by Pendle, Eve
“All right,” she shouted. She refilled the ammunition, putting in two rounds. The gun clunked back together. Looking up, she saw James.
He was distracted for a moment, looking towards the horizon. Thinking of his new love, no doubt. He appeared smug. While her world and confidence had been shot away, he was happy and self-assured. His tweed suit had a stripe of red and for a second the wool glinted in the sunshine like the showy feathers of a pheasant. A shallow, vain, cockerel of a man.
The frustration tingled through her. She needed catharsis, an outlet for her fury. A pheasant fluttered up to her right and instinctively cocked the safety and she raised the gun and cocked the safety. She tracked the bird left, across the sky. Out of the bottom of the sight, she saw James. Her hand shook; the bird went out of sight. James was there, right in line, and she squeezed the trigger.
His yell was muffled, and she dropped the gun. His cocker spaniel yapped as she ran to him, her skirts tripping her up. But she was too late.
Chapter Nineteen
Emily gulped in air, her chest tight. The gray light of dawn had seeped into the room, but it still took her a moment to recognize that this was Markshall’s bedroom, and he was next to her. They’d fallen asleep after their early morning activities. His arm was a heavy bar on her waist, his breathing steady and deep.
She turned her head. He was peaceful, blond eyelashes fanned across his cheek. She watched him and for a second it felt like she might relax, but then another face in repose appeared in her mind. This was wrong, in every way. She needed space and air. It was too close here, tight and stifling. Holding her breath, she lifted his arm and wriggled out of bed.
The spring air bit at her exposed skin. She crept to the adjoining door and let herself back into her own rooms. The bed was just there, but chilly sheets and a return to her dreams was the last thing she wanted.
By coming to his bed, she’d meant to speak to Oscar about his deception – his hiding the good he did. Her intention to persuade him to embrace who he really was and embrace her as a married couple ought to had been flimsy, forgotten once she’d fallen asleep and disregarded.
She could put on a simple walking dress without the help of a maid. She could go out fern hunting and put an end to all this idiocy, both the sleeping and the wakeful sort.
* * *
It had taken all his restraint to allow her the choice. She’d had another nightmare, that was clear. He’d assumed she was going to her own bed given the darkness was only just graying through the curtains. But the muffled noises were of her dressing. At the sound of her door opening, his mind spun through the places she could be going, and what she might be doing. Riding, walking, reading in the library. Ultimately, it was none of his business in a marriage such as theirs.
He told himself that even as he threw off the covers and stalked through their adjoining door. She had a practical black woolen cloak on over a pale green walking dress. She was going out, looking like demure sweetness. Without him.
“Stop.”
She turned slowly and pinned him with an enquiring look.
“Where are you going?”
Her eyebrows raised. “I’m going to look for ferns.”
Damn. He was not at his charming best this morning. He should just let her go. “Please wait a few minutes and I will accompany you.”
“There’s no need.” She gave him what he was coming to recognize as her society smile. “You’ll be bored rigid.” Her eyes flicked down.
He was naked, he realized. Resisting the urge to cover himself, he forced a smirk. “I won’t be rigid, don’t worry.” That he could guarantee.
“Very well.” Her cheeks flushed pink for a moment. “I’ve ordered a carriage. Let’s not keep the horses waiting. They’ll get cold in this weather.”
It was the mildest way of telling him not to dawdle and delay her. Minutes later they were sitting opposite each other in the carriage.
This was folly. He’d be fed up within a quarter hour. But he wanted to spend time with Emily, to try and make amends in some way. Maybe he could understand her nightmares. If that meant trailing around, well, worse things had happened.
“Where are we going?” He asked after a few minutes of thick silence. It was just something to open a conversation. Any conversation.
“Hampstead Heath.”
“Why?” There were many heaths and public parks near London.
“It’s a perfect location for–”
“Staring at nude men swimming?” Hampstead Heath was well known for having a swimming lake within its boundaries.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Emily blinked in ostensible naiveté. “I don’t generally frequent the swimming lake. I am more interested in the ferns, my lord.”
“Perhaps you’ll find a devil’s tongue.”
“Probably.” She smiled sweetly. “They’re very common.” But behind her virtuousness, he saw her use of the words as a shield and a pun, a joke to herself whilst holding up a mask of reputation.
He chuckled. “What is it really about Hampstead Heath?”
Her eyes narrowed for a moment, waiting for him to mock her. Then she tilted her head. “Well, it’s a sandy area on top of the London clay. You get all sorts of damp hollows and moist springs.”
He was going to be hard before they got to the heath if she continued like this.
“It’s the perfect wet location for all sorts of ferns. Being so close to London, probably all the interesting ferns have been taken. But one never knows what might be found in a hidden cleft.”
Thankfully the carriage lurching to a halt prevented him having to answer. Minutes later, they were walking side by side through the grass. He’d directed the footman to go and find a warm drink for the driver and then to stay with the coach.
It was a bright spring early morning, with the blue sky complementing the bluebells and purple orchids.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, what have you been doing since we wed, my lord? When we’re not together.”
“Drinking and…” He didn’t want to say whoring or gambling, as that would be an outright lie. “Carousing.”
“And the truth?” Emily peered into woodland, searching for ferns.
He stared at the shapely planes of her back. Her dress was perfectly tailored. The cotton, fine and sheened, ought to have been restrictive, but somehow when she knelt there were no pulls or creases. She was stylish even in the dirt. “Pardon?”
“Do you think I’m stupid? I heard you working with your valet. I know about how you help Lord Selby.” She turned to him. “You don’t lie to Jones. Why do you lie to me?”
“I don’t tell Jones everything.” The truth came out, unprompted. “But you have more to lose by being disappointed.”
“You’re a poor example to every young aristocrat in the city.” She arched an eyebrow.
“You knew it when we married. I warned you, and you said you’d be happy with some children and being a countess.”
“You don’t believe half of what you say. Tell me something true and good. You decided to come with me this morning. Amuse me.” She leveled at him a sardonic look.
He understood her. She meant to invoke the truthfulness of their time in the mineshaft. She’d asked him to tell her something then and he’d told her about Lydia.
“The Contagious Diseases Repeal Bill was debated by Parliament last week.” He couldn’t tell her. It would be leaping off the cliff of good sense and self-preservation. But the words were there, and they felt right. Essential. “I’ve been trying to ensure the House of Lords will also debate it, which could put enough pressure on the Tory majority in Parliament to take it more seriously.” Maybe. It was a desperate chance, like his entire life.
“What contagious diseases are attempting to be repealed? I thought the point of a contagious disease was that once it was out, it was out.”
“Indeed. That is the case here too.” She was accepting this as if it were normal. They walked
on into the scrubby woodland, a mixture of hazel, beech, oak, and ash.
“I don’t know how much of a history lesson you need…”
“Assume quite a bit.” She shot him a wry look as she knelt and examined around the roots of an oak tree.
“Right.” He inhaled and thought. “Back in ‘64, there were two diseases of concern. Rinderpest was a horrible cattle disease, which is now under control. About the same time, it was decided that something needed to be done about the increasing prevalence of venereal disease amongst the military, particularly sailors.
“Two pieces of legislation were put through Parliament. One very tedious thing about importing cattle, called The Contagious Diseases Bill. And another act which allowed for the arrest, intrusive examination, and imprisonment of virtually any woman in Portsmouth, Plymouth, and several other army and navy towns. It was called The Contagious Diseases Bill.”
“Wait.” Emily’s hands stopped moving. “They had the same name?”
“A small oversight.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “Presumably it was entirely accidental, but it meant there was no debate in the commons or scrutiny by the press.”
“Convenient.” Her sarcasm was dust dry.
“On the one hand, some believe that this is an excellent scheme and should be extended to the whole country. On the other, there are a number of people who think that this is an affront to liberty and a stain on our country.” On the third, there were so many men who couldn’t apparently bring themselves to care in the slightest, either way. As though consideration of women would degrade them.
Emily stood up. “What is being done about it?”
“There is a women’s organization.”
She made a sound of approval.
“The Ladies National Association for the Repeal of The Contagious Diseases Acts.” Markshall nodded. He’d not met Josephine Butler and she wouldn’t welcome him. But he admired her work raising the profile of the plight of women like Fanny’s mother. “They had to make a ladies version of the association because only men are in the other one.”
“A group campaigning for women’s rights that doesn’t allow women to join?” Emily asked.
“Some men have no sense of irony.”
“Indeed.” She pointed up into a rocky crevice. “Look, there’s a rusty-back fern. Asplenium ceterach.”
“It’s…impressive.” It was a green leafy thing surrounded by slightly different green leafy things.
“It is rather, isn’t it? Clinging on where is most assuredly doesn’t belong and there is no substrate to nourish it. The little scales on the back are silvery before they turn reddish.”
“Shall I climb up and get it for you?” When she put it like that, it sounded rather more remarkable.
“No need. I have one already.” She walked on. “Tell me more about this Contagious Diseases Act. Not the cattle one.”
“The act was extended in ’69 to cover many more cities.” He kept pace with her on the narrow path, her skirts brushing the hems of his trouser every few steps as they walked together. It felt as personal as their joining last night. Telling her about the project that had all but obsessed him for months, which was coming to fruition this evening, and their bodies aligned, side by side, facing the world together. Even if that world was just a shady copse of trees.
“And this was considered a good idea?” She sounded befuddled, caught between the rationality of her ferns and dawning repugnance at the law.
“Evidently. They can pick up any woman on the street, any woman but usually a poorer woman who can’t afford a carriage, and examine her to check for venereal disease. Forcibly. Then if suspected or found to have VD, they can put her in a lock hospital for a year. Basically, they imprison the woman without trial and give some nominal treatment of her condition.”
“That’s…horrifying.” Her expression of disgust was escalating. The brightness had gone out of the morning, as if it knew her feelings.
“People have tried to make a moral case time and time again. But it doesn’t work.” His voice intensified in frustration. It felt good to unleash his opinion with someone other than Jones. “But the truth is, The Contagious Diseases Act should be repealed even without all those arguments. Because it doesn’t work. It’s too obvious. You cannot possibly keep a bottle clean when you keep putting in a dirty brush.”
Emily frowned and dug her heel into the mud with unnecessary force. “Indeed.”
“There has been debate after debate on this. It’s unconstitutional, it’s immoral, it’s unjust. They don’t care about that. The only thing that matters is whether it works. They come up with spurious reasons why the facts presented are wrong, but they’ll have to concede eventually that it’s failing to prevent the social disease.”
“They’d rather blame the whores and believe men can’t help themselves.”
“Yes.” As ever, she understood the core of the issue with the accuracy of a miniature painter.
“And what can you do? Has there been a campaign?”
His breath hissed as he sighed. “Yes. The best chance of repealing the act fell apart last year when the Tories were voted in. There were votes to try to repeal in ‘66 and ‘69. I wasn’t involved with either of those. But this bill is a chance and we have to take it.”
“Repeal won’t help the disease, though.”
“No.”
“Is it…” She hesitated, fiddling with her trowel, the muddy end only just avoiding brushing her skirts. “Possible you could have a venereal disease?”
“Oh...” The breath was struck from him. That accounted for her look of revulsion. “No. It’s very unlikely. I used to use a French letter when I went to ladies of disrepute.” He could say that he did it for his and their protection. He could say that it was to prevent leaving bastards across the country. But there was a balder truth. “It felt so dirty to pay for sex, I didn’t like the idea of doing so without a barrier between the lady and myself.”
Her expression mollified slightly into the line of a delicate frown.
“I also should confess...” He shouldn’t give her any more idea that he was a good person. But if it was the truth and would comfort her, was it wrong? “I haven’t touched a woman for years, before you. Any woman.” Since finding Fanny, the thought of going to a whore made his stomach roil.
“What about when all your friends are going to a house of ill repute?”
“They’re not my friends.” Lord Florint and his ilk were his companions, no more. “And I suppose you mean a brothel.”
“If that’s what it’s called.” The Perfect Lady was there again, having gathered her wits.
“I go with the other men and ensure a private room. Sometimes I just give the woman coin and read a book while she puts on a noisy show. Sometimes I–” Would this shock her? Well, he was a rake and she’d married him. What could shock her now? “I ask the whore to take her clothes off and touch herself, and I stroke myself to completion.”
“And that’s...” She narrowed her eyes as she sought for the correct word. “Acceptable?”
The clouds had darkened while they spoke and as they walked out of the shelter of the trees, a spot of water hit his cheek.
“Men like all sorts of things.” Then something in her expression made him add. “Women do, too.”
“Recently?” Her eyes held anger and jealousy and something hotter. Maybe excitement. Her dress was gathering tiny dark spots, like a rash or chameleon’s change.
“No.” He repressed a smile of satisfaction at the hint of possessiveness in her words. “Why? Would you like to do that for me?”
She looked away. The rain was clinging to her hair, tiny diamonds in the strands.
“Answer me.” This change in tone was quick, but he’d take it. Last night she’d come to him, today she wanted to talk. This could bring them closer.
“Yes.”
He couldn’t repress a smile, even though the rain was harder now. There were droplets running down her face. H
e stepped closer to her and touched her cheek with his forefinger, using it to draw her to look at him. Her gaze met his and he was almost struck down. The rain had become a storm and she was lightning and the need between them was thunder.
“We two can do whatever you like.” He was entrapped by her, even as he held her by a single fingertip. He was trapped by the guilelessness in her face. She was the beginning of the rest of his life. “There’s no limits or shame or rules. There’s no need for secrets from me.”
Her lips parted, wet with rain, panting with desire.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” he said. She was everything. “Just like I do at night when you come to me.”
She gulped, her eyes never wavering, examining his face. The pulse at her neck, seen in the periphery of his vision, was fast. “It’s soaking.” Her voice was breathy. “We should go home.”
Chapter Twenty
Emily and Oscar’s coats were sodden. Inside the coach–thank god they’d not come to the heath in the curricle–they dried off with the towel the driver provided from some hidden cubby hole. They peeled off their coats and thankfully were relatively dry underneath.
“I think I ought to get you out of these wet things,” Oscar teased as they entered the house, hand in hand.
“My lord–” Jones appeared at his side.
“Not now, Jones.” He smiled at Emily, who blushed in return. This was turning out to be a better day than he’d anticipated. They proceeded across the marble hall to the foot of the stairs.
“My lord,” Jones insisted, trailing behind. “You must see this.”
Work, always work. He squeezed Emily’s hand and sighed. “Why don’t you go and have a bite of breakfast. I will be with you directly.” In every way, he promised her with his eyes.
She nodded and slipped away to the breakfast room. The waist of her dress was tucked, her silhouette the epitome of womanliness. It reminded him that she was perfect, and he wasn’t. She was deserving and he was undeserving, but from a supreme excess of luck, she was his.
