Martha agreed. “She can move to the Dower House with Mrs. Peters to care for her. I’ve been to see it. It’s a tidy property, much better than this barn. She’ll be very comfortable there.”
“May I perhaps put a man there?” Richard asked. “A groom perhaps, or a footman? I can obtain a useful man, one who will take care not to allow her father to come into her presence again.”
Martha gave him a look of curiousity, but agreed.
Mrs. Peters returned, dropping a tight curtsey. “I’ve put her ladyship to bed and given her laudanum to help her sleep.” She was pleased to hear that Pritheroe intended to leave without his daughter. “I’ve seen things no one should see. Her ladyship is very troubled. Peace and quiet will heal her.”
“We’d like you to move with her to the Dower House,” said Martha.
The housekeeper looked as though a burden had been removed from her. “Oh my lady, I think it would be for the best. I’m sure Lady Hareton didn’t mean for it to happen. She was very sorry you were hurt, my lord. That was the worst of it for her.”
“I have much to thank her for.” Richard smiled. Only I knew what he meant and, perhaps, Lizzie.
Mrs. Peters held another surprise. “My lady, when we found that cupboard, it wasn’t empty.”
Martha looked at her, eyes wide, eyebrows raised.
“We found a document inside. Her ladyship can’t read, but I read it.” Mrs. Peters paused and looked around at us all. “It was a will, signed and witnessed. It left everything to Pritheroe.”
“Was it conditional on the entail being broken?” Richard asked, sharply.
“No my lord. If it was broken, then everything was to go to the minister. If Sir James, as he was then, refused, everything not entailed was to go to Mr. Pritheroe.”
“The house in London, the cash…” Martha began to list it.
“Indeed,” Richard interrupted, smoothly. “Where is this document?”
“I burned it.” Mrs. Peters showed no regret. I warmed to her.
“Good.” Richard glanced at Martha’s troubled face. “Don’t worry. The last earl was half out of his mind. The will would have been contested. The only beneficiaries would have been the lawyers.”
Martha smiled. “Would you please promise not to tell James? It would upset him to know about it.”
We readily agreed. I appreciated what Martha was saying. James was thoroughly honest, and although he could do nothing, he would be upset to hear that the last incumbent of the earldom had other plans for the estate that had been foiled.
“I must return to my lady,” said Mrs. Peters.
“Before you go, please take this. It doesn’t belong here.” Richard handed her the gleaming knife.
She took it with a smile. “Thank you my lord.”
Mrs. Peters attended Lady Hareton in her room for the next day. She explained to me although she wasn’t ill, she was exhausted and needed a good rest. “That father of hers has never given her a chance to think, so I’ll give her that chance now.”
I understood Mrs. Peters’ reticence. She’d spent years in this dreadful place, watching the horrors unleashed on her lady, watching her spirit broken, her sanity risked. I couldn’t have withstood such treatment for so long. I would most likely run away and taken my chances with poverty instead.
There was little to do but wait. The Misses Cartwright were packing to leave, Richard with them. Bereft, I thought my dream was at an end, though I knew, in my heart, he would return. I was glad Gervase intended to stay. “It’s either here or go home,” he confided in me, “and I don’t want to be within a hundred miles of the place when Richard confronts our father.”
“Will he be very angry?”
“Savage, I should think.” Gervase grinned. “Richard always faced up to him, but I never could, I always gave in. That’s why I ran away. I don’t know what the outcome will be, mind, but Richard asked me to take particular care of you, and you know you’ll have him, one way or the other.” I put on a brave face, smiling. He was very kind.
The scandal hovering over my family had been lifted. Pritheroe would say nothing now.
Chapter Twenty-One
I sat at my ease in the drawing room the day after Pritheroe left, enjoying a dish of tea and a quiet moment. We’d had tea, but I lingered to pour myself a last dish and sit before the fire. My solitude seemed dearly bought when Steven entered. I must face him some time, I’d put it off too long. I put down my tea dish, and sat up in my chair.
Steven came and stood before me. I asked him to sit, but he shook his head. “Lord Hareton has just informed me that he’s found me a living. Isn’t that good news?”
“Excellent news. Congratulations.”
His face remained solemn. “It’s in Alnwick.” He watched me closely.
I nodded. I didn’t know what he expected me to say.
“Do you know where that is?”
I shook my head and watched him.
“It’s north of here. The living itself is in the village of Colnwick, near to Alnwick.”
He turned away from me then, took a turn about the room, then faced me. “I’d hoped Lord Hareton would need a chaplain here, but it seems not.”
He stopped. From his expectant look, he required me to say something. “I’m very pleased for you.” I tried to smile.
This was clearly not the expected response. “I’m very grateful to his lordship.” He came closer to me. His face took on a look of eagerness I didn’t like and apprehension rose in my throat. “Because he’s given me what I most wanted—an opportunity to earn my own living, to have the means to support a wife.”
I felt sick and my heart sank. Did he think I still cared for him? It seemed so. He kneeled in front of me in the most embarrassing way, and took one of my hands in his. “Dare I ask—would you consider being that wife? May I seek an interview with Lord Hareton?” His face wore a yearning expression. His beautiful brown eyes filled with pleading. “All those things we said—all the promises.” I didn’t answer him. “Will you make good on them now?”
I must speak, must try to let him down as lightly as I could, as I’d left it for so long and left him to wonder all this time. “I made you no promises. I’m sorry, Steven. If I ever cared for you, the passion didn’t last.”
He stared at me in disbelief. “After all we said? Can you remember last summer?”
“Yes, I remember it well. I remember the day you first approached me, when Lizzie had given you short shrift. I remember what you said, what I said, but I made you no promises, Steven. I don’t consider myself bound to you.”
He looked as if I had struck him. His eyes opened wide as they stared into mine. “Heartless!” he cried, rocking back on his heels. He dropped my hand.
That was overly dramatic, and if he stayed before the fire for very much longer, he would scorch his coat. “Please get up, sir. There is no need for histrionics.”
He ignored me. “Can it be? Has another stolen you from me? Have you given way before a handsome face and good address?”
“No, that was you. Lord Strang is nowhere near as handsome as you.” I gasped in dismay. I could have bitten my tongue out, I had told him far more than he needed to know.
He stood, and strode around the room. I was glad to see the skirts of his coat away from the fire. I watched him, compared my past feelings for him with the powerful feelings I had now for Richard; feelings that made me do things I’d never thought myself capable of. I would never have done those things with Steven.
“I’m sorry.” I rose to leave.
Steven stood between me and the door. He deliberately barred my way.
“Strang.” His handsome face contorted with rage. “I suspected as much, but I wasn’t certain. You can’t have him, he’s betrothed already.”
“He intends to break it,” I informed him calmly.
“He wouldn’t dare.” He pushed his face close to mine. “He won’t be allowed to. I thought if you had a tendre at all, it was fo
r the younger brother. I might have let you go, if that was the case.” Privately, I thought not. In any event, he had no right to “let me go” as he had never had me in the first place. “How could you, Rose, how could you?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he threw up his hands. “No, I can’t stay silent. I must tell you, my dear, I must. Strang is a rake, a libertine of the highest order.”
With a sinking heart, I remembered what he’d seen upstairs that day. I realised he was about to relate it to me. I tried to stop him. “It makes no difference. Please, Steven, let me pass.” I tried to pass him, but he stood firm.
“No.” He flung out both his arms to prevent me leaving.
Tiring of his dramatics, I sighed and resigned myself to listen before I left.
“I’d rather you had spared me having to tell you. You should know on what you want to waste yourself. Last week, I was in the corridor above the State Rooms.”
Struck by a sudden thought, something that hadn’t occurred to me until that moment, I asked, “What were you doing there?”
He flushed. “That doesn’t matter now. I heard a sound. Oh, God, how am I to tell you?” He seemed only too glad to tell me. A gleam of triumph lurked in his eyes. “I opened the door. I’m sorry, my darling, but I saw Lord Strang and he was not alone.”
“Canoodling with the maids, was he?” I couldn’t resist the levity. All his dramatics demanded it.
“Worse.” Steven covered his eyes. “Though how I can bear to tell you I do not know.” He made the most of this. He let his hand drop, and took mine in it again, compelling me to look up into his eyes. “He was in bed with one of the maids.”
I didn’t hesitate. “A man must have his pleasures.”
“Rose, you can’t think that.”
“No I can’t, but I don’t see what business it is of yours. I’ll deal with it in my own way. I’m sorry, Steven, but it makes no difference to the way I feel about you. It’s over—if it was ever anything in the first place, there’s nothing left now.”
My hair, my unmanageable hair had come loose from its neat knot, and I felt a strand on my shoulder. I put my hand up to push it back into position. Then I saw Steven staring at me in disbelief. “Your hair—that day—I saw—”
I remembered the way Richard had spread my hair to cover my face, the only part of me Steven had been able to see. My hair was of a deep chestnut colour, thick, wavy and distinctive.
“Rose, tell me it isn’t true. No, no, I can’t believe it.”
I think he was truly shocked now, although I wasn’t sure if it was his Christian principles, or his damaged pride when he found out Richard had succeeded where he had failed.
I thought of denying it, saying it was none of his business, but I tired of his histrionics. “Believe it.” I used the same tones Richard had that day.
Then he knew for sure. With some fascination, I watched the expressions cross his handsome face. I think he was truly horrified, but I wasn’t sure why. I don’t think it was moral outrage—what was he doing on that corridor?—more that someone had got there first. I may be maligning him, but I don’t think so. He stood before me, and looked down at me in sorrow and judgement. “Your brother must be told.”
“What do you think he’ll make me do? Marry Lord Strang perhaps?” Anger rose inside me. He had no right to question me in this way
He coloured red with genuine fury. I felt a little afraid. I’d steeled myself to cope with his displeasure, but the angry expression in his face promised more than words. “So the woman I thought so pure—the woman I was prepared to give my name to—is nothing but a common whore.”
He had made me very angry now, and I wasn’t prepared to take that last insult. “I thought you behaved like a whore in Devonshire by selling yourself to the highest bidder.”
“How dare you, madam!” He went as white as he had been red a moment before. The shock of his discovery made him truly angry, but I wasn’t fully prepared for his next move. “It disgusts me that you can do that with someone you have known barely a week. I courted you, I gave up everything else for you, and I even followed you here—” that was a bit rich, “—and you throw it all back in my face. Well, madam, what’s good for the goose—”
He threw his arms around me, pinning my arms to my sides. He crushed my mouth painfully under his, while he pulled at my bodice. I’d thought it a sturdy one, but it was not, sadly, sturdy enough to withstand him. His hands seemed to be everywhere, fumbling, tugging, and prying in places where they had no right to be. My bodice gave way, and then as he pushed me hard, I fell backwards on to the floor, stunned by the unexpected abruptness of his attack and the knock my head received when it connected with the floor.
He put one hand on my mouth and leant across my body to stop me using my hands to free myself. He used his other hand to grope at my breasts, and drag them painfully out from my stays. I threw my head to one side in an effort to break free, but he had his hand clamped over my mouth so hard, I found it difficult to breathe.
He must have mistaken my frightened struggle for breath for a response to his obscene fumbling, for he said in a low, libidinous voice, charged by perverted passion, “You like that, hey? Let’s see what else we can do.” He pushed up my skirts.
That, and his arrogant assumption that I would enjoy such an insulting violation, was his mistake. With my legs free of my skirts, I could kick, and I did, as hard as I could. I didn’t care where the kicks landed just so long as they found their mark somewhere on him. I managed to squirm free of him. Before he caught hold of me again, I took a deep breath and screamed, as loudly as I could.
“Bitch!” Steven caught me again, his expression nothing like I’d never seen on him before. A half smile, half leer marred his handsome features. In my despair, I thought no one had heard, but then the door crashed open, and suddenly the room filled with people.
Richard, Gervase and Miss Cartwright saw the truly unedifying spectacle of a man of the cloth rolling on the floor when I kicked him again. Richard ran across the room, a sword in his hand and I cried out, terrified. Not for Steven, but for Richard. It was only a dress sword but its long, thin blade could have killed Steven, wielded in the right way. Then he threw it in the air, caught it the other way around under the hilt, and used it to rap Steven smartly under the chin. It knocked him out cold.
Richard dropped the sword and reached into his pocket, but Gervase was there instantly. He gripped his brother’s arm. “Richard, no.”
Richard met his brother’s hard look with one of his own, full of fury. No coldness there, none of the controlled anger he had turned on Pritheroe. After a moment he nodded, and pulled his hand back out of his pocket, empty.
He turned, his face white, and came to me. I was surprised to hear a feminine cry of “Steven!” because I certainly didn’t call out.
Richard lifted me, tucked my breasts back into what was left of my bodice, smoothed my skirts back into place, laid me down on the couch and sat next to me. Richard had found my fichu, which Steven had torn off to get to my breasts, and he wrapped it around me to cover my ruined gown.
He never took his gaze away from my face. I was relieved, but ashamed as well. I believed I’d provoked this attack somehow. Perhaps I was a bitch, and a whore, and all the other things Steven had called me. Overwrought, out of breath, confused, I clutched his coat and burst into tears.
He lifted me and held me against his shoulder, making soothing noises. I’m afraid I must have ruined his beautiful blue coat with so many salty tears, but I was unable to stop. I must have grown hysterical, for he pushed me away after a while and gave me a little shake so that I stopped crying. Then he took a linen handkerchief from his pocket, and dried my tears himself as I rested thankfully against his shoulder. All the time he murmured soothingly, as though I was a child hurt by a fall. “Hush, my sweet. He’ll never touch you again, I’ll kill him first. Hush, now. There, there.”
The room seemed full of people, and all of them t
alked and shouted at once. I looked across to the fireplace, where Steven was still stretched out at full length, but he began to stir now. Miss Cartwright stood next to him, staring from one to the other of us. Gervase was trying to talk to Martha, who had come in on the heels of James, indoors for once, as luck would have it.
I blushed. “I’m so sorry.” His mobile eyebrows went up.
“Sorry? As far as I can see, you’re not the one who’ll make the apology. I shan’t ask how you feel—you must feel wretched. And this room is far too full for my liking—”
There was an almighty row beginning.
Gervase had both hands on James’s shoulders, while James called, “I’ll kill him. How dare he touch my sister!”
“How can you blame Steven for all this? The girl’s a hussy. She must have provoked him somehow.” Julia glared at Richard.
Everyone saw the look of contempt Richard flashed her. “There is never an excuse for this kind of behaviour, madam.” He stood and lifted me off the couch and then kicked the sword he had used on Steven out of the way across the floor. It clattered across the polished wooden floor in the sudden silence, as everyone stared at him.
“My lord, your arm.”
“Perfectly well now, my precious love. I’m going to take you to your room, and I won’t leave you until you feel more yourself again.” He looked down at my face, openly loving, and it reassured me that he, at least, wasn’t disgusted by me.
I was too weak and relieved to protest any more. “You promise?”
“I promise.” He kissed me lightly on the mouth.
Martha and James stared at us, stunned. James stepped forward. “I’ll take over now.”
I clutched Richard’s arm and looked up at his face. He smiled down at me. “It would be a great privilege to look after her. I promise you, no harm will come of it.”
Miss Cartwright stood stock-still in the centre of the room, humiliated and ignored. I felt so sorry for her at that moment, despite her stupid comments shortly before. Still holding me, Richard turned to her. “I’m sorry you should find out in this way, Julia. Believe me, this isn’t the only reason I wish to break our contract.”
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