‘I choose this piece,’ he said quickly, and took her wrist.
‘Let go.’ She tried to wrench her arm from his grasp.
But he dragged her to where Hesley was sitting at the card table.
‘My wife?’ he exclaimed. ‘For twenty guineas?’
‘An hour with her.’
The others, who had become bored by Hesley’s lack of funds, brightened and regrouped at the table. Horrified, Olivia saw that Hesley was contemplating the wager. ‘Hesley, stop this at once.’
‘Fifty,’ he said.
‘Hesley!’
‘Alone.’ Jessup raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Upstairs.’
‘Agreed.’
This was a game, she thought, a jest. They did not mean it. They were simply using her as a means to goad him for their pleasure. The lawyer handed her wrist to another gentleman. ‘Hold the stake. Let Hesley have first cut.’
‘Hesley,’ Olivia pleaded, ‘you are taking this too far.You must not do this.’
‘Be quiet,’ he said. ‘I feel lucky tonight. Who will shuffle the pack?’
She was enclosed in a circle of his so-called friends, who were surrounding the card table with its single candle already burning low. The two gamblers sat opposite each other while a third stood with his fingers resting lightly on the deck of cards. The third man said, ‘Aces high, high wins,’ and removed his hand.
Olivia held her breath. Hesley cut the knave of clubs. High. He had a good chance of winning. There were only twelve cards in the pack higher than a knave.The lawyer cut the knave of spades. Olivia could hardly believe it. There was a huge roar from the other men.
‘A draw, sir,’ Olivia said to the gentleman holding her wrist. ‘Let me go now.You have had your fun.’
‘We’ll cut again,’ Jessup said evenly. ‘Same stakes.’ He looked to the staring faces for approval.
Hesley nodded, and the onlookers went deathly quiet as Jessup took the first cut. The seven of hearts! Olivia let out an audible sigh. Hesley was bound to cut higher than that.
A deuce. Cards didn’t come any lower! The deuce of spades. This time there was no roar as the implication of Hesley’s loss sank in.
‘Mine, I think,’ Jessup said, taking her wrist again. He picked up the silver candle-holder from the card table and dragged her after him out of the room.
‘But surely you did not mean it, sir!’ Olivia did not know whether she was laughing or crying. ‘Hesley!’ she croaked. But Hesley was rubbing the back of his head and frowning at the cards. The third gentleman had pushed a large glass of brandy into his other hand. From the hall she heard a lone voice urging, ‘Call him back, Mexton, before it’s too late. I’ll pay him off for you.’ She wondered who it was.
Jessup pulled at her arm. ‘Come, my dear. We know of your husband’s failings in the bedchamber. Let me show you what a man can do.’
‘What do you mean?’ How could they know about his failure in their marriage bed? She supposed because she was not with child. She blushed at the thought.
He laughed at her and hauled her up the stairs. ‘Which room?’
She pulled away from him. ‘Stop this at once, sir.You are no gentleman.’
He lowered his voice menacingly. ‘But you are a lady and a prize worth having. Come.’ He jerked at her arm. ‘Let us see if you are a lady in the bedchamber. I do not want to waste a minute of my hour with you.’
He opened the nearest door. It was an unused guest chamber with the window curtains pulled back and no fire in the grate. He pushed her inside, locked the door behind him, put the key in his pocket and placed the candle by the bed, an ornate four-poster with brocade hangings.
He began to remove his boots. ‘Take off your gown.’
‘No.’
‘Would you disobey your husband and shame him in front of his friends? He is proud that he always pays his gambling dues and he is not to be trifled with when he is displeased.’
Olivia knew that and was prepared to risk it. ‘If you are any sort of gentleman you will not take your winnings. I am not one of his girls from the tavern. I am his wife.’
‘Quite so.Your worth is much higher than that of a tavern girl. And he has a debt to pay.’
‘I shall stay with you in this room for the hour, sir, and then you may tell him his debt is paid. I shall not disagree and he will believe you.’
He stared at her in disbelief. ‘You think I would settle for that? My dear, you have no idea of the prize you are. If old Mexton had not been clever enough to wed you to his grandson before he left for the West Indies, there would have been any number of suitors queuing at your door. Including me.’
‘Attracted, no doubt, by my money,’ she snapped.
He moved close to her and stroked her cheek with a knuckle. ‘Dowries like yours do not usually come with such beauty, my lady. We are all insanely jealous that an ineffectual runt like Hesley should have plucked you. I shall have my winnings, whether you co-operate or not.’
In the candlelight she saw him smiling crookedly. Then he became impatient with her, pushing her onto the bed and throwing her skirts over her head to claw at her drawers.‘You’re wasting my time,’ he breathed angrily.
She heard the fabric rip and struggled to breathe. He cared not for how she felt about the arrangement. He meant to have his due. She wondered if he would hit her if she fought him and guessed he might. She rolled away from him and half fell off the bed, intending to leave the chamber.
He was a lithe, agile man and caught her wrist again. He tugged down one of the cords that held back the bed curtains and began to tie her hand to the bedpost. He was agitated and talking breathlessly as he bound her. ‘You may do this willingly or not. As you wish.’
When he took her other hand to tie that as well, she became frightened. Would he beat her into submission? She was helpless and exposed in front of this stranger.
She feared also for Hesley’s respect of her. Her husband had set such little value on her virtue, yet it was not the quantity of coin that enraged her. It was that he had used her as a gambling stake without a second thought. He had gone too far this time.
Jessup stood by the bed and picked up a fly swat from the mantelshelf. It whistled through the air as he struck it against the bedpost. ‘That is a warning. Next time it’ll be your flesh.’
He would beat her! She had no wish to be injured. ‘I’ll do it!’ she cried. ‘I’ll undress and do as you ask.’
He smiled at her, a sneering grin that caused her stomach to lurch as he unbuttoned his breeches.
‘Untie me,’ she asked quietly. ‘Please.’
He freed her quickly and, frightened for her safety, she kept her word.
Shakily, she took off her silken skirts and lace drawers and dropped them to the floor. The buttons on her bodice were fiddly and her fingers trembled. He became impatient, and tore them away.
‘And the corset,’ he barked, and pushed her onto the bed again.
Quaking with fear, she unhooked the front, which fell aside, leaving her in a fine muslin chemise that skimmed her shoulders and reached her thighs. She sat on the edge of the bed, shuddering with despair.
Was this what her marriage had come to? She was being forced to give herself to a stranger to pay her husband’s gambling debt.
She heard the lawyer take a ragged breath and in the candlelight saw his arousal. She could not do this. She had to get out of the room. Somehow. How far was it to the door? How many seconds did she need to unlock it?
‘And this,’ he ordered, hooking the fly swat under the edge of her chemise. ‘Off.’
‘No.’
He whipped the swat across her back. She winced and drew her chemise over her head. Then, suddenly, he was on top of her, his open mouth over her face as if he were trying to devour her. She turned her head away and he bit sharply at her earlobe.
He spread himself over her, his weight pressing her into the feather mattress. Her flailing arms made no impression on him as he grasped her thighs and pushed them apart. She struggled in an attempt to fight him off and her body recoiled when he mauled her private parts. She protested, shrivelling beneath him, tensing the muscles of her lower regions. But he laughed, with a harsh snarl that disgusted as well as frightened her. She did not touch him with her hands and when his face came near her as he shoved and rutted she kept her head turned away. Her eyes focused on the grotesque moving shadow cast on the wall by the candle flame and she wondered how much longer she could endure her life at Hill Top House.
As this stranger indulged himself with her body she remembered the pain of her wedding night. In her childhood innocence she had thought then that this was a kind of punishment to be endured as a wife. Miss Trent had assured her it was not, but she had been wrong.
Pleasure for gentlemen meant grief for their ladies. When she was used like this, it was the worst kind of pain for any woman to endure. It did not hurt her in any physical way. The ache went deeper, stamping on her core, killing any vestige of affection or sympathy she might feel for any life that had ever touched hers.
Jessup’s use of her body was over quickly. But, unlike Hesley, he did not need her assistance to repeat his actions. Her eyes watched the flickering shadows on the wall as she pondered the irony of being grateful for that.
Her assailant was unaware of how much she hated him. She could not move beneath his weight as he fondled and invaded her until he was exhausted.Then he climbed off her and rolled onto his back, sweating silently in the cold, dark room. Presently, he reached for his jacket and searched for a cigar, which he lit from the candle flame.The smell reminded her of Uncle Hesley. She hated Jessup as much as she hated her uncle. She curled away from him. She hated her husband for humiliating her in this way. She hated everything in this house. Miss Trent had known what to do when she had suffered here. Miss Trent had fled. So would she.
At first light she dressed in a comfortable day gown from last year’s wardrobe as though she would be spending the day pickling vegetables or making cordials. She asked Eliza to serve her an early breakfast before Mrs Cookson stirred. Then she went across to the stable and ordered the lad to harness the pony and trap. She thought no further than getting away from Hill Top House.
She wondered if she dare go to her aunt Caroline’s. But she thought not. The Tylers were respectable, and however much they hated the Mextons, they would urge her to return to her husband. Perhaps even send for him to take her back. Why wouldn’t they desert her, as Jared had when she needed him? She closed her eyes at the memory. Why couldn’t he have loved her as she did him? They could have run away together and she wouldn’t be alone like this. Cold, lonely and unloved.
Well, she didn’t want anybody’s love now. Not if they would let her down. From now on she would live her life on her own. She did not know how. Fearfully she wondered what she would do as she rattled down the valley through the early-morning mists. But she had decided on one thing. She would never go back to Hill Top House. Not while her husband or his grandfather lived there.
As she approached the town she realized how noticeable she was in the trap. Few knew her well for she visited rarely and only then for the draper and the dressmaker. The miller delivered flour to Hill Top House but he was out of the town on the Grassborough road. The butcher called, too, and stayed for refreshment with Mrs Cookson. He would recognize her. She stopped at a watering trough and tethered the pony. A farm cart rumbled by.
When the road was clear she pulled down her small travelling bag from the trap and, hitching up her skirts, climbed over the dry-stone wall to cross the fields, running for the sanctuary of a copse. She looked back when she was under cover of the trees. All was quiet. At the other side of the wood she shaded her eyes against the sun. The navigation glinted in the valley. Sheffield one way, or Doncaster the other? She had until nightfall to decide.
Chapter 22
The early sun had given way to clouds and by the afternoon she was hungry. She had not brought food with her. In her anxiety to get away from Hesley she had not thought beyond the little money she had and her jewels. They had belonged to her mother and she hated to part with them. But she had no idea how she would survive outside Hill Top House unless she sold them.
Cold stream water refreshed her and the hunger pangs receded as she took her rough descent through woods and fields towards the waterway is the valley. She was used to physical exercise from labouring in her garden, but fear of the unknown life before her made her tense and her body ached. She found a sheltered grassy slope to rest until nightfall.
The next thing she knew she was being woken by rain on her face and it was dark. Very dark. She had never been away from the house at night. She had no lantern and clouds shielded the moon. For the first time since she had left that morning she was frightened. This was more than just the fear of hunger and fatigue. Vagabonds were out at night, with cudgels and knives, and she was alone.
But she was free. She was free of the humiliation that Hesley had heaped on her - and the freedom to starve was better than suffering at his bidding. But perhaps not the freedom to die. She pulled her hood over her bonnet and stealthily followed the stream downhill until a cluster of cottages loomed in front of her. She crept around them until she located a track. This, surely, would lead her into the town? But what would she do then? Already she was feeling faint with hunger again.
The stone buildings of the town square, dominated by the majestic spire of the church, were familiar although all was in darkness. Perhaps she could sleep in the church and be away before dawn. She remembered Mrs Cookson talking of a pie-seller who visited the beast market and began to climb the hill past the church, wondering if he had lingered, drinking his profits at the tavern.
‘Boy! Come here,’ Olivia called, to the ragged group hanging around the door, and held up a coin. ‘Fetch me some food. Do not tell anyone who it is for.’