Authors: Unknown
He turned and ran toward the door, desperate to get out.
There was a large armoire blocking the door. Jonathan began shoving at it, and it barely moved. The bodies pushing against the outside of the door helped move it a little, but it was too slow.Maggie’s screams had become almost silent, her voice used up. Jonathan was frantic. He grabbed the side of the armoire and tilted it over and it crashed down on its face. Maggie whimpered in fear.
The new position of the heavy piece of furniture provided the opening needed for Jonathan and Phillip and whoever else was helping him to shove it far enough back to open the door. When it was open, Phillip and Kensington and Wolf and Sheldrake and even Jack the footman came rushing into the room.
They stopped, frozen in their tracks by the sight of Maggie bloody and bruised and frightened nearly out of her wits. Jonathan rushed over to the bed and grabbed a blanket and tried to wrap it around Maggie as she huddled on the floor, but she crawled away from him, shaking her head and crying silently.
“Maggie,” Phillip whispered, his voice filled with more pain than Jonathan had ever heard in anyone’s voice before, not even during the war. “Maggie,” Phillip said again, and rushed over to her. Jonathan could take no more, and ran from the room.
Two hours later they waited in the drawing room. Doctor Thomas Peters, a friend of theirs from the war, had arrived quite some time ago and immediately gone upstairs to see Maggie. Phillip didn’t know who sent for him, but he was grateful. Soon after his arrival, their other friends began appearing—Freddie, the Duke of Ashland and Brett Haversham , Daniel Steinberg, Simon Gantry, Ian Witherspoon and Derek Knightly. The room became so crowded he lost count of who arrived after that.
Jonathan wouldn’t speak to him. Not to him or anyone else. He sat in a chair in the corner of the room, his elbows on his knees, his head hanging. Phillip couldn’t deal with that right now. He couldn’t stop thinking of Maggie, bloody, bruised, cringing from him and Jonathan as if they were monsters. God, what had happened to her? Was it Robertson? They hadn’t been able to get anything out of her.
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Kate had rushed them all from the room, and she and Very and Mrs. Sheldrake had stayed with her, cleaning her up and putting her to bed until Thomas arrived. When the doctor had first gone into her room, Phillip had heard her cries, but he assumed she’d been given some laudanum to calm her, since he’d heard nothing since—nothing. He was going insane from the waiting. Had she been raped? Was she damaged in some way? He’d heard some women died from a brutal rape. He had to sit down at the thought, his head light. He thought he might throw up and didn’t care who saw.
Someone pressed a drink in his hand, and he drank deeply. Watered whiskey—he wanted a bottle of it undiluted, but he knew he needed to stay clearheaded for Maggie. He looked up at Daniel and weakly smiled his thanks. The other man stayed with him, his hand on his shoulder, and Phillip was pathetically grateful for the support.
There was a rustle in the room, and the sea of bodies separating him from the door opened. Kate stood there, looking around. Jason came to her side and took her elbow and she turned to him, burying her face in his chest as he comforted her. Phillip felt the glass in his hand shatter. Dead, Maggie was dead.
There was a roaring in his ears and he couldn’t hear Kate’s words as she rushed over, could only look at her in horror as Daniel wrapped his bleeding hand in a handkerchief.
His hearing came back with a pop.“Fine! She’s going to be fine, Phillip!” Kate was shouting at him. He realized there were several hands holding him, and Kate was shaking him. When she realized he was back to his senses, she kneeled before him. “She wasn’t raped, Phillip, though he tried. He couldn’t, apparently, and took his fury out on her with his fists.” She had to stop and close her eyes for a moment to compose herself. When she opened them again, the tears flowed out. “Robertson, from her description it was Robertson. His words were disjointed, mad even, but he made reference to Jason and Tony and me, and you and Jonathan. He wants revenge and believes,I think, that his is some divine cause because of our immoral liaisons.” She raised anguished eyes to the back of the room where Jonathan was. “He tried to strangle her, to kill her. She’s not sure what stopped him, perhaps the people pounding on the door. Her throat…” she reached up and touched her own throat, too upset to continue. She sobbed and Tony was beside her, holding her. “Oh God, this is my fault. I’m so sorry, Phillip, so sorry, Jonathan.”
For the first time since fleeing Maggie’s room, Jonathan spoke. His voice was ragged with pain. “No, Kate, it’s not your fault, it’s mine.”
Phillip turned to him, saw him standing, Brett and Freddie at his side trying to comfort him. He shook them off. “I never should have come. I shouldn’t have forced Maggie to accept me. I’ve brought this on the two of you. If I had stayed away, my sins would not have tainted you.” His eyes were feverish with guilt and confusion.
“Jonathan,” Phillip whispered, horrified that the man he loved believed such things. “You know that’s not true. Maggie and I love you, we wanted you here. We need you. Robertson is mad, mad I tell you.
Don’t do this to us.”
Other voices in the room concurred, trying to soothe Jonathan, but he would not be comforted. “You don’t understand!” he cried, jerking away from his friends, backing farther away from where Phillip stood next to the settee. “I don’t deserve that love! I knew it, I knew it all along, but I wanted it, Phillip, I wanted you and Maggie so much I ignored my conscience, I ignored everything that told me to stay away.”
Phillip slowly crossed the room to where Jonathan huddled against the wall. “That’s your grief and worry
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speaking, Jonathan,” he spoke slowly, calmly. He could see that Jonathan was close to the edge, perhaps beyond it. Maggie needed them now, damn it, couldn’t Jonathan see that?
Jonathanlaughed, a harsh, ugly sound in the still room. “No, Phillip, it’s my guilt. I’m being punished, you know, by God.” There was a gasp in the room, a few murmured
no
s. “Not for loving you two, but for believing I was worthy of your love in return. He’ll never let me be happy, Phillip, that’s my punishment. I knew that, and yet I tried anyway. And I’ve dragged you and Maggie into my hell.”
Phillip had reached him, and as he grabbed his shoulders, Jonathan slid to the floor. Phillip followed, cradling Jonathan’s head on his shoulder. Jonathan let him, but he didn’t respond, didn’t wrap his arms around Phillip. “This is nonsense, Jonathan. What on earth could God punish you for? How could anyone find you unworthy of love? I love you, Maggie loves you.”
“You’ve got to stop.” Jonathan pulled away and looked at Phillip fervently. “You’ve got to stop loving me before God turns on you as well. He’s punished me through Maggie already. Don’t let him use you too, Phillip.”
Phillip had had enough. He shook Jonathan violently. “Don’t be an idiot,” he ground out. “Robertson hurt Maggie, not God. This is not divine retribution, but the actions of a mad man.”
Jonathan laughed again, the sound sending a chill down Phillip’s spine. “You don’t know what I’ve done, Phillip,” he cried out. He fell back completely on the floor, out of Phillip’s arms, and rested his head against the wall behind him, closing his eyes. “My dreams, nightmares really, you want to know what they’reabout? ” He opened eyes swimming with tears to gaze at Phillip hopelessly. For Jonathan, there was no one else in the room.
“If you must tell me, darling, then do so,” Phillip said quietly. “But know that there is nothing you could have done, ever, that will make me stop loving you.”
Jonathan’s laugh this time was short and bitter. “I hate myself enough,” he said. He sat up straighter, ignoring the tears on his face. “I killed him,” he said flatly. Phillip waited a moment for more, but Jonathan had closed his eyes again and was biting his lip to stop its trembling.
“Killed who?”
“During the war,” Jonathan replied, his voice shaky.
“We all killed during the war,” Brett Haversham said quietly from behind Phillip, “it was war. You can’t blame yourself, Jonathan.”
Jonathan looked around as if just remembering there were others in the room. “But I do blame myself, Brett, because you see he wasn’t a soldier. He was a young boy of perhaps ten or eleven. He came out of the trees, and I cut him down like a dog with my sword. He never had a chance. I’d gotten disoriented after a blow to the head, lost my horse, and when I came to, the battle had moved on. He stepped out of the trees and I gutted him. He was unarmed. As he died, a woman, his mother I presume, came out of the trees screaming, and three little girls followed. He was just a boy, trying to protect his mother and sisters, and I killed him.”
Jonathan lowered his head. “I never told anyone because I was so ashamed. And I’ve known from that day on that God would punish me. That I didn’t deserve happiness in this life but was meant to suffer for my deed.” He looked up at Phillip again, his gaze tortured. “But I couldn’t give you up, Phillip, as much
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as I knew I must. And then Maggie…” he let the thought trail off.
Phillip felt the tears on his face. Jonathan had borne this alone all this time, believing he was damned.
He’d been so serious after the war, but hadn’t they all? He hadn’t for one moment considered Jonathan was harboring such a horrible secret. He found it hard to speak, feeling that he had somehow let Jonathan down.
“I must go,” Jonathan said suddenly, standing up abruptly. “I can’t stay here anymore and put you both in danger. I’ve got to leave.”
Phillip reached out for his hand frantically. He clung to it as Jonathan tried to pull away. “No, Jonathan, this changes nothing. I still love you, and so does Maggie. We need you.”
Jonathan pulled away violently.“You musn’t , Phillip, not anymore.” Before Phillip could respond, Jonathan ran from the room.
Phillip stumbled to his feet, the events of the evening starting to wear on him. He rushed to the door after Jonathan, knocking a chair over in his haste. “Jonathan!” he cried, only to emerge in the entryway as the outer door was slamming shut. “Damn it!” he cursed, his pain and guilt and worry turning to anger.
He turned back to the drawing room, and as suddenly as his anger had risen, it evaporated. He looked helplessly at the others. He could see some were crying, some were angry, many confused. Kate and Very were crying, hugging one another for comfort. To whom could Phillip turn for comfort now? Finally Jason spoke.
“Freddy, find him.” Immediately the duke gathered several men together and rushed from the room.
“When you do, send word immediately!” Jason called after them.
Brett stepped forward. “I’ll send for Stephen Matthews.” Stephen was the vicar who held the living near Freddie’s ancestral estate, another friend from the war. “Who better to help with a crisis of faith than a man of God?” His smile, small though it was, gave Phillip hope.
Phillip’s thoughts were shattered by a small voice from the stairs. He turned quickly and saw Maggie teetering at the top of the steps. “Phillip?” she croaked.
Phillip ran for the stairs as people poured out of the drawing room. “Maggie!” he cried, horrified at the bruises he could now see on her throat, at the sound of her mangled voice. Part of him was overjoyed, however, that she called for him, that she was no longer afraid.
He grabbed her shoulders when he reached her and lowered both of them to sit on the steps. “You shouldn’t be up, my love,” he said tenderly, hugging her to his breast, stroking her hair. Her acquiescence, the need she showed by burrowing into him, went a long way toward healing some of his most recent pain. Her next words brought back the worst of it.
“Where’s Jonathan?” she whispered painfully. Her arms tightened around him, although she was weak from her ordeal and the laudanum. “Want Jonathan too.”
Phillip felt the tears gather again. “Jonathan had to go out for a bit, my love, but he’ll be back.” His own throat was closing with the need to howl his rage at the world. Rage at fate, at Robertson and at Jonathan.
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“No,” Maggie said, getting upset. She began shaking her head and pushing weakly at Phillip.“Was awful to him. Want Jonathan. Jonathan!” Her attempt to call for him was pathetically weak in volume, but the longing and confusion in her voice carried to those below. Phillip looked down and saw Kate weeping.
“Jonathan!” Maggie called again, her agitation increasing even as she began to collapse under the influence of the drug.
Phillip stood and picked her up in his arms then turned to carry her back to her room. “Jonathan will be back, darling, if I have to drag him here kicking and screaming the whole way.”
Ian Witherspoon watched Jason’s face as he reentered the drawing room and closed the door behind him. If he were an enemy he’d be running. Jason was furious, but Ian wasn’t sure at what. There were so many choices. He glanced around the room and saw the same look on many of the cherished faces there.
He felt the same impotent rage. Do they rail against the war?Too futile.Against Jonathan?Too easy and too hard. Against a society that refused to accept them?Futility again.Against Robertson? Yes, that was as good a target as any.
“What are we to do about Robertson?” Ian asked Jason. “Should we be hunting him down? Is there any point?”
Jason turned on him with a snarl, and Ian stepped back. Tony came and put a hand on Jason’s arm, and Jason turned to him. Tony leaned in and whispered something to him, and Jason rested his head briefly on Tony’s shoulder then stood tall again.
Ian realized Kate and Verywere not in the room. Ah, this was a war council then. “I’m sorry, Jase , but I need to do something,” Ian told him matter-of-factly.