One Long Hot Summer

by Antonia Adams

  ‘Where are we going?’ Elinor fought to keep her tone even, though it was pitched several tones higher than usual. ‘Please,’ she added again, hoping to appease the man.

  He let go of her arm, but did not answer the question. Elinor turned to look out of the window: they were heading into a part of London she did not know – and which, by the look of the run-down buildings and dirty streets, she felt quite lucky not to have known before. Dusk had fallen, but there were few lights visible. At another time, Elinor might have found it spooky; at the moment, she was too bound up in what was happening to her to care much about any ghostly imaginings.

  The driver pulled up outside a grubby looking house, and Ted stepped out. Elinor considered, for a moment, trying to run; but she knew that she would not get far before they caught her. It would be a pointless gesture, and she preferred to keep her options open for a more hopeful situation later.

  ‘Get out,’ ordered Ted gruffly. Elinor obeyed. He grabbed her shoulder and propelled her firmly towards the door of the house, turning to say to the driver ‘Now, be off with you,’ in a voice which brooked no argument.

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’ she asked softly as Ted opened the door with a rusty-looking key.

  ‘Why …’ replied a new and familiar voice from inside, ‘I invited you here to meet me.’

  Sir Hugo Mansfield. Elinor stilled. This was unexpected indeed. She had presumed that Ted had kidnapped her, hoping for Lucius to hand over money for her safe return. But Sir Hugo was as rich as Lucius himself; monetary gain could not be his motive. Which left – what? Elinor remembered Lucius’s story of the beaten mistress; remembered the sight of the woman in question. Suddenly she found it hard to swallow past the lump in her throat. Was she to be beaten in revenge for Lucius’s protection of the other woman? Scarred, even?

  ‘This is a surprise.’ Despite herself, Elinor could not keep her voice from trembling.

  ‘Come in,’ Sir Hugo invited coolly. He nodded at Ted. ‘You have performed your part well. I thank you.’

  It was as clear a dismissal as Ted’s had been to the coachman. The man vanished through a door on one side of the corridor, and Elinor followed Sir Hugo into a room on the opposite side. The room was surprisingly clean, albeit most of the furniture was old and in need of mending. A chaise longue lay on one side of the room, startling in its difference to the rest of the room. It looked new, and had certainly cost considerably more money than the rest of the pieces put together. Its red cover gleamed in the light of the candles scattered around the room.

  ‘Please,’ Elinor said, attempting a gentleness she did not feel, ‘tell me what this is about.’

  ‘But where are my manners?’ Sir Hugo said. ‘Mrs Crozier, do take a seat.’

  He gestured towards the chaise longue; Elinor, after a second’s deliberation, sat herself in an old arm chair, which smelt faintly of mould. There was something wrong, something alarming, about the chaise. Like Sir Hugo himself, it did not fit the room, and unaccountably the sight of it made her nervous.

  ‘Why am I here?’

  ‘So that I may enjoy the pleasure of your company,’ Sir Hugo drawled. ‘Can you doubt it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elinor. ‘Now, the truth, if you please.’ She kept her tone firm but non-threatening as she continued, ‘You have abducted me, and I would like to know the reason why.’

  ‘Succinctly put. I have always admired the bluntness of your conversation, Mrs Crozier. Let me be equally explicit.’ Sir Hugo was still standing; he strolled back and forth as he talked, as if giving a public lecture. ‘You will be aware, of course, of the mutual dislike – I think I could go so far as to say “loathing” – between your husband and me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the reason?’

  ‘You feel that he stole your mistress.’

  Sir Hugo raised an eyebrow. ‘My my, he has been frank with you, has he not? Tell me, were you shocked to discover that your husband had a mistress?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Elinor retorted.

  ‘No, I suspected as much. After all, I imagine it was a role you filled usefully in your time.’ Sir Hugo paused. ‘The only fascination really is why he took it into his head actually to marry you.’

  For the first time since she had been kidnapped, fury trumped fear in Elinor’s heart. ‘How dare you?’ Involuntarily she rose to her feet, her fists clenched at her side. ‘I have never been Lucius’s mistress. How dare you imply it?’

  ‘I appear to have hit a raw nerve. I apologise, Mrs Crozier. It must only be since your marriage that –’

  ‘When one is married, Sir Hugo, one does not count as a mistress,’ Elinor shot at him.

  ‘Or at any rate, not with that particular man,’ Sir Hugo agreed coolly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I imagine he passes you around all his friends, does he not?’ The clear cultured voice of Sir Hugo made the obscenity of his words almost worse, Elinor thought, sickened. ‘Wootten, after all – it is evident to the poorest intelligence that he could not get a woman except by proxy. Does it thrill you, Mrs Crozier, having Wootten’s clammy skin pressed to yours? Are you excited by each new man who touches you, thinking about what they will do to you; what you will do to them?’

  ‘No.’ Elinor’s voice was a mere whisper.

  ‘Your husband is a generous man, in his way. How many gentlemen have you had since your marriage?’ he pressed on. ‘Five? Ten? More? How many friends – close friends, you understand – does Crozier have?’

  This wasn’t happening. This could not be happening. Sir Hugo was a gentleman, even if an unpleasant one. No gentleman could stand and make such accusations towards a lady. This was a bad dream. Elinor blinked a couple of times in the hope the image would fade. It didn’t.

  ‘Don’t. Please …’ She hated herself for begging. Hated him for bringing her to this point.

  ‘Do you go down on your knees to each one in turn while the rest look on?’ Then, as Elinor did not reply, ‘Oh, come now, Mrs Crozier. There are only you and I present. No one will know what you tell me – unless you tell them, of course. But I do not think you will.’

  ‘What is your intent?’ Elinor’s voice was low.

  Sir Hugo smiled. ‘To have a little of what all those other men have had, Mrs Crozier. Nothing more.’

  ‘But I haven’t ... I never ...’ Elinor broke off, knowing that whatever she said Sir Hugo would not believe her. Knowing that his own life was such that he couldn’t imagine there was such a thing as a virtuous lady – let alone a married one. Let alone one married to Lucius.

  ‘Mrs Crozier!’ Sir Hugo’s tone of disbelief confirmed all her fears.

  ‘You will not believe me, will you? Whatever I say.’

  Sir Hugo raised an eyebrow. ‘It depends what you say. If you choose to tell me the truth, I might. If you persist in these tedious denials, however ...’

  ‘I see,’ Elinor said dully.

  ‘Shall we start again?’ Sir Hugo said kindly. ‘Now, Mrs Crozier, why do we not cut to the chase? You married a libertine, whose ways are well known to the whole ton. Pray do not claim that you know nothing of it.’

  His words hit Elinor like a slap. The whole of the polite world had been laughing at her ever since her marriage. Lucius’s affairs were the worst kept secret in London ... the only secret was her role in his life.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well, I owe your companion on the journey here something for his assistance. I’m sure you understand that. But after that? You are free to go, of course.’

  ‘Lucius will kill you.’

  Sir Hugo’s smile grew broader. ‘Oh, I doubt it. I am reckoned a good shot, you know. And besides, you would have to tell him what has occurred here. If you choose to do so, it will be worth it for that moment alone – I do so wish I could be present at that conversation.’

  ‘You are evil. A horrible, evil man.’

  ‘And you, my dear Mrs Crozier, are being commonplace. A disap
pointment, I confess.’

  Elinor’s eyes had been darting round the room as the conversation took place, looking for any means of escape. But Sir Hugo was no fool, and there was no obvious way out, save past the man (no, he was not a gentleman, no matter his rank) himself. He made a move towards her, and she shrank back before she could stop herself.

  ‘You need not concern yourself. I am a considerate lover,’ Sir Hugo said. Elinor tried not to think of Lucius’s animadversions on the man, wanted to wipe from her mind the image of the woman she had seen, scars still visible from Sir Hugo’s treatment of her. ‘And it is hardly as if the role is new to you, after all.’ He put a hand into an inner pocket of his coat, and drew out a wicked looking blade. It shone silver in the candlelight, small and deadly. ‘We can do this the easy way, or we can choose a more painful route, Mrs Crozier. The choice is yours.’

  Elinor sank back down into the lumpy arm chair. For the first time, she realised just how serious Sir Hugo was. Up unto that point, she had thought that if, perhaps, she found the right combination of words, he might let her go. But the sight of the sharp steel glinting in front of her told her that this had been a vain hope. He would not let her go. He would never let her go until he had done what he chose to her. And even then ... she thought of the rotting teeth and dirty nails of the man called Ted, who was “owed” by Sir Hugo for his kidnap of her, and felt sick.

  Finding it hard to swallow past a lump in her throat, she did her best to smile. ‘Please, do not think I am challenging you,’ she said, fighting to keep a quavering note from her voice. ‘It is all so – unexpected, you understand.’ She gave a laugh that sounded false even to her own ears. ‘I was anticipating a card party, not a ... a flirtation.’

  ‘That’s what Crozier calls it these days, is it?’ Sir Hugo said, his loathing for Lucius evident in every syllable. ‘How refined of him. A “flirtation”. Such a nice phrase.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Elinor said instinctively.

  ‘Yes.’ Sir Hugo’s voice was suddenly low and intense. ‘Yes you do, Mrs Crozier. Why do you persist in these denials? Do you think to protect that man – that so-called-man to whom you are married?’

  ‘I apologise.’ Elinor’s voice wobbled a little. Forgive me, Lucius, for what I am about to say. ‘I am accustomed, you understand, to defending my husband. It feels most strange to be in a position where I need not do any such thing.’

  Sir Hugo leaned against the wall. ‘Believe me, there is certainly no need to do so in my presence.’ His voice became gentler, though his fingers still stroked the flat edge of the knife. ‘Come, this is surely no terrifying ordeal; certainly it need not be. You never know, you might even enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Elinor wished she knew how to look coy; she looked up at Sir Hugo from under lidded eyes and hoped her expression was seductive enough. ‘Why do you not show me what you know? If you are as talented as you sound, I may very well take pleasure in it. I must confess that I have not enjoyed many sexual experiences with gentlemen before now.’ Which last was true enough: Elinor had not had the chance to experience more than one. If Sir Hugo chose to take her words with a different meaning, why, that was his prerogative. Lucius’s words came back to her: there is one area in which we are weaker than water. So help me, Lucius, she thought desperately; I hope you are right.

  ‘You are very easily persuaded,’ Sir Hugo said, a note of suspicion in his voice.

  Elinor gave an insouciant shrug. ‘As you say, you are hardly suggesting something I am not accustomed to.’ She allowed her eyes to look him up and down. ‘And, indeed, you are certainly considerably more handsome than the majority of my conquests.’ She allowed a note of admiration to creep into her voice. A stroke of brilliance occurred to her: one which she thought might convince Sir Hugo more than anything else she had said so far. ‘And maybe,’ she murmured, coming closer to Sir Hugo and putting a hand on his arm, ‘if I please you well enough, you might consider finding a – a different reward for my original captor.’

  He laughed, and Elinor thought with relief that her tactic had worked. He believed her willing to do anything with him in the hope that she would not then have to endure the grubby hands of “Ted”.

  ‘I might consider it,’ he acknowledged, a loathsome smile flickering at the corner of his lips. ‘If you are a very, very good girl.’ To Elinor’s relief, he reached up and placed the knife on the mantelpiece. Knowing she was watching, he smiled more broadly. ‘Don’t think about trying to reach it,’ he said coolly.

  ‘I won’t.’ Elinor looked up at the blade with an expression of anxiety which was by no means faked. If her plan for escape did not succeed, she had no doubt that the knife would be used on her. ‘Can’t we move a little further away from it?’ she pleaded, her fingers clinging to his arm as she edged away from the fireplace.

  ‘A nervous little thing, aren’t you?’ Sir Hugo said, but his voice was amused rather than angry.

  He moved towards the chaise longue, but instead of sweeping her onto it, as Elinor had feared he would do, he pulled her into his arms as they stood. Her heart was beating fast within her breast, and there was a slight tremble in her fingers which she could not prevent.

  ‘I am but a woman,’ she said diffidently. ‘I do not like weaponry, you understand.’ Then, loathing herself even for saying it, ‘I am made for love-making, not violence.’ She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat as she said the words aloud. Whether she escaped with her chastity unsullied or not, she knew these moments would live in her mind, humiliatingly, for too long.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Sir Hugo.

  He kissed her, and Elinor closed her eyes and thought a desperate apology to Lucius, that she should submit – indeed, to seem to like – these kisses from his enemy. Her breathing was ragged, not from passion, as Sir Hugo appeared to believe, but from fear. She knew what he intended to come next; she knew what she intended to come next. They were not the same. Nevertheless, she would need to make her move soon. Sir Hugo had started to unbutton her dress. She had given in to his kisses, and he seemed to believe that she welcomed them. Much longer, and the opportunity might be lost.

  ‘My Lord …’ Elinor’s voice sounded weak and unconvincing to herself, but apparently not to Sir Hugo. He looked up at her, his face pink with arousal, and looking in Elinor’s eyes like an over-dressed pig. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. She swallowed hard. ‘I …’

  Without warning, she brought her knee up, sharply, against his groin, hearing her petticoats rip under the strain. If she had got this wrong, his punishment would be vicious indeed. But no. She had hit the spot. Sir Hugo doubled up as the pain gathered him in, and his grasp on Elinor’s dress loosened. She tugged herself away, leaving a scrap of the delicate silk still in his hand, and ran. Her original captor, to her relief, was not in sight as she dashed for the door. Sir Hugo had chosen his hidey-hole well. Elinor found herself in a part of London she knew not at all, but which was certainly one of the less salubrious places in which she had found herself. She knew she must look a sight: her dress ripped at the shoulder and dirty at the ankle, her hair trailing loose over her shoulders. If it weren’t for the quality of the materials she was wearing, she thought wearily, no one would believe her to be part of the ton. Even as it was, she suspected that people would presume the clothes stolen.

  She took another look round, and realised she hoped they would think the clothes a robbery. Wherever-she-was was not a safe place for elegantly dressed ladies of the polite world. A sick feeling arose in her throat as she wondered whether she had escaped one horror only to be plunged into another. The two men on the far side of the road were staring at her – as she watched, one nudged his companion and said something that drew a ribald laugh.

  Trying to ape a confidence she did not feel, Elinor slowed her pace to a purposeful walk, as if she knew precisely where she was headed and had no doubt of her ability to get there. She was relieved to see the m
en turn away.

  Five minutes later, she was alone. And totally, utterly, lost. All the famous landmarks of London were invisible in this world of tumble-down warehouses and broken bricks. It was like a different world; and Elinor knew that whatever happened, she would be irrevocably changed by this long, frightening walk. She had thought she knew what poverty was when she and her mother had been struggling to survive in Carryleigh, but the grimness of what surrounded her now showed her that she had barely scratched the surface. Occasionally she caught sight of a few ragged children, playing games along the alleyways, the strong Cockney accent strange to her ears. A woman came right up to her, pawing at her clothes. Her breath smelt rankly of alcohol, and Elinor pulled away hastily.

  ‘It’s all right, my lovely,’ the woman croaked. ‘I only want to help you.’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Elinor said, disentangling herself as hastily as she could, and feeling a wave of guilt about her mistrust of the woman’s motives. Most likely the woman really did want to help – but what if she did not? ‘Thank you,’ she called again, louder, as she walked swiftly away.

  ‘Come back, lovely.’ The words drifted out to Elinor on the air, but she did not turn.

  She walked further and further, pretending that the dampness of her eyes was due to the smoky surroundings and not to her own fear and tiredness. Darkness was coming, and Elinor had never been more afraid.

  ‘Mrs Crozier!’

  Elinor froze to hear her name spoken in the refined accents of a gentleman. For a couple of heartbeats she feared that Sir Hugo Mansfield had discovered her; for a couple more, she wondered whether that might not be preferable to what she could face otherwise.

  ‘Elinor?’ the voice said, gentle and shocked.