Jayne Fresina (8 page)

As a babe she’d been left to the care of nurses, given every luxury money could buy, but no genuine love or affection. She found his late effort now oddly unsettling, so, once again, like her stepmother’s strange affections, his unusual attention fell upon cold, stony ground.

“Yes, thank you, sir,” she said, as it was the only thing she could think to say.

Again he glanced around the chamber. “It is good you finally came to your senses and agreed to this arrangement.”

It is good. Couldn’t he say he was pleased?

She supposed he looked forward to concentrating all his efforts now on the much worthier Anne, who was bound to make a very advantageous marriage to someone far wealthier and more consequential than Lord Winton. Anne was a paragon of virtue, that most precious of all things, an obedient woman. She was beautiful, empty-headed, unquestioning.

Her father put out his hand and Lucy, seeing naught else for it, accepted the gesture. They were like two relative strangers sealing a matter of business.

“You’re quite certain?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

There was something wary in his eye. Alarmed, she thought he might know something of her escapade the previous evening. But it passed. He nodded briskly, turned on his heel and was gone.

Closing the door behind him, she rested against it, regrouping her spinning thoughts. Why would he say such a thing to her now, on the last night? It was surely too late for second thoughts. What would he have done if she’d said,
No, sir, I don’t want to marry Lord Winton. If ’tis all the same to you, I think I’ll run back to the bawdy house, find my lover and live with him instead?

Having endured her fill of family concern, she bolted her door and blew out the candle, determined not to receive another guest tonight. She ran to the bed and leapt under the covers, eager to dream of her once-in-a-lifetime lover while she still had his scent on her skin.

* * * *

The morning passed in a flurry, everyone darting around her, fussing over her gown and headdress, all those things that didn’t matter, but her mind was far away from it all, living in a strange fantasy, as if she still dreamed and nothing would wake her.

She imagined herself living on a farm with her lover. Her life was filled with work and she was never idle, but she was happy, as she’d never been before in her life, and she wanted to cry with gladness. She smelled lavender and honeysuckle. The sunlight was a warm kiss drifting across her brow and a tall iron gate cooed on its hinges before clanging shut, as if someone had just passed through it. She wore a loose gown, no crippling corset, and her hair was tied back with a simple, frayed, plunket ribbon. The image was all golden sunshine and the sweet song of birds, just as she thought heaven must be for those who deserved it, but she felt unworthy of her dream. Her heart, the organ she’d protected in a shell all her life, now ached. The barrier was breached. But she must have been happy before, at some point in her real life, surely?

No. Never like it was in her dream.

For as long as she remembered there’d been only fear, guilt and doubt crowding into her mind each day. Even as a child she’d had the worries of an adult pressing on her shoulders, no fancy for games and toys. There was no pleasure simply for the sake of it. There was trial, the constant struggle for her father’s forgiveness and approval. From her earliest years she was aware of dark things most children still were not. Knowing her mother had died, she lived in fear that death would take her father, too, and her brother. If it took one important person away from her, it could take anyone, could it not? Their father married again quickly and seemingly put it out of his mind, leaving his children to founder with a great gaping hole in their lives, unexplained, a matter never to be discussed. Lucy, for many of her childhood years, believed she was entirely responsible for her mother’s death. What else might account for her father’s cold distance, the way his eyes avoided her, the disappointment in his countenance?

Yet in this strange daydream which began the night before her wedding day, she was fully content, blissful. And she knew then that she’d never been truly happy. Sorrow and self-pity, that most wasteful of all emotions, ripped through her, left her torn in a thousand ragged, bloody pieces.

This was all
his
fault, she thought angrily. His fault for giving her something she’d never known existed until two nights ago, forcing her to feel, forcing her to know what it was to be alive for once. The little pastoral fantasy lived in her head now and wouldn’t come out. It was an infection, cruel and deadly.

But perhaps, finally, today she would raise a smile from her father’s lips. By marrying Lord Winton she would surely please him. Surely.

This morning, however, his expression was grim and dour. He avoided her gaze. He was more concerned about who would attend the wedding feast than about the bride’s welfare. There was no kiss upon her cheek, no whisper of pride, no tenderness. He looked over her gown briefly, ensuring she looked the part and wouldn’t embarrass him. Then he turned away.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. This was the way it was meant to be and she would go on as if the interlude with the stranger never happened. Feeling sorry for herself wouldn’t help. Thinking of her stranger wouldn’t help. He’d been for one night only. She knew that and had made the most of it. Now she must get on with her life, such as it was. This was the bargain she’d made with herself, so why was it so hard now to contemplate?

The more she tried to salvage her unraveled nerves, the more her stitches fell slowly apart.

“Are you all right?” Lance whispered in her ear, his breath gently moving the veil of her ornate headdress. “Luce?”

Looking down at her hand on his arm, she tried her best to stop trembling. Somehow her brother’s anxious expression made it all much worse. Shameful, childish tears threatened. Taking another stifled breath, she squeezed her brother’s hand until she must have crushed the bones in his fingers, but he was gallant today. For once he didn’t tease her.

She pictured her needle making another stitch.

Here I lived once. Remember me.

But she didn’t live, she existed. Only now had she opened her eyes, fully awake, to see the truth.

Chapter 6

The feast went smoothly. The toasts were said, the dances danced, songs sung and all the guests dutifully declared her a beautiful bride. They lied between their teeth.

Now she and her groom were carried to their bedchamber, amid much raucous hilarity, at which she must pretend to blush with maidenly timidity. Well, now Lord Winton would discover he was already a cuckold. Somehow it was not quite so amusing as it had seemed two nights ago. When the servants withdrew, the awful finality of her situation struck her.

Almost as hard as the back of his hand across her face, the moment his bedchamber door closed behind them.

Finding herself on the floor, dizzy and startled, she put one hand to her cheek and felt warm blood from the cut of his ring. A second blow and then a third left her numb, disorientated. She stared at his yellowed, over-long toenails. A long-legged spider ran by her line of sight, scuttling across the dusty floorboards and under the bed, narrowly missing his trampling feet.

“May that teach you a lesson, wife,” he said sharply, standing over her in his nightgown and a long overcoat of heavy brocade. “From now on you will pay attention when I speak to you and you will look at me without that countenance of smug disdain. Do you understand?”

His voice echoed inside her aching head.

“Get up.” He kicked her in the side. “I tolerated your rude manners all week, but for the last time. Yesterday you were still your father’s daughter. Now you’re my wife and your behavior is mine to correct, your discipline mine to maintain. We shall begin as we mean to go on.”

He moved away from her, limping heavily on his bad leg, and perched on the end of the bed to soak his feet in a bowl of scented water.

Slowly she sat up, wincing at the pain in her side, wiping her bloodied cheek on the sleeve of her shift. If he’d given her this, just for looking at him the wrong way, what would he do when he discovered she was not the pure maid her father once guaranteed?

She’d not known he possessed a violent temper. He always appeared too frail to be any physical danger, and, of course, he put on a gentlemanly act for her father, but tonight she felt the spiteful strength of those mean, gnarled hands, willing to cause hurt for even the slightest reason.

Still dizzy, she scrambled to her feet. He was stooped over, rubbing his aching corns. The sight of his thin, bony legs, so pale they were almost blue, disgusted her.

“Get on the bed and prepare yourself,” he instructed her grumpily. “I’ll be with you in due course. Lie on your back and lift your shift. Up over your breasts. I’ll need something to look at other than your sulky, defiant face.” He spat his words over one crooked shoulder. “Surely your maid warned you what to expect. I’ve no inclination to tutor you.”

Blood in her mouth. She must have bitten her tongue. She looked at that bed, an implement of torture, and saw the lump under the coverlet, where the servants forgot to remove the warming pan.

Lord Winton, apparently, hadn’t noticed the oversight.

She pressed one hand into her side, as another, deeper breath burned through her ribs. Stupidly, she’d imagined she might be able to go through with this, for practical reasons and in some vain hope of pleasing her father, but it was impossible. All of it. However other women managed, she was not one of them. She simply couldn’t do it, physically or mentally. There must be something wrong with her, but she was not willing to settle for duty, to lie down and have the life smothered out of her.

Winton was humming a tune, intent on the relief of his own aches and pains. She carefully removed the pan of coals from beneath the coverlet and stood behind him with it, her arms shaking.

“The consummation should not take long,” he muttered. “Just lie still and don’t fuss. I hope you’re fertile and strong enough to carry a living son to full term. You look too skinny and thin at the hips, but your father assures me you’re from hearty stock and likely to breed well. Six and twenty is older than I would have chosen to mother my first child. In fact you’re too old in most respects. Still,” he sighed heavily, staring down at his feet in the bowl of water, “I wasted my time and precious seed on the last four witless wenches, none of whom gave me a living heir, despite their youth. Thankfully they had the good grace to die quickly and leave me free to try again.” He paused. “I recommend you try harder than they did, or else I’ll have to deal with you the same as I did with them. A little hunger, I find, sharpens the appetite to please and a good beating makes every woman yield eventually. The occasional adoption of a scold’s bridle will also cleanse you of that proud, superior expression, I daresay.”

She swung the pan of coals at the back of his head.

* * * *

A hired litter took her through the crowded streets to Mistress Comfort’s house on the other side of town. It was the only place she knew to look for him. She’d dressed hurriedly, thrown her hooded cloak over her shift and piled on as much jewelry as possible, any items of value she possessed. In half an hour, perhaps less, it would be curfew and then the streets would be empty, escape from the town impossible until daylight.

She had no thought of what would happen next or how she might explain herself, but she couldn’t stay a moment longer with Lord Winton. It had all been a terrible mistake. Perhaps she was a coward and weaker than other women, but if she stayed there she would shrivel and die inside. She’d recently discovered that she was indeed a flesh and blood woman, not a block of ice. And she was not ready to go to her grave struggling to bring one of Winton’s wretched offspring into the world. There was more fight in her than she’d ever suspected.

Mistress Comfort saw her enter the smoky parlor at once and scurried over, shoving aside her less well-heeled patrons. “Madam, we’re honored again,” she exclaimed. “Ye wish to choose another fellow from among–”

“No. The man I had before. Is he here?”

The old lady looked taken aback. “No, Madam. Like I told ye last time, he’s not one of my regulars. I never saw him before. But there are…”

Desperate, on the verge of tears, she spun away and collided at once with a broad chest in a slashed leather doublet. He had black curly hair, peppered with gray, a wide, rather wicked grin and clear, silver eyes which took her in with one skilled and hasty appraisal. “Looking for someone?” he yelled above the noise of the crowd. “May I introduce myself? Captain Nathaniel Downing. At your service.” He swept a low, extravagant bow, almost spilling the contents of his tankard.

Annoyed, she tried to pass, but he stood in her way, shaking a finger in her face. “Don’t look at me like that, madam. Whatever you’ve heard of me, I’m innocent. I’ve done nothing wrong.” And then he grinned again, eyes shining. “Yet.”

Nathaniel Downing. Where had she heard that name before? And then it came to her: the stranger had mentioned his name. She decided to take a chance. What did she have left to lose? Here she was, escaped from her bridal chamber, probably a hunted woman by now already, perhaps even a murderess. Her brother had left for London several hours ago and she had no one else to help her, no one to trust in this town.

“There was a man here the night before last. I must find him.” Her hood fell back as she looked up at the stranger. “Can you help me? I believe you might know him, since he mentioned your name. I’ll pay you well for any information.”

“A man eh? What sort of man?”

“Dark haired. About your height, but stockier. He wore the clothes of a farm laborer.”

“Handsome, eh?”

“He had a small scar across his right eyebrow and blue eyes, sometimes green.”

He stared at her thoughtfully. “What did he do? Manhandle you? Did he insult you or pick your pockets?”