Tight Laced (10 page)

D
ARLINGTON FOUND HIMSELF
on a stage, in Cockermouth’s only church. An assemblage of onlookers watched as he recited the vows the clergyman fed him.

Beside him, his bride wheezed through her “I wills,” and when it came time for the wedding ring to be placed upon her finger, Lady Bloomsbury hastily peeled her own band off of her gnarled knuckle and slapped it in the duke’s palm. She nudged his elbow, and he crammed the ring onto the girl’s waiting finger.

This was really happening. He was being forced to wed the young Bloomsbury girl, and there seemed no way out.

The clergyman pronounced them married, and it was only then that he ventured to gander at his bride.

She stood beside him, her splotched face, her huge grin, and now, she wore a wedding ring! There was clapping and whooping behind him (had the countess paid these unknowns to bear witness?), but before he could address any of it, he was led to the vestry where an enormous book lay on a table – a fountain pen waiting for his (and her) signature.

The beady eyes of the countess seared into his when he looked up before committing his mark to the page.

He scribbled hastily, vowing to demand that Lacy be freed at once under penalty of annulment.

No sooner had they signed the book, when Sarah Jane grasped his arm and demanded a kiss.

He closed his eyes and offered a peck just shy of her lips before casting an evil eye at his new mother-in-law. “You will pay for this. Mark my words.”

She did not hesitate to offer a cold, “It seems I already am, Your Grace. In so very many ways.”

The couple was ushered to a waiting carriage outside the church. Four white horses were harnessed to the rig, and a coachman – the corpulent Roland himself – turned round. “To Blantyre, then?” he inquired.

Just as the man was about to slap the reins on the horses’ backsides, Lady Bloomsbury thrust her hand into the cab. She held a scroll and she stabbed it toward the duke. “Paid in full,” she announced. “With a codicil, should you attempt to undo any of the arrangements.”

Duke Darlington grit his teeth. “If any harm comes to Lady Lacilia, you will regret everything.”

“Run along now, you two,” Lady Bloomsbury chirped, as if she hadn’t heard a thing.

“Onward!” yelped the coachman, slapping the team with a loud crack.

The carriage lurched forward, and soon rode out of the sightline of a dozen bewildered onlookers while the countess filled fists with ha'pennies.

Lacilia awoke in a cold room, her head pounding. She attempted to right herself, and discovered that her wrists were bound to the iron rails of a long, narrow bed. Images swam before her, and she blinked several times to get better focus.

“Hello?” she called into the empty space.

She heard her voice call back to her – the room was devoid of anything soft, and the sound of her call echoed off bare, stone walls. The smell of something dreadful lingered in her nose, and as she breathed in, she felt a dizziness so profound that she had to close her eyes once more.

Her limbs were nearly frozen, and she kicked her legs. Something odd down there. She opened her eyes again and attempted to raise herself on her elbows as to afford a view of herself.

She had been stripped of her clothing – and was now merely draped in a cotton shift even more thin than a bathing shirt.

With her teeth, she managed to pull a stiff sheet off her body. She squirmed the lower half of herself free from the shift, and below her stomach, where her woman’s hair should have been coiled, there was nothing. She was as bald as a young girl.

“Help me!” she wailed. “What have you done?”

Lacy thrashed and kicked, and at last a nurse entered the room.

“Now, Miss, don’t make it hard on yourself.”

Lacy blinked again, hoping to awaken from some horrible nightmare. “Where am I?”

“You, my dear, are at the Herkimer Sanatorium for Female Hysteria.”

“What?”

“On request of Her Ladyship of Highcastle. We’ll take right good care of you here. You’ll be rid of your nasty urges in short order.”

“Unbind me at once! I am the eldest daughter of the Earl of Highcastle, and there will be consequences if you – or anyone – lays a hand on me.”

“Shush up, now. Doctor will be in shortly.”

“Doctor? For what?”

“He’ll be cutting out your depravity, miss. You’ll thank him bye-and-bye.”

Lacy yanked on her wrist ties, “Cutting—what?”

“Insatiable self-pollution, miss. Bedding your brother-in-law. Among others, no doubt. Scandal. Disease. You can’t be sullying your late father’s name, now can you?”

Lacy realized then what was about to happen. They were planning on removing all sensation from her. She had to think fast. And just then, the doctor strode in, a large man in a long, white coat. “The lady doth protest? I could hear her from the verandah.”

“Doctor, she’s a wicked one.”

Lacilia took a deep breath. Certainly if one was consigned to hospital for hysteria, one must prove otherwise. It took all the mettle she had not to scream at the top of her lungs. The doctor approached her, his hands sheathed in gloves. “We’ve prepared you for surgery, and now, we’ll give you a little chloroform, and you won’t feel a thing.”

“Yes, so you’ve said. Or, so your nurse has said. But before you lacerate me in my most delicate area, I must inquire as to the validity of such an act.”

“Validity? Well, your mother wants only the best for you. We can’t very well have you roaming around the countryside taking dukes to bed willy-nilly, can we?”

“My
step
mother was waylaid by grief, Sir. She’s made a grave mistake. You’ll note, if you examine me further, that I am indeed intact.”

The doctor pulled a pair of half-spectacles from his inner pocket and placed them upon his nose. “You don’t say?”

The nurse folded her arms. “Hmmph. She’s a tricky one, this trollop.”

The doctor took his position at the foot of the cot and pulled Lacilia down toward him by her ankles.

“Sir! Please. I am flesh and blood, not some cadaver!”

“You’ll hold your tongue, lass,” the doctor grumbled.

The nurse was all too eager. “Shall I mask her?”

“Hold on, hold on,” groused the doctor. “Bring the oil lamp hither, would you? I must inspect this purported virginity. I have heard there are women who will stitch up a slit on a skilamalink maiden.”

Lacy grew faint as the doctor pried her apart. Had she washed up adequately from the night before? Would he find evidence of the duke’s seed on her person? The nurse had no doubt been the one to shave and clean her. What had she found in her preparations?

“Hm,” mumbled the doctor.

“Well, then, you see? My incarceration was in error.”

“Not very consistent with prostitution,” muttered the doctor. “But I do see an abnormally large organ. Certainly blood-filled. I would need some assistance for this particular clitoridectomy.”

The word
clitoridectomy
caused Lacy to feel faint once more. The last words she heard before giving way to dizziness were
quiet
and
observation
.

Women, if physically and mentally normal, and properly educated, have but little sensual desire.
If it were otherwise, marriage and family life would be empty words. As yet the man who avoids women, and the woman who seeks men, are sheer anomalies.

~ Richard von Krafft Ebing, sexologist

D
ARLINGTON WAS STUNNED.
Twelve hours earlier he’d been rapturous and insatiable in the arms of a woman he now coveted more than anything he’d ever dreamt of. And now. Now he sat beside his, his
bride
! A woman so homely and gruesome, it took everything he had not to cringe when his gaze skimmed her features.

And it wasn’t merely her looks that unsettled him. It was in combination with her voice, her manner, and her bizarre lack of understanding. She clutched his arm as though he were her rag doll, and had not stopped chattering since the coach left Cockermouth. “Will I have my own rooms with fine brocade linens?” she queried.

“This came about so suddenly, Sarah Jane, we are not prepared at Blantyre Highmeadow to receive a lady. I must ask for your patience.”

“And a room adjoining where Lala can come visit and we two can braid each other’s hair?”

“Your mother has banished your sister,” cried Roland from the coachman’s seat. “She’s in hospital now!”

“Oh, that’s right. Well, when she’s better.”

Duke Darlington’s stomach sank to his groin. What had he done? Consigned the love of his life to an asylum for deviants? Even in the face of the mine tragedy, this situation loomed as the most terrible fate of all. He turned to Sarah Jane, and, trying to see past her puckered rashy skin, he commented, “I have many things to attend to once we’re home. You’ll excuse my absence, I trust?”

“Yes, but first we must drink champagne from a slipper and then you’ll kiss me.”

Champagne from a slipper? Whence did this girl’s references hail? He could no more imagine putting his lips to hers than to those of a sow.

Lacy’s admonishment from the night before rang in his head:
Darlington! That is my sister you speak of!

The least he could do was respect her wishes. He forced composure onto himself and patted the girl’s hand. “All in due time, dear Sarah Jane.”

She bounced in her seat like a child, “Faster, Roland, faster! Whip them!”

At least they’d removed the wrist restraints, but Lacy found herself at the mercy of the horrid nurse (who really seemed to have it in for her for some reason Lacilia could not discern). She’d been forced to eat haggis and green potatoes, and now her stomach undulated in pain.

The nurse shoved a vomit pan under her nose. “Maybe we should tight-lace you, Miss? Your sort seems to enjoy pain and agony.”

Lacy gagged, but nothing came up. “Fresh air would do me right well. Any chance I could walk on the grounds?”

“Nice try, Miss.”

“Or perhaps you could crack the window?”

The nurse groaned and grudgingly threw a sash. “I’ve got my eye on you, Miss. No funny business, now.”

Lacy muttered to herself as the nurse left the room, and as soon as she heard the last of the clackity-clack down the hall, she leapt from the horrid cot and ran toward the cracked window. She bent over and stuck her nose in the tiny opening, breathing in the cold, autumn air. Bliss.
Bliss!
How long had she been interred? A day? A week? She’d lost track of time, utterly.