Brenda Joyce

by The Rival

  She was so afraid. Never in her life had she been afraid like this before. She needed her mother. Desperately. Now. Why didn’t her mother come and rescue her?

  Where was she?

  “Mama,” Hannah whispered aloud. “Please, Mama, I miss you so!”

  “Eh, gel, come close, so strange yew are, always keepin’ to yerself.”

  The instant Hannah realized she was being spoken to, she shrank farther against the wall, wanting to disappear inside herself. She had adopted this tiny corner days ago, refusing to move from it. Go away, she wanted to say. More tears fell. She was so afraid, she could not speak.

  Foul breath overcame her as the older, husky woman leaned close. “Sich a pretty little gel yew are, so pretty, an’ so sad.” Suddenly the woman started laughing, hard, making cawing, crowlike sounds, unable to stop. Her laughter was insane.

  And her odd, mad laughter ricocheted in the stone room, which contained nothing but the other women and numerous pallets upon the floor, becoming louder and louder.

  Hannah huddled her knees against her chest, crying silently now, unable to stop.

  Suddenly the woman straightened. Abruptly her laughter ceased. “Wot?” the woman mumbled, as if to herself. “Wot?” she repeated, as if in a trance. Then, muttering unintelligibly, she turned and shuffled away.

  Hannah slumped against the wall and burst into tears, unable to stop sobbing.

  Everything will be all right.

  The thought came from nowhere, filling her mind. But it had nothing to do with her gift.

  Hannah jerked as she felt a presence settling down beside her.

  But it wasn’t the presence of any of the women or children in this asylum. It wasn’t truly tangible, yet it was so comforting, so warm and familiar, and so human, that a wave of reassurance swept over her.

  Hannah no longer wept. A hand covered hers, offering safety and hope. Her pulse began to slow. Her fears began to disappear. And the thought was there, loud and clear, inside her head.

  Everything will be all right.

  Hannah was no longer alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Elizabeth stood in front of a full-length mirror. A very slight smile was on her exquisite face as she pulled at the laces at the back of her white corset.

  The whalebone stays loosened, and she pulled the corset up and over her head, then let it slip to the floor. She stood now in a sheer, knee-length lavender chemise, a single petticoat atop that, a collar of diamonds, and nothing else.

  Bending slowly, her breasts swinging against the chemise, her nipples very large and prominent, glancing repeatedly at herself in the mirror, she pushed and shoved the brocade petticoat down until it sat in a heap around her feet. Her legs were long, the color of ivory, and lush. And through the chemise, the shadow of pubic hair guarding her sex was visible.

  Elizabeth touched her full breasts. She slid her spread fingers over her nipples until they were achingly erect. Her splayed hands slid lower, over her rib cage, and lower still, passing her hipbones. They paused just above the mound of rampant femininity. Elizabeth smiled at the reflection in the mirror and turned languidly around.

  Her eyes were very bright.

  “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said thickly, coming forward. A huge arousal strained the tight wool of his breeches.

  Elizabeth’s laughter was husky and sensual, but her gaze was riveted on his manhood.

  He pulled her forward, both hands on her buttocks, on top of the chemise.

  “Oh, God,” she said as he separated the two mounds of flesh.

  Half smiling, very intent, he met her gaze and dropped to his knees. One arm was now a vise around her upper thighs as he shoved his face against her. With his thumb, he pushed back the fold of one lip. With his tongue, he wet her.

  She gripped his head and cried out savagely, standing braced with her legs apart as he alternately flayed her with his tongue and laved her tenderly.

  He went down on his back. His hand was in her hair, pulling as he might on a leash or a chain, and she came down on top of him, on both hands and knees. Their gazes met. She whimpered.

  He laughed. “Who gives the orders now?” he said softly. With both hands, he tore off the silk chemise.

  “You do. Please. Help me.” She ducked her head, trying to reach his loins with her mouth. But he would not let her, gripping her by a hank of her hair again.

  “Open my breeches,” he said.

  She reared up onto her knees, panting, the thick diamond collar glinting, her breasts swinging in his face. As she fumbled with the buttons she began to moan. He caught one nipple with his mouth and then tugged it with his teeth.

  He sprang free. He used his hand ruthlessly, pushing her head down. Then he cried out gutturally as his hard, hot, thick length pushed up into her mouth.

  He felt the back of her throat. And he did not let her stop.

  Moments later she was beneath him, her legs wrapped around his waist, and he was driving into her as hard as he could. They cried out together, bucking like animals, in a pool of their own sweat.

  Afterward, he held her. Almost tenderly.

  But Elizabeth sat up, shrugging free. She gave him a look, coy and sidelong, and stood up. Once again supremely aware of her power, in complete control, she crossed the room, starkly, superbly naked—except for the diamond collar. It had been a gift. He sat up to watch her every movement. Her body glistened like wet pearls, her nipples like faceted rubies.

  She came out of her dressing room having donned a pair of silver slippers with delicate heels, dabbing perfume behind her ears, and she sat in a chair, facing him. He stared. Her long legs lolled widely apart.

  “I am getting tired of Houghton,” she said.

  He stood. He approached. He knelt and buried his face between her thighs. She stiffened immediately as his tongue began another unerring course. As it slid around and over her clitoris, she forgot about her husband, almost, and allowed her body to give in to desire. Her head lolled back against the chair.

  He suddenly lifted his head and looked at her. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks deeply flushed. Lionel said, “Good. I am getting tired of him, too.”

  She thought about Margaret MacDonald, standing at the attic window and gazing out at the lawns in front of the house. The tableau outside was very still; it could have been a Poussin landscape painting. There was not a cloud in the sky, and bright, late summer sunlight threatened to scorch the lawns—it was by far an unusual day, the hottest of the season. Inside the attic, the air was close and still; it was hot and stuffy. She trembled. Had it been on a day like this that Meg MacDonald had committed suicide?

  Eleanor gripped the windowsill. She stared down at the ground, so far below her. She could almost see the young, beautiful Scottish girl’s body there, crumpled, broken, bloody.

  And she had been beautiful. A long time ago, in Richard’s desk, Eleanor had found a small portrait. She had known instantly that the stunning young blond woman with the incredible blue eyes had been his first wife.

  How sad her eyes had been.

  She leaned forward. The ground was five stories below her, but it did not look that far away. She stared unblinkingly at it until the shrubs and grass began to blur and perspiration trickled down her cheeks. If Meg had not killed herself, Eleanor’s life would be very different now. Richard would not have been her husband for all of these years—but then, Garrick would not have been her son, either. So many hurtful memories swept through her mind, most of them of Richard, condescending and cutting and cruel. For years she had told herself how fortunate she was to have married the earl of Stanhope, one of the most powerful and wealthy men in the realm. But she just could not lie to herself anymore. Damn him. For everything, but mostly for a lifetime of loneliness and pain, and especially for disinheriting Garrick now.

  Her grip on the sill tightened. Dear, dear God. Was Lionel back, returned from the vanished? Or was he, as Garrick insisted, a pretender?


  But Richard was by far the wisest man she knew! He would never make such a mistake!

  She was sweating now. Profusely. Tears, she realized, were blurring her vision. And suddenly she released the sill—only to push the window open wide. She leaned out.

  And she wondered if, one day, she would share the same fate as Meg.

  Eleanor choked on a sob she did not want to release. Meg had been so brave, to take her own life to escape a future of misery and unhappiness. She knew with her next breath that she herself would never be so brave. She was a coward. The port wine was her refuge.

  As she stared down at the ground, almost unseeingly, the vision formed, unbidden, and she saw a woman’s body there, bloody and broken. But the woman wasn’t Meg MacDonald. It was herself.

  Abruptly Eleanor straightened, her heart racing with uncomfortable speed. What was she thinking of! Had she lost her mind? For one instant she had been so tempted to throw herself out the window and leave the grief and pain and guilt behind!

  She touched her flushed cheeks with trembling hands. If only she could remember the past. If only the port, consumed for almost two decades now, had not dulled her mind.

  “Mother!” Garrick exclaimed.

  She whirled, to see her son standing in the doorway, a look of horror on his face.

  Immediately Eleanor stepped away from the window, but as she did so, something touched her from behind. She stiffened and turned, but it was only one of the curtains, lifted by the breeze.

  Garrick strode forward, his chest rising and falling with the effort such movement cost him. He gripped her elbow. “What are you doing?” he cried. “What in God’s name are you doing up here?”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I … it is not what you think,” she whispered, a protest.

  “No? And what is it I am thinking?” he demanded, still ashen beneath his usual swarthy coloring. He had not lessened his hold upon her arm.

  “I … I came here to think.”

  “This is where Margaret MacDonald killed herself.” Angrily Garrick released her and moved past her, slamming the window shut.

  “It’s too hot. I opened the window for air,” Eleanor lied, trembling now.

  He stared, then turned and cracked the window. “You have been crying. Mother, please. Surely you were not going to repeat the past.”

  She met his worried gaze, saw the concern in his eyes and the love, and reached out and touched his cheek. “No. I was not.”

  His gaze was searching, and after a pause he nodded. “I don’t like you coming up here.”

  She wet her dry lips and said nothing. The attic had never been more stifling.

  “Come downstairs with me. I have a favor to ask of you,” Garrick said.

  Eleanor nodded and followed him across the small space of the attic. He held open the tiny door for her. But she paused.

  “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

  “I did not hear anything,” Garrick said, giving her a strange look.

  Still, Eleanor did not move. She had thought she had heard a slight creaking sound. But it had probably been her imagination or old wood settling. There had been many times over the past twenty years, though, when she had visited this attic, seeking the solitude to cry and think, that she had felt as if the walls in the attic were watching her. There had been other times when she had felt nothing at all except her loneliness and grief. Now, the hairs at her nape prickled. Eleanor turned and looked back.

  The window was closed.

  And outside, not a single branch on any tree moved, not a leaf or blade of grass. There was no breeze.

  Her mind was no longer dull, but razor sharp. She had not eaten anything all day except for the two forkfuls of poisoned eggs, and she had gone into the kitchens herself for fresh, uncontaminated water. She was not weak. She trembled with rage and the need to escape and rescue her daughter. Hannah, she recalled, had been sent to Bedlam.

  The thought terrified her and made her ill. Her vision of her small, blind daughter surrounded by witless women had returned to haunt her now. She had not a moment to waste. Yet she must be careful and clever. Leaving Ashburnham would be difficult enough—she intended to do so in the dead of the night. But how would she manage to free her daughter from the asylum? How?

  She could hardly walk up to the front doors, identify herself, and demand Hannah’s release. Olivia paced, her temples throbbing, her mouth still uncomfortably dry. That, she supposed, was a lingering symptom of having been poisoned for a number of days.

  Would Lionel give Garrick her message? And why was Elizabeth still at Ashburnham? The moment she left the manor, Elizabeth would send a messenger to Arlen, if not chase after her herself. Olivia did not underestimate the other woman.

  She needed Garrick desperately, she needed his help. And she could not think about his dilemma now—that he had been disinherited.

  Olivia’s bedroom windows were open. She heard the shells in the drive crunching as a vehicle rolled up it. She ran to the window, filled with sudden hope. She inhaled, gripping the sill, briefly mesmerized by the sight of the Stanhope coach. Garrick had come.

  Then she watched in disbelief as the countess of Stanhope stepped from the coach and the door was being closed behind her by a footman. She had come alone.

  Olivia was stunned. Then disappointment overwhelmed her, so much so that tears blurred her eyes as the countess approached the house. She blinked furiously, using the back of her hand to wipe her eyes, dismay changing to savage determination. She would get a message to the countess. She must.

  Her vision cleared, and Olivia now noticed that Eleanor was unsteady on her feet. Her heart sank. Had she already been nipping the port? She prayed not.

  “My dear countess …”

  Olivia froze at the sound of Elizabeth’s voice, somewhere below her. “How wonderful of you to call.” Elizabeth stepped from the house and into view, standing on the edge of the walk just below Olivia’s window. She extended her hands graciously, gripping both of Eleanor’s palms. “This is such a surprise,” she cooed.

  “Oh, Lady Houghton, I had no idea you were in residence,” Eleanor said, seeming flustered. “How nice to see you in the country for a change.”

  “I have not been feeling the best, so I decided to stay on for a few days,” Elizabeth explained. “But then, you hardly have been known to frequent the countryside, either, Lady Stanhope.”

  “No. Usually I don’t.” Eleanor seemed to be at a loss. “But how nice. I shall have company with both you and Lady Ashburn here.” She smiled.

  Olivia, standing at her window, suddenly knew what was going to come. She stiffened.

  “Actually, the countess is very ill, and has taken to her bed. She is not receiving callers. Perhaps you should come back later in the week if you wish to see her—if you are still in the country yourself.”

  The countess seemed befuddled. “She is not receiving callers? How ill is she?”

  “I really don’t know, as she hardly spoke to me when I tried to inquire after her health this morning. But come inside, let us sit and have tea.” Elizabeth took the countess’s arm and they disappeared from view as they walked up the front steps of the house.

  Olivia turned, walked a few steps, and collapsed into a chair. More tears filled her eyes, and she thought of Hannah in the madhouse. She gripped the arms of the chair, her nails ripping the floral fabric, finding it difficult to breathe. She was not going to get a message to Garrick, and he was not coming.

  He was not coming.

  She had no one to rely on now but herself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Olivia lay in bed in her nightclothes in the dark. She was not asleep. It was very early, not even nine o’clock. She had purposely left the draperies open, and outside, the night was bright, with both a full, beaming moon and a thousand glittering stars. She was drenched in perspiration and as stiff as a board.

  There was a single brisk rap upon her door and Elizabeth stepped into her
room, holding aloft a taper. Olivia had already shut her eyes, forcing her fists to unclench and her breathing to slow to a deep, even rhythm. She listened as Elizabeth approached the bed, her silk skirts swishing softly about her, and was aware of sudden candlelight falling across her face.

  “Are you asleep, Olivia?” Elizabeth asked.

  Olivia slowly opened her eyes. “Who … who … who?” She spoke with a thick slur.

  Elizabeth stared down at her, unsmiling, her face hard and cold and cruel. “It is I. Elizabeth,” she finally said.

  Olivia pretended to struggle to keep her eyes open. “Who?” she whispered thickly, as if she were deeply drugged.

  Elizabeth bent over her, staring closely at her face.

  Immediately Olivia closed her eyes, afraid that Elizabeth would see through her charade and realize that she was completely lucid. It was the hardest thing she had ever done, but she did not move, breathing slowly, so slowly, in and out, in and out. She was scared, very much so. But the stakes were so very high—the stakes were Hannah’s life.

  Olivia had never been more certain of anything.

  Elizabeth straightened, some of the candlelight falling less harshly now upon Olivia’s closed lids. A moment later she left the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. Olivia was dismayed when she heard the key turning in the lock on the other side.

  She sat up, trembling, her nightgown soaking wet with perspiration. She had hoped to make her escape by sneaking through the sleeping house, but obviously that was not possible now.

  She slid from the bed. Beneath her nightgown she wore a chemise. Careful to be utterly silent, she stripped off the nightgown and walked into her dressing room. She dressed in the dark quickly, methodically, efficiently, all the while thinking about her daughter, her chest tight with fear. Then she recrossed her bedroom and pushed open the window. Her heart skipped. Her only means of escape was the oak tree, and now it seemed very far away from the house.