“Please!” She gasped. “Please, unlock the door. I don’t know why you are doing this, but if you let me go right now, I swear I will not say a word to anyone.”
Goodwin’s long fingers caressed the brass stem of the key. “By anyone do you mean your husband? He’s a thousand miles away, at best. Or do you mean your lover? He is likely halfway to Manchester by now with another whore panting beneath him.”
“No, you’re wrong. You’re … wrong about what you saw.”
“Wrong?” He arched an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest. “How so?”
“Oh, God—” Catherine closed her eyes against a flood of hot tears. How could she explain the man he had seen her with was her husband? “He wasn’t my lover. He …”
“He was an old friend?”
“Please … you don’t understand.”
Pocketing the key, Goodwin started unfastening the row of buttons down the front of his tunic. “I understand perfectly. You are the one who seems to be having difficulty understanding that I do not intend to leave here until I get what I came for.”
Catherine kept her back flush against the door. There was no other way out of the room, no adjoining chambers other than the dressing room. There was the balcony, but even if she could get past Goodwin, she doubted whether she had the presence of mind to clamber over the banister and down the trellis.
Her gaze flicked around the room, stopped, and flew back to the fireplace. Leaning against one sculpted marble caryatid was a black iron poker, the head fashioned into a hawk with a viciously hooked beak. In desperation, she pushed away from the wall and made a wild dash across the room, but her goal had been so transparent, Goodwin was there to intercept her, tripping her up with his boot and sending her sprawling to her knees.
“You are not thinking hospitable thoughts,” he scolded. “And you would not want me to start mulling over the possibilities of how to put such an interestingly shaped instrument to good use, now would you?”
Catherine scrambled to her feet. She ran into the dressing room and slammed the door behind her, locking it with the ridiculously delicate privacy bolt. There was more husky laughter from the bedroom and a moment later, the faint scratching of fingernails on the wood.
“Come out, kitty, kitty.”
Catherine recoiled from the sound, her skin shrinking in terror. There was no escape this time. She had trapped herself in a small, airless room with a window that did not open, placed too high on the wall to reach even if it did. There was nothing she could use as a weapon amid the clutter on top of her dressing table but she searched anyway, pushing aside the bottles of perfume, hairbrushes, combs …
“Kitty, kitty, kitty,” Goodwin chanted. “I’m coming in now.”
He took a step back, raised his foot, and sent his booted heel crashing into the seam of the door. The lock sprang from the wood and flew across the width of the room, barely missing Catherine where she stood against the far wall. She had pressed herself as far back against the wardrobe as she could, and as she watched him stalk slowly, triumphantly through the shattered doorway, she slid further along the wall, keeping a measured distance between them.
She was standing with her hands behind her back, and as she moved, the torn edges of the shirt gaped open, drawing his gaze down to her belly and the pale golden triangle below. Her hair was scattered over her shoulders and her lips were parted around quick, dry rasps of air that caused her breasts to rise and fall invitingly beneath the flimsy layers of fabric.
Goodwin stripped off his tunic jacket and cast it aside. He dropped his hands to his waist and started pulling the hem of his shirt out of his breeches.
“Come over here,” he commanded huskily. “Now.”
Catherine did not move. Only her eyes shifted to glance at the open door behind him.
Goodwin advanced another ominous step. “You do not want to make me any angrier, my dear. The games are over and it’s time to—”
Catherine flung herself forward, launching herself across the narrow gap that separated them. Goodwin saw the blur of her hands swinging up from her sides and caught a flash of silver in one clenched fist. He dodged, avoiding the first blow, but the second struck just above his ear and the point of the ornate silver comb dug deep into the flesh, tearing a jagged path down his throat and sinking into the ridge of tendons that joined his neck and collarbone.
Goodwin roared and swiped Catherine’s hand aside. Blood began to pour from the top of his ear and sheet hotly down the side of his face. The comb was still buried in his neck and the blood slicked his fingers, making him lose his grip on the fantail twice before he was able to pull the shiny, spiked ornament free. He gaped at its daggerlike point for a long, terrible moment, almost missing Catherine as she recovered her balance and tried to dart past him.
The sound of tearing satin was louder than the pitiful scream her bruised throat was able to produce as she was swung back against the wardrobe. Pain exploded in her head as his fist drove into the side of her face, and she would have fallen if not for the bloodied claw that caught her, dragged her upright, and braced her for another obliterating blow. Stunned, she brought her hands up to protect her face, but he only hit harder and the rage behind it sent her reeling into a bright row of silk gowns. Her hands and arms were covered with blood—his blood—and as she pulled herself to her feet, she left dark-red streaks on everything she touched. Stumbling to the row of shelves on the opposite wall, she began clearing them of anything she could reach to throw. Her fist closed around a familiar shape and she brought it slashing around, flaying the slim leather riding crop into his face, his arms, his bloodied shoulders … but to no effect. His fury had carried him beyond all pain. He grabbed hold of the lower edge of her robe and began to haul her toward him hand over fist; she could do nothing but scream and continue to crack the leather whip over and over.
From somewhere beyond the terror of the dressing room came the sound of fists pounding frantically on the outer door. Someone was out in the hallway. Someone must have heard the commotion and had come to investigate, but the door was locked and Goodwin had the key!
Catherine’s momentary distraction was all the lieutenant needed to twist his arm around the final few turns of satin and bring her crashing to the floor. She rolled and thrashed against the intent of the bloodied hands, but he was able to drag her beneath him and pin her flat, holding her there with curses and threats while he tugged at the buttons on his breeches and released the hard, thick spear of his flesh.
Catherine continued to fight the mauling weight, but she was no match for his lust or his rage. His hands jerked her thighs apart and his fingers stabbed viciously at the tender flesh, ramming their way into her body, causing her to stiffen and scream with the pain. A blackness crowded over her and she prayed for the oblivion of unconsciousness, but through the tears and the blood and the pain she saw the darkness rise and descend again, rise and descend in a rhythm that matched the sickening thud of pounding wet flesh.
Braced to feel the tearing agony of his body invading hers, Catherine could only close her eyes and pray for a quick end. Goodwin started twitching and jerking above her, but although she could hear thuds and grunts with each spasm of his body, she did not feel anything inside her at all. Only a heavy, dead weight below that held her thighs wedged painfully apart and another crushing down on her chest that almost succeeded where his hands had failed in smothering her.
“Mistress! Mistress Catherine!”
Her eyes swam open as she felt the cool touch of slender fingers on her face. “Deirdre? The first attempt did not have any sound behind it, but the second was stronger. “Deirdre, is that you?”
“Oh, thank the Lord above. You’re alive. I thought he … I thought …”
Pushing and shoving one end to the other, Deirdre rolled the lieutenant’s limp body off her mistress and helped her sit upright, holding her as close as she dared.
“Are you hurt, mistress? Did he cut you, or … or …”
“N-no. I don’t th-think so. He … he hit me, and he t-tried to hurt me, but …”
“There now, it’s over,” Deirdre assured her. “The bastard won’t be hurting anyone anymore.”
Catherine raised her head and started to look around, but the maid’s hands were there to prevent it. “You mustn’t look,” she said, her eyes wide and frightened, her voice none too steady. “You must try to stand up—I’ll help you—and you must walk straight into the other room without looking down, without looking anywhere but straight ahead.”
Confused, still half dazed from the beating, Catherine started to do exactly what she was not supposed to do, but thankfully, her curiosity went no further than the iron poker that lay at Deirdre’s feet. The lifelike hawk’s head was drenched in blood, the fearsomely hooked beak was clotted with bits of flesh and tufts of hair. She remembered the dull, rhythmic thuds and the jerked spasms that had torn ragged grunts from Goodwin’s throat and realized they had not been sounds of lust, as she had supposed, but of shattering pain.
“Dear God, Deirdre—”
“Just promise me you will not look” came the whispered plea.
Catherine nodded. She was shaking so badly she could not stand without Deirdre’s help, nor could she limp from the dressing room without leaning heavily on her arm for support. For the maid’s part, she was shocked speechless to see her young mistress in the brighter light that flooded the bedroom. Her hair was matted with streaks of blood. Her robe hung limp from her shoulders, one sleeve torn open to the elbow, the whole of the skirt looking as if it had been used to mop the floor of a charnel house. The cambric shirt beneath was in shreds, and where the pale ivory flesh showed through, it was scratched and bruised and splattered with so much blood, Deirdre could hardly believe none of it was hers.
Of equal, pressing concern, there was now the body of a dead British officer in the dressing room.
Heeding her own advice, Deirdre closed her eyes as she reached behind and pulled the door of the anteroom shut. She left Catherine sitting stiffly on the side of the bed and ran across the hall to fetch towels and a pitcher of clean water.
“You must take off those clothes, my lady. Hurry now. We have to get you cleaned up before … before you catch your death of cold.”
It was not a lie. Catherine was shivering so violently her teeth chattered; her lips were blue and her fingers felt more like icicles than flesh and blood. She was too near a state of complete shock to do more than hold out her arms as Deirdre peeled away the sodden, ruined garments, and she showed no reaction at all when they went into the fire and were set ablaze.
Deirdre sponged and rinsed the blood from her body and wrapped her in a clean bed sheet. Two additional jugs were required to wash the gore from her hair, followed by several minutes of vigorous rubbing with towels before any semblance of natural color was restored. Deirdre left her again while she went in search of clean, warm clothing, and when she returned, her arms laden with two sets of men’s garments.
“It should not raise quite so many eyebrows for two gentlemen to be seen riding along the road,” Deirdre explained, handing Catherine breeches, stockings, a shirt, coat, and heavy woolen cloak. “But we must not dawdle. We must be away from Rosewood Hall before any more soldiers venture through the gates.”
“Soldiers?” Catherine frowned over the word as if it was new to her vocabulary. As if it should mean something very important. And with a small start, she remembered and clutched Deirdre’s arm. “He said there were more! He said there were more of his men downstairs and that if I screamed …”
Deirdre took firm hold of Catherine’s shoulders. “There is no one down the stairs. No one, do you hear me? Not a soldier, not a servant, not even a mouse, I warrant, for they were all driven off by the smell of Scottish cooking.”
“But he told me—”
“He was lying. He was telling you that to frighten you, which he has done quite thoroughly, I can see.”
Catherine’s obvious confusion wrenched at Deirdre’s heart and caused her to take further note of the damage inflicted by the late Lieutenant Goodwin. The left side of her face was beginning to swell like bread dough, the eye was almost completely shut. Beneath her chin, stretching ear to ear, were harsh red imprints left by gouging fingers, which would become a dark and angry blue before the day was through, as would the multitude of welts that mottled her arms and legs. There were teeth marks on her breast and four deep scratches that ran the length of her midsection from breast to belly that looked as if she had been clawed by a mountain cat.
Deirdre could feel the fury rising in her again, the outrage she had felt when she had seen’ the lustful beast climbing over her mistress, beating her half senseless while his bared and hairy buttocks sought to heave themselves between her thighs. She had not even been aware of fetching the iron poker or of striking him again and again until she had turned his head and shoulders into a ruined mash of crushed bone and tissue.
“Deirdre?”
She shook the image out of her mind and forced her voice to remain calm. “As soon as we are dressed in Master Damien’s clothes, we will ride to Spence House. Lady Caroline will know what to do. She will know how to protect you.”
“Protect me? From what? From who? H-he was trying to rape me!”
Deirdre worried her lip a moment between her teeth. “Above all, you must make it very clear to anyone who asks—including Lady Caroline—that I was the one who did the killing. In fact, it might be best to say it was me involved in the attack and you were hurt trying to stop him. Yes. Yes, that would be much better … and safer.”
“But … why? Defending yourself against rape is not a crime.”
“British officers,” she said gently, “do not go about forcing themselves upon married ladies of quality, not without exceptional cause. If it became known the lieutenant was intent upon raping you, the authorities would naturally wonder why, what you had done to provoke such a thing. There would be an inquiry and endless rounds of questions. Do not forget you have just finished playing hostess to enemies of the crown. There would be doubts and aspersions cast upon your character, your loyalties. Why, you might very well end up being the one regarded as the criminal. A simple Irish maid, on the other hand, is another matter entirely. The gentry expect us to be of loose moral fiber, to service their filthy needs wherever and whenever the mood comes upon them. I doubt anyone would even regard it as an act of rape … more likely a miscalculation on the lieutenant’s part.”
“Then they would charge you with murder!”
“They might,” Deirdre agreed. “But I’ll not be here to face it. Once I see you safely into Lady Caroline’s hands, I will be on my way to somewhere they will never find me.”
Catherine’s eyes grew round and wide. “You are going to follow the rebel army? Oh, Deirdre … you mustn’t! If what the lieutenant said is true, and the prince is in retreat—”
“I shall retreat with them. They will be bound for the border, for Scotland. It is my husband’s home and therefore mine, as well, sooner now than later, is all.”
“But—”
“Please, mistress, we have no time to argue. My mind is made up; there will be no talking me out of it. My place is with my husband now, for as long as we both draw breath.”
Catherine stared, dumbfounded. Her mind felt as battered as her body, but two revelations came very clear to her. First, if Deirdre was prepared to take the blame, to have the questions and accusations and ultimate reprisals brought down upon her own head rather than see Catherine suffer any further abuse … and if Catherine thought, for even one moment, of letting her do so, she might just as well have never left Rosewood Hall all those months ago. Catherine Augustine Ashbrooke would certainly have allowed it, would have grasped at any avenue of escape regardless of the right or wrong of it, regardless who was hurt or destroyed so long as she remained unscathed.
The second revelation was that Catherine Ashbrooke Cameron would no more consider
doing such a thing than she would contemplate betraying the trust, courage, and loyalty of her husband or—even worse—her own newfound faith in herself.
She finished fastening the buttons down the front of the warmly quilted waistcoat Deirdre had provided and began plaiting her hair. Oddly enough, though she still ached with every movement, her body had stopped shaking and the terrible chill of fear and uncertainty was gone.
“The lieutenant said the rebel army withdrew well before dawn,” she said calmly. “He guessed they would be in Manchester by tonight, and if we hope to catch up to them, we will have to find ride very hard and fast.”
Deirdre looked up, her hands freezing on her neckcloth. “Did you say ‘we,’ mistress?”
“I think”—Catherine paused to moisten her throat— “after all we have been through together, you need not address me as ‘mistress’ or ‘my lady’ anymore. Criminals are equal in the eyes of the law, for one thing. For another, I would greatly appreciate being considered more your friend than your employer. And yes, I said we. We will be heading north together, you and I. Scotland is my home now, too, and my place is with my husband.”
Deirdre’s large, solemn brown eyes followed the motion of Catherine’s scraped hands as she wound the damp blonde length of her hair. “I think it would be rash for you to make any decision without consulting with Lady Caroline … or, at the very least, Master Damien.”
“Mother will have enough difficulties of her own to deal with in the next few weeks. As for Damien …” She paused again and sighed. “He is a Jacobite, Deirdre. He has been for months, perhaps years. He will undoubtedly be worried after his own safety and the safety of his wife and unborn child. I would never knowingly put them in further danger. Not Damien, not Harriet. Not you,” she added quietly.
“But … the lieutenant did die by my hand. I wielded the poker. I killed him.”
“And for that I shall be everlastingly in your debt. Furthermore, despite the little I know about doctoring, I suspect there was far too much blood leaking from his neck to have been caused by a minor scratch. You may have hastened the good lieutenant along the road to hell, but I daresay I helped put his feet firmly on the path.”
The Blood of Roses Page 24
