“Hundreds.” Lady Royston said dramatically. “They lay them out in sordid little rooms and expect the relatives to come and identify them.” She shuddered. “Can you imagine who they would lay you next to? How you would be discovered? Oh Lucy.” Lucy couldn’t decide if her mother was more agitated at the thought of her daughter’s early death or her mixing with the lower orders in such a way. “I would have nothing, no one.” Sir Geoffrey laid a gentle hand over hers and she glanced at him gratefully. “At least someone has a thought for a mother’s sensibilities. I shall have one child I can rely on, even if it is only by marriage.”
“But Mama - “ Lucy protested.
Lady Royston glared at her. “If you think that I’ll send a notice to the “Post” based on tittle tattle from someone I don’t trust you can think again. The scandal. You would be labelled as a jilt for all to point at. No, Lucy, you have made your decision and you will marry Sir Geoffrey next month. He is better than you deserve and well you know it.”
Bewildered, Lucy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She knew her mother had heightened sensibilities for social niceties, but surely, this wasn’t so bad? She would be called a jilt for a while, but she knew her fortune would lure them back. For all its vaunted superiority, society still relied on hard cash for its supremacy. And why should her mother take Sir Geoffrey’s part in this way? Did she fancy him herself? She shook her head. “No, Mama, I will not.”
“I don’t think you have been listening to me -” her mother began, but just then, the door opened on Lane, coming in to announce diner. One look at his mistress’ face made him bow gravely and leave again, going down to the kitchens to report to his particular crony, Mrs. Jenks the housekeeper; “She’s in a bate. Better make sure everything upstairs is shipshape, She’s bound to find something.” Thus warned, Mrs. Jenks hurried off to drag her housemaids from their dinner to send them upstairs to check everything again. Just to be on the safe side.
Back in the drawing room, there seemed to be no stopping Lady Royston. She was adamant that the marriage would go ahead, scandalised that Lucy should go with Lord Royston anywhere, much less an address in the City. She brushed aside any attempt by her daughter to explain. “No, Lucy, my mind is made up. Sir Geoffrey is an excellent match and he will make you a fine husband. You will marry him next month.”
“But he’s a cheat.” Lucy managed to gasp out. All her careful preparation was ruined, all her thought out speeches unsaid. Her mother would hear none of them.
Lady Royston turned an unbecoming shade of pink, as her rage increased. Sir Geoffrey looked at her with some alarm. “If I may speak to Lucy alone for a while, I think I can persuade her of the rightness of it,” he purred. “Dear Lady Royston I would hate to cause you any further distress. I’m sure this is but wedding day nerves. Lucy is a carefully protected girl, and she may be feeling some qualms. May I reassure her?”
At his smooth, light voice Lady Royston stopped in her tirade. She studied at his handsome features instead, his smooth face, his sincere expression. “You’ll be overlooked in the front parlour.” Something changed, something subtle. Lady Royston and Sir Geoffrey considered each other gravely. “Her room is on the next floor up from this,” she told him.
Lucy felt her aunt’s hand grip her arm. “No.” that lady cried in her small voice. “You cannot.”
“It’s done all the time,” said Lady Royston smoothly. Her face had regained its natural colouring and she was almost smiling. “There will be no talk of postponements then. I will tell the servants Lady Lucy isn’t well, and you sir, have taken her to rest. They will know what to think, I am sure.”
Lucy seemed to be the only one who didn’t know what the purport of her mother’s meaning was, but she knew she would be glad to get out of her presence. Perhaps when she confronted Sir Geoffrey with what she knew, what she could say about him, he would leave her alone. So when he stood up and offered her the support of his arm she took it gladly and let him take her upstairs.
***
Lucy considered her room her only sanctuary in this house. Any conversation would be heard from the dining room if they used the front parlour, and the drawing room was available to any guests. Servants could come in at any moment. But she still felt awkward, showing Sir Geoffrey into her bedroom, even though she knew he was a gentleman. He sat down on the chair by the fire, leaving her to sit at her dressing table and turn to face him.
“Now my dear. What is this nonsense?”
Lucy took a few deep breaths to steady herself. Her mother’s attack had made her feel unsure of herself, but when she remembered those papers, the clarity of what they had told her made her strong again. “I went to see Mr. Chumleigh to find out the results of his investigation.”
“With the one man who wishes you the most harm in the world?”
“But I don’t think he does.” She found a ring on her dressing table, and began to fiddle with it, turning it over in her fingers without looking at it.
He saw the nervous gesture and smiled. Lucy didn’t think she liked that smile. She couldn’t recall seeing him use it before, a kind of superior, all knowing smile. “If you are dead, he gets all you have. If you’re married before you die, then he does not, so he must act now. He knows I’ve won. We went to the same school, did you know?” It didn’t come as any surprise to Lucy; there were only a few schools to choose from. He must have gone to
Eton
then, like Lord Royston. “I never liked him there, either. I always knew I would win in the end.” He paused and looked her over assessingly, making her feel like a piece of merchandise. “And with such an entrancing piece of bait, too.” He smiled again. “Don’t mistake me, Lucy, I do love you, I do want you for my wife. But I can’t deny your fortune is an added attraction. Can you doubt it?”
“I don’t want to marry you, Geoffrey.”
“You will, my dear, you will, when you know what joys await you.” He still smiled. “Our marriage is to start tonight, it seems. The ceremony next month will be a formality, confirming what has already taken place.”
Finally, she saw the import of all this, where it was leading to. “No.” She clutched the ring tighter, as though a genie would appear and help her out of all this.
“My dear it happens all the time,” he said patiently. “Not usually, I’ll agree, in the home of the parents in law, but I can see the logic of her ladyship’s reasoning. She has a horror of social disgrace, does she not? A fine sense of who she should allow into her house and who she should deny. You won’t be able to deny me after this.”
She looked up at him cautiously. “Please, Geoffrey, I don’t want - “
“You’ll be begging me to stay in an hours’ time. But first, I have to make a few things clear.” He stood up, so he towered over her. “I will not have my wife prying into things which don’t concern her. I will have obedience in my own house, and my wife should set the example for all. You will do as I say, go where I tell you, even wear what I approve of. Is that clear?”
She was still defiant, disbelieving. “No, Geoffrey, I will not.”
“Oh yes you will,” he said softly. His lean strength was menacing, as never before.
He glanced around the room, taking in the bed, the pretty accoutrements of a girl's bedroom, and then he saw what he was looking for.
He strode away from her and went to the corner of the room, bent and picked something up. When he came back to her, Lucy saw he was carrying her riding crop. “You will learn,” he said softly, a gleam in his eye which terrified Lucy. “And it might as well start now.” He bent down and gripped her arm. “Come on. Come to bed.”
Mary Potter counted herself lucky to have obtained a position in such a prestigious household. It had taken a few years, and she’d had to work her way up from housemaid in a simple household to her current position as head chambermaid here, but it had been worth it. The money was better, and there was even a prospect of her becoming lady’s maid, a position she had coveted since she was tiny.
Well now she was nearly there. She sometimes assisted her ladyship’s maid with the laundering of the finer and more intimate items of her ladyship’s apparel, and was avidly learning the various lotions, potions, and what they were for. She might even be allowed to help dress her young ladyship, when a particularly grand toilette was called for. Like the upcoming nuptials.
When the gentleman had accosted her in the Park that day, Potter had assumed that he was after what she broadly termed as “the usual” although it turned out not to be that. After informing him coldly that she was not that type of girl, he had said, “I can see that,” and led her aside. He proposed that she keep a special watch on one of the members of the household. “You need do nothing you feel compromises you or puts your position in any danger,” he assured her. “I merely wish to know that everything is as it should be.”
She had smiled and agreed, pocketing the vail he gave her with pleasure. A fool and his money were soon parted, she thought, and better her pocket than someone else’s.
She continued to meet the gentleman from time to time, sometimes going to his house, but using the servants’ entrance and claiming to have a message for him. She carried a piece of paper with her and was always allowed to see him personally. She told him very little. There was little to tell. Her ladyship was spending a great deal of money on her trousseau, she seemed very happy; she was looking forward to her wedding. It had seemed to be what the gentleman had wished to hear.
But tonight there was a difference. Loud voices had been heard coming from the drawing room, voices raised in anger, and
Mr. Lane
had told Mrs. Jenks that her ladyship was in a fine temper. Potter didn’t know why, but she was somewhat surprised when she saw her young ladyship’s betrothed taking her upstairs, and then to be told he had left and her young ladyship was indisposed and not to be disturbed.
Potter got worried. None of this was normal; none of it sounded right to her. Because of her exalted position in the house, she shared a room with only one other girl, and she was such a sound sleeper she regularly slept through thunderstorms. They were in bed quite early that night, as her ladyship returned with Miss Honoria from the opera and didn’t go out again. The house was at rest by midnight, an unusual occurrence in
London
.
Potter cautiously got out of bed and picked up her clothes, just in case she needed them. She was very uneasy about affairs in the house by now, otherwise she would never have taken this risk. Carrying her clothes in a bundle, she made her way cautiously down the backstairs from her attic to the floor below, where her young ladyship had her room. Her mother slept on the floor below, but there was the danger of wakening Miss Honoria, whose room was opposite Lady Lucinda’s.
The door opened noiselessly, as it did every morning when Potter went in to light the fire. She knew her way around this room in the dark. She put her clothes down in a heap by the door, and went over to the bed.
Lady Lucinda was asleep. The gauzy drapes around the bed weren’t drawn, and the covers were thrown over her prostrate body anyhow. The room wasn’t in complete darkness, because the curtains and blinds at the windows were still open. The moon streamed through the window in a bright, silvery stream. The remains of a good fire still flickered in the grate, but it wasn’t banked up.
Her ladyship lay very still on her stomach; her hair loosely tumbled over the pillow. From what she could see, Potter didn’t think her ladyship had any night attire on. She breathed out in relief. They had merely anticipated the wedding ceremony a little. Many lovers did it. She wasn’t sure how this one had been contrived, but it was obvious from the state of the bed and her ladyship’s lack of night attire.
She would probably be very angry if she woke up and found Potter here, so the maid decided to leave and go back to bed. She castigated herself for the risk she had taken, and her foolishness.
Then she saw something in the moonlight, which made her pause. She had seen love bites - red marks caused by passion - but this wasn’t circular. It was long and thin, and stretched from Lady Lucy’s shoulder down under the covers.
In a daring movement, Potter twitched the bedclothes aside. She told herself that if her ladyship awoke, she would say she was merely making her more comfortable, and hope she could get away with it.
But what she saw took away all thought of concealment, of her own safety, and forced her to use a word from the street at home, one which rarely passed her prim lips.
Her young ladyship was a mess. Her back, bottom and thighs were striped with livid red welts, many strokes, increasing in depth as they approached the more intimate parts of her anatomy. He had drawn blood. Some of the stripes had congealed blood over them, and one had caught on the sheet as Potter drew it back. Not even that had woken Lady Lucinda up. And there was other evidence too. Blood soaked into the sheet underneath showed where he had raped her.
Potter stood and stared at the terrible thing in front of her before she heard the door to the room open, and a new light come in. She started back in shock, and began to think frantically of what excuse she could give for being here.
It was Miss Honoria Simonson, clad in night-gown and a frilled cap, firmly tied under her chin. Her thin brown hair was done up in two braids which draped limply on either side of her shoulders. The single candlestick she held illuminated her narrow face eerily. “My goodness.” She had the sense to close the door quietly behind her. “Potter. Whatever are you doing here?”