Authors: Carmella Jones
8
Seamus roared, “Oh this is how it’s to be, is it? You jump on the first man you find, eh? Leave old poor Seamus in the ditch just like always?”
Rachel started in surprise, then turned to see who might be there. She sucked in her breath sharply. She said, “Seamus, you best be leaving.”
Seamus lumbered into the bedroom. He grabbed Rachel’s foot, pulling her off of Jacob. Rachel screamed then, a sound that Jacob never wanted to hear again. He had seen men killed in the frontier. He had seen Indian raiding parties looking for glory or horses shoot or scalp anybody who wasn’t wise enough to take cover. He had seen entire wagon trains burned. Yet in all that time, he had never seen a woman harmed in any way. The only law that applied on the frontier was
do what thou wilt- except to women.
A man could be lynched for hurting a woman. There had even been tales coming down from Wyoming which stated that outlaws had lynched a man who harmed a woman. Traveling in the countryside with a woman was like traveling with a shield, for no one dared to assault any man who had female companionship.
As a result, seeing Rachel dragged out of bed by force brought powerful feelings of anger to surface for Jacob. He would have cut Seamus’ heart out and ate it then and there, if he had a knife to hand. He got up out of bed while Rachel flopped onto the floor, crying for anyone to help her.
She screamed, “Fire! Murder! Rape! Help, anybody!”
Jacob had not been able to hold on to her hand. The sweat that had gathered on their palms had made her skin to slippery to grasp. He had let go just when he wanted to hold on the most. He stood up, not caring that his boots had been taken off. His bare feet touched the wooden floor. That only added to his anger. He was put in mind of a day during his childhood when his father was beating his mother with a leather strap. Rather than staying in bed, he had got out to watch what was happening. Some part of his brain kept telling him to speak up, to say something. Yet, he never did. He watched as his mother cried for mercy and his father, as drunk as he had ever been, kept at it until the man finally fell down on his posterior. He had stalked out of the room, not even noticing Jacob. Ever since that day, he had sworn to himself that if he ever saw a woman being manhandled or mistreated, he would say something about it. He would no longer stay silent.
He said, “Mr. Flanagan, I’ll tell you but once. You best leave us both in peace and go your own way. If you don’t, then I’m liable to give you the beating of your life.”
Seamus pulled at Rachel. She had grabbed onto the frame of the bed with both her hands. He tried to pull her off. Then his eyes went wide with a maniacal fury as he saw the man standing before him. He let go of Rachel, then put his fists up in front of him. He said, “Come on then, you want to have a go? Let’s have a go. I’ll knock your bloody block off, that I will.”
Jacob raised his own fists. He had seen prize fights before. They had been sorry affairs that lasted fifty to a hundred rounds. Both men involved in those fights had been beaten senseless. He had an idea of how those fights were won and lost. The man with the longer arms often won against the man with shorter arms. Tall man regularly beat men shorter than themselves. He saw that he was taller than Seamus, and had longer arms. When he saw that, it didn’t matter that he had been in few fights himself. He knew his course.
He struck Seamus hard across the jaw. The Irishman staggered back for a moment. He cursed under his breath, then tried to return a punch in turn. Jacob had been paying close attention to the man’s elbows. A man always gave away which hand he would punch by moving his elbows. Once he saw Seamus’ elbows move, then it was only a matter of dodging out of the way in time.
He struck Seamus in the nose as hard as he could. He felt bone and cartilage break beneath his fist. Instantly, blood spurted out from the man’s nose. Jacob kept hitting the man. He hit him in the eyes, in the chin, on the nose. He hit Seamus until the man was on the ground, his face a mask of purple and red. Still Jacob kept hitting him.
He stopped when he realized that he didn’t have feeling in his right hand anymore. By then, Seamus lay on the floor, half-conscious. There was blood on Jacob’s hand, on his shirt, on his pants, on the floor, and on Seamus himself. Jacob panted out his breath. The pure, exquisite sensation that he had enjoyed only a moment ago had vanished. In its place was a dull ache that started from the back of his head and ran all through his body.
During the fight, Rachel had cowered against the foot of the bed. Now, she approached Seamus in order to see what had happened to the man. She crossed herself, then said, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. That’s a man who will never be the same again.”
Jacob said nothing. There were any number of things he could say. He could tell her that Seamus had deserved it. He could tell her that Seamus would have gotten the same treatment from any other man who saw him abusing a woman that was not his wife. There seemed little point in doing so, since Seamus now lay insensate.
He said, “That’s so. I’m of a mind to leave him to his own devices. What do you say?”
Rachel stood up. She kicked at one of Seamus’ arms. She said, “I’d say that’s a mighty fine suggestion. May I have your hand, Mr. Renmyer?”
“That you may, Miss O’Leary.”
He extended his left hand. She grabbed on to it. He walked out of the room, hoping that someone had a basin full of cold water at hand. If there wasn’t one, he would have to ride an hour to the north to find the nearest stream.
When he left his room, he found that he had been given a room on the second floor of the saloon. Zebediah Scribner greeted Jacob, who told him what had transpired. He then made his out of the swinging doors, not caring if any of the regulars who usually turned up around five in the evening saw him leading a woman by the hand or not. It turned out that Scribner did not have any cold water to hand.
He said, “Miss O’Leary, would you like to ride with me to the nearest stream? I fear I have mightily abused my own right hand. I expect I shall have need of it when the morrow comes.”
She looked his horse up and down. She stroked its head, then said, “Aye, and do you not know that Ireland has many daughters who can ride horses?”
Jacob smiled. He said, “No, I did not know that.”
He mounted his horse first. Then, he helped her up. She did not need his assistance. He rode off at a slow trot, trying to remember whether there was a justice of the peace in Sawtooth or whether he would have to go to Reno.
THE END
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Charlotte Gordon winced as her maid brushed out yet another snarl from her curls, coiffing each lock into place to form an elaborate hairstyle that tugged on Charlotte's temples. Heavy and time-consuming as it was, Charlotte bore with the pain -- tonight was the Duchess of Devonshire's ball and her mother would quite literally murder her if she didn't look perfect.
Charlotte sighed and waved the maid away as soon as she was finished, and with a hurried bow the girl scurried off, leaving Charlotte alone in her room.
At last. Charlotte let herself bask in the refreshing sense of being completely alone, with no one and nothing to attend to but herself. In a few hours, she would once again have to be Charlotte, daughter of the Duchess of Gordon, the
ton's
beautiful and charming "Flower of Galloway" -- but for now, she would have paid her father's fortune for the entire world to just leave her be.
Flower of Galloway indeed!
Charlotte snorted in a way that would have given her mother, ever the ambitious social climber, the faints. She rose and crossed the room, flinging open the door to the balcony and breathing in the cool air of yet another passing day. Another day she had spent laughing and chatting about Lady Worthington's unfashionable dress, or whispering about yet another of Earl Liben's indiscretions, or what a crude, insensible twit the new debutants were.
Yet another day of being trapped in this elaborate, gilded cage. Sooner or later the bars would suffocate her.
Stolen moments like this were breaths of fresh air. She slipped off her silk gloves so she could actually feel the cool breeze on her skin. It whispered secrets of mysterious, far away lands; of djinns and incense and white-faced geishas, where lanterns still burned instead of lamps and legends still rang true.
Charlotte let her eyes slip closed, willing away the rest of the world, if only for a little while. A thud shook her meditations, and in her surprise her glove slipped away from her grasp.
Before Charlotte could do little more than gasp, the expensive silk was nothing more than a white glimmer below. Schooling her face so none of her distress would show through, Charlotte turned around to meet her mother face-to-face.
Lady Gordon stood in the doorway, looking supremely unimpressed as she always did, staring down at Charlotte as if she was in her nightwear and not freshly made up in the latest Parisian fashions.
"I'm not too fond of the print. Tell the seamstress to go with a less...bruised silk come spring. And put on your other glove, what is the matter with you?" Lady Gordon sniffed and, criticisms finished, suddenly smiled. Her whole face lit up in delight. "Your father wants to see you in the drawing room immediately. It's about your marriage."
Marriage
! Charlotte stood up on wooden legs, following her mother down the hall only by sheer willpower. She'd always known this day would come, but so soon? She was only starting on her second season! She was barely more than an untrained debutante!
A tiny optimistic voice rang in her mind.
Maybe he won't care about me? Maybe he'll have a mistress and will allow me free reign.
She didn't even dare hope for someone she would be able to love. All throughout the past year, she'd met every single eligible bachelor from small gentry ("Practically peasants," her mother had sneered) to dukes of every title and reputation imaginable. None of them had been able to stir her heart.
Lady Gordon and Charlotte gracefully entered the drawing room, the picture of civility and grace. Lady Gordon perched herself near her husband, who nodded imperceptibly to his wife before turning his attention to his daughter.
"Charlotte, Lady Gordon --" A slight grimace here, the Duke hated to be reminded of his wife, "has most graciously arranged a fantastic match for you. Using her connections from when she, ah,
dallied
with his Majesty, she asked that you be entered into consideration as Prince George IV's wife. After viewing your performance as a debutante, the Prince himself declared that he would take you on."
The Crown Prince!
Charlotte was shocked, her head spinning.
The prince regent himself!
Her mother and father looked at her expectantly, obviously expecting Charlotte to break down in gratitude, maybe even fall to the floor in a clear faint.
"I...I can scarcely believe it." Charlotte managed to force out while she felt the ground fall out from under her feet, dreams of unwatched carriage rides, whole nights to herself, maybe a country estate where she could ride her steed freely flying out of her grasp. “It’s a great honor.”
“A great honor?” Her mother repeated incredulously. “It’s a miracle that his Majesty didn’t ask for that insipid French princess or, god forbid, yet another Princess of Wales!”
Yes, I wonder what kind of strings you had to pull to arrange this one, Mother?
Charlotte thought bitterly. It had only been a few short years since her mother had been his Majesty’s favorite mistress and Handmaiden to the Queen, and her exile from the court was a disgrace that still haunted their family.
A marriage to the Prince Regent would mean power, status, people fawning left and right, never having to lift a finger again. Everything her mother, not Charlotte, was interested in. She didn’t care for political intrigues or power games or the constant surveillance she’d be under and, dear god, she was about to
suffocate
.
Suddenly, Charlotte felt an irrepressible need to run, run run
run
right out of this mansion. She stood abruptly, cutting off her mother’s diatribe of the Prince’s many accomplishments.
“Apologies, I...I dropped my glove outside. I won’t be but a moment.”
Her mother looked vaguely horrified at her rudeness, but refrained from saying anything in front of her husband to Charlotte’s utter relief. Her father also frowned but waved her off. “Go on then. The Prince will be at the ball tonight -- you’ll need both gloves to impress him, I’m sure.”
Charlotte thanked her father and hurried off, fighting the need to run until she was clear of the parlor. As soon as she was away from the watchful eyes of her parents, she hitched up her skirts and flew through the grand halls, past a flurry of maids and out the stately front door.
Her lungs begging for air and her side in stitches, Charlotte was forced to shamble to a stop somewhere in the sprawl of London. She had no idea where she was or where she wanted to go, but the tightness in her chest loosened with every step she took away from that accursed gilded cage.
Here on the streets of London she could entertain fanciful ideas of escape. Of selling her dress, buying a pair of slops and a coat with the money before stowing away onto a departing ship. She mapped the route she’d take in her mind while she wandered aimlessly, too engrossed in her thoughts to notice the streets slowly emptying of respectable folk as she turned onto one alley after another.
When she snapped back to reality, she was the only one heading down a slowly darkening, unfamiliar street.
“Oi there!” A gruff male voice called from behind her, accompanied by a chorus of wolf-whistles and low snickers. “Who’s this fancy little chit then?”
Charlotte sped up, heart hammering in her chest as the footsteps behind her drew closer.
This is what you get for being foolish,
she scolded herself to distract from the fear that was rising in her throat like bile.
Why would you ever think you could handle a bit of adventure?
The street seemed to stretch on for miles, with no end in sight and her pursuers gaining on her by the second. No matter how fast she walked the pack of men -- sailors from the sound of it -- seemed to move faster, each sneer and taunt sticking to her skin and covering her in their filth.
One of the men finally got close enough to grab her arm, tugging her in his vice-like grip towards his friends. She breathed in, deep, before leaning close to the man’s head and letting out the highest, loudest, most alarming scream she could muster straight into his ear.
He howled and let her go, leaving her free to leap away. She took off like a shot, veins singing with adrenaline and heart pumping harder than it had ever worked before. It was like all her senses, dulled from countless evenings of useless conversation and routine, had suddenly sharpened. She could see the seams of every brick, the signs of every shop, the ginger cat that crossed the street in front of her. She could taste the wind in her mouth, feel it in her hair. And under the cacophony of shouts and cries of “Get her!”, she could hear...laughter?
Good God, was she laughing?
She barely had time to think about it before she saw a hidden alleyway the cat had sprung into and she followed it mindlessly, too intent on getting away from the scoundrels to think about what lay ahead of her.
A strong hand gripped her waist as soon as she entered the shade of the alley and swung her back, stepping in front of her just in time to meet the sailors in hot pursuit.
“Mate, move outta the way. We gots some business with this li’l broad…” The man she’d deafened visibly paled as her protector stepped out into the dusky early evening light. Likewise, the rest of the pack scrambled backwards as the mystery man stood calmly in front of them, suddenly so quiet you couldn’t hear a squeak from any of the bunch.
Who was this man?
Charlotte knew that he couldn’t be part of high society -- his coat, though obviously made from expensive material, was too large on him and wasn’t in any discernible style or shape that Charlotte could recognize -- and being the trendsetter she was, that was saying something. Besides, it was weather-beaten and battered, and no respectable man would be caught dead in such attire.
Yet his outfit was far too expensive for anyone else but the
haut monde
to afford. A merchant perhaps?
When the man finally spoke, his voice sent shivers down Charlotte’s spine. It was deep, rough in a way that reminded Charlotte of tobacco smoke and the stormy sea. Hypnotic, with a gravity of its own, and before Charlotte could stop herself she had taken a step towards his broad back.
“Well, boys, seems like this little lady doesn’t want to play.” He said with a tinge of amusement. “Why don’t you go find yourselves some decent toffers in the rookeries?”
The men left as one, slinking away without even a word of protest. A couple of the bunch even muttered some apologies before leaving. Them gone, the man turned around to face Charlotte, who met his scrutinizing gaze head-on.
“I can see why they chased you,” was the first thing he said after what seemed to be an eternity. “How’d the daughter of…”
“The Duke of Gordon.” Charlotte finished for him. Rather than seeming impressed, he snorted derisively.
“...the Duke of Gordon end up in this part of town?”
Charlotte felt a bit sheepish, and worried the edge of her glove. "I was...wandering."
"Wandering? I've heard the Duke of Gordon was a dodding old fool, but surely even he must disapprove of his famed daughter
wandering
around rookeries. Is this a habit for you then?" Charlotte could
feel
the man watching her, his dark eyes taking in her dress, her hair, even her missing glove. She shuddered.
"Hardly," Charlotte replied hurriedly, if only to distract the man's attention. "And I must thank you for --"
The man impatiently waved away the thanks. "Isn't saving a beautiful lady any man's dream?"
He flashed her a smile then, and proffered his arm. "If the lady wishes, would she take a walk with this poor soul?"
Charlotte hesitated, horror stories of strangers and murders and kidnappings running through her head. Her common sense shrilled at her to stop, to find a police station or some such respectable institution, but the adrenaline still flowed in her veins from her earlier encounter and she felt reckless. Stupid, even. What did she care if she made it back home? Nothing was waiting for her but a life she'd rather leave behind.
The mystery man waited for her patiently, seemingly reading her every emotion as if she was transparent. Charlotte reached out and slid her arm in his, her hands wrapped around a hard bicep.