Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 03] (34 page)

Her ears rang from the slap, but she heard him clearly when he said, “That’s just a taste, little sister. You think you’re so very clever, with your horse tricks and your delight in making a fool of me. But now you’ll pay. You’ll do exactly what I tell you, or I’ll hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before, and there won’t be a sign of it afterward for anyone else to see.” He chuckled, the sound utterly fiendish in her ears, then added, “Not that you’ll want to show anyone, for you won’t. I’ll make sure of that. A woman’s body is easily punished. See?”

His hand moved between her legs, pinching her hard, proving his threat a real one, for she would never willingly let anyone see the flesh he was torturing. She screamed again, trying to make the sound carry above the crashing thunder, and this time he waited until the thunder stopped before he slapped her, snarling, “No more. No one can hear you anyway, and you’ll do yourself more good by obeying me. I’ve no intention of raping you, since that would be too easy for you to prove, but I am going to teach you a damned good lesson, and if you don’t lie still and take it, I’ll make you sorry you didn’t. Do you understand me?”

Crying now, as much from frustrated rage as from the pain he gave her, she wanted to kill him, but she had no weapon, so there seemed nothing to do but nod helplessly, then lie stiff and still while his hands roamed at will over her body, his touch making her feel sick. Thunder crashed, so near this time that it shook the walls, and she knew she would never again hear even a distant rumble without remembering this horror-filled night.

His hand slid under the borrowed nightgown to her breast, pinching the nipple until she wanted to scream again. Only the dawning realization that her screams somehow amused him, even gave him a perverted sort of pleasure, kept her silent. He pinched harder, however, and involuntarily, she cried out.

“That’s better,” he muttered. “This damned gown is in the way.” He shifted his weight to grab the nightdress, and quick as the lightning, she jerked her knees up to push him away with her feet. One knee grazed him between the legs, and he yelled in pain and jumped back, stumbling to avoid her flailing feet, his expression a mix of pain and fury. “By God, you little—”

The bedchamber door opened, and the glow of a lamp spilled into the room. “My lady, are you all right?”

Starting as if he’d been shot, Seacourt straightened and spun around, somehow managing to yank the quilt over her as he did. “Who is there?”

“Oh, sir! How you startled me! It is I, sir, Hilda, Lady Catherine’s maid. I came—”

“You startled me too, wench. I heard Lady Daintry cry out with fear at the storm as I passed by,” he added in a tone of concern. “I came in to calm her, but what brings you here?”

“Why, the very same thing, sir,” she said. “Lady Catherine remembered Lady Daintry saying she has a terror of thunderstorms, so she sent me to be sure she was not frightened. Lady Catherine said if she was scared, I was to stay right here with her.”

“An excellent notion,” Seacourt said. “Not only has she been terrified but she’s had a frightening nightmare as well. You will be glad of Hilda’s company, will you not, my dear?”

“Yes,” Daintry said fervently. She saw the glittering look in his eyes again and knew he was still angry, and even somehow blamed her for the maid’s intrusion. He probably knew as well as she did that she did not fear the storm, but since he had been the one to suggest it in the first place, he could hardly tell Hilda now that her mistress was in error to believe such a thing. It was all very odd, and though she was grateful for Hilda’s arrival, she wondered if Catherine had known he would be there.

As Seacourt moved to go, the maid said, “Oh, I nearly forgot, sir, but Lady Catherine’s window is rattling so that she cannot sleep. She said if I saw anyone who could fix it, would I send them to her, but at this hour I don’t know who—”

“I’ll tend to it, Hilda. Good night.” And he was gone.

Daintry nearly sobbed in relief, and the maid said matter-of-factly, “Can I fetch you anything, ma’am?”

A pistol,
Daintry thought,
or a very large knife, or even a basin to be sick in,
but she said, “No, thank you, Hilda. Where will you sleep?”

“I believe there is a cot in the dressing room, my lady. I’ll leave the door open, shall I?”

“Please.” The maid said nothing about Geoffrey’s presence, and Daintry, not having the least idea how much she knew about his habits or about Catherine’s motives in sending her, merely breathed a prayer of thanksgiving and tried to go back to sleep.

She was unsuccessful, and although the storm finally passed, she was wide awake when the sun rose. Getting up, she went to the window, pushed it open, and inhaled the fresh sea breeze. A few lingering clouds floated over the Channel, looking serene and beautiful, as if there had never been a storm. There was no reason to stay at Seacourt Head a minute longer than necessary.

Hilda was not in the dressing room, so she assumed the woman had returned to her mistress, and turned her attention to dressing herself. Though she did not much want to go down to breakfast, she knew Susan would send someone to discover what was wrong if she did not, and she could not face the thought of telling her sister what had happened in the night.

In the clear light of day it was impossible to imagine telling anyone about it, for although she was certain Hilda would confirm Geoffrey’s presence in her room, his seemingly casual declaration that she suffered from nightmares made it probable that he would insist her belief that she had been molested to be no more than a reaction to a particularly vivid dream. In any event, she shrank from the thought of describing to anyone precisely what he had done to her.

The only people present in the breakfast room when she entered were Catherine and Susan, and both greeted her as they normally would, but the incident seemed somehow to have isolated her from them. Though she felt as if they ought to be able to know everything Geoffrey had done simply by looking at her, she could read nothing in their expressions but innocent welcome, so when Catherine said nothing about sending Hilda to her in the night, Daintry also said nothing. She had no wish to add to Susan’s troubles, and Catherine was certainly not a woman in whom she could confide. In fact, she did not even know that Catherine had sent Hilda to her, only that the maid had said she had.

Servants often knew even more about what went on in a house than their masters or mistresses did, and the fact that Hilda had left the dressing room before sunrise might mean that Catherine had done no more than send her to find someone to stop the window’s rattle, and knew nothing of her absence afterward.

As soon as Daintry had eaten, she sent for Charley, and taking leave of Susan and Catherine, the two left at once for the stables. They were crossing the muddy yard, approaching the stable door when they heard the unmistakable scream of a horse, followed by two shots fired in quick succession.

Daintry’s heart thudded, and she saw that Charley had stopped still in her tracks, her face turning white. Before Daintry could think to stop her, the child came to life and darted into the stable. Daintry rushed after her, terrified to think what they would find. Inside, she stopped, sudden tears blinding her at the sound of Charley’s sobs.

“Oh, Victor,” the child cried, “I thought it was you!”

Dashing a hand to wipe the tears from her eyes, Daintry saw that Charley had flung open the door to Victor’s stall and was hugging the gelding’s neck as it nuzzled her, searching for sugar or carrots. Cloud’s silvery head appeared over the gate to the next stall, and he whinnied, recognizing his mistress.

Clemons spoke before she realized he was beside her. “Right sorry about that, my lady. I’d have told the lads to hold off had I knowed the lass was so nigh, but one of Sir Geoffrey’s hunters panicked in the storm and broke a leg. The lad looking after it thought it were nobbut a bad sprain, but now the farrier says as how it’s broke, and we had to put the poor beast down.”

“It was not your fault, Clemons,” she said, realizing she was trembling. “If our horses are saddled, let us go at once.”

In those brief fear-filled moments before she had seen that Cloud and Victor were safe, she had remembered Melissa’s words of the day before and Geoffrey’s angry comment about horse tricks, and she had not doubted for a minute that the man was capable of vicious, petty revenge, even against a child.

There was still no sign of him, and she did not inquire as to his whereabouts, not having the least notion what she might say to him or how she would act, but knowing full well that if she never laid eyes on the man again, she would not regret it. They rode out of the stable yard, and as they approached the cliff path, she glanced at Charley, who had been unnaturally silent. “A penny for your thoughts,” she said gently.

Charley met her gaze but did not speak for a long moment. Then she said, “I thought … That is, for just a minute, until I saw him, I thought maybe it was Victor. You know how scared he gets when it thunders, Aunt Daintry, and …”

“I know,” Daintry said, not waiting for her to try to complete the thought.

Soberly, Charley said, “What makes some houses comfortable and others not, Aunt Daintry? I don’t mean their furnishings; I mean the way they make a person feel.”

“The people in them, I suppose.”

“Uncle Geoffrey is horrid.”

In full agreement but aware that it would not do at all to enlarge upon the topic, she said, “You were in the wrong yesterday, you know. He was right to be displeased with you.”

“I know, but does he always want to hit people when he’s angry with them?”

“Some men are like that, darling.”

Another long silence fell, and Daintry did not break it. She had no desire to discuss Seacourt and thought it best to let Charley think her feelings through for herself.

The bright sunlight and the ocean scents wafting upward on the sea breezes cleared her head, making it a little easier to put the incident of the previous night behind her. When the silver dun tossed its head, its dancing pace indicating that it was ripe for a run, she took herself firmly in hand. “Shall we let them out? Cloud is champing at the bit.”

Their return journey was without incident, but Daintry’s interest in continuing the frequent visits to Seacourt Head had died. So, it seemed, had Charley’s, for the child said nothing about returning to visit Melissa again before Christmas. And however well intended their visits might have been, Daintry knew now that they might well have made matters worse for Susan in some ways. Certain as she was now that Seacourt knew how Charley had helped his wife and child escape him that day on the moor, she thought it would be better for all of them if she and Charley played least in sight for a while. And, in any case, with Christmas approaching and winter setting in with a vengeance, there was little opportunity to ride anywhere.

Davina and Charles returned from Truro barely speaking to each other, but Daintry discovered not only that Deverill had been one of the guests but that he and Jervaulx had left Cornwall for Gloucestershire, and she wished more than ever that she had gone to the house party rather than to Seacourt Head.

Lady St. Merryn seemed to take it for granted that her elder daughter’s family would join them for the holiday, but the harsh weather provided an excuse for Seacourt to keep his family home, and Daintry, though she missed Susan and Melissa, was not sorry. A number of other guests did join them, however, including Lord Alvanley and Sir Lionel Werring, both of whom soon admitted that they had been invited to see the New Year in at Jervaulx Abbey.

Lady Ophelia took instant exception to the news. “Into the enemy’s nest, Lionel, that’s where you’re going,” she declared, fuming. It was the day after Christmas, and everyone had gathered in the drawing room after dinner.

Lady St. Merryn, sitting upright for once, suggested plaintively that the weather still was not suitable for travel.

“Not to worry, ma’am,” Werring retorted, holding out his wine glass for Medrose to refill. “Daresay we shan’t fall into a snowdrift, shall we, Alvanley?”

Alvanley’s eyes twinkled, and his cherubic smile lit his face as he said to Lady St. Merryn, “I doubt we shall get lotht on the main road to Gloucestershire, you know, ma’am.”

“I hope you do,” Lady Ophelia said tartly. “Serve you both right, going over to the enemy like that. You heard that wretch Jervaulx in court, Lionel, saying a woman must be better off with any husband, even one who tortures her, than on her own.”

“But, my dear Ophelia, that scarcely makes him your enemy, I hope,” the solicitor said blandly, “for I have said similar things to you on any number of occasions.”

“That is not the same thing,” she said. “One debates such things as a matter of course, but that courtroom was real. And prating utter drivel, Jervaulx dared to call it law!”

Sir Lionel swirled the amber liquid in his glass and said gently, “It is the law. Moreover, Jervaulx believes, as many do, that man is woman’s natural protector and defender, and one can scarcely blame him when the notion is as old as the Bible.”

“Very true,” Alvanley said. “Ever thince poor old Adam gave up hith rib to make Eve. There are great differences between the thexes, Lady Ophelia. You cannot dithagree with that, you know.”

“Try and see if she cannot,” St. Merryn said bitterly. “Must you prattle of our affairs to all and sundry, Ophelia?”

“Oh, pooh,” she said. “Lionel was there, and Alvanley has already heard the whole, for I told him myself. As to the drivel about Adam’s rib, any sensible person must disagree, since the Bible clearly was written by men as a fable to entertain other men. Simple logic tells us God must have created woman first, since women, not men, give birth, but the writers of the Bible had to make up a way for a man to give birth in order to create an importance for him that otherwise he did not possess.”

Lady St. Merryn gasped in shock, and Cousin Ethelinda twittered, “My dear Ophelia, such blasphemy! What would Reverend Sykes think of your saying such dreadful things about the Bible?”