"Do
you think me no match for Giles Courtney?" Alex asked, sitting beside her
on the furs and drawing her against him.
"What
would you do? Commit murder? What possible happiness could we have, founded on
such a base?"
Alex
sighed, fighting the insidious creeping realization that he was going to lose
this battle. He had tried to push through her dull indifference, to impose his
will by ignoring the opposition, but in the end it was not possible.
"Sweetheart, you must help me," he said gently. "You will not
accept my plans, and the one you have proposed I absolutely forbid, and it is
something that I have the right to forbid. Is it not?" He turned her chin
toward him. "Is it not, Ginny, a matter in which I have some rights?"
Slowly,
she nodded her head. "There is one other possibility. I will tell Giles
that I am leaving him, but not the true reason. He must know nothing of you. I
will tell him that I intend to take ship for Holland and throw myself upon the
mercy of my cousin Edmund whom I believe to be with Charles II in exile."
"And
he will let you go?"
"Not
willingly," Ginny said. "But short of imprisoning me, he cannot
prevent me, and I will be committing no crime. He knows I have some jewelry of
my mother's that will pay my passage, so I do not need to rely upon him for
funds. I cannot be certain, but I think that so long as he sees only a dismal
future for me, he will not pursue me. If he thought for one minute that I was
running away with a lover, he would hound me into the grave, his or mine. But
the thought of my facing a lonely sea voyage, penurious exile in a hostile
land, the uncertainty of finding my cousin there, even supposing he still lives
... I think he will say good riddance. I am no good for him, after all, simply
a constant reminder of failure. He will be happier with his bottle and without
a scolding wife. He can put it about that ill health has taken me home, so he
need not lose face."
"But
again you assume the full burden," Alex protested. "You will be in
danger from him, and you will allow me no opportunity to share the risk."
"I
must leave with his agreement, if we are to have any chance of a life
together," Ginny said with quiet insistence. "Even so, we cannot go
back to England, and you must live in exile because of me — "
"You
must not say that. It is not because of
you.
It is because of
us.
And
it is a sacrifice I shall count for naught." He ran his flattened palm
over her belly. "I love you, Virginia, and this child of ours must have
the chance to grow up in that love."
"Then
you will let me do this my way? For it is the only chance we have to achieve
that happiness." She spoke with quiet determination, showing him a face
suddenly serene in the aftermath of having made the only decision possible. It
was a plan that would risk all on one throw. Once Giles knew she was intending
to leave him, if he did not react as she gambled, then he could prevent her
physically and with the full support of the law. A man was entitled to keep a
potential runaway wife at home. But what choice was there?
"When
will you talk to him?" The question signified agreement. "It would be
best to wait until just before you must leave for the sailing."
"Yes."
Ginny shuddered at the thought of continuing to share a roof with Giles after
such a confrontation. It would be utterly impossible. ''Yes, I will wait until
the day I intend to go."
"You
will nut do this tiling without telling me first, though? I must have your word
on that." He drew her across his lap, holding her head in the crook of his
arm. "Your word, Ginny."
"My
word," she said, knowing how dreadfully difficult it must be for this man
of action to surrender control, to wait upon the sidelines while she risked
all.
"Then
I will agree because I must." Gently Alex laid her down on the furs,
dropping to his knees beside her. The hut was warm from the crackling fire,
safe and enclosed in the deserted glade in the midst of the forest. But they
had never yet made love there. There had been too much tension in the last
days, too great a sense of foreboding for the ultimate expression of love to
have a part. Now, there was peace between them, the sense of inevitability
wrapping them in a silken cocoon.
Ginny
smiled, stretched languidly, lifting her body to help him as Alex undressed her
carefully, laying her bare in the fire glow, her skin gleaming against the rich
darkness of the furs. Leisurely, he kissed his way down her body, leaving
scarcely an inch of skin untouched, and when he reached her feet, he turned her
over and began again, moving up her back to the nape of her neck. Little
prickles of pleasure danced over her skin as he stroked her bottom, slipping
his hand between her thighs, chuckling with satisfaction when she began to
squirm with delight, the soft fur beneath her caressing with every wriggle of
her body.
Ginny
cast herself adrift on the sea of sensation, following the dictates of her body
and of Alex who followed his fancy and his desire that afternoon, playing with
her and upon her. Kneeling behind her, he drew her up onto her hands and knees,
his hands caressing her belly, holding her gently as he entered her, stroking
her stomach with the same rhythm that stroked within, as if imparting his
presence to the life she carried. She dropped her head and shoulders, and the
silky fur rubbed against her cheek, her eyes were tight shut on a warm red
darkness, her mind was emptied of all but the tranquillity of this surrender,
and when his completion throbbed and filled her, the tranquillity expanded to
contain her, body and soul, in the ephemeral moment that for that moment seemed
to be infinite.
It was
late in the afternoon when Alex stamped out the fire and they left the hut.
Ginny looked up at the sky, darkening above the bare branches of the trees. She
would be lucky to reach home before dusk, and Giles, if he was not already
drunk, would be bellowing for his dinner, particularly if he considered that he
had put in a day's work in the fields. Lizzie was spending the night at
Harrington Hundred, nursing her mother who had come down with a fever, so
dinner preparations would not have advanced beyond the stage Ginny had left
them when she had come out to meet Alex.
Oh,
well, Ginny thought with a shrug, he could always find something to scream
about. It would give him inordinate satisfaction to have a genuine grievance
for once. She would grovel in a thoroughly satisfactory fashion, and, while he
would not appear appeased, he would retreat into the corner with only a few
residual mutters. She felt far too peaceful and fulfilled to be disturbed by
anything Giles could say or do tonight, and the buoyant thought that she would
have to endure him for only a short time longer brought a smile to her lips as
she pushed open the cottage door.
The
smile died as she looked around the darkened room. The candles had not been
lit, and the fire was almost out. Of Giles, there was no sign. She lit the
candles, stoked up the fire, and went outside to the woodpile to replenish the
empty log basket.
"Where
in the name of Beelzebub have you been?" Giles reared up out of the
darkness, and Ginny screamed with shock, dropping the logs.
"Giles,
you startled me!" Her heart pounded uncomfortably. "You were not in
the house."
"I
have been searching for you," he gritted, seizing her arm. "Where
have you been all this time? I have been waiting for nigh on three hours."
"Wait-Waiting
three hours for your dinner?" Ginny stuttered in bewilderment, still
shocked. "But it is only five o'clock. We do not eat dinner before
half-past four o'clock . . ." Even as she said this, she knew that it was
not the answer. Giles had not been waiting three hours for his dinner; he had
been waiting for her.
"Where
have you been for more than three hours?" The pale-blue eyes glinted
strangely in the dark, and her heart sank. He was drunk enough to be
aggressive, but not enough to grow confused by a briskly matter-of-fact tale
that would imply he was behaving unreasonably to question it. He was also a
long way from falling into a stupor. "How long
have
you been away
from the house? You could have left any time after I did tins morning. What
have you been doing?"
"Let
us go back inside," Ginny said in a carefully reasonable tone. "It is
surely not necessary to conduct this conversation out here in the cold and the
dark." She bent to gather up the dropped logs, her heart thudding again as
she realized how vulnerable the movement made her, but all she could think was
that she must not show her fear. "Will you carry these, husband?" She
place two logs in his arms, catching him so by surprise that he hung onto them.
Picking up the remainder, she marched ahead of him into the now warm and
welcoming kitchen.
"Are
you going to answer me?" Giles threw the logs into the basket, sending up
a cloud of dust and wood chips. "I want to know where you've been."
"Am
I not to be permitted to leave the house, then?" Ginny inquired, setting a
pan of sweetbreads upon the fire. "I have been known to visit Susannah
occasionally."
"Don't
give me that insolent tongue!" Giles swung her away from the fire, his face
contorted with bitter loathing. How he hated her—as much as she hated him! The
thought flashed through her mind with all the force of illumination. Why had
she never realized the full power of that hatred? And the answer came—because
she had been too busy thinking of her own.
"You
have not been at Harringtons'," he was saying, "because I was there
myself earlier. They all have the fever."
"All
of them?" Ginny asked, trying to keep her voice calm, to steer the
conversation into everyday channels. "Susannah and the children
also?"
"So
you have not been there, then?" The pale eyes shone with triumph.
Ginny
sighed, twitching out of his hold to turn back to the fire, shaking the skillet
to spread the butter beneath the sweetbreads. "I did not say that I had
been. I said only that I did go there on occasion."
"Do
you think to deceive me with your devious tongue, you lying jade!" Giles
hissed, grabbing her again. "Who have you been with?"
"Giles,
let me go, please. I am trying to cook your dinner, and the butter will
burn."
"God
damn the dinner! Who have you been whoring with, woman!"
Something
snapped. The long months of patient endurance rose up before her, months when
she had fettered the free spirit of Virginia Redfern, the fearless, challenging
Virginia Courtney who had trailed the drum for love of Parliament's general,
who had allowed nothing and no one to prevent her from carrying out her duty.
Now, in these months she had bowed her head beneath the abuse of a man not fit
to tie her shoelaces, had done all she could to placate him, had endured the
public mortification of his drunken vilifications, all because he was her
husband and she had meekly accepted the yoke fate had laid upon her shoulders.
In the last week she had been stretched upon the rack of unbelievable tension,
not knowing which way to turn to protect those she loved from this monstrous
creature who called himself her husband. And quite suddenly, Virginia could
take no more. The careful plan outlined that afternoon to Alex went for
nothing. It was time she stood up for herself.
"I
am no whore, husband, but perhaps you should know the truth."
Giles
lost all his color, and his hands dropped from her as he backed away.
"What truth?"
"You
have accused me of having a lover often enough. Does it surprise you to know
that it is the truth?" she said coldly. "Come now, do not look so
devastated. Why would you be always accusing me, if you did not believe it to
be true?"
"Who?"
he said hoarsely. "I'll kill him."
Ginny
shook her head. "I do not think so, Giles." She felt amazingly calm,
amazingly in control. Giles was not frightening, he was pathetic, a paper
goblin revealed by the truth. If she had stood up to him before, who knows how
different things could have been? Ginny, in this moment of euphoria, forgot all
the occasions when she
had
faced him down with a scornful tongue or an
icy dignity. And she forgot what had happened on the one occasion when, feeling
as bitter as she did now, she had fought him with his own weapons.
Then
Giles began to speak in a low, intense voice; vile words poured from his lips
twisted with venom. Ginny felt suddenly sick as she listened, unable to block
out the vileness directed at her, contaminated by it just by hearing it.
"Stop,
for the love of God," she cried at last, breaking the dreadful spell,
pressing her hands over her ears, and turning to run for the stairs.
Her
movement broke some spell for Giles, also. When she turned to run, she was no
longer in control. He lunged for her, twisting her arms behind her back.
Terrified by the intense hatred in the pale eyes, Ginny fought like a demon,
kicking at him, butting his chest with her head. He was not greatly stronger
than she, weakened as he was by dissolution and ill health, but his frenzied
fury brought him dominance. When he hit her the first time, Ginny knew with
sick certainty that what she had sworn would never happen to her again was
going to be repeated. The second blow made her ears ring, and with a superhuman
effort born of frantic desperation, she managed to twist her head round and
sink her teeth into the soft fleshy upper part of the arm holding her wrists.