brighton and his wife, Lady Waxford. Frederick, exhausted after his travel, did not attend. Though it was a pleasant evening in which she and Bradford did not have the opportunity to discuss personal matters, Ilsa found herself distracted nonetheless. But Lady Waxford was a lovely woman who seemed to accept Bradford’s yarn about her status as the daughter of a wealthy textiles baron from Norway, and chatted enough for the both of them. Dressed in a new gown of gold taffeta, Ilsa stopped feeling like an imposter when she saw her reflection. She’d made dresses like this for fine ladies and knew what such fabric alone would cost.

  Lady Waxford became excited when she learned of their plans for a quiet, private wedding, and not only volunteered to handle the necessary details for the announcement, but begged to help arrange the ceremony. With no daughters of her own, it would be a pleasure she’d so far been denied. Ilsa looked at Bradford for his approval. He was as charming as a prince, and after saying, “as long as it is a small, private affair,” and then reminding her again “a small, private affair,” he agreed. Lady Waxford’s excitement was contagious and in the end Ilsa felt happy for obliging her. Bradford added, “it should be a small, private affair,” and everyone laughed.

  The next morning Frederick was also suspiciously absent from breakfast, but Bradford waved away her concerns.

  “I promise you, he’s in much higher spirits today.”

  Though when lunch finally arrived, Frederick seemed wholly unconcerned with her. The three of them joined in the too-large dining hall where Frederick and Bradford talked about the horse he’d procured, the breeder he’d visited, the business he’d handled at the shipyard he and Bradford owned together, and a particularly wicked practical joke one of their friends had played upon another. Bradford made efforts to include her in the conversation, but for the most part Ilsa sat in silence and picked at her food.

  In the afternoon Ilsa found a sanding block and made her way back to the attic. The quiet pleased her. Having leisure time was an unknown luxury and she felt idle without something to do. Discovering this damaged furniture that needed her was like finding a friend.

  She hung her lamp on the hook and threw open the dormer windows. Though the day was chill and damp with the threat of rain, a brisk breeze washed the attic air clean and the gray sky bathed it in a pleasing, milky light.

  Ilsa pulled one of the old Chippendale side chairs to an open area in the middle of the attic and noticed its carvings matched a squat hutch standing against the far wall. She brought the chair close to it and examined the scrollwork. At one time, this had been a fine dining set. She took her block and went to work sanding the back of the chair, buffing out its scratches. She would smooth them but not remove them, leaving a history in the chairs that would hint at stories gone by. With a fresh stain and new fabric, they would be lovely. Perhaps Bradford would let her take the set to the cottage, if it was in need of furniture.

  Booted footsteps tapped a crisp pace up the stairs. She knew it wasn’t Elsabeth, and it certainly wasn’t old Havers, who she’d suspected had called Elsabeth to help her because he couldn’t make it up the long flight of stairs, so she didn’t turn around when her visitor entered and lingered in the doorway.

  For too long she felt herself being watched as she sanded out a deep groove from the back of the chair, but suspected he needed these moments.

  “Why do you bother with those old things?” Frederick finally asked in a cautious tone. “They’re kindling.”

  She set the block down and stood, smoothing her hands on her apron as she faced him. “Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s worthless.”

  She glimpsed a whisper of a smile. “True enough.” He moved deeper into the attic and pretended to survey an old iron birdcage. She waited in silence as he browsed through the trove of forgotten treasures.

  “I thought you should know,” he began idly, “that is, I have decided I approve of your marriage to Bradford. I didn’t at first, but now I see the logic in it.”

  “Oh?” she asked simply.

  “I hope you’ll reconsider and stay.”

  She glanced away. Bradford had been courteous in not pressing her, but she suspected he’d put the younger man up to an apology of sorts as his method to persuade.

  “Give him the heir he and his father both want so badly.” He flipped a hand. “Truly, I don’t care what he does in your bed, as long as he always returns to mine.”

  “You’ve had an abrupt change of mind.” She shivered as she thought back to the scene she’d witnessed when Bradford stated Frederick would fuck her because he decreed it.

  “Truth be told, it would be nice to have a little whelp running about.”

  He strolled closer. When he turned to look at the mysterious piles of forgotten furniture to her left, his gaze passed over her breasts, not her eyes.

  “Bradford told you that we call ourselves ‘the Seconds’.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are a ‘second’ as well. Did he also tell you how we came to be?”

  Now he did meet her eyes but her heart was beating so fiercely she couldn’t form words. She shook her head.

  He went back to the birdcage and opened its small gate. Closed it. Opened it again. “My father is the Baron Chesterwick. My elder brother has been sickly his whole life. I’ve two younger brothers—twins— are content to wait for his demise but see me, their queer brother, as the obstacle in the way of their inheritance. I made little secret of my habits, in fact I quite enjoyed vexing them. I was on my way to a private men’s club,” his gaze flicked to hers pointedly and she knew precisely what kind of men’s club,” when I was attacked by hired bone breakers who dragged me into an alley and tried to beat me to death.”

  “My God.” What she’d endured suddenly seemed paltr
y in comparison.

  “Bradford saw it, and by himself rescued me. I was nearly unconscious and remember little of it, but I will never forget opening my eyes to see the tall, handsome man looming over me. He put me in his carriage and tried to take me home, but when he asked who I was, I responded by saying ‘I’m no one’. He brought me here and I’ve never left.”

  He stood back and this time when he met her eyes, his gaze held. “With family who intends to do me harm, Bradford tells me I have something in common with you.”

  She turned away, pretending to notice a new scratch in the chair. “Are you certain it was your family who conspired against you?”

  “Are you?”

  “Mr. Kilgard is not my family.”

  “Yet he is someone you should have been able to trust.”

  The words carried more sympathy than she’d expected. She faced him again, seeing him glance surreptitiously from her breasts. Confessing her situation to Bradford had been difficult, but once spoken, she’d been glad she had. Now the fear and humiliation had dulled and she no longer dreaded speaking about it. Since coming here she felt stronger, more deserving of dignity. She had Bradford to thank for that, in a way.

  “He told me what happened to you.” Frederick didn’t exactly smile, but his face revealed a friendliness she never expected to see in him. “You’ve more courage than I credited you. At the very least, you don’t deserve my resentment.”

  “Don’t pity me, sir.” Her words possessed a sharp bite, but Ilsa felt they were justified.

  “Please, call me Frederick. Though my brother’s demise is expected by all, I pass each day with a prayer I shall never be Lord.”

  “Very well, Frederick. You may tell Mr. Stratton I’ve accepted your peace offering, and I’m still considering his offer.”

  His gaze slipped over her body before finding an old music box to examine on a wobbly table. She wondered if he’d ever seen a naked woman before.

  “Bradford did not send me.” He gave a half shrug. “I felt I owed him to put this matter to right. It isn’t my place to go mucking up his affairs. It…it was just merely a shock to find you here, but only because I returned a day early to find you already in place. His plans to marry were not unknown to me.”